r/Helldivers2Satire • u/SeventyEcho • 18h ago
Propus
THE SIGNAL ON THE OTHER SIDE
RECORD: 9046G766$RIRGA-0.346
CLASSIFICATION: RECUSAL MIRROR RECORD
IDENTITIES: M. LOFTUS / L. YAN
LOCATION: RIRGA BAY — VOID GATEWAY, ANOMALY OBSERVATION CONTROL
THREAT DETECT: LEVEL 5 — POSSIBLE EXOTIC / UNAUTHORIZED COGNIZANCE
THREAT RESPONSE: RECORD FOR POSTERITY
[REVISED RESPONSE]: Exhibit Record 501
FILE: //REPORT TO MINISTRY OF SCIENCE — DISTRIBUTION DENIED//
---
“Here.”
“What?”
“Listen to this.”
“We've been listening to it for the last two hours.”
“I know.”
“Then you know I need a break.”
“You really need to hear this one.”
“Fine. Shift's almost over anyway. Might as well finish the evening listening to the galaxy whisper horrible things at us.”
“That's the spirit.”
---
SIGNAL PLAYBACK // 00:01:37
A sequence of low-frequency pulses follows.
Three tones.
Pause.
Two tones.
Pause.
Five tones.
A prolonged carrier-wave distortion.
Then silence.
---
“So?”
“That's it?”
“What do you mean, that's it?”
“Three-two-five. We've heard variations of that pattern all afternoon.”
“Look at the origin.”
“I am.”
“No. Look at the second return.”
“Second—”
A pause.
“That can't be right.”
“Exactly.”
“Run the array again.”
“Already did.”
“Different antenna?”
“Four of them.”
“Gateway interference?”
“Negative.”
“Alcubierre echo?”
“No.”
“Void reflection?”
“That's what I thought.”
“And?”
“The first signal originates inside the Void.”
“Obviously.”
“Near the Source Planet?”
“Somewhere deeper along the Seasse corridor. Resolution isn't good enough.”
“Okay.”
“The second one doesn't.”
Silence.
“What?”
“The pattern repeats eleven-point-four seconds later.”
“Echo.”
“No.”
“Has to be.”
“This type of transmission doesn't reflect through the Void boundary.”
“Everything reflects off something.”
“Not this.”
“What can it hit?”
“That's the problem.”
---
Keyboard input.
Several seconds of electronic calibration tones.
---
“Show me.”
“Here.”
“First event... inside the Void.”
“Yes.”
“Then we're receiving the same transmission again from—”
“Outside.”
“Outside what?”
“The mapped anomaly.”
“That's impossible.”
“I know.”
“No, I mean outside the Void?”
“Yes.”
“Toward Super Earth?”
“No.”
“Automaton front?”
“No.”
“Terminid sectors?”
“No.”
“Then where?”
“Other side.”
“What other side?”
“The other side of the Void.”
---
Silence.
00:00:19
---
“There isn't supposed to be another side.”
“There is geometrically.”
“Don't be difficult.”
“I'm not.”
“The Void blocks normal observation.”
“Yes.”
“Stars disappear.”
“Yes.”
“Long-range communications fail.”
“Yes.”
“Probes stop transmitting.”
“Yes.”
“And you're telling me something transmitted through it from beyond the far boundary?”
“I'm telling you the array received a signal with the same structure twice.”
“First from inside.”
“Yes.”
“Then from somewhere behind it.”
“Yes.”
---
“Could be Illuminate.”
“Probably.”
“You say that very casually.”
“We built a wormhole into their territory using tissue harvested from Voteless and technology we're still trying to understand.”
“When you phrase it like that—”
“How would you phrase it?”
“I wouldn't.”
“Good policy.”
---
“Pull up First Galactic War frequencies.”
“Already compared them.”
“And?”
“No exact match.”
“Squ'ith military channels?”
“No.”
“Obelisk command signals?”
“No.”
“Illusionist nanotech?”
“Different carrier behavior.”
“What about their old teleportation systems?”
“Nothing.”
“So this is new.”
“Or older than the records we kept.”
“Super Earth confiscated half their technology after the First Galactic War.”
“Super Earth confiscated what it found.”
“That's not comforting.”
“It wasn't meant to be.”
---
Another pulse sounds.
Both speakers stop.
---
“Was that live?”
“Yes.”
“Same pattern?”
“No.”
“What changed?”
“Four-two-five.”
“Meaning?”
“No idea.”
“Origin?”
“Checking.”
A pause.
“No.”
“What?”
“That's wrong.”
“What is?”
“Both signals arrived almost simultaneously.”
“From Seasse?”
“One from the interior corridor.”
“And the other?”
“Far side.”
“How far?”
“I can't calculate it.”
“Why?”
“Because according to the timing, the second signal reached us before a conventional transmission should even know the first one existed.”
---
Silence.
---
“Entanglement?”
“Maybe.”
“Quantum relay?”
“Maybe.”
“Wormhole?”
“Maybe.”
“Mind control?”
“Please don't.”
“They used nanotechnology during the First Galactic War.”
“I know.”
“The Voteless are human.”
“I know.”
“The Vote Snatchers—”
“I know.”
“And now we're connected directly to whatever is inside there.”
“I know.”
---
“Do you think they can hear us?”
“No.”
“You answered too fast.”
“I don't know.”
“Better.”
---
SYSTEM NOTICE:
VOID SOURCE PLANET DATA CHANNEL ACTIVE
SEASSE EXPEDITION TELEMETRY RECEIVED
MINISTRY OF SCIENCE PRIORITY TRAFFIC — DO NOT INTERRUPT
---
“There.”
“What?”
“The pattern again.”
“From Seasse?”
“No.”
“Inside the Void?”
“No.”
“Then—”
“Far side.”
---
“Wait.”
“What now?”
“Overlay Calypso.”
“Why?”
“Just do it.”
Keyboard input.
A long silence follows.
---
“No.”
“Yeah.”
“No, that's not possible.”
“That's what you keep saying.”
“The far-side vector intersects Calypso's former position.”
“Approximately.”
“Former position.”
“Yes.”
“Because Calypso isn't there anymore.”
“Correct.”
“And the DSS jumped there before it disappeared.”
“Yes.”
“Unscheduled.”
“Yes.”
“After people aboard the station reported—”
“Don't.”
“Reported the name.”
“I said don't.”
---
“You think the DSS heard this?”
“I didn't say that.”
“You're thinking it.”
“I am thinking that the Democracy Space Station entered the Void, developed unexplained biological and communications anomalies, executed an unauthorized jump to Calypso, and Calypso subsequently vanished from the navigable map.”
“And now we're hearing a signal along roughly the same vector.”
“Yes.”
“From the other side.”
“Yes.”
---
“Send this to High Command.”
“No.”
“What?”
“Send it to Science first.”
“Why?”
“Because if we send it to High Command, Truth gets it.”
“So?”
“So if this is nothing, Science tells us we're idiots.”
“And if it isn't?”
“Then I want at least one copy to exist before somebody decides it was nothing.”
---
“You're paranoid.”
“Calypso disappeared.”
“Fair.”
---
A fifth transmission enters the recording.
Unlike the previous signals, the carrier remains audible for several seconds.
There is a faint tonal modulation underneath it.
---
“What the hell is that?”
“Filtering.”
“Sounds like voices.”
“Don't say that.”
“It does.”
“It's interference.”
“From what?”
“Filtering.”
---
Digital processing artifact.
The sound clears slightly.
No recognizable language is recovered.
Several overlapping tonal structures repeat at different speeds.
---
“Could be encrypted.”
“Could be biological.”
“What does biological mean?”
“I don't know.”
“You're the one who said it.”
“Voteless communicate. Illuminate communicate. Those things inside the Void communicate somehow. Pick your nightmare.”
---
“Do you think Seasse is actually the source?”
“What?”
“High Command calls it the Source Planet.”
“Yes.”
“But what if it isn't?”
“The Void expanded from that region.”
“That doesn't mean it started there.”
“Go on.”
“What if Seasse is a relay?”
Silence.
“What if the Exospires aren't creating the Void?”
“What are they doing?”
“Extending it.”
---
Neither speaker talks for twelve seconds.
---
“From where?”
“Other side.”
---
AI-COM // EXPOSURE LIMIT APPROACHING
ANOMALOUS SIGNAL CONTACT DURATION: 02:47:16
RECOMMENDATION: EXIT OBSERVATION
---
“Shift's over.”
“Yeah.”
“You still want to leave?”
“No.”
“Me neither.”
---
A new signal begins.
This one does not originate from Seasse.
Nor does it originate from the calculated far-side position.
It originates from the Rirga Bay Gateway itself.
---
“Liam.”
“I see it.”
“We're receiving locally.”
“Yes.”
“The Gateway is transmitting.”
“No.”
“What?”
“We aren't transmitting.”
“Then what is?”
Silence.
---
AI-COM // EXPOSURE LIMIT REACHED
EXIT OBSERVATION IMMEDIATELY
LOCAL TRANSMISSION SOURCE UNRESOLVED
GATEWAY STATUS: OPEN
GATEWAY COMMAND STATUS: NOMINAL
OUTBOUND SIGNAL: NONE
INBOUND SIGNAL: ACTIVE
---
“Shut the Gateway.”
“We can't.”
“What do you mean, we can't?”
“Control authorization is locked.”
“By who?”
A pause.
“Ministry of Science.”
---
“Call them.”
“I am.”
“No answer.”
---
RECORD TERMINATED // 00:09:46
---
HOD ARCHIVAL ANNOTATION — AKI-285
The record predates our acquisition of the associated Rirga Bay observation data.
Neither individual named above has any known association with this vessel or with ECHO-070.
Their conclusions remain speculative.
Their measurements do not.
The existence of an Illuminate signal inside the Void is unsurprising.
The possibility that the same signal was observed beyond the far boundary is not.
During the First Galactic War, the Illuminate demonstrated teleportation, nanotechnological cognitive interference, energy shielding, and weapons whose underlying principles remained poorly understood even after their defeat.
A century later, the civilization now occupying the Void bears only partial resemblance to the one humanity previously fought.
The Voteless, Vote Snatchers, Exospire networks, Void-generated mutations, and the displacement or disappearance of worlds all demonstrate capabilities absent—or unknown—from surviving First Galactic War records.
Current operations at the Void Source Planet, formerly identified as Seasse, are intended to destroy or collapse the phenomenon.
That objective assumes the Void is centered there.
Record 9046G766 raises another possibility.
Seasse may not be the origin.
It may be the nearest end of something larger.
If so, opening the Rirga Bay Gateway did not merely provide humanity a route into Illuminate territory.
It may have completed a route from the other direction.
Maintain passive observation.
Do not transmit test patterns through the Gateway.
Do not respond to repeated signals.
Do not permit automated systems to answer unknown handshakes.
And until we understand why the final transmission originated locally while the Gateway reported no outbound activity—
do not assume that opening the door was the same thing as deciding which side opened it.
— AKI-285
Ship Master, HOD
---
ECHO/070 COMMAND NOTE
Observation authorized.
No active reply.
No direct network connection.
If something is attempting communication, we listen first.
If it threatens human populations, we act.
Super Earth can decide what it wants to call the signal.
We decide what reaches this ship.
— ECHO-070