Zeroth Directive

Archive II

There's been a new ghost story spreading around Rhodes Island lately. Apparently, once every few months, a spirit will appear on the landship, casting a strange light under the pale lamps at midnight. If you approach, it disappears. A 'ghostly mark' is often left behind, a pattern composed of simple yet hard to comprehend lines, shimmering between many colors while faintly glowing. The mark is usually gone an hour after the sighting. Some operators believe it comes from an undiscovered, supernatural civilization, and have taken to borrowing Myrtle's flag and draping it over themselves in an attempt to approach the spirit by imitating its own kind. Others believe it is a symbol left behind by enemy infiltrators, sending Dr. Kal'tsit at least three memos a day warning her about the peril ahead. Then there are those who say it is art from an unknown culture, squatting down to copy the 'mark' out every day, even setting up an association dedicated to its appreciation. [HR Department Audio Log] 'So it was you?' '*cough* No.' 'You come to Rhodes Island every few months, and every time you do, there are reports of ghost sightings. Wandering the landship in the middle of the night, leaving behind cryptic marks on the walls. There's no one else it could be, Lucilla.' '*sigh* You sure are meticulous about this stuff.' 'Because my mailbox is full of nothing but requests to investigate the ghost! There are people who want to be ghosts alongside you, people who want to shoot a spy movie with you, and even crazies who want to pull an all-nighter talking about art with you. Did you use some kind of special Ægirian painting style?' 'I did study some specialized techniques during my time at the Institute of Visual Arts...' 'Good, then you can go tell the Ghost Mark Appreciation Society what you were thinking as you made them, and I'll finally be spared from them going on and on about it over and over.' 'But these 'ghost marks' were just me doodling with paints and colors. There's no creative process to discuss, I just do it without thinking in the dark.' 'I don't get it. You say you studied all these fancy art tricks.' 'I did.' 'And you just use them to doodle?' 'Yep.' '...Alright then. How am I supposed to explain the truth to those fanatics?' 'You could just not tell them.' 'Eh?' 'Though my careless graffiti can hardly be called art, isn't rousing the imaginations of the operators a good thing? That's the practical value of art, after all. And if it scares some children with irregular schedules back into their beds, all the better.'

Archive III

Not long after coming to Rhodes Island, Lucilla handed in an application for field missions to the Field Operations Department. By convention, an operator like her with no experience, no training, and a mismatch between her specialty and the mission requirements would be denied field work. But through some trick of hers, she managed to get permission to join a team heading to the Rim Billiton wilds. Though she wasn't assigned any specific task, Lucilla busied herself doing her own thing once she arrived in the field. Ten minutes later, while the accompanying Catastrophe Messenger was still setting up their instruments, she had already begun to report on unusual air vortices in the distance. The Messenger confirmed that it was indeed a Catastrophe cloud beginning to form. Later, when asked how she could identify a forming Catastrophe so quickly and accurately without any training, she laughed and pointed at the sky: 'It's just intuition. See how the clouds look like ripples? Just like ocean waves.' [Audio Log] 'Every Ægir sees the ocean differently. I don't think of it in emotional terms like 'home' or 'refuge,' nor in more utilitarian ones like 'resource rich' or 'bountiful.' Rather, I see it as a giant, especially active creature, its limbs and organs constantly in a state of flux. Which means I can never rest when it comes to charting it. 'Only after coming ashore did I realize that the atmosphere and the ocean have so many similarities. The laws governing how different gases concentrate, the laws governing the wind's direction and speed... All very similar. It's another great beast, just one that's softer and brighter. One might even say this planet's a collection of animals all grabbing onto a red-hot core, no? '...Unscientific? The sea's just a mixture of water and minerals? Of course I know that. Even our ancestors from millennia ago knew the physical composition of the sea, even when they were just beginning to take human form. But wouldn't that way of seeing it leave everything rather strange, even terrifying? When the volcanic power station died out, for a moment I too thought the ocean was no more than a mass of heavy, dark, and meaningless salt water... It's the only time in my life I've been afraid of the sea.'

Archive IV

[Excerpt from an Institute of Development Planning evaluation report] Lucilla's work submissions—whether data, reports, or proposals—are always filled to the brim, and usually contain many of what seem to be earnest yet highly unfeasible ideas mixed in. A few examples: researching the possibility of giving the tentacle-shaped bio-monitors on the domes a back-scratching function; researching the principles behind dome chromogen (also known as 'ink') changing taste as it changes color; researching the forms and patterns of the excretions of oceanic life deposited on the dome. For efficiency's sake, we contacted her and got her to agree to keep her submissions succinct. After that, she began to regularly compile the ideas that came up during her work and send them to everyone in charge of an institute in either the Academy of Science or the Academy of Technology. Her ideas are still highly impractical, but a few who received them have cited them as an inspiration leading to new avenues of research. [Church of the Deep cultist Cassia's notebook] A new person's got the job, called Lucilla. She used to work with the dome system, but it seems she couldn't take the pressure and applied for a transfer. Hard to believe someone so frail was able to get Pappus arrested. ... The position she filled was only empty because the former manager committed suicide. Suicide is an omen of the nation's impending collapse, proof that the war against the Seaborn is nibbling away at the people's freedom to create value. Perhaps in the next few decades, a new generation of Ægir will only find value in resisting the Seaborn. As for this Lucilla, I doubt she can hold on for long either. ... Fine, I admit she doesn't express herself like someone with a shattered spirit. She is rather 'jaunty' in her way of thinking. Even while eating, she'd suddenly look up materials that can switch between solid and liquid states, pulling me into a discussion about shape-shifting cutlery. Or she'd look into the different noises created when you chew food, trying to turn hearing into another sense used at mealtime... An odd character, to say the least. ... I've begun to understand why Lucilla hasn't fallen apart yet. Most times, her incessant stream of strange ideas are completely useless, but the more useless they are, the more serious she gets. She seems to believe these 'bright ideas' are worth the same attention as resisting the Seaborn. Perhaps this philosophy allows her to maintain her wild ingenuity, preventing her from going numb while walking this narrow road. I'd like to write her actions off as futile struggle, but in truth, if all Ægir were like her, the nation might not be as weak as it is now, and we wouldn't have to... Ah, what a pity. [Audio Log] 'Why am I polishing this? Why even ask? Because it's interesting.'

Search

Lucilla

Archive I

Promotion record

Outfits

Operators

Archive II

Archive III

Archive IV