When you first visit Vessels Beyond, you are greeted with a Field Studies Institute computer screen that has experienced an unexpected error and needs to reboot.
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FIELD STUDIES INSTITUTE
An unexpected error has occured. DO NOT SHUT DOWN!
Failure to comply may result in termination.
***ERROR-222: Request operation has been terminated.
***ERROR-491: External error.
SECURITY_FAULT_0x0092058211263 0x0010014566603 STOP *
CRASH AUTO_INIT/DLL_SYSTEMS/ONLINE
EXTERNAL=*:/>NULL.
Thank you for your patience!
Rebooting.... X X X X X X
Field Studies Institute OS build 2.3.34 - Copyright (c) 1987
Once it finishes rebooting, it takes you to losing_control, a remote desktop (Session 77) of an unknown user from December 31, 1994. Maybe we shouldn't explore it and instead just fill out the appropriate Form 17. But where would the fun be in that?
There are six different icons on the desktop. The windows that open up sometimes get stuck behind the current window, but you can drag them around to view everything:
- My Desktop
- do_not_open
- soma_final
- Network
- migratory_drift
- 94_12_16_notes
The My Desktop icon doesn't given us anything but an error message that it cannot connect to the local desktop.
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| My Desktop (unknown_user) | X |
Error!
Could not connect to local desktop. Please contact your administrator for assistance. |
Despite the file name and bomb icon, the do_not_open file isn't dangerous to open.
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| c:/do_not_open (unknown_user) | X |
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12/16/94
Another day in paradise! The doc tells me that journaling is the secret to "unlocking my hidden traumas" but I think a vacation for a week down to Key Largo with my lady and some frozen mango margaritas would certainly do the trick.
I just don't think anyone else really understands what I went through.
She's right, though. It does help. Not with remembering anything, not yet. But getting my thoughts down on paper/written somewhere also helps me leave all of this here in the office. Can't talk to Lisa at home about it anyway, so if I don't write it down before I leave it just rattles around my head, echoing off the insides of my skull until I walk in the next day.
Anyway, today has been a good day. Got the last track done today from the transient cassette we found in Iceland back in October. Migratory Drift. What the hell kind of name is that, anyway? Boring, droning, blah, blah. Where's Van Halen, baby? Give me their take on Motley Crue! Nikki is out there somewhere. Someone in this deviation must have been shredding on some killer tunes but of course with my luck, that record is probably in some deep trench at the bottom of the fucking ocean, and I'm here with this ambient, feel-good bullshit.
In better news, everything going up in STS-67 is looking good. No issues. Curious what we're going to find up there, but I'm not holding my breath. This work is rewarding, yes. But I know the results may not come 'til I'm long gone.
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It's the journal of the unknown user from December 12, 1994. It seems that they have been through something that traumatic and that journaling has been helping them remember. Could this be the archive guy after he disappeared and then reappeared? Whoever it is, they reference another transient cassette (migratory drift - which is available in the remote session but not a valid file name in our databank) and complain that it is just filled with ambient feel-good "music" instead of something better like Van Halen or Motley Crue.
The journal also references STS-67 going up soon. In our timeline, STS-67 was a Space Shuttle Endeavour mission that launched on March 2, 1995. The main mission was Astro-2 Spacelab that was to "conduct astronomical observations in the ultraviolet spectral regions". There was also some protein crystal grown experiments and gyroscopic experiment designed to compensate for motion disturbances. No idea what our unknown user was going to be searching for, but possibly something in the ultraviolet range.
The soma_final file opens up a (quite crappy) scan of notes from an emergency session of Project Soma from January 1, 1970.
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Merritt Island, FL
January 1, 1970
Project SOMA
Emergency Session
Participants: Fiorella, Alice
Haydock, Amelia
Remlinger, Mathilda
Scharf, Carlos
Tilzer, Todd
Meeting: This unscheduled emergency meeting opens REDACTED TEXT CANNOT READ REDACTED
at 3:07 AM. Program Director Arthur Reese, TEXT CANNOT READ
Dorothy Ross, and Alan Trenchard are
not present. At approximately 2:34 AM, Dr. Fiorella
notified officials within the
Alice Fiorella provides a known timeline Department of Defense, and attempts to
of events that morning, beginning at contact Arthur Reese, Dorothy Ross, and
approximately 2:01 AM, when she was awoken Alan Trenchard via their hotel phone.
by a loud, sudden noise. Other attending None are able to be reached
members of the program agrees that a loud,
sudden noise caused them to wake up. Dr. REDACTED TEXT CANNOT READ REDACTED
Tilzer adds context, for the record; all REDACTED TEXT CANNOT READ REDACTED
eight members of the program were in the REDACTED TEXT CANNOT READ REDACTED
facility to celebrate the new year REDACTED TEXT CANNOT READ
and planned to stay overnight within
the on-site accommodations/sleep rooms. According to the Department of Defense,
a committee will be created to
At approximately 2:03 AM, upon arrival investigate further. All attending
within the REDACTED TEXT CANNOT READ members of the program committed to
Dr. Remlinger noted the presence of fully cooperate with the committee.
laboratory specimens (e.g. rats/mayflies)
outside of containment. Dr. Tilzer then At 3:36 AM, Dr. Haydock proposes a
discovered what he believed to be a recent discussion of the future of Project
physical disturbance, with several SOMA. The attending members agree that
specimen containment apparatuses found this could likely spell the end of the
damaged or destroyed. program, or at minimum create a level of
government oversight that would
At approximately 2:04 AM, Dr. Haydock prevent efficient progress. Dr. Remlinger
returns to the group within the REDACTED agrees vehemently and suggests the five
TEXT CANNO after a cursory search for Dr. attending members create a new
Reese, Dr. Ross, and Dr. Trenchard. The organization to continue their study of
attending members of the program perform REDACTED and associated phenomena. Dr.
a more thorough search over the next Haydock agrees, and suggests tabling
twenty minutes. Dr. Reese, Dr. Ross, and Dr. the discussion until the Department of
Trenchard cannot be located. Defense completes their investigation.
374-09-3185
Wow, so this memo answers a lot of questions and raises some others. On December 31, 1969, the eight members of Project SOMA where planning to stay overnight in the facility to celebrate the new year. From what we learned in Orientation Film IV, experiments were being run on Anomaly LBA-01 that night. Something must have gone terribly wrong as at around 2:01 AM, a loud sudden noise woke up 5 of the 8 members of Project SOMA. The other three are nowhere to be found. At 2:34 AM, the Department of Defense is called and at 3:07 AM, an emergency meeting of the remaining members of Project SOMA takes place to discuss the future of Project SOMA. Whatever happened must have known to be catastrophic if they called in the DOD within 30 minutes and had decided to form a whole new organization within 90 minutes of the incident.
We also know who survived Project SOMA and who did not:
I'll admit when I first read page 16 of the handbook, I misread the list of the names as the names of the founding members of the Field Studies Institute and thought it meant that Dorothy and Arthur were part of the remaining members to found the Institute. But it's not. It's a list of "The eight members of Project SOMA [that] inspired the creation of [the] logomark" and it gives no indication as to who survived. I was at least right about reading it as "the five survivors", but I do like the use of the word "remain" knowing that the other three disappeared with seemingly no trace.
Moving on from the bombshell of the SOMA file, like the Desktop icon, clicking on the Network icon just gives you an error message.
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| Network Not Found (unknown_user) | X |
Error!
The network could not be located. Please contact your administrator for assistance.
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Migratory Drift is, as the journal writer notes, ambient music (I make no judgement as to the quality of the music). Nothing seems to be visible in the spectrogram but that doesn't mean there couldn't still be something hidden somewhere in the file. Maybe this is just an ARG to highlight an ambient music producer's works. Wouldn't be the strangest idea in the world.
The last icon is 94_12_16_notes. These are (presumably) notes written on December 12, 1994, the same date as the do_not_open journal entry.
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| c:/94_12_16_notes (unknown_user) | X |
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Dec 16 94
- - Digitize remaining track from the transient cassette tape (ID 069965) found in Egilsstadir, IS. Needs to be complete by next week.
- - Scan remaining Project SOMA files. Start with final meeting notes from 1/1/70 and work backwards at request of Laurila.
- - Lunch with TN from Temporal Lab at 1pm
- - 2PM Final meeting with Division X re: STS-67 before NASA presentation
- - Deviation report from earlier this week - get Tucker to sign so it can be submitted by EOD.
- - Flowers on the way home!
- - New Deviation Report. "have you ever watched a star die?"
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So the user still needs to digitize the remaining track from the cassette tape. It could be that Side A (migratory_drift) is just a regular audio file from Deviation Land and that Side B might contain something really weird, like how the trailhead Side A was just a "normal" recording from the other side, while Side B was super strange. Oddly, these notes are from December 16th but the date on the computer is December 31st. Did something happen to the user that they haven't been able to update in two weeks?
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