EVE Fiction

Rogue Drones Attack Core Complexion Warehouse in Arlek

A massive fleet of Rogue Drones appeared suddenly in the Arlek system yesterday and attacked the Core Complexion Warehouse located there. It is unclear how they arrived undetected in such large numbers, as Rogue Drones are not believed to be capable of using stealth or cynosural field technology, but apparently they are starting learn.

"It seems that they have not only rebelled but evolved as well," said a Tribal Fleet commander when interviewed, adding "After seeing this attack it seems that they now also have a plan, though we're still not sure what exactly it is that they're after."

Hundreds were killed when the Rogue Drones destroyed the local orbital worker's hubs. That these structures were targeted first in spite of being targets of no real tactical value suggests that the Rogue Drones my be developing some sort of new programming error, though one of the few survivors had testified "They were after us, don't you get it? They weren't after our ships! They weren't after our resources! They were after our blood!"

This claim has already been dismissed by experts who arrived later to analyze the devastation cause by this attack. "It is clear to me what they wanted," said a senior analyst, "though we still have no idea why. They came for our stockpile." He then points to the actual warehouse, which had been physically ripped open and it's contents removed.

As one militia soldier who arrived to try to defend the facility reports: "There must have been over a hundred of them, all shapes and sizes, but in the back we saw what they were protecting - some kind of mothership, huge, round. Obviously some kind of cargo hauler. And that's just what they did, too. They took all our drones. Look at the warehouse - nothing else was touched. They just took the drones. I don't get it."

"It doesn't make sense to us either," said the Tribal Fleet senior analyst. "There is no logical point to it. We've always known that Rogue Drones are perfectly capable of self-replication. They don't need to steal our drones and reprogram them to bolster their own numbers or anything. Heck, just give them any piece of rock to settle on and some scrap metal and you'll end up with a whole new swarm of Rogue Drones raiding and terrorizing everyone within three light years. It just doesn't add up. They don't really gain anything by this. Plus even if they are reprogramming and using these captured drones, the fundamental differences between them after so many years of divergent evolution... they really aren't anything alike if you think about it. Are their parts even still compatible with each other?"

One potential clue, however, still remains to be unraveled. Upon later inspection, it appears that the Rogue Drones actually vandalized the interior of the warehouse after ransacking it. Strange symbols in the untranslatable Rogue Drone language had been laser etched into various locations, seemingly at random. Two blocks of their strange text had been repeated no fewer than eight times in this manner:

[0I0I0III0I000I0I0I0000II0I00IIII0I00II0I0I000I0I0I000II00I00IIII0I0I00I00I00IIII0I0I0I0I0I0I00I00I0I00000I000I0I0I00IIII0I0I00000I00II000I000I0I]

and

[0I000I000I000I0I0I00000I0I0I0I000I00I0000I0I0I000I00IIII0I0I0I000I00I0000I000I0I0I0I00II0I00II000I00000I0I0I0II00I000I0I0I0I00I00I0I00II]


As always, the Rogue Drones raise more questions than they answer and many in the Republic are worried that the return of the of this Rogue Drone armada is not a question of "if" but rather "when."

My initial supposition was that it represents a trinary data stream, but, expressed as it would be in Chinese,, i.e. Bottom to top, right to left.. But, there are some "anomolies" I can't account for.. And I never have been one to enjoy math problems..

For anyone who would like to try their hand at decrypting it, a representation of trinary, with it's correspondences to 1-27, or A-Z can be found here..

Your Enhuadanni?

It's the Jove's fault..