Project Mortis

[Aurangzeb Khan]

MoMA TOP SECRET
SHIRE-EYES (NOBLE) ONLY

Project Mortis

Gentlemen, I am pleased to report that Project Mortis has been a complete success. Initial test results show that the experimental technology has exceeded all of our wildest expectations.


Background:

1. The Omen Gravship was the most feared weapon in the arsenal of the Flying Islands of Jasonia. There was literally nothing else quite like it save for the flying islands themselves. However with the downfall, in every sense of those islands, the Omen disappeared from the pages of history and was never recovered.

2. The Imperium of Menelmacar appropriated the last vestiges of Jasonian Tech and incorporated them into its own designs, which the demonic Sirithil in his hubris also christened an Omen gravship. It is generally held that even though they did, at two miles in length, exceed the originals in scale, the Menelmacari versions were on the whole inferior copies of the original.

3. A freak navigational mishap during the Skerries "Fluster Cluck" otherwise known as the 1st Lighthouse War, believed to have been caused by a trial batch of the infamous Treesian Red, caused one Menelmacari gravship to come to grief inside the territorial waters of the United Baronies of Treesia, where it formed a small atoll upon which subsequent layers of guano were deposited over the passing of millenia, obscuring the wreck, which Elfinshi shame ensured was omitted from all writen records.

4. At around the time of the Treesian Apocalypse That Nearly But Did Not Quite Happened the local representatives of the Cult of Y'Brekki granted to a consortium of Babkhan merchants the right to mine a certain small but guano rich atoll in the Skerries, presumably under the mistaken belief that since the end of times was at hand it did not much matter who they sold the real estate to even if it was the camel loving scumbags who had only recently lost the 2nd Lighthouse War.

5. As we all know, due to an unfortunate cock-up in the Celestial Bureaucracy, Treesia persisted after the apocalypse, albeit under a regime of dubious legitimacy, which brought it into the infamous Grand Commonwealth. The Skerries were then brought under an authority which permitted unrestricted access to the Skerries by Babkhan and Karnalian military forces.

6. During this time reports of Babkhan guano miners dying of radiation sickness were starting to be circulated. In due course a research team from the Commonwealth Defence Research Facility was sent to investigate. The incineration of this team alerted Commonwealth authorities in Shahanshahi-Tara to the existance of something of immense antiquity and value buried under the bird shit.

7. After several Shirerithian years of excavations, subtle Karnalian explorations and unsubtle Babkhan detonations, the timeworn superstructure of the Menelmacari gravship was attained. Alas the bulk of what remained was in a little better than fossilised condition. However, on the basis of what was recovered by the archaeologists and engineers the scientists of the Commonwealth were able to ponder and speculate.

8. Some of these speculations led to the Hurmu Gate, an awe inspiring edifice - if somewhat prone to unfortunate bouts of combustion - that was capable of punching a hole in time and space. Not necessarily good for the fabric of the universe, but very useful for the oligarchs of the Commonwealth when the GC presence on Micras collapsed in on itself.

9. It would be fair to say that most of the work on applying the rediscovered Jasonian/Menelmacarian technology had been undertaken by Karnalian scientists, with the Babkhans merely being willing to take the credit for someone elses work. However this changed when Sarhang Mustafa Horten joined the Commonwealth Defence Research Department (the passage of time had facilitated its promotion from a mere facility to a department of state). A true genius, he accelerated the process of rediscovery, even producing the first working prototype of an anti-gravity levitation device in the modern era. However this prototype was ultimately responsible for the destruction of a small Cyberian moon that was home to an extensive archive of obscure legal texts and codes of intepretation so painful to read that the text of Earth's treaty of Lisbon would seem quite straight foward in comparison. So let us agree to never again speak of this disaster but just be grateful that it occurred otherwise we would still be trapped into Raspur Intermicronational Conference without hope of reprieve or escape.

10. The fall of the Commonwealth facilitated the return of the Kingdom of Babkha to its rightful home on the continent of Eura after a long period of exile on Giess that had been tedious in the extreme and punctuated only by bouts of fighting absolutely everyone at least once. This at last brings us into recent history and the restoration of the Mango-Camel Pact and with it the long-sundered tradition of Babkhano-Shirerithian cooperation.

11. Not far from Tymaria City the MoMA and the Babkhan VDS (Vizierate of Defence & Security) agreed to initiate the project to bring a gravship type vessel into operational service. Simultaneously the Yardistan Navy of its own initiative began a programme to develop a navalised version. The MoMA/VDS variant was subcontracted for the development and prototype production phase to Osman Almagro Industries and Elwynn High Tech Enginerring.

12. Although subject to delays, budget overruns, and unimaginable disasters that we will not detail here, the new vessel was completed to the point where it could be subject to testing. This was undertaken in the County of Cimmeria only recently.

13. Although unmanned the prototype, under autopilot from a dedicated control centre in secure Tymaria City facility, levitated successfully from Wolfraven, and as captured on the imaging equipment of a recon satellite attained a low Micras Orbit before beginning a controlled descent which ended in a successful return to Tymaria City, avoiding active international aerospace and maritime shipping routes.

14. The Omen Jayatar Gravship is currently undergoing works at a secure, SAVAK guarded, Osman-Almagro Engineering facility in Alkhiva Ostans where it is being brought up to its full technical specification.

15. Upon its entry into Imperial Service Project Mortis will be considered fully completed.

[b3n|<3r|\|]

Next on the list of Menelmacari technologies to pilfer: Psi-Energy-Corps-Division!
(finally an appropriate time to use that emoticon)

[Andreas the Wise]

I'm torn. I love the idea of this research, and using an omen gravship . But Jason very clearly said that you can't get Antigravity to work without the Concept Box , which is why I was going to such lengths to get it in a legitimate manner, instead of just reverse engineering the motors like I'd originally planned ...

I think I'll settle on saying the Babkhans have been working on this for many years, and that it was possible to reverse engineer the small amount of anti-gravity required for omen gravships (after all, some of Harvey's accounts on Shireroth proposed some in JASO that were the last remaining force from Jasonia), but it isn't possible to work up anywhere near as big as is needed to support entire islands ....

Everyone happy?

[b3n|<3r|\|]

That sounds fair to me. Maybe in the future however we might be able to support some even bigger ships.

[Aurangzeb Khan]

Yeah more than fair. We are in effect talking of a Commonwealth design based on an archaeologists intepretation of the ruins of a Menelmacari copy of a Jasonian original, all of which is locked into and powered by a Babkhan nuclear reactor of unconventional design. Yeah a concept box original would be useful.

[Andreas the Wise]

When I get my hands on it, I'll be sure to allow a couple Shirithian technicians to have a look at it. After all, it is a joint Gralan-Shirithian-Batavian mission. I'm not too interested in the airships, Jonas and I want the flying islands ... but I don't see why Shireroth shouldn't use the airships.

[Jacobus Loki]

Would a small qunatity of anti-matter be helpful? In case of reactor problems?

Since Micras is aware of other worlds, the non-interference directive is not a strong. Admiral Quirk could be persuaded to barter.

[Jonas]

When I get my hands on it, I'll be sure to allow a couple Shirithian technicians to have a look at it. After all, it is a joint Gralan-Shirithian-Batavian mission. I'm not too interested in the airships, Jonas and I want the flying islands ... but I don't see why Shireroth shouldn't use the airships.

If it helps, you will get a research base in Enhasa. I even have a picture of it (from the RPG-game).

[Aurangzeb Khan]

[Declassified by Imperial Rescript 3736 ASC]