Status of the Weimar Bloc since 1 February SY 158

1 February 158

On 1 February 158, a massive cross-Shadow explosion erupted from Weimar itself, affecting all the worlds surrounding it out to a distance of five Veils. The wave showed extremely strong Power indications of both the native Weimar Power, as well as one previously encountered by Sable Agents in the Sky Realms. This has had the following effects:

  • Weimar and its six adjacent Shadows have been razed to the ground. All contact was broken off with any Sable/Technocracy/Reich forces on those Shadows, and they were deemed lost.
  • The burst sufficiently powerful, that Andrew de Lacy of the Technocracy was rendered unconscious, and all Technology tech in the five Veils of Shadow around Weimar were knocked out. After the dust settled, the only methods of communications still working there were Trump and Magic (which was somewhat unstable), with Piloting still working as the stones were unaffected.
  • Use of the Sable Pattern in the area was unaffected.
  • The three quarantine barriers, around Pelagius, Esben and Tijaard, shattered:
    • Tijaard, which had seen a massive volcanic explosion in November 157, which required the help of King Robert to stabilise, again erupted.
    • For Esben, the poisoned atmosphere that led to its quarantine began to leach across Shadow boundaries.
    • On Pelagius and the Sky energy started to pour out onto the adjacent Shadows. Garbled messages were received from Sable forces in the surrounding Shadows, about being overrun with silver, but before emergency forces could be despatched, the energy seemed to gather all back up together – like a tsunami sucking in the sea – and race to a single point on the Shadow, under where the waterfall used to be. At which point, it just disappeared. No further word has been heard from the Sable forces in the area.
  • All samples of the Namenlos virus, which was used to disrupt the Weimar technology back in September 156, that the allies had in their possession, were rendered inert.

Immediate Aftermath

In the immediate aftermath of the explosion, the following steps were taken, with respect to the three quarantined Shadows.

Tijaard

As soon as they realised that a major event had happened in the area King Robert and RFSS Delatz were quickly on their respective scenes, and ascertained that Tijaard needed their personal attention. As this was the second major destructive event on the same Shadow in less than four months, they came to the conclusion that this time it couldn’t be saved. The resistance to use of the Sable Pattern within three Shadow Veils of the Weimar core even made it hard to work at their level in the area. However, together, they managed to edit the former Shadow out of existance, and replaced it with a blank slate placeholder.

Esben

As the Symphony did not appear to be affected by the problems seen with Pattern use, and his skill as a physician, Duke Michael was asked to attend to the problems on Esben and the surrounding worlds, due to the poisoned atmosphere leaching out. He initially built a Symphony barrier around the affected areas, and then manipulated the atmosphere there, such that the poison would be nullified. Once he deemed it to be safe, the barriers were brought down, and investigations were put in train as to what had been happening there. A search of the Shadow discovered an abandoned research facility previously belonging to Dirk Weber, set up his experimental facilities in what used to be the capital of Esben, a city by the sea named Miramar, previous population 2m.

The following conclusions were drawn:

  • Having worked with the Sidhe individual brought back from the first encounter on Pelagius, Ruaidhrí, whom he has now befriended, he has learned that the Pelagius Sidhe used to be human – their current form is due to a virus released on their world, which was supposed to kill shapeshifters, but instead mutated the survivors into the Sidhe.
  • Rather than just affect shapeshifters this time, it appears that his technique here was to be a wholesale depopulation of the Shadow. To do so, Weber had bootstrapped it from 1920s tech to 1990s, even further than Tijaard, but had been on-site to maintain its stability.
  • A number of airtight rooms were located in the research facility, which had obviously been used for testing the poison.
  • In addition, the labs contained samples of the antidotes that were developed concurrently.
  • It appears that Weber completed his research, as the poison had been deployed. There were traces of mass cremations of bodies within the former city of Miramar, but further away, the bodies remained unburied.
  • Weber was no longer using the facility, but had done nothing to remove the poison from the atmosphere. Fluctuations in the nature of the Shadow, once it was no longer being stabilised, led to the Shadow walls become rather pourous, hence the escape of the poison.
  • Once the poison in the atmosphere was nullified, which was achieved in part with the help of the antidote samples, Michael and his team set about giving the casulties a proper burial, by changing the Shadow around them.

Once they were done, they departed the Shadow, leaving it safe but empty of human life, as a memorial.

Pelagius

A group of agents who had encountered Pelagius and the Sky Shadows before were sent to assess the situation in that area.

  • With respect to the Sable troops in the area who had reported the silver energy, they were found to be largely alive and well, but the wave had temporarily flooded the area with energy that had affected their communications. Some, however, appeared to have been changed by it, to become something half way between normal humans and the Pelagius Sidhe. Medical examinations of these individuals ascertained that all those affected carried the shapeshifting gene, which had been activated by the wave. Those affected appear healthy, and indeed, exhibit better physical speed and stamina than previously.
  • They discovered that the silver flood on Pelagius itself had receded significantly, to something more akin to a large lake. They also discovered the bodies of many of the Sidhe, a lot of which looked charred.
  • They ascertained that the survivors had withdrawn to an island in the middle of the lake, but were in a pretty bad way, and decided to make contact, and offer assitance. This was helped when they encountered a party of Island Sidhe who were surveying the devestation and had taken prisoner a Reich agent who was there for much the same reason as they were.
  • On talking with Áedán and Bridget, the Lord and Lady of the Island, they discovered what had happened after the bleeding sky incident
    • After Sable quarantined but they did nothing to evacuate the Pelagius Sidhe who were trapped there. In the end, they were offered assistanced by one Owain Emer, aided by a human called Helmut Eckart. They did some kind of ritual, using the spilled energy, to coalesce it into a land-bound equivalent of what was apparently a Broken Power in the Sky Shadows above (the Estrum). This collected in about 25% of the loose energy, and formed an island about the size of the Isle of Wight in the centre of the lake of what remained, with a large hill in the centre.
    • In gratitude for Owain’s help, Áedán, agreed to acknowledge Owain as High King (much to the annoyance of Áedán’s wife Bridget). Owain built a palace on the hill, within the fortifications, from which he would rule. Áedán and Bridget continued to live in their original hall, at the foot of the hill.
    • About ten years years passed on Pelagius, which was set running fast when the Power was built. During that time, the Sidhe on the island started sending out scouts to see what could be made of the land beyond the lake.
    • Then the backstab came. In the end, Eckart and Owain were just storing the energy on Pelagius while they could devise a way to help Keller and Halbeck restore Weimar, and exclude Weber, by replacing the Muster. They put this into action on 1 February.
    • This resulted in the death of 80% of the Pelagius population, as the remaining loose energy was pulled through the Estrum and channelled off to Weimar, including a 100% fatality rate among those who had moved off the Island. Of a former population of about half a million, only one-hundred thousand now remain.
    • Once the energy was gone, the Power on the island was a fraction of its former self – much like the Maniran Broken Pattern when the energy was channelled away to found New Oceania. This left those Sidhe who remained in a weakened state.
  • After hearing what had happened, the agents offered to assist, as did the Reich agent. Two of Sable team were initiates of the original Estrum Power in the sky, and so they went to see what the situation there was, to discover that while it wasn’t as strong as it had been, it was still viable. In the end, the group devised a plan to transfer some of the remaining energy from the Estrum in the Sky to “jump start” the one on the island, with the Reich agent (himself a Pattern initiate) offering to act as “capacity” to transfer the energy.
  • The energy transplant was successful, resulting in both powers being weak, but energised and possible to initiate to.

In gratitude, and now having a good idea who their friends really were, Áedán and Bridget agreed to ally with Sable, and set up diplomatic relations.

Current Situation

This is the situation as of April SY159, fourteen months year after the incident, full security operations are being wound down.

  • Life is beginning to return to Weimar and its six adjacent Shadows. Contact has never been re-restablished by those allied forces who were in those seven Shadows at the time.
  • Trump and Piloting are the main means of communications to and from the worlds in proximity to the seven core Weimar Shadows.
  • Magic is functional, but due to the flood of Power, can be somewhat unpredictable in the strength of spells cast.
  • Technocracy agents have managed to reboot Technocracy systems in the main forward bases, although they are not as efficient as they were before the blast.
  • Broken Pattern now seems a bit more reliable in the area than it was before, perhaps because there were elements of the Maniran Broken Pattern in the original Muster design.
  • The assessment of the on-site Sable commander at the time, Prince James, and a team of SIS agents, is that Weimar and their allies attempted to Create a new power, using a combination of the Eaath-based Muster and the Sky-Based Estrum Power of Owain Emer, fuelled by the pool of sky energy that flowed into Pelagius when the rift between the sky and land realms was found, and it went very, very wrong. No initiates of the new Power have been encountered.
  • Following the assassination of Duke Travis, Prince James has been reassigned to take control of operations in the Lowell Quadrant.
  • Operational command of the Weimar Theatre has been transferred to David Marne, son of the Duke of Caulder, who had been working as James’s second in command.