Bury Them Deep

[Jairus Starvald]

Log HG-XX1

I have been back from Belsavis for a few months now.

So much to learn, so much to study and experiment, so the Hurlothrumbic Device kind of fell off the radar for me. But I recently came across one of my old logs and it peaked my interest again. I managed to divert some of the Emeritus R&D department into helping me with this: the theoretical side and some of the tech I could probably manage, but I don’t have the resources or engineering capabilities to build this thing from scratch.

Oh, yes.

We are going to build a test version from the schematics I found inside the datacron. All in an effort to see if this is a viable device, because we have no idea if it actually works.

Even though the science behind it is sound.

The Imperials really knew their stuff. They don’t quite make them like they used to, I guess. At any rate, the Galaxy is a dangerous place these days. There are wars aplenty and that doesn’t even take in account the plethora of other ways you can get killed out there. Pirates, bandits, rogue bounty hunters… the Republic going insane and decompressing a civilian hangar bay.

Yeah, I heard about that one.

Anyway. What if we can scale the model down a bit? Make it portable and attach a caveat here and there? Someone without the Force could simply activate the device and the assailant would flee in fear.

Wouldn’t that be neat?

 

[Jairus Starvald]

Log HG-XX2

The first test version is complete.

It took some bureaucratic nonsense, but I managed to take the experimental generator with me. I don’t think they realized they would have to test this on live subjects. The moment I told them that they were far less anxious to keep it in their labs. I am not surprised Emeritus personnel is so anxious about it, though. I have been talking a bit with these people and apparently this isn’t the first iteration of the company.

They don’t want to divulge a lot of information. I suppose they are locked down tight with contracts that prevent them from speaking freely, but I am suspicious.

Which doesn’t mean much when you are always suspicious, I guess.

I opted against taking it back to Kelsier. The less traffic goes back and forth from that system the better, I think. The Echani are less thrilled with me than they were with Rave, but they have… well, they are less rigid than they used to be.

I diverted some funds from Korribean and bought an abandoned warehouse on Nar Shaddaa. Shell companies, dummy accounts and third identities, the whole Merrill-package to stay anonymous.

But Nar Shaddaa is perfect for my purposes. It’s a melting pot of every sentient (and sometimes not so sentient) species of the Galaxy and without any laws or registrations in place? Well, nobody is going to miss a few people here and there.

The second decision I made was to keep Scarra out of this one. He’s always been the more 'punch first, ask questions later'-type, so I don’t think he would appreciate the technological marvel of this device. Doesn’t even take in account the strange code of honor him and his have developed over the years since Rave first uplifted them.

I don’t think he’d like experimenting on 'innocent' individuals.

Not that Nar Shaddaa has much innocence in it, but I digress.

This is going to be exciting. That’s for sure.

 

[Jairus Starvald]

Log HG-XX3

It’s been awhile since I updated this, but I have had to deal with a few issues here and there. Apparently the property I bought is in the territory of some two-bit crime gang with aspirations for greater pastures. They have been hassling me non-stop. I didn’t really want to get involved in the criminal circuit just yet, but there isn’t really anything else I can do at this point.

Last night they broke one of the windows.

You might think that this is not a big deal and you would be right. This is Nar Shaddaa after all. But this is an escalation of violence that I cannot ignore.

To do that means to invite even more trouble down the road.

No, this reminds me of how Rave and amusingly enough Ovmar did their business. They were accommodating until you crossed a certain line, a certain threshold of civility, once that happened they didn’t hold back.

Not even an inch.

Disproportional consequences until your enemy is on his knees in front of you.

I kinda like that.

This particular gang mostly focuses on gun-running and has a few landing platforms with attached warehouses. Makes me ponder about the possibilities.

Can I break their spirit and then co-opt them somehow?

I will have to ponder what the best option is here.

 

[Jairus Starvald]

Log HG-XX4

Tonight the Crimson Fist woke up to the scent of fire. He was the one who threw that brick through my window. He was also one of the main enforcers of the Runners - that’s just what I call them, because the gang name they call themselves by is too hilarious to say outloud.

It wasn’t really a difficult operation.

The Crimson Fist has his own safe house farther down the levels with only three or four people backing him up. He trusted his reputation to keep him out of trouble, but that’s the thing with reputation.

It just takes one young gal who doesn’t give a shet to send you crashing down.

I alchemized his room. Insulation on the outside surface and extra inflammable on the inside. End result? One intact building with five corpses, one of them burned to the bones alongside the room he was in. I figured that was poetic justice, considering what the Crimson Fist did to his victims.

I maybe have also carved a little figurine on their forehead.

Yeah, yeah, I know it’s kind of melodramatic and gorey. A little Cerbera tree, I thought it would be funny.

Well, funny for me. Once the Runners find the bodies they are probably gonna freak.

Serves them right.

 

[Jairus Starvald]

Log HG-XX5a

It’s been a few weeks again since I last updated this. I broke the Gunners in the first week - surprisingly easy once their leader was found dead with vines growing out of his body, I suppose they don’t fancy vegetation as much as I do.

At this point they send me a messenger for parlay.

The messenger was just a boy, but he was scared out of his mind. The fear could be smelled from his sweat miles away. I didn’t really get the amount of amusement I expected out of that. It’s one thing to torment a band of murderers and rapists, but a different thing to realize they recruited this young.

I offered him some tea.

For some reason that only made him more scared, so I decided to leave it at that. Not everyone could be a connoisseur of proper herbal tea and assorted wares.

Anyway, to get to the point.

I co-opted them into my operation here. They keep their gun smuggling up, but some of them have been snatching sentients for me.

Rodians, Twi’leks, Falleen.

The other day they even got a Hutt for me. It’s a good thing I decentralized the infrastructure the first week in. Separate testing locations, separate places where the are kept.

If the Hutts found out we took one of theirs? It would probably cause more of a ruckus than that time someone stole their golden statue on the Upper Promenade.

Rekali was still blacklisted from Hutt Space as far as I know.

 

[Jairus Starvald]

Log HG-XX5b

But to get into the more technical details.

At this junction the prototype has a very pronounced effect on humanoid subjects. More specifically humans and most near-humans.

We are encountering some resistance from the usual specimens, of course.

Epicanthix, Falleen, they all have some mental resistance against the Force and it looks like this resistance also counts for the generator’s design. I suspect that the mythical resistance these species have are nothing more than a simply more complicated brain structure coupled with different influence zones. The implication, then, is that with proper training and experience one could reasonably overcome the mental resistance of said species.

But that’s not what this experiment is about, sadly. I will have to remember this for a different time, I guess.

At any rate.

The generator’s standard design is calibrated to maximize its effect on the most populous of species: the humans and the species closest to its baseline.

Zeltron, Kiffar, Twi’lek and other Near-Humans seem to be effected the same way as regular humans. At this point in time my hypothesis is that as long as a human is able to reproduce and through this produce viable offspring, the generator will have an optimum effect on the target.

The generator can be calibrated specifically against Epicanthix and Falleens, with the reverse effect of being less effective against the prior mentioned humans and near-humans.

 

[Jairus Starvald]

Log HG-XX6

We finally managed to test the device on the Hutt.

As expected the same shortcomings apply here as well. The Hutt’s 'natural resistance' against mental influence coupled with their completely foreign brain structure means that the generator performs less than adequate during the testing rounds.

What am I saying? Even in a soundproof environment with the generator working at maximum capacity all we got were a few nightmares and some tension when the Hutt was awake. This makes me doubt the claims from the imperial excerpts that the generator was able to produce 'planet-wide' terror.

Maybe a planet with a homogeneous population consisting only of humans and their assorted baseline.

But then again if we assume that a planet’s population is dominated by humans and 60% of your population suddenly experiences night terrors while awake and trying to function?

Not pretty.

Not pretty on the same scale as the terror attack executed by the Heralds of Chaos on the CIS back in the days. I suspect Ovmar was behind that one. That raw display of mental intrusion with no refinement was his forte back in his younger days.

Anyway. I managed to calibrate the generator to function against the Hutt, but it took me hours and a lot of specialized equipment. At this point you can assume that if you calibrate a generator towards a specific baseline… you are pretty much stuck with that one baseline for the entire engagement.

If we ever get to a stage where we mass-produce these things we might be able to design specific models for specific species. Then it would just be a matter of switching out a generator mid-battle.

But that’s too soon.

Now that we now the effects on the different species the next stage is going to be downscaling the technology.

I got a few ideas, but looking at the tech… I don’t think I will be able to make it even half as effective as the generator. Not if I want it to be actually portable.

We will see.