TRANSCRIPT OF THE ARRIVAL ~ AS TOLD BY THE LAST 'KNOWN' REMAINING O8 CREW

Obtained from a recent visit by their son to the secret hideaway somewhere in The Verse..

The whereabouts of the last known remaining couple of the original eight [08] known only to their immediate family has been kept secret. The reason for this was always believed to be because one of them, if not both are Intuvii*.

The couple lived a nomadic life for a hundred years or so after 'the arrival', in which time they reared a family, travelling with them throughout the known Verse. On the formation of the Ark in 2800 however, in an attempt to remain unregistered, they settled ~ something very unusual for their 'race'.

Their offspring carried on travelling and continue the exploratory lifestyle they were used to today, now, with families of their own, they recognise that even though their parents are in good health, they are not going to be around forever and have asked them to share memories before it's too late. They thought a good place to start would be a firsthand record of their arrival as told by their parents, little did they know that this would be the tip of the iceberg of a huge archive of 'stories' handkept** by the couple, which are in fact their life's work since settling, which they continue to protect carefully and are obviously the reason they have remained hidden ~ but that's another (few) stories -  when the couple eventually agree to release them.

So follows the transcript of The Story Of The Arrival As Told By The Last Remaining O8 Crew Members.

Transcriber: [Son] So shall we start with your names?

Both Interviewees : [Laughing] No! {Since the time of writing this, This couple have given us their names, which you will find in the notation added to the end of this post.}

Transcriber: [Laughing} O.K so not quite ready for that yet, you recluses are so secretive!, Well, can you tell me about when you first arrived here?

O8 Him: Well, we woke up in what we now know was the DSA lab in the Stanton system

O8 Her: Yes, that's the first actual memory we have of our arrival.

O8 Him: It soon became clear to us that our 'rescuers' were under duress and the star system itself was under a negative destabilizing influence of endangering forces.

O8 Her: Yes, we weren't greeted in the way we were used to.

O8 Him: No, it felt kind of pressured.

O8 Her: Yes the reception wasn't welcoming

O8 Him: Well it wasn't hostile.

O8 Her:: No it wasn't hostile, but it wasn't welcoming

O8 Him: No it wasn't welcoming, there was a lot of stress and distractions.

Transcriber: There was a war on right?

O8 Him: Yes, and revolution.

O8 Her: Under the circumstances, we decided on reticence, to focus on keeping our wholi*** clear .

O8 Him: And we didn't understand this language then either.

O8 Her: No and they didn't understand us.

O8 Him: Plus we were suffering post-traumatic cryo-pod emergence and our memories hadn't returned

O8 Her: They never did actually.

Both [Laughter]

O8 Him: But seriously we do have some moments of intuvision****, which are likely memories but it is unclear of their time placement or meaning.

O8 Him: So basically, we were unable to attune wholi with our rescuers and further divided by language.

Transcriber: Can you explain Intuvision?

O8 Him: I guess the closest word you have for it, would be an amalgamation of the meanings of psychic visions and...

O8 Her: Daydreams but more real.

O8 Him: Yes because they are completely immersive at an experiential level.

Transcriber: Thanks. OK, so what happened next?

O8 Him: They continued their ' investigations' separately, one on one.

O8 Her: I remember some kind of visual recognition test…. I remember not really recognising any of the images they showed us,

O8 Him: No. I know they were ships, weapons, people

O8 Her Yes and writing, different languages.

O8 Him: Yes.

O8 Her: We felt the need to get out of there, we really needed to regain homeostasi***** & wholi balance

O8 Him: Unfortunately we didn't get a chance to connect wholi with our rescuers.

Transcriber: Can you define 'wholi' ?

O8 Her: We based this word on your word holistic, which means mind/body/soul, but actually there is an added psychic element to it, a kind of super-intuition that can be tuned into when wholi is perfectly in balance. Wholi can be shared between people, or as we say people can commune in wholi.

Transcriber: Thanks. 

What was your purpose when you arrived, did you have a purpose?

O8 Her: We don't have a word/meaning for purpose, it is an alien concept for us, one we have still decided not to take on.

O8 Him: No, we explore & expand our home, but it's not a purpose, it's just what we do naturally.

O8 Her: It's our nature.

Transcriber: But you are settled here now, how do you find that?

Both: Well, we are still exploring really

O8 Her: Yes we are exploring the intuvisionary world now.

Transcriber: Interesting, well we'll come back to that....What happened next?

O8 Him: We were all taken for medical examination.

O8 Her: It became really obvious just what a state of crisis everyone was in.

O8 Him: We wanted out the minute we arrived, luckily we only had a short stay. there were people in much more need than us.

O8 Her: But when we got out it wasn't much better was it?

O8 Him: No, it wasn't

Transcriber: Did all eight of you stick together?

O8 Him: Yes we did, especially to begin with, we spent time trying to piece anything together that might help us know who in space we were or what in space we were doing here.

O8 Her: It was pretty confusing for a while, but it was also exciting discovering somewhere new.

O8 Him: Thankfully, we met some good people who took us in, showed us the ropes and helped us get space-faring again. We crewed other's ships for a while until we managed to pick up our own, a Retaliator by Aegis.

Transcriber: So that was your first 'owned' ship after the arrival?

O8 Her: Yes it was basically the bare-bones version.

O8 Him;: Yes, the Retaliator Base, there were a lot of them about and they were affordable we re-purposed it for exploration.

O8 Her: It's supposed to crew seven, but we squeezed one more in.

O8 Him: Other ships & crew joined the fleet to what was to become Deep Space Crew!

[ … and so ends the Transcript of The Story Of The Arrival As Told By The Last Remaining O8 Crew Members. ]