814 814 Cause and Effect
Max looked over the timeline that they had recovered from the Co-Operative ships and started to piece together the sequence of events on the three-dimensional map of the region on the coffee table.
Starting with the oldest and then working forward, he would be able to replay the massacres and see just how many were lost, where, and how fast. The visualization helped him when he needed answers, and Max was hoping that today it would show him something important.
There were a lot of incidents. Hundreds of thousands of worlds and outposts had been lost over the course of a century since the ships began recording.
Fortunately, using Nico’s skill, he could transfer them all in order, along with the associated database, and have the computer compile the information into the projection that he was after.
“Alright, it’s all on the projector. Now let’s see what we can come up with.” Max muttered, causing Nico to roll on her side to get a better view of the table.
At first, the pattern of attacks seemed random. It was all over the map of the zone, but then the areas began to fill in as they focused on the species that controlled the area.
But they didn’t continue on to other species in the area, even if they were allied. They finished a target to their satisfaction and then moved on.
Max paused it just as the second set of species to be attacked had nearly all appeared on the map, so he could search for patterns. Some were close to the previous target, and some were not. Once a species was gone, another inevitably got attacked, so it seemed that the fleets were independent of each other.
So far, it just seemed like a methodical battle plan, attacking the weakest targets first, so Max brought up a second globe, showing the number of casualties as opposed to facilities and worlds lost.
For the first wave, it looked like they were targeting a high population, easy targets, but Max knew this wasn’t actually the start of the war. It was just a historical record compiled over hundreds of thousands of years, and there was a lot missing from it, so the accuracy was in doubt.
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Max brought up a predictive model, guessing which planets would be hit next and what species would fall.
It worked nearly flawlessly through the third wave, based on the data that he had, but then, at the very end of the third set of species to be wiped out, something changed. The next species on the list abruptly disappeared from the map entirely.
“Pull up that data point,” Max instructed the computer and scanned through the information that was available.
The species data was utterly insane. It made no sense at all, but it was clear as day in the records. They had encountered an anomaly on their home planet and had spread to over ten thousand worlds, rapidly increasing in population. They never advanced into the industrial age. They were not even space-capable, much less warp capable or an interstellar species. Their entire spread was due to an Anomaly that they couldn’t explain.
Then one day, they vanished. SOS messages were received by nearby civilizations years later due to their low technology existence, and when they came to investigate, the entire species was simply gone as if they had never existed.
There was no sign of a struggle, and many homes and shops appeared to have been abandoned in the middle of regular business, with coins left on the counter, cash registers full and untouched, and the remains of meals still on tables, mostly decomposed by the local vermin and insects.
After that, the pattern of Arisen attacks got strange. Certain species were attacked, then there was a pause in the data where no planets fell before the Arisen returned and finished the job.
Nothing in the data had explained any of it, but their earlier experience shed some light on the situation.
“I think that whoever made that primitive species disappear is hunting the Arisen,” Max suggested.
“It makes sense. The way they were culled suggests that they were raised as a cattle species by another, more advanced group. Nobody saw anything, and the Anomaly network was still safely intact at the time of the investigation, but later vanished completely, and another species repopulated the worlds on their own.
It is possible that one of the species that the Arisen wiped out was being raised by another powerful species, and there is a second front of this war. I would guess that it’s the species called Knife Ears since they were openly hostile and attacking the Arisen when they appeared here.
That also suggests that there is a way to track where they will appear, and we just need to find a way to obtain it.” Nico agreed.
Max considered whether to forward their information to Commander Yuri to see what the Koleska thought of the matter but decided against it. They surely knew as much as he did, and if they weren’t speaking about it, it was likely because they were terrified of the idea of a species that farmed other sentient species as cattle and scared the Arisen.
They had seemed more than a little afraid to get in the middle of the battle between the Arisen and their challengers last time, so the chances that they were willing to try to make a deal were pretty slim, even if it was possible.
The species hadn’t given them any signs that they were looking for cooperation, though they had been happy to take advantage of the opportunity that Max and Nico had provided by punching a hole in the shields of the Arisen ship.
They restarted the feed, and the erratic nature of the attacks continued to get more unpredictable. It might have been a strategic measure, but the random stops and starts in battles against species continued with no explanations given, and the population of the species no longer seemed to be a factor in the attacks after the third wave.
There was a loose correlation between technology and the attacks, but even then, it was a stretch.
“Perhaps that is where they started relying on the refugees to target the next species? If they were afraid of interference by a third party, it would make sense that they only went to worlds where refugees had safely settled.” Nico announced once the feed reached the current date.
“Check the data for Anomalies. There is a chance that our third party is using them as waypoints or targets since they wiped out that species that spread using them.” Max ordered the computer.
There were plenty of Anomalies of various types, but even after isolating the ones that led to other points in space and didn’t just seem to bend a rule of the universe, there was no correlation between them and the battles.
Nico gave the data set a dirty look, then shifted around to nap with her head in Max’s lap while she compiled combat data for the next round of Mecha optimizations she wanted to send to Uncle Lu for their reinforcements.
“Looks like we will have to wait and get our own data. We’re definitely missing something unless this really is a case of a hidden giant trying to swat a bug, and there is no causal link between the events other than their existence.” She announced, then sunk her mind into other matters.
It was hard to argue with that. This project could be set aside for the moment.