tHE PANDORA OBJECT

Federation territory lays claim to thousands of stars, but the light of one star, Pandora, has never been seen by any federation citizen. Though it is as radiant as any other star an all encompassing shield of metal and neutronium encases it completely. This gigantic mega-artifact is grouped with a number of similar ancient structures collectively known as the Cepheid artifacts, or Objects that have opened some of their secrets up to the Federation to show us a superbly rich galactic heritage.

Though the light of Pandora has never been seen it’s gravitational well and higher dimensional interactions have been well measured, in many respects it is a typical main sequence star not too dissimilar to sol, but there are suggestions that its whole structure has been subtly engineered, the greatest mystery is the structure that surrounds this star.

The dimensions of the Object and the hypothetical luminance of Pandora suggest that the surface could well be habitable to federation races if it were supplied with atmosphere and gravity, in depth studies of the wall structure suggest that inside its initial hull, and its ‘engineering levels’ (a region of variable low density) there is a second thicker layer of landscape. High accuracy gravimetric studies have revealed artificial mountain ranges, oceans and nearly every other kind of land feature.

In addition to these artificial natural features some obviously different structures have been made, at either ‘pole’ of the object great spires have been found rising from the surface towards the stars, some of the density readings of these structures hint at very powerful exotic phenomena that might even be shaping the way Pandora burns. In addition to these polar spires thousands of lesser spires have been found dotted across the internal surface of the ranging from thousands of kilometres tall, and hundreds of thousands of kilometres tall. Another second kind of feature have been found whose function seems to be to link the inside of the object to outside space, these have been nicknamed ‘stomata’ from their shape, and it is through computer communication with the docking computers, and perhaps higher levels of AI sentience in the objects that the Federation has learnt a few more of the objects secrets.

One of the ‘stomata’ has been named ‘heavens gate’ as this one was the first to offer any communication at all with a federation craft, it is of typical structure, a pair of semi-luminar curving doors several kilometres across, studies using gravimetric techniques suggest that behind these curving doors is a passage way several kilometres wide and over a thousand kilometres long, at the other end there could be another set of doors. It is thought that Heaven’s gate and the other stomata are access ways for the space craft visiting the interior of the object, there extreme height would clear any atmosphere lining the inside surface of the object.

Though a computer link was established at Heaven’s Gate has not opened the doors to the vast archives inside the object, it has however offered some select information, enough to answer some question but plenty enough to pose many more, it is though that the computers on the inside of the object are restricting the information to this new civilization.

Though the Object has informed us about many aspects of ancient history it has told us very little about its own history or its current internal environment. It is thought that the object predates the High council and possibly predates the rise in civilization before the Great war, beyond this little is known, it is estimated by some technological methods and corroborative studies with other ancient artifacts that the object may be in excess of 5 million years old, some have ven suggested that it may be a truly ancient object with an age in excess of hundreds or even thousands of millions old. As for current internal environment it is thought to be habitable, but as to whether there is a sentient population, or as to whether the life inside is unique or has been collected form elsewhere we do not know. One interesting possibility is that the Object is still very much active, There are frequent and irregular changes in spatial distortion suggesting perhaps that wormhoe gates are operating internally, if this is true then some interesting advanced civilization that commutes between similar objects may be in existence, perhaps these races that are so silent in modern space today are in fact the descendents of races that had rose to great glory in outside space long ago, and rather transcending as others have done (notably the Derusai whose star system is not far from this Object), continue to exist if rather secludedly inside these objects.

The federation has placed listening posts around Pandora and regularly pays visits with spacecraft, but the object has been rarely forthcoming with information (except during the prelude to the Mawa-rei wars).