The Fall of the Jove

Fiction Friday. Escape pod here to the finally released CSM Summer Summit Minutes. Great drinking game to be had here. Take a drink every time Ripard Teg's name appears. You'll be Sindel levels of drunkenness before you are halfway through!

This is a work of fiction and is my own guess at what has happened in Jove space. Usually I try to stick to "Eve canon" but this piece I'm just having a bit of fun! I have put the "strongly hinted at" extinction of the Jove (read Templar One) and the expected opening of 'new space' in 2014 together and this is how I think this is how it will be done. Once again, I know nothing, this is a pure guestimate!

Additionally my third Novella is almost finished in draft format. Back to good old pure action fiction featuring the Katsu Maru and the covert Mordu's Legion team on another adventure! Looking for proof readers again.


The Fall of the Jove

The small humanoid with the bulbous head stood in front of the console. It waved its thin, grey-skinned hands in the air as if it was conducting an invisible orchestra. Its skin was almost translucent and veins could be seen pulsating in the lights flashing on the console. As it gave the final commands, the lights stopped. Once these creatures had been human, technically they still were although from the DNA doubts would be cast. However, thousands of years of 'augmented evaluation' meant the Jovians were the least human looking of the five races of New Eden.

The door to the bridge opened and another entered, similarly dressed as the first.

"Greetings Miko of Jove. How is the task progressing?" asked the new arrival

"Ahhh Ulas. It is just about to start. See!" the Jove at the console pointed to the large viewscreen at the end of the bridge. It showed a massive space station orbiting the temperate planet.

"The orbit is already decaying from the first burn. Its path will bring it in at a shallow angle. The entry will be sufficient for it to burn up completely."

The two Jove stood side-by-side as the massive station fired its stabiliser rockets a second time. Not to maintain an orbit, but to send it to its doom.

"How many remain on there?" Ulas asked quietly.

"32 in total. They were in the final stages of the disease and would not leave. They knew the schedule, they knew what was happening. They chose this as their exit from existence." Miko replied.

The other Jove nodded solemnly, rather than letting the disease take them, many of his race chose to hasten the end. The Jovian Disease had all but completely destroyed their civilisation. Decades of tinkering with their DNA and emotions, striving for perfection, had created the fatal neurological condition. A depression so deep the Jovian simply loses the will to live. From a race of billions, there were only a handful of them left. Now it was a race against time before the end. They knew now no cure would ever be found now, their DNA was too badly damaged. With a fraction of their numbers remaining, hope of a cure had been lost. Reproduction by cloning meant the condition had laid dormant for generations, by the time it surfaced it was already too late to stop it. In the last six months, the last of the Jovians had accepted that their race was doomed to become extinct. However, they could not simply sit back and wait for the end. They knew what had to be done before the last of them died out.

Jovian technology was too far ahead that of the other four races of New Eden; the Caldari, the Amarr, the Minimatar and the Gallente. The Jove had been very careful not to let their technology cause issues with the delicate power balance in the rest of the cluster. They had traded technology with the other races, it was they who gave capsuleer technology. However, as their race crumbled and faded into the black, there would be nobody left to guard their secrets and maintain the balance. The first of the other Empires to reach their space and claim their abandoned technology would be able to conquer the entire cluster with relative ease. Equipped with advanced Jovian technology, whoever was able to find a way into their isolated pocket of space, would return and crush the other three swiftly.

A bright red haze appeared against the hull of the distant station was it started to skip on the upper atmosphere of the planet.

"And so, the last planetary station begins to burn up." Miko stated. "What of the deep-space outposts?"

"Those with reactors of sufficient size and mass have been set to overload. They will vaporise themselves as the reactors reach critical mass."

"And those remote outposts with smaller reactors?"

"We have installed cloaking devices and fully fuelled the reactors. They will remain hidden for at least 10,000 years. By that time we envisage that the other races of New Eden will have caught up if not surpassed our current levels of technology. When the cloaks on those outposts finally fail they will find simply interesting historical artefacts. It would have been better to destroy them, but we don't have the numbers."

Miko nodded. They had done similar to the remnants of the Terran technology in the vicinity of the Eve Gate near the New Eden system. Powerful cloaking devices on long-lasting reactors to ensure that the advanced technology did not fall into the wrong hands.

"And our ships?"

"Almost all destroyed. There are 11 remaining, 12 if you count this one. They contain the last of our race. Each Captain has the choice of how to end it, when the time comes. I've heard flying into a sun is the most popular choice. The last mothership is expected to the the final one to take that journey. It has the most people on board."

"And the Sansha?" Ulas asked.

"We have destroyed all the technology we could in the system that they control. The other Empires will have to deal with them. We managed to destroy the smaller outpost stations remotely but we know not what the Sansha may have already taken and reverse engineered."

The invasion of the Sansha was the final nail in the coffin of the Jove. Wormholes occurred throughout New Eden but the Jove were able to prevent them appearing within their space using a special structure and a rare mineral called Isogen-5. With the reduced numbers of Jove looking after their structures, one of them had gone offline in 3-CE1R. The Sansha, who like the Sleepers who are close relatives of the Jove, were able to control wormholes and able to open a wormhole in the system and invade. The weakened Jove could not fight and simply retreated, closing the stargates and ensuring the wormhole jammers were strengthened in the remaining systems. A ship was equipped with a cloaking device and was let through the stargate. It had been loaded with a devastating bomb. The Jovian pilot, in the final stages of the disease flew his ship into the station and detonated it. The Jove hoped that they were quick enough to stop the Sansha from gaining too many of their secrets.

Miko looked back to the viewscreen. The station was now a massive fireball as it started to break apart in the planets atmosphere.

"So that is it? Hundreds of thousands of ships destroyed, hundreds of outposts cloaked and hidden for millennia, dozens of stations crashed into planets. The only evidence of our once all-powerful race ever existed will be abandoned ruins on planets where the humans will find nothing but outdated technology."

"Yes Miko. Our once great light is now no more than a spark in the darkness of space. Soon it will be nothing. Extinguished."

The two Jove stared at the screen watching the station burn up in the bright blue atmosphere. Jovians had abandoned planetary living centuries before. Choosing to live amongst the stars. Thankfully this made the task of destroying their technology easier as all the advanced equipment was located on stations and ships. The remnants of their surface cities were outdated and decayed. Hardly any Jove had lived on a planets surface for over 300 years. They were not worried about what might be found planet-side.

"Is the message prepared?"

"Yes. We believe the humans will first cross the at the Sumania Expanse. It is the most logical entry point into our space. The satellite is positioned so that the first ship to enter will receive the recording. We know that there are likely to be some older sites we missed, we hope they will listen and not try to find them. However we know that it is pointless. All we can do is hope that the technology they can find and are able to reverse-engineer is old enough not to cause major shifts in the power-balance of the cluster."

Miko waved his hands over the console again. The viewscreen shifted as the ship realigned its course. The remnants of the station were now fiery meteors raining though the planets atmosphere. The planet edged out of view and the solar system's star settled in the centre of the screen.

"It is done. When the ship detects no life-signs on board it will engage the warp drives. Now if you will excuse me Ulas I will return to my quarters. I am feeling a little depressed."