Earth's Legends Say Merlyn Could See the Future...

 Ever since the harnessing of the rift-vent on Oasis, our society and continued existence has... improved. It looks like we may survive in this new reality to which we are consigned. Still, we are nowhere near at the level of advancement we were at when we knew where New Gallifrey was.

Vanishing Point is, if I do say, a remarkable bit of temporal engineering, being as it was designed without the aid of the knowledge and assistance of New Gallifrey's advanced engineering boards. The Temporal Observatory, likewise, is a marvel, but neither can fully match the abilities of the old Citadel and Panopticon.

While we can, at least for the moment, view potential temporal disruptions from either location, the information gathered is, to put it mildly, EXTREMELY vague. Enough to know of a possible issue within the timeline at a location, but not the actual time locus of the issue, nor what the possible paradox or disruption may be. 

Some of this limitation seems to stem from the fact that both the Temporal Observatory and Vanishing Point exist OUTSIDE of normal space/time. Bringing either location into a prime material existence, however, would, by the very nature of time, cause phenomenal temporal disruptions... Given the still fragile nature of reality since the Time Storm, such disruptions would likely tear reality asunder.

I'm going to repeat that, though as much for emphasis as the sheer amusement of being able to use the phrase...

It would likely TEAR REALITY ASUNDER.

As such, I have initiated PROJECT CAMELOT.

This project is meant to design and build a... remote viewpoint... which can be sent, in normal space-time, to a location we have determined has a potential temporal disruption, and will be able to get a closer look at what may be the actual cause. 

Having that information, we will be able to dispatch TT-Capsules to that point in space-time, where the crews will be able to work toward repairing the time stream.

Wolf-Bunny, Bunny-Wolf... Either Way, I Suppose

 Culculex never disappoints.

If one is looking for stims, Culculex has them all, even ones you've never heard of. 

If one is looking for drink, there are rivers of Votalan wine... LITERALLY.

If one is looking to fornicate with a nine-breasted hermat with half a dozen penises... No judgement, but I know where you can find it there.

And if you're looking for slaves for work, pleasure, or entertainment...

Yes, there are slave markets on Culculex. You don't even really need to seek them out. They are usually lit by bright, blazing halogen signs advertising what species and races are up for sale at any given time. Hawkers out on stages with beings of varying genders in various states of undress, all outfitted with obedience discs at the back of their necks, most having given up any attempt to struggle in the pain of the neuro-shocks said discs provide.

Normally, I avoid these markets. They are somewhat depressing to me. I don't generally judge. There are, after all, species who require enslavement for survival, and others, well... 

Since the last mission to Oasis, I needed to clear my head, as I've previously recorded, and, so, I'd been spending some time on Culculex, sampling the various vices on offer there, and largely losing myself in the debauchery. I have always lived by the philosophy that nothing clears the head like fogging the brain.

One evening (if one can actually discern between night and day on a world so choked with upper atmospheric advert-drones that no solar light can penetrate, leaving the sky a constant low glow of dark green) I happened to have stumbled into the slaver district inadvertently. The din of the hawkers largely bleeding into each other creating a dull buzz of nothingness, easily ignored, as I stumbled from block to block, barely glancing up on occasion to avoid running into anyone or anything until a single word, coughed out in a deep, guttural croak...

"WHIFFERDILL!"

That word hit me like a smack in the face. 

I was, of course, familiar with Whifferdills, at least via reputation. Shape-changers with a reputation for thievery and various other criminal endeavours (a reputation which may or may not be earned, I will admit) but also a species which did NOT have a reputation for enjoying any form of captivity. 

I traced the voice to a rather beefy-looking Torglund, heavily tattooed on each of his four arms, standing on a stage, his associate holding a stun-stick goading a female creature to center-stage.

She was humanoid... kind of. 

While mostly humanoid, she bore the distinctive ears and tail of a Terran Lepus, but bearing highly pronounced canine teeth at her captors. Between the jolts from the stun-stick and the obedience disc, I could almost feel the agony she was fighting against. 

I have no Gallifreyan idea WHY I acted, but I did.

I sent Z.I.G.G.Y. up to quickly short out the Whifferdill's disc and pulled the Morningstar off my belt, leaving it inactive for the moment. 

The Whifferdill wasted no time, whirling about and biting the throat of the one who had been prodding her, then grabbing his stun-stick and hitting the Torglund...

Well, constipation will never be an issue for that, particular Torglund ever again.

She spun toward me, next, but recognized me as the one who had sent Z.I.G.G.Y., so she stood down. I grabbed her arm, however and ran.

There is one actual crime on Culculex, you see: never interfere.

So, I dragged her down an alley and whistled for Bifrost. When she materialized, I pulled the young Whifferdill in and we made our escape.

When I asked her where she wanted me to take her, she just shrugged, indicating she really didn't have anywhere to call home and asked if she could stay with me.

Turns out, she... Jenny... wasn't overly welcome with other Whifferdills, as she not only suffered from mono-morphia, preventing her from changing forms, but it came upon her suddenly, freezing her between three forms: humanoid, rabbit, and wolf. 

So, now, it seems, I have a new traveling companion. 

She's potentially dangerous, as is evident from how she handled herself on Culculex, but, well...

She's also kind of adorable.

Oasis, Dee, Oasis, and Oasis

 As I discusses in the previous log entry, Oasis has now become a somewhat regular stop off for our people, as we have now altered our fleet of TTCs to be able to gain an artron charge from a rift-vent. This will allow us to continue our civilization, though in a somewhat... limping fashion. In the meanwhile, Lord President Auron and I will be drawing up plans for a new, proper Eye to serve as power source for, well, EVERYTHING in our society.

There are other things regarding Oasis, however, I should record here.

The rift-vents, as we have taken to calling them, are not rifts unto themselves. They are more areas where the massive temporal anomaly at the core of this strange world has broken through the mantle of the planet. I suppose a Terran would equate it with a natural gas vent, but one that leaks time rather than methane... But, Terrans are somewhat stupid in temporal matters.

The rift vents, located at various places across the planet, are like nothing we've dealt with in the past. They are going to require much more study. Their behaviour has produced some interesting anomalies.

On our first excursion to Oasis, we discovered a wounded TTC along with her pilot, one Delphine, a previous member of New Gallifrey's Chancellery Guard, who has now joined our ranks and again serves with the guard. It's always good to find another New Gallifreyan survivor.

Additionally, however, there was another Time Lady in that region. One going by the name "Dee". I have checked her bio-signature and... she's not from New Gallifrey. There's some interesting fluctuations within her genes which I am hoping to get studied. I will need to discus this with our medical team.

During the latest mission to Oasis, we DID as previously noted, obtain a sample of... THAT substance, which is how we are now able to gather energy, but the rift-vent there was ready to surprise us further.

While the rest of the team was searching for the required sample, I was studying the rift-vent. Readings were, frankly, seeming random, which did make any kind of analysis exceptionally difficult. That was not the more interesting thing, however.

While the others were in the crypt trying to locate the sample, yet another Time Lady... well... fell out of the vent.

Unlike Dee, this Time Lady DID register with certain signatures indicating a previous life on New Gallifrey, though her identity has been, as yet, unable to be determined. On a personal note, there IS something somewhat familiar about her, but I can't quite place it. 

This new arrival has some kind of... attache case that seems attached to her... actually ATTACHED in some metaphysical way. She has no active memory, however. She doesn't know her identity, nor the purpose of this case. For now, it's been decided that she will also use the name Oasis. (At this time, I request all TT Capsule pilots ensure they differentiate between the PLANET Oasis and the INDIVIDUAL Oasis within their navigation systems.)

Possibly, however, the most troublesome discovery was within the crypt. The team discovered highly temporally unstable pieces of dalek technology. Fortunately, nothing active or alive, but... it's worrying.

I am, I think, going to need to clear my head to think on this. There is only one place I think I can do that...

Culculex.

Time is Relative, but the Kind of Relative You Don't Invite to Supper

I know full well that anyone accessing this log will find a tremendous amount of time has passed since my previous entry. I wish you truly had an understanding of how much.

Actually, I wish I had any true understanding of how much time has passed.

Let me try to start at the... well, new beginning, I suppose.

New Gallifrey, such as it was, was largely slothful. Our Lord President was, on the rare occasion he would emerge from his... WHATEVER sanctuary he spent his time... was obsessed with little more than pomp and ceremony, largely being ineffectual. 

Most of the High Council followed his... lack of leadership... though a few exceptions did exist. The Chancellor was largely concerned with trying to make sure things ran in the President's general lack of... existing, and, therefore, most of his duties were taken up by The Gold Usher, who did an admirable job.

This leads me to, well, me. 

Eventually, I was elected to the post of High Cardinal: a kind of liaison between the general public and the High Council.  Under normal circumstance, this would be a great honour. In these circumstances, though, it was really more a curse.

For most of the five hundred plus years I served in my office, what the public saw was very different than what was actually happening in the halls of governance. I likely shouldn't even be recording this here, as no one likes to know how the sausage is made, but, frankly, for the large majority of those centuries, the functioning government of New Gallifrey, on a whole, consisted of two people: myself and Gold Usher Rowan. As brilliant as the two of us can be at times (well, always, but why sound egotistic?) even we couldn't keep everything together.

Eventually, an AI based on Morbius took over the Matrix on the Homeworld. It took the combined abilities of all the Time Lords on New Gallifrey to... well do SOMETHING. To this day, I don't believe any of us know exactly what they did, but it triggered The Time Storm.

There's really no other way to describe it. I was, fortunately, on Vanishing Point at the time, and, therefore, outside of the effects of the storm, but most weren't. Describing what transpired next is impossible to do in any proper language, and, when I initially tried, I did so in Ancient High Dalthorian... If you've never heard of Ancient High Dalthorian... that's why. I broke it.

I digress.

Reality and time suddenly became so tumultuous, all history and reality began rewriting itself every instant. The vortex looped back in on itself, then snapped in multiple pieces, regrouped, dissolved, became sentient, wrote a television series, failed to win an Emmy after several nominations, decided to hang it all, then finally, began to settle.

During the "time" (a word which has no meaning in regard to this event) this happened, any Time Lords in the vortex found a deeply buried emergency protocol in their TTCs to send them to the closest viable safe port.

As it turned out, there were two: Vanishing Point and The Temporal Observatory. 

What I've just explained took place in what can only be described as "The instant of billions of years". During that time, the citizens of Vanishing Point, as we all now were, began to form a society of our own from the ashes of New Gallifrey (which had disappeared during the Time Storm), trying to rebuild what remained of our technology and some form of proper civilization while we waited out the storm. I was chosen as their governor, and we survived. I presume those at the Observatory have similar tales.

As the Storm calmed, I had our engineers strip some of Vanishing Point down to create a smaller station we could use as an anchor to observe the new SL-Space. It was via New Providence Station we were able to make initial contact with the other survivors. Eventually, a treaty was forged.

The Temporal Observatory, for those who aren't familiar with this history, was the domain of Lord Auron, who had, long ago, been my Castellan when I was the Cardinal of Patrex. He had become the governor of the survivors there.

Per the treaty, the new government of the Refugees of New Gallifrey was formed. Auron stands as our Lord President and I, as High Chancellor.

Sometime later, I had New Providence re-integrated into Vanishing Point, and we discovered Oasis.

Oasis is a very strange world, which has contained within it, a highly unstable temporal anomaly. The anomaly creates major fluctuations in time and often presents eruptions from the planet in the form of what we refer to as "rift-vents". Unfortunately, we have been, as yet, unable to properly use the energies of these rifts as a power source for any TTCs, though we HAVE discovered a reaction of a local crystal element (which I REFUSE to repeat the name of anymore) which restores hope, at least in my mind, that we may be able to make use of it. 

There are a few other details about Oasis which I will elaborate on in another entry.