To: Director Krennek of the United Empire Central Intelligent.

Report type: Type-21.

Subject: Encounter with an unidentified spacecraft.

Location: Speith System, Speith V.

Time: 15:06 SST; 15/03/15 UEF.

Details: The patrol fleet I am assigned to encountered an unidentified spacecraft coming from the edge of Speith System, a system under the control of the Lumeris's Meos clan. Upon trying to contact the unknown ship, the spacecraft vanished. We did not detect the use of stealth field, jammer, or hyperdrive.

The pattern of the encounter leads me to believe that this craft belongs to Species-0010 -- a name designated by a Sophon scientist who was the first to encounter these spacecraft. Most people believe they are a myth, an ancient legend since the time when spaceflight was still uncommon. Coupling with the facts that only their spacecraft had been sighted, most people tended to dismiss their existence entirely, but I believe this report will prove otherwise.

In the previous reports on Species-0010, their ships were described with common traits such as 'less than a kilometer long', 'vanish out of thin air', 'cannot be trace', and 'did not match any known signals.' Despite my best attempt, I could not add anything new to the report or track down the ship, but I have managed to archive something.

Using both the previous reports and the data from the fleet, I have managed to intercept a message belong to one of these crafts. I have attached the message and the method I employed in interception with this report for future usage. From what little I manage to translate, due to my lack of xenolinguistics skill, I can confirm that this message does not match any languages in the known galaxy. From this evidence, I can confirm the status of Species-0010 as an existing species.

I do not know if the central already aware of the confirmed existence of Species-0010 or not, but I understand that I am obliged to report any event within my assigned system. I will be waiting for my next order.

Glory to The United Empire. Glory to the Emperor Zerebus. Glory to the Central Intelligence.

Agent Harkonen, Officer of the United Empire Central Intelligence.

[Note to Captain Seuss: I'm so sorry for asking you to pass this report to the central. The network security within Speith System has been tightened, you see. It's after the recent acts of sabotage carried by another UE agent in the neighboring system. It'd be safer to send this to the third-party channel instead of directly connecting to the central.

Please get this report to the central as soon as possible. I shouldn't be telling you this (but then again, I let you read the whole thing so why not), but the reports on the sighting of Species-0010 has been increasing for the last couple of months and I could feel that something big is about to come. Frankly, I am not even sure if this message is safe, or perhaps I am too paranoid; I swear I saw some kind of ‘shadow’ following me the other day. In any event, I hope you are well and thank you again for helping me. 

Also, if it's not too much trouble, please delete this note. The director isn't a fan of a personal letter being attached to an official work. Again thank you.

You faithful friend, Andamun.]

[ERROR 37: ATTACHMENT MISSING.]

[Director’s note: Two days after this report was sent, Agent Harkonen (real name Andamun Hakonen) was found dead on the floor of his apartment. Cause of death was reported to be suffocation; no signs of struggle were found. A day later, Captain Seuss, a man Harkonen relied on passing his report to the central, was found dead in his quarter on his battleship for the same cause. The message and method Agent Harkonen claimed to have attached to his report disappeared, but the report itself was untouched. Strangely, a crewmember claimed that he saw a ‘ghost’ outside the captain room before his predicted time of demise. The crewman said the ‘ghost’ disappeared as soon as he blinked so he assumed he was hallucinating.

While other agents believe this to be the work of either the Cravers or the Lumeris, I have a personal theory. This death from suffocation seems to have become a pattern whenever 0010 is involved. From the details our agents in other empires have gathered, this sudden death from suffocation after an encounter with 0010 certainly isn’t exclusive to United Empire officers. My theory is that this is 0010's doing and while we know nothing about them, they already know about us. 

This reminds me a quote, 'If you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you.']

Author note: Well that was long. I try to do something different here with the name, sort of. The user ‘Bodregg’ (who come up with the ‘SN 1054’) and I have a similar idea. We play on the fact that they are the ‘unknown.’ 

How can a civilization that lived and interacted with the Endless manage to erase all their trace of existence from the modern galaxy without a single reference to them left for the modern inhabitants of the galaxy to discover? You could argue that ‘they didn’t interact with the Endless for all we know.’ If going by that logic, would they not fit the Modern type race instead of Ancient? For them to know that they are older than the Endless, they must have known the Endless before the Endless went extinct so they can claim that they are as old, or older, than the Endless. If not, then what is going to stop the Sophon, UE, and Lumeris from saying they are older than the Endless as well?

We could also go with Bodregg’s ‘they had been hiding since the time of the Endless’, but I found that lower their credibility as an ancient powerful race; it easy to hide, but it’s harder to erase the trace of your whole civilization. The only exception is if the dev makes this faction come from another galaxy, which would make them similar to the Riftborn and render these two sections I spent 20 minutes writing obsolete...

From the dev tips ‘We know very little about this faction…’, I would say that ‘unknown’ is in itself a quality; we know that we don’t know. That’s the theme I am going for here. These guys are the unknown (very Lovecraftian, also I tempted to use that name the first time) to anyone but the oldest entities in the galaxy. I also want the name that… lack a 'living' quality. They’re wraith, cold logic and seeing everything only as numbers seem fitting to them; ‘The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic’. I also use the word 'species' instead of 'race' or 'faction' when referring to them for this reason.

I also use ‘Species’ because it seems more fitting than giving them an actual name. There’re plenty of unidentified things in the galaxy, these guys are just another ones to the various factions that know nothing about them. Plus remember how in cosmic horror stories, we mostly give the name to creatures base on what they are (the Elder Thing, the Swine Men) instead of an actual name? You could, again, argue that why don’t each race use their own names for these guys? Well, is ‘Ivory Coast’ suppose to be an actual country name? Whoever discovers or dominate something get to name it and everyone else just stick with it, unless the other side has something to say about it, which in this case they didn’t care.

Unlike ‘Bodregg’ I don’t know any reference when it comes to number, so I just use 0010 as a reference that they will be the tenth faction; not very creative, but I don’t have much. He also suggests I shorten the name to just 'Species-0010,' so I have to give him credit.

I have recently edited to make 0010 seem more ancient, as suggested by Drakonyan. I can't add much though since this is a spy report to his superior; it must be short and to the point with only necessary among of background. I also separate the section he addressed his friend to make it more like a real report, archived after the agent dead.

Thanks for the plug! As for names containing numbers that sound scientific, I would suggest looking into astronomical naming conventions popularized by the International Astronomical Union or WGPSN/WGSN for inspiration; the biggest issue with your current suggested name, I feel, is that it is too long. Perhaps shortening it to Species-0010 would be better if no other names come to mind?

Bodregg wrote:

Thanks for the plug! As for names containing numbers that sound scientific, I would suggest looking into astronomical naming conventions popularized by the International Astronomical Union or WGPSN/WGSN for inspiration; the biggest issue with your current suggested name, I feel, is that it is too long. Perhaps shortening it to Species-0010 would be better if no other names come to mind?

I was thinking for a bit about using the word 'Omni' to replace 'unidentified species'. How is Omni-0010 sound? ...and it reminds me of Ben 10. I will still go for that Species-0010 for now though. Wish there could be co-creation option.