Oberon [Part 2]
The Ancient Order of Transcendence

The AOOT is Real
The decision to visit site #13 to get a visual and physical sense of what that area of the dig looked and felt like came strangely natural. Natural in the sense that it seemingly felt like it was part of the original recon plan thought out long before our arrival on Oberon.
Site #13 was an area considered closed after the resources had been stripped. The rover I took to cover the 6.5 Kilometers between the operations center and the Artifacts location comfortably maneuvered the plateaus and trenches of the open digs and gracefully slowed to a stop just as we arrived at the entry to the closed section of the site. There was a well defined open tunnel into a sloping hillside right in front of me. I jumped out of the rover and headed into the tunnel following the log provided coordinates of the Artifact.
I followed the downward sloping tunnel about 25Meters and it opened into a cavern that my coordinates coincided with. I was somewhat frozen by the stillness and clarity of the cavern. As I looked left I saw something that seemed to reflect the light that was being emitted by my visors head lamp. As I walked towards the reflections they grew in intensity, and the light dispersion expanded rapidly within the cavern.
The cavern walls were barren and Stoney faced except for the one area that I was standing right in front of now. After dimming the head lamps on my visor, and filtering the visible spectrum to tolerable light levels, I was able to see clear details of the massive Urite Crystal listed as the Artifact. I may have been more shocked that it was still there because of it’s sheer size as listed at 5000 Kilos in weight with dimensions of 8Meters Height, 3Meters Width.
I was standing only a few meters from the massive crystal and it looked and felt much larger than it’s noted dimensions. I noticed the inscription on the base of the crystals facing pane as mentioned in the log, the characters unintelligible with only scant similarities to other noted Ancient Order Artifacts. Finding this Artifact was entirely unexpected. I meticulously photographed the massive crystal and it’s inscription for further evaluation.
Other than the Artifact, there was nothing further to survey in this location so I headed out of the cavern and tunnel and returned to the site operations center. When reviewing the pictures taken of the inscription, the symbols although still foreign, bore clear meaning as a though I had written them myself.
The inscriptions resonated the understanding that this crystal has matured into a state of transcendence and could not be moved. This sensation resonated so deeply within my consciousness that I immediately accepted this understanding along with the nature of it’s secrecy.
As I reviewed the inscriptions again the meaning of the crystals purpose became my purpose for protecting it’s awareness in secrecy. Very little time had passed after reviewing pictures of the inscriptions and my coming to this unexpected understanding of my new found purpose to protect this Artifact.
My very next thought was a lingering concern about the distribution of the lessor percentage of Urite crystals that were presumably dumped by the hijackers since the beginning of this ordeal. This thought almost seemed programmatic in a way that felt like I already knew the underlying reason. My mind was racing to organize the newly acquired insight and this lingering concern over the lessor percentage faded into the background and was replaced in consequence by thoughts of the returning 85% of the Urite shipment.
When I looked at the photographs of the inscriptions again the symbols seemed to provide answers to the previously unstated questions about the return of the stolen Urite crystals. The answers also shocked me because they alluded that the original miners of this crystal haul (our mining team) were the thief’s, and that the hijackers were allies of The Ancient Order of Transcendence.
From this point on I was compelled to consider myself an ally of The Ancient Order. I had never experienced a reversal of belief, accompanied by a sound commitment to the understandings of this new belief. This was not unlike hypnosis, but it was something different altogether, it was very similar in respect to the clarity of conviction that seemed to come from my knowing a new new truth that was in someway originated by my own conscious choice. At the same time I also knew that the Urite Crystal Artifact had influenced this new understanding, and I was more than OK with that knowledge.
As I notified the other agents of my recent encounter with the Artifact they responded as if they were already aware of my new posture on handling the inbound hijacked shipment. That new posture encompassed taking a compassionate stance with the hijackers who were apparently doing the bidding of The Ancient Order. It seemed completely rational now to characterize the hijacking as a charade to hide the covert nature of The Ancient Order and to allow the players involved to operate on a business as usual basis while receiving (unexpected) benefits throughout the process.
The Ancient Order of Transcendence is very much alive and in practice. I was enthralled by the overwhelming facts that the loose translation of it’s meaning was not a myth: “To be keenly concerned with the fulfillment of or wholeness of life.” Seemingly everyone who has encountered inscriptions of The Ancient Order has come to this understanding, and the secretive return of the Urite crystals to their origin benefits the ignorant as well as the informed. The returning Urite crystals were predominantly near maturity and must remain unhindered on Oberon to age and mature. This was the understanding, and all respective parties would continue to benefit from the mining process even if they never learned the true nature of the Urite crystals.
The next day came with intel of the returning hijacked shipment, but it’s authenticity was unconfirmed. All teams remained vigilant in their duties to accurately predict the arrival time and location of the stollen shipment and to rescue the crew. As the day wound to an end, crew members from the hijacked transport made contact with agents stationed at site #8. Soon after the crew made contact, the transport ship was located but neither the cargo nor the perpetrators were found.
Upon arrival of the hijacked vessel, all crew members stated that upon arrival they were given the “opportunity” to release all cargo bay locks for final destination cargo extraction, or die. After that, all three hijacked crew members claim to not remember what transpired after the ultimatum and their arrival at site #8, and there were no records or other accountings from the ships log to confirm or deny their assertions.
Since we recovered the hijacked transport vessel and crew safely, the mission was partially successful and officially noted as such for the record. Unfortunately the complete loss of the Urite crystal shipment will have to exist as a black mark on my mission records. Having a negative mission completion statement on my record should have maligned my mental state and derided my confidence, but my newfound understanding of being keenly concerned with the fulfillment of or wholeness of life overrode those negative feelings.
The last sentiment I have as a newly committed ally to The Ancient Order is that my having a blot on my record of this nature is inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. This new perspective on life now allows me to shift my focus from nagging self-incrimination to real world problems like discovering who’s behind the design, manufacturing, and proliferation of the memory weapon, and how to neutralize this growing threat.
End Series 1: Michael Alexander’s Journal [The Urite Crystals of Oberon] Next Stop Series 2: Michael Alexander’s Journal [Continues…]