Talk:AIF/@comment-11135771-20160821024524

AIF Home Islands, 4:49 Local Time

In the faint light of the early morning, citizens of the AIF Home Islands found themselves suddenly awoken from their slumber by a faint vibration running through the earth. In the groggy half-consciousness of the recently-asleep, most simply went back to bed within minutes, writing the incident off as a mild tremor, or perhaps even a particularly large vehicle speeding by. Some never even noticed what had woken them, and fell back asleep none the wiser. In every case though, all who had felt the event noted having dreamed of things dark and eldritch - though none could recall any details upon waking - in their last few hours of sleep, and feeling a sense of vague, inexplicable unease for the rest of the day.

Meanwhile, seismic sensors in the region noted a moderate disturbance several kilometres off the coast. Staff were puzzled to find that the event did not show any correlation with known fault lines or other such geological phenomena which commonly resulted in such vibrations. No conclusions as to the nature of the event were reached, and it was decided that the islands' population was uikely under no threat due to the relative mildness of the disturbance and the lack of any further anomalous activity.

Several hours later, cross-referencing with oceanographic charts and classified naval documents revealed the epicentre of the seismic event to have originated from the location on the seabed which marked the crash site of the renowned AIF aerospace warship XAW-1799, commonly identified as the AIF Lovecraft for its unusual appearance and properties. After its sinking in battle many years ago, the vessel had begun regenerating itself on the sea floor, but never returned to an active state following the completion of its repairs, although minor energy readings from it still persisted. The reasons for this remained unknown.

Several teams had been sent to investigate the vessel in the years since, however analysis of the ship's outer hull revealed nothing out of the ordinary, and every attempt to search the interior of the ship had been met with nothing short of immediate and permanent loss of contact with anything or anyone sent inside. After years of inactivity from XAW-1799, the vessel was declared dormant - the first ever instance of such a classification - and stricken from the naval registry.

Upon the discovery of this new activity from the XAW-1799 crash site, naval submarines were immediately deployed to conduct a new investigation of the disturbance. On their arrival however, it was found that the entirety of the Lovecraft was gone. No signs of tampering or towing were identified - anything capable of moving such a large vessel would have certainly been detected with ease. The only clue as to the events which had taken place were a set of scratch marks in the bedrock upon which the ship had lain, showing movement over a distance of approximately three kilometres in the direction of the ship's bow, followed by nothing. The marks simply stopped after that.

Later in the day, naval personnel interviewed the captain of a small fishing boat which had been at a distance of twenty-one kilometres from the location of the XAW-1799 crash site at the time of the event, said boat having been the only vessel in the general vicinity when the seismic disturbance was detected. The captain of the fishing boat reported seeing a strange light emanating from below the surface in the direction of the crash site, described as being "greenish-white", with several other colours mixed it which he was unable to identify, saying only that he had "never seen colours the likes of those before (...) I'm telling you, they weren't right". No indication was given as to what was "not right" about the anomalous colours mentioned. The captain also reported his vessel having been buffeted by strong waves from the direction of the light shortly after the latter faded. Several crew members corroborated the captain's testimony upon questioning. The details of the aforementioned interviews have since been classified, but officially deemed insubstantial evidence on account of all witnesses interviewed having been significantly intoxicated at the time.

Further investigation of the disappearance of the Lovecraft is currently pending.