PlanetSide 2 Fan Fiction: All Along the Watchtower: Part I

[MasterChief096]

Short fan fiction story. Primary purpose: I'm bored out of my mind but can't sleep. Disclaimer: This is not in any way an action packed fan fiction, so stop right here if that is what you wanted. Rather its a build-up to a much larger plot arc that I am working on. Figured you forumsiders at work or school could read this while waiting to get home and hop into beta. The fan-fic takes up two posts, so read the second one!
Second disclaimer: I can't indent on this forum, so bear with me on the dialogue. Indents will be mimicked with ---'s.

All Along the Watchtower: Part I

--------NS Research Substation One remained in geosynchronous orbit high above the medium-sized moon. Scientist Jack Nordell lingered at the cafeteria's carbon nanotube enforced window while holding his tray. The food on board a private research firm's zero-g testing facilities was a lot better than what the Terran Republic provided to its state-run (and state-owned) scientists. Auraxis changed a lot of things, and giving Jack Nordell the opportunity to become a scientist in the field he wanted was one of them. He specialized in xenobiology, studying the various forms of flora on Auraxis' surface. Before that, the Republic had "offered" Jack the position of research coordinator on a team designated to develop effective countermeasures to biological weapons. Jack's knowledge in plasmid DNA transfer and restriction enzymes was invaluable to the Republic, although Jack hated the job. Since being a little boy, Jack dreamed of studying the exotic methane and ammonia based life forms drifting underneath Titan's icy surface. During the Republic's crack down on the Trent Rebellion, most of Titan's life forms had been driven to extinction. The planet is now the icy husk that most skeptics believed it to be in the 21st Century. This, Jack believed, was an unacceptable crime.

--------Jack's focus on Auraxis through the window was only diverted by Siteyake Okunozo's rather jutting conversation starter.
--------"Not that hungry Mr. Nordell?" asked Siteyake through is thick West African accent. Accents were rare these days. Hundreds of years of Republic integration and cultural consolidation programs inevitably resulted in a human-wide culture, language, and accent. Humans are undoubtedly stubborn however, and there are groups who strive to keep their heritage alive.
--------"Its called calorie management. Six small meals a day beats three large ones... and that's necessary. When's the last time you had time to exercise? Well I guess a guy like you wouldn't mind packing on a few extra pounds." said Jack in a slightly agitated tone. He was upset that his space-dream in the window of Auraxis had been interrupted.
--------"Now no need to get so testy. I was merely going to ask you to come and sit with Paulina and the rest of the group. We're interested to see how your research is going."
--------Jack's eyebrows slightly lifted in surprise at the statement. An elitist group asking how his research was going? This was obviously some prank, like the ones the graduate students back at Parsax University used to pull on all the freshmen and generally dumb undergrads. Since day one on NS Orbital Substation One Siteyake's group had acted like all other research occurring on board the station mattered little compared to their work on Auraxium.
--------What the hell, "Yeah sure, I'll be over there after I grab a drink."

--------As Jack approached the table the rest of Siteyake's group quieted down. You'd think after thousands of years of gossip and clique mentality humanity would have learned not to instantly stop all conversation about the person walking towards your table. Nope. Not even the best and brightest minds of the NS Science Division had managed to accomplish something as simple as that. While Jack took his seat Paulina attempted to make it look as if they were in the middle of a conversation regarding basic Auraxium properties.
--------"Still blabbering about the proton count of Auraxium and how it makes no sense Paulina?" Jack joked nonchalantly, attempting to ease himself into his new environment.
Paulina's eyes narrowed as she replied, "Actually Jack, we were talking about how all attempts to quantum entangle any two Auraxium atoms results in instant decoherence. Its quite frustrating you see. We can use entanglement to transmit an entire data stream but we can't go back to our root basic and get it to happen with a singular pair of Auraxium atoms. Its like being a scientist a few hundred years ago and not knowing what the hell is going on."
---------"And that's why you guys are the physicists. You get to figure out why every rule is always broken while I simply look at a microscope and see the same rules repeated over and over."
Siteyeka jumped into the conversation, "So your research then, I take it is coming along fruitfully?"
--------"Yeah, here and there. So far I've only noticed one difference between Auraxian-based flora and Earth flora, and that difference occurs right up here in zero-g." The group gave their attention to Jack as he began to further elaborate, "I've watched all the normal processes in plant life directly on the ground. Nothing too weird. What shocked me was what happened up here."
--------"Oh great, we're trapped on a space station with a bunch of mutating flesh-eating plants Jack?" said Paulina in a failed attempt at summoning laughter.
--------"I wish, because then I could at least use you as a test subject. However, back on point, it is quite the contrary to any alarmist notion. Nothing changed at all in the routine processes of a normal plant. Zero-g or Auraxium-g, the plant continues on the same. So I asked myself, 'What allows the plant to undergo a sort of mentality shift when switching from planetary gravity to no gravity?' and that answer has so far eluded me. I have no clue why. It turns everything upside down. I can't trace this effect back to a group of hormones, a specialized network of cells, nothing. Microscopic analysis shows normal plant cells, well as normal as alien plant cells can be anyways. There are no abnormal organelles or anything of that nature. Every part of every cell in the plants has an identified function, but none of them coincide with the plants' abilities to behave perfectly normal in a zero-g environment."
--------The group, by this time, became thoroughly involved in Jack's topic. Siteyeka couldn't help but ask, "Well what about a pure vacuum?"
--------Jack saw it coming. "In a pure vacuum most plants die within a few seconds, some can last upwards of 45 seconds to a minute, same as any other Earth-based organism. It's all very counter-intuitive. Why be able to function normally in a zero-g environment while still dying in the vacuum of space? It's one huge biological oxymoron. Only I'm beginning to feel like I'm the ***** here. Years of study, and I have simply run out of ideas... except for one."
--------"One?" Siteyeka curiously uttered.
--------"Just one. You all are going to think I'm a crackpot if I tell you thought. I'll be thrown into the same lot as conspiracy theorists."
--------"Trust me Jack, we are all very interested," said Paulina for her first serious moment of this whole conversation.
--------"Well, ok. I'm sure I don't need to say this, but there is absolutely no experimental verification towards this hypothesis, nor is there any way to actually test it."
--------"Welcome to theoretical physics Mr. Nordell," said a light-mannered Siteyeka for the first time. Jack thought that maybe things were getting better between them.
--------Before Jack began elaborating on his theory, he quickly gathered up the remains of his food packaging and massed it on his tray, then he pushed the tray to the side. One of Siteyeka's buddies moved it further toward the edge of the table and out of everyone's way. Finally, Jack began, "My own personal belief is that these plants are not indigenous to this moon. They are sort of a cookie-cutter build of flora, meant to be able to function normally in all sorts of gravitational environments, anywhere from zero-g to the intense gravity of a neutron star. I believe that the original forms of these plants sprung up on whatever world our all-to-mysterious Vanu came from. I do not believe that the Vanu or these plants evolved on Auraxis. It doesn't make any sense that they did. The conditions on Auraxis are too perfect for life, while the odds against a medium-sized moon to exist in this region of the solar system are far too astronomical in comparison.
"Think about it, a perfect electromagnetic field, a rotational speed and orbital trajectory that minimizes tidal effects from the gas giant, and 0.94 Earth gravity despite the size and mass of this moon? By our earliest calculations it was thought that Auraxis should only have 0.12 Earth gravity. I'd bet my left leg that once our geologists down on the ground finally reach the core, they'll discover that it's pure Auraxium. Its the only way that this planet's gravity could exist. No other element could comprise the core and allow for this big of a gravitational effect
--------"And then there's the issue that Auraxis only contains life forms that are producers and decomposers. Plants and bacteria. Microbial life is quite rich on Auraxis but anything after fauna --- primary, secondary, and tertiary consumers for instance --- are absent from all ecosystems. There is no way for a naturally occurring biosphere to exert this level of control through natural selection alone. The lack of variation indicates sentient tampering."

--------Siteyake's crew swallowed all of his words and digested them. They weren't arguing. He was right about at least one thing, Auraxian life demonstrated heavy signs of sentient intervention. The next day Siteyake took the liberty of running some calculations and concluded that Auraxis only needed 5.79% of the planet's mass to be conglomerated into a core of Auraxium for its current gravity levels. This analysis threw so many more problems into the equation. If the Vanu possessed the ability to fabricate Auraxium and replace an entire moon, or maybe even planet's core with it to mimic their homeworld's gravity, then why bother engineering life forms suited for all manner of gravitational fields?

--------This was the one hitch in Jack's theory... and this hitch caught the attention of the project manager for the Nanite Systems Orbital Research Facilities Project, Alan Tildehugh. His mind raced through possible explanations to the theory he just heard presented. Of course, none of the people in the cafeteria knew that all the interior walls of the station had been coated in a microcam mesh. Mr. Tildehugh dreamed up an idea. If the Vanu used Auraxium to simulate more gravity on worlds where there was too little of it, then what did the Vanu use on worlds where the gravity was too strong? This discovery could lend extreme power to the discoverer...