When the pings were reviewed, it didn’t take very long for other ships in the fleet to begin reporting the exact same findings. Days of study passed, and it was eventually confirmed that these weren’t false positives - these were actual signs of structures in space and of inhabited worlds.
The teams of the ships partnered up, deciding to invite the crew of Kaalos’ ship - which was named the Kaal, or Council. There were 14 other ships in the fleet, and the Kaal was not exactly the one leading it. Rather, the larger ship Ris, or Shield, was. With a crew complement of 25 people, the Ris was relatively large compared to the other ships. The ships making up the bulk of the fleet numbered at 10 and usually had 13 people as crewmembers, and the Ris was a smaller ship, possessing a crew complement of only 7 people alongside 4 other ships.
Kaalos accepted the invitation, alongside the rest of the Kaal’s crew. It was an awkward affair, as many of the people inside weren’t used to even communicating outside their ship in such a way beyond merely reporting signs of radio waves that ended up being natural phenomena. The virtual world inside was a simulacrum of the ancient homeworld, more mythological than not, detailing flowing rivers of sand and buildings adorned with titanium alloys in the infrastructure added to the virtual world. While certainly not a realistic portrayal of it, it was interesting - including for Vac and Aaval, who seemed more sociable than normal.
Kaalos decided to just enjoy the view, to relax and sit on the top of one of the virtual buildings on a reclining chair while their body remained plugged in, its movements guiding that of Kaalos’ virtual avatar.
For a while, the celebrations were normal. The supervisor of the Ris, Asamac - named after the planet in the Temuke-Sajchea system - held a ceremony for celebrating the discovery of potential alien life, and everyone eventually headed to explore said world once the ceremony was over. Kaalos had attended, and it was.. nice. The crew mostly seemed to be happier now that there was actually a ceremony, and hung out around the virtual world while still monitoring the sensors in case anything came up.
Instead, the partygoers noticed that energy emissions and radio signals had changed in all but one direction. Considering the days and nights - although, to be fair, there was little concept of such out in this fleet - spent researching this, it was unusual that the transmissions seemingly just stopped. No new information was coming from any system but one - it was as if the transmission of emissions and signals was somehow paused. Given how unnatural this was, Kaalos and the rest of their crew immediately got to work studying it, along with much of the fleet.
As time passed, it was eventually confirmed that all ships only received transmissions and emission signals from one star system. There were no signs of internal tampering, leading to the main theory being that something was deliberately blocking signals.
Supervisor Asamac gave orders to raise shields and to put each ship into alert. Their drones would survey the area for anything that could be the source of this, while continuing forward to the only system that continued to produce emissions and signals for answers.
Kaalos gave these orders to their crew, but some crewmembers had things to say about the situation.
“permission to speak freely” said Erriajs, in text.
Kaalos reacted, giving permissions to Erriajs, and Erriajs said “we have just been blocked from recieving any radio signals or energy emissions from all but one star system. we also can’t find any from the anomalous expanse either - signals from there froze too. none of us can find any natural phenomena that would explain this, and we have no idea who these aliens are or what they want. this could be a trap.”
Kaalos replied non-verbally, with a gesture indicating agreement and a symbol stating that caution was advised treading forward.
Then Vac Osa requested permission to speak - which was also granted.
Vac Osa said “There’s a possibility of hostility here, too. We’re in completely unknown space with the only contact we have with any other ships being within our own fleet. We should keep our shields up, but we need a plan for if these aliens turn out to be hostile.”
A pause, then a share to the rest of the crew.
“We don’t know who these aliens are. We don’t know their intentions, and they’ve just set us up to travel to one system. Hostile first contact isn’t a possibility we can rule out yet - they seem to be luring us to one system, and more than have the capability to outright block signals from reaching our fleet. We need to at least have a plan for if they do turn out to be hostile.”
Kaalos reacted again - agreement, symbol to stay cautious and to make sure the drones were monitoring the area for what could be causing this. However, Kaalos also relayed part of Supervisor Asamac’s orders. “Stay in a group, if there are hostilities we need to be stronger together. Given their capabilities of blocking signals from multiple star systems entirely, we need to be able to at least confirm we’re not heading into a trap.”
Vac reacted, agreeing, and shared the plan with the rest of the fleet. While debated, it was clear much of the rest of the fleet agreed, and had actually made their own statements amongst their own crew before Vac did. Asamac agreed to at least consider this, noting that multiple of eir crewmates had made similar suggestions.
Shields on the fleet were up, and they went further into the unknown, towards the sole beacon of signals - curious, but also somewhat afraid.
