=Iapetus= 
**Posted by:** Zheng Feng, Firewall Proxy <__Info__ __Msg__ __Rep__>
Iapetus is by turns fascinating, breathtakingly lovely, and deeply saddening.
Iapetus fundamentally makes no sense. Early in the Fall, almost 200,000 refugees traveled in overcrowded ships from [[Earth]] to [[Saturn]], or were egocast, if they could afford it. The 5,000 inhabitants of the industrial city of Analect agreed to help them out. While the refugees were in transit, the people in Analect used their tech to fab up a whole lot of living space. For the next few months, Analect was one of the few success stories for transhumanity. Like the [[Jovian Republic|Jovian]] refugee camps, but far less unpleasant, almost 200,000 people who got off Earth with their bodies intact started to make a new home. Then, near the end of the Fall, something else arrived at Iapetus. Maybe it was a small TITAN probe, perhaps just a few dozen ﬂecks of nanotech smart dust. Whatever it was, it found Iapetus, and the previously fortunate survivors became some of the last of the TITANs’ victims.
The TITANs seem to have been working to transform Iapetus into a matrioshka brain or some similarly massive computation structure. We don’t know why, or why they didn’t ﬁnish, or even what happened to them. One day they were simply gone, their defenses inactive, their system decaying. The inhabitants were largely wiped out, many of them converted into monstrous servants that simply died when the TITANS went away. All we have left are questions and numb disbelief.
A dozen research stations now monitor the partially converted moon from a safe orbital distance. It is not entirely inactive. Strange but infrequent undecipherable transmissions and energy readings are occasionally intercepted from under the surface layers of computational lattice. Surface features inexplicably change, without any visible meaning or cause. The dead structure gives many of its watchers the feeling that it is haunted.
Some of the researchers take a hands on approach, establishing outposts in the subsurface ice tunnels. The [[Titanian Commonwealth|Titanians]], [[Argonauts|argonauts]], [[Planetary Consortium|Consortium]], and a self-described “TITAN-busting” anarchist tech collective all maintain bases, operating with strict safety and quarantine procedures. They map the layout of the structural changes, attempt to discern the purpose of the complex layers of circuitry, and even attempt to activate discarded machinery in sandboxed environments for study. They search for answers they will never ﬁnd. Why here? Why such a gruesome fate? What was the TITAN trying to do? What can we do to make sure this never happens again? The attrition rate is high. People disappear, experience things in the tunnels of which they refuse to speak, and have breakdowns and unfortunate accidents. Something about Iapetus drives some people crazy. Maybe it’s a variant basilisk hack, something picked up from direct skin-to-surface contact with certain artifacts. Personnel have reported a compulsive desire to abandon whatever they were doing to walk ever deeper into Iapetus, down the kilometers of twisting tunnels and circuitry. These sponsored researchers aren’t the only ones to come here. Iapetus draws explorers and looters alike. The previous inhabitants were refugees who physically left Earth and most of them arrived with at least a few possessions that are now exceptionally valuable, like all other Earth relics. Records from that time are also exceptionally spotty, and so the identities of many of those who died on Iapetus are not known. Recovering proof of identity can sometimes result in a reward from friends or relatives, or at least a modest fee from one of the organizations attempting to tabulate the identities and fates of everyone who died in the Fall. Others breach the travel restrictions here to ﬁnd some bit of tech they can sell to black marketeers. 
They’ll tell you the pay for explorers is good, but everyone here is crazy, myself most deﬁnitely included. For obvious reasons, Iapetus draws singularity seekers like dust on a ruster. Most are ﬁne, as long as you leave them alone, but some are actively hostile towards other explorers, and most “accidents” in the tunnels are their work. Some of the people here simply have a death wish, others are even more obsessed with the TITANs or the Fall than most people, but the majority of us have a far more focused obsession: we want to understand what happened to someone we knew who was on Iapetus when the TITANs arrived and turned the moon into a twisted charnel house.
Some underground portions of the moon are still habitable, with both breathable atmosphere and pressure, though the moon’s natural gravity is extremely weak, less than a quarter of Earth standard. Most of the outer portions of this moon seem to have been support structure, cooling arrays, and other secondary aspects to the matrioshka brain. At least in the levels we’ve visited so far, almost all the computational structures have decayed into uselessness. Explorers have returned with a bizarre array of materials dug out of this world’s corpse. The most common are still-functional fragments of the matrioshka brain, with intact circuitry. Also common are small relics from Earth found in odd places, stuck to walls or inside machinery.
The strangest and most disturbing things we’ve found on Iapetus are the bizarre and disturbing sculptures and portraits. Explorers I know recently found three portrait busts made from the same crystalline materials that the rest of the structure is made of, and I just found a black and white portrait etched into one of the walls. Each is in a different style and is of a different subject, though all reﬂect subjects in agony or pain. In two cases, we’ve managed to verify that the subject was someone who was on Iapetus when the TITANs took it, but in other cases they have depicted people who died on Earth, or subjects whose identity is unknown. All of these works of art are fairly crude, but clearly done with great care. The strangest thing, however, is that all of them were created within the last ﬁve years. You read that right, they were made well after the Fall and well after the departure of the artiﬁcial minds that inhabited this world. Is there anyone or anything left alive here? I’m not certain I want to ﬁnd an answer to that question. By agreement, most of the researchers stationed here do not publicize these works of art, though I’ve heard of singularity seekers and exhumans offering high sums for the few that have been found.
If you’re thinking of visiting Iapetus, I recommend you think again. If you must come, back yourself up and try to get involved with one of the ofﬁcially sanctioned research teams. You can try to sneak your way here, but be warned that the quarantine is still loosely enforced by Titanian drones. It’s also common knowledge that a few private parties—Firewall included—keep an eye on events and comings and goings here, just to make sure no one makes off with an intact TITAN or some other threat.

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