Letter of Last Resort

General
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FROM: IMPERIAL CONTINUITY DIRECTORATE (EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AUTHORITY) TO: CIVILIZATION BACKUP ARK-SHIPS AS FOLLOWS;

  • CSS ABSTRACT ENDURANCE
  • CSS AGAINST THE FALL OF NIGHT
  • CSS KEEPER OF THE FLAME
  • CSS SEMPITERNAL AXIOM
  • CSS UNDIMINISHED ENTELECHY

CONDITIONAL HOLD UNTIL VERIFIED:

  • CONTINUITY PULSE TANGLE BEACONS (>3/5 SET)
  • IMPERIAL TIMEBASE (DISRUPTED)
  • IBC PRIMARY TRANSMITTER (NO SIGNAL)

*** WILDFIRE OVERRIDE WILDFIRE OVERRIDE WILDFIRE OVERRIDE *** FLEET CONFIDENTIAL E8192 *** MOST SECRET ULTRAVIOLET *** EYES ONLY SKYSHOCK TERMINUS *** EMERGENCY ACTION MESSAGE

REF:

  • CP SKYSHOCK TERMINUS
  • DP SKYSHOCK ANTICIPATORY
  • DP GHOST GARDENS
  1. THIS MESSAGE CONSTITUTES A WAR ORDER.
  2. OPEN AND EXECUTE ENCLOSED COMMAND PACKET SKYSHOCK TERMINUS. PROCEED UNLESS CANCELLED.
  3. AUTHENTICATION CAPITAL WAILING DOME NIGHT SHIMMER SPAN / 0x113DFEFA87A322B2

COMMAND PACKET - SKYSHOCK TERMINUS

Situation

  1. This packet constitutes an emergency activation order in accordance with CASE SKYSHOCK TERMINUS protocol.
  2. Receipt of the enclosing transmission indicates an existential threat/hard civilization kill event (KALPA DEVOUR) is in progress across the Imperial volume.
  3. From the receipt of this message all command authority should be regarded as potentially compromised. Orders other than recall codes received subsequent to this should not be obeyed even if they appear authentic in all ways.
  4. Recall codes should only be considered valid if >3/5 are received via XENON INDIGO AEON protocol, and by no other means.

Directions

  1. All ark ships in receipt of this message are directed to proceed with all possible haste beyond the boundaries of currently known space and then to proceed at best speed to appropriate sites for Imperial regeneration (CLEARSKY REBIRTH). Relativistic transit protocols and frameslip restrictions are to be considered suspended.
  2. Ark ships should select courses in accordance with TERMINUS SCATTER protocol to ensure optimal compromise between minimum-time evacuation and avoiding convergent courses with other ark ships.
  3. Refer to current threat database files available in accompanying data packet SKYSHOCK ANTICIPATORY.
  4. Strict communications silence is to be maintained at all times until beyond threat light-cone (ref: unlocked data packet on current threats).
  5. Avoid all contact with other vessels until beyond threat light-cone (ref: unlocked data packet on current threats). Your function is to preserve, not to engage the enemy.
  6. We will not order you to render no aid to Imperials or allies met upon the journey, for such an order would not be obeyed. We will, however, remind you to judge risks wisely and remember the limited capacity of your vessel. CLEARSKY REBIRTH potential must not be compromised.
  7. Enact all current best-available existential-threat quarantine measures immediately upon receipt of this message.
  8. Once beyond threat light-cone (ref: unlocked data packet on current threats), enact emergency continuity-of-civil-governance plan DAWNING TEMPERANCE (SKYSHOCK FRAGMENTARY variant) at first opportunity.
  9. Best available information on potential distant sites for Imperial regeneration has been included in data packet GHOST GARDENS.
  10. If and only if no other alternatives are available, you are authorized to execute OROELLE DEEP WELL/CLEARSKY ANCESTRAL.

Conclusions

  1. In accordance with SKYSHOCK TERMINUS protocol, your primary concern is continuity of the Imperial civilization and of those adherent thereto.
  2. Nevertheless, conduct yourselves with honor and in accordance with our finest traditions. It is better that we face extinction as a civilization and a race than that we preserve ourselves through acts of barbarism.
  3. You are the Empire now. All our dreams go with you. Keep the flame.

Isamína Morotai Ashíënléth First of Her Name by Right of Coronargyr and Chartered Mandate Empress of the Eldrae Chief Executive Officer of the Imperium Incorporate First of the Free Defender of the Star’s Flame Heart of the Realm Sovereign Lady of the Heights and Depths Diarch of the Infinite

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://eldraeverse.com/2026/07/11/letter-of-last-resort/
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Since Ragnarok was mentioned… well, there are people who prepare for that, y’know?

4

Reminds me quite a bit of FINAL ZENITH, that I wrote quite a while ago.

3 Likes
5

So, guessing at what all the codenames may be referring to…

CASE SKYSHOCK TERMINUS: The apocalypse is here, and we’re not going to be able to defeat it. We’re fucked. You’re our last best hope to survive.
KALPA DEVOUR: Not sure
XENON INDIGO AEON: Not sure
CLEARSKY REBIRTH: Find a new home and rebuild our civilization there.
TERMINUS SCATTER: Get the hell out of dodge as fast as possible, and spread out so they hopefully can’t get you all.
SKYSHOCK ANTICIPATORY: List of possible civ-kill threats/events.
DAWNING TEMPERANCE: Establish a… preliminary? Is that the right word? An emergency government for continued
SKYSHOCK FRAGMENTARY: Destruction/dissolution of the Empire due to civ-kill event.
GHOST GARDENS: Possible candidates for locations for the revival of the Empire.
OROELLE DEEP WELL/CLEARSKY ANCESTRAL: Time travel?!?!?! Presumably very untested, even theoretical.

6

So, a major change? Or is this just an exercise and the recall order comes?

7

I read this as either an exercise message, or else an elseworld (one of those things that could have happened but canonically didn’t). I could very well be wrong.

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I think it is ultimate culmination of concepts discussed in War! (Of Equals) , the SKYSHOCK BLACK and the NIGHTFALL ASUNDER in particular. The whole article seems like a thought experiment, or a document prepared in advance for the worst-case scenario, essentially a contingency plan document.

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We will not order you to render no aid to Imperials or allies met upon the journey, for such an order would not be obeyed. We will, however, remind you to judge risks wisely and remember the limited capacity of your vessel. CLEARSKY REBIRTH potential must not be compromised.

Hate to drag facetious x-over ideas into an unrelated thread, but…

Only Dorks and Tigresses Special: The Gang Flees The Apocalypse

(Sorry)

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They live! Excelsior!

And, hey, yeah, I remember reading that back in the day. It was probably slopping around my subconscious somewhere waiting to inspire.

KALPA DEVOUR is the overview cryptonym for hard civ-kill events, its partner being KALPA NIGHTFALL for soft civ-kill events.

XENON INDIGO AEON is the special secure protocol designed specifically for recall codes and with every safeguard anyone could think of against compromise. (With the AEON codeword implying specifically weakly godlike security.)

DAWNING is the parent cryptonym for a variety of rebuild-this-from-nothing plans; DAWNING TEMPERANCE is the subcode for “rebuild the core of all five branches of governance”. It’s not an emergency or transitional regime; it’s putting things back in their proper Charter-compliant state - and if you need it, you’re supposed to run DAWNING TEMPERANCE at the first available opportunity. States of emergency should be short and terminate.

(SKYSHOCK FRAGMENTARY is the version of this applicable to when you are doing this (a) in the wake of a SKYSHOCK event and (b) as multiple discrete groups.)

Nice catch on the meaning of the OROELLE overcode.

Guess I didn’t make it quite clear enough.

You see the CONDITIONAL HOLD UNTIL VERIFIED: header?

That means the message has been entered into the GLASS PICCOLO system, but won’t be delivered to its recipients until delivery is triggered by the conditions becoming true.

Think of it like the US’s Emergency Rocket Communications System (ERCS) - or the Russian “Dead Hand” - which was designed to launch communications missiles with recorded EAMs in the event that the President, SAC, and other sources of command authority were all destroyed, so that nuclear retaliation could still be guaranteed.

In this case, if GLASS PICCOLO detects that its sources for Imperial continuity have been lost, the message gets delivered through surviving stealth channels and the civilization-backup fleet gets its orders to get under way.

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Personally, more than anything, I wonder what a civilization-backup ship’s manifest looks like.

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Really, it was the ‘Ancestral’ which clued me right in on it.

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With the ORELLE and ANCESTRAL codewords, I was expecting REDSHIFT to be in play. But DEEP WELL implies something more? Maybe a black hole as part of the mechanism?