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@Title: Why am I here?
@ShortTitle: bp00
@Text: I needed to be part of this. I know I did. But now that I'm here...

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@Title: None of it seems real
@ShortTitle: bp05
@Mission: bp-05
@Text: Personal Log, Commander Bei.\n\nA lot has happened. None of it seems real. Ever since we went through the portal, everything has just been one big nightmare. A dead Earth. Shivans. The disappearance of Centaur Station and Command. And now the GTC Duke, whose crew seems to have either mutinied or gone plain crazy. What was that message they sent us?\n\nAs I write this entry my fighter wing is about to enter Ross 128 to apprehend the Duke. GTVA forces in the area should be able to assist us...but somehow, I don't think there's going to be anyone there when we arrive.

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@Title: Pursuing the Duke
@ShortTitle: bp06
@Mission: bp-06
@Text: Personal Log, Commander Bei,\n\nThe Duke continues to lead us on a wild chase. We followed it from Delta Serpentis to Ross 128, but somehow it outmanoeuvered us and escaped into the Laramis system. From there, it continued to evade us to the N362 jump node. N362! Why the hell does it want to go there?\n\nOur official orders were to consider the behaviour of the commanding officer as criminal, and to apprehend the ship as such. Having chased the Duke through two systems, I'm starting to believe her crew's intentions are rooted more from insanity than mere insubordination. Sensor readings from my fighter wing revealed power fluctuations within the cruiser's systems. If this is the case, then a reactor failure is indeed imminent.\n\nSomething is not right about all of this. Why is Delta Serpentis, Ross 128 and Laramis empty of any GTVA vessels, save for Great War hulks? Why haven't we had contact with Command? What are Shivans doing in our systems? Taylor quipped about this not being our universe, but now I'm starting to believe her.

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@Title: A haunted ship
@ShortTitle: bp07
@Mission: bp-07
@Text: Personal Log, Commander Bei.\n\nThe GTC Duke is a haunted ship.\n\nNo one was there to greet me at the airlock when I broke through to the Duke's corridors. The entire ship was silent. My skin crawled as soon as I left my environment suit and the hairs stood up at the back of my neck. I felt as though I was being watched as I made my way to the Duke's bridge.\n\nThe crew were at their stations, but...they were in some kind of stupor. Every one of them, including Captain Sassana. They didn't respond to my presence. They just...sat there, with their sightless eyes staring. It sent chills down my spine just to look at them. They were alive, but not. As though something had taken away their souls, their essence...their psyche.\n\nAnd the ship. The ship seems possessed. I heard voices, ghostly footsteps down the hallways. The strange thing was...I recognised some of those voices. I've heard them before...in my dreams. Those voices were manning the ship in place of the crew. Ancient, ancient voices...\n\nSomething happened to the Duke and her crew in Delta Serpentis. Something that possessed the ship and drove the crew into catatonia.\n\nThere was nothing else I could do. I returned to my fighter, and awaited the arrival of the Temeraire...

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@Title: In the hands of fate and fortune
@ShortTitle: bp10
@Mission: bp-10
@Text: Personal Log, Commander Bei.\n\nWell, we did it. We got everyone through safely. The Temeraire, her ships, and the Sanctuary are now in the hands of fate and fortune. No one knows what's on the other side of the Knossos portal. All that we know is that it's connected to those beings who possessed the Duke and brought her here. And it was here where we found the Sanctuary.\n\nCoincidence? Maybe not. Whoever designed this to happen can't be all that bad if they gave us the opportunity to save these refugees from the Shivans.\n\nI wonder what has happened to the Orestes and the rest of the battlegroup. I hope they're ok, wherever they are. And I hope we'll be able to join up with them again before this is all over...

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@Title: That dream
@ShortTitle: bp12
@Mission: bp-12
@Text: Commander's personal log,\n\nIt happened again, the same dream. The dream about the Orestes. Every night for the past couple of nights, ever since we met up with the Sanctuary. I've just got this feeling that something terrible has happened, or is about to happen.\n\nMaybe it's the feeling that I'm never going to see my father and the Orestes ever again...

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@Title: Cursed with prescience
@ShortTitle: bp13
@Text: Personal log, Commander Bei.\n\nWe cheated death again. The Temeraire and her ships are safe. The Shivan madness seems to have burned itself out. There's been nothing official yet, but I'm pretty sure that there are no Shivans left in the system anymore.\n\nThose Vishnans. That's what they call themselves, at least in our speech. They have been the piece of the puzzle which has been missing from this whole thing, ever since the Duke went crazy and brought us here. As soon as the Duke was touched by the psychic emissions of the Vishnans, the Shivans knew we were here. Since then, they've been doing their best to wipe us from existence.\n\nAs the Shivans were the Great Destroyers, so the Vishnans are the Great Preservers. Where there is imbalance, they seek to restore balance, restore the natural order of the universe.\n\nNow the Vishnans know we're here. Because we're here, they're not going to let anything get in the way of putting things right.\n\nHow do I know all this? I ask myself the same question. It's as though I've been listening to whispers all through my life, and that now I'm at this particular moment in time, everything I've heard has come together to fit in a harmony and unity that I never before thought possible. It's as though my entire life has been building up towards this sequence of events. I'm the only one they talk to. I've been trying to get them to communicate with the others, but thus far with no success.\n\nI ask myself, after all this: Why me? Why did I get cursed with this prescience?

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@Title: A fulcrum for the universe
@ShortTitle: bp14
@Mission: bp-14
@Text: Personal log, Commander Bei,\n\nThat feeling again. As though I were a nexus, a fulcrum for the universe. When I move, the universe moves with me. I felt it in the Second Great War, but it's nothing compared to how I feel now.\n\nThe Admiral doesn't believe me when I told her that the Orestes was in danger. She wants to bring the fleet back up to full strength before organising an expedition to head back to Delta Serpentis. I'm reluctant to inform her about my current relationship with the Vishnans. How they communicate with me, and no one else. I think I'd be more likely referred to Medlab than to be taken seriously.\n\nThe Admiral is a good person, and a fine commanding officer. This is why I undertake this next action with only the utmost reluctance.

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@Title: The face of the unknown
@ShortTitle: bp15
@Mission: bp-15
@Text: Personal log, Commander Bei.\n\nWell, I did it. I set things in motion that can't be reversed. I went against my superior officer, deserted and put into question everything I learned about loyalty and obedience so that I could fulfill something which has not been anything more than a nagging feeling all of my life. Everything seems to have worked out so far. My guilt at leaving Corey and Taylor behind is still present, but I've consoled myself with the thought that I won't be dragging them into something which must be done alone.\n\nWhat I've experienced, I can hardly describe. For the sake of future correspondence, I will attempt to do so now.\n\nMy body is still intact, along with my physical effects. These Vishnans, however, don't exist in the same way we do. Their ships aren't crewed by personnel. If it didn't sound so strange, I'd say these ships of theirs are the Vishnans themselves.\n\nThey are psychic beings, as pure in existence as anything we've come across. To call them energy beings would be to miss the point. They inhabit this universe in much the same way that we would inhabit a room. They exist in some other plane far removed from our material existence. Their ships are vessels to carry their will, nothing more.\n\nWhen I came aboard, the Vishnans put my body into suspension. I will need little in the way of nourishment or sustenance. My psyche has been transplanted into a ship of my own. I don't experience reality as they do, but in essence, I now have a ship to carry out my will.\n\nBefore this the Vishnans have had no knowledge of my father...it is strange. It's almost as though my memories have unlocked specific aspects of the universe which had escaped their notice previously. They now know about the GTVA. They know how we entered this universe. Because of this, they have a connection with everyone I have ever known and met. \n\nThey don't see abstracts of time and space anymore...in a way, I think I have shown them what it means to live as a material being.

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@Title: Defying the false prophecies
@ShortTitle: bp16
@Mission: bp-16
@Text: Personal log, Samuel Bei\n\nWe did it. The Shivans failed in their attacks on the Vishnans, and we are enroute to Delta Serpentis to prove false prophecies of events that must not come to pass.\n\nNo more inconsistency. No more ambiguity. Where there once were questions, there are now answers. This is what I was brought into this universe for, and this is what I was born to do.

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@Title: Home
@ShortTitle: bp22
@Text: Personal Log, Captain Samuel Bei, formerly of the GTVA 14th Battlegroup.\n\nIt has begun. On 4th April, 2285, the United Earth Federation and member nations declared war on the GTVA in retaliation for the destruction of the Renjian three days prior. Within 12 hours, half of all personnel in the Sol Expeditionary Force had either resigned from service, or actively defected to Earth. The GTVA advance was forced into retreat back into Delta Serpentis, the ships of the battlegroup already crippled by a lack of supplies and combat personnel.\n\nEarth welcomed us with open arms, knowing that she'll need all the help she can get against the superior military might of the GTVA. The crew and passengers of the Sanctuary now have a new home, and with it, hope of a new future.\n\nAs do I. Earth is my home now. Humankind left our blue planet all those years ago in search of utopia among the stars. Had their gaze been directed inwards, rather than out, they would have seen the potential this blue planet holds, as well as the potential inside themselves. Years of isolation and forced introspection have changed the Earthborn. Whereas before their ancestors could claim to be human in name, only now are they worthy to claim the title. For it is only now that they have embraced their humanity: that which makes us human, binds us together.\n\nBut the time for work will come later. Now is the time for healing, rest and solace. I'm meeting up with a crewman from the Sanctuary whom I was fortunate enough to meet a couple of days ago. We grew close almost immediately, and I have offered to take her sight-seeing with me around Guangzhou.\n\nHer name is Eriana...