Dr. Merial Akalayan is senior assistant to Dr. Chieran Kenitawri and a scientist in her own right. After Chieran assigns her to a weeks-long research project reviewing virtually abandoned archives, Merial comes across a startling discovery: an artifact recently retrieved from wormhole space near Akora in the Caldari State bears a striking resemblance to one excavated sometime during the previous century on Matar, which is nearly five light-years away from Akora. Both objects are around fifteen thousand years of age. Merial postulates they are a kind of ancient fractal acceleration shell equalizer due to their similar design regarding a series of nodes present on each. This discovery excites both her and Chieran because the size of the artifacts suggests the corresponding ship engines would have been enormous, larger even than a modern dreadnought.