Spike Society/secret

As of 1105 the Spike Society has three main secrets.

Founding and Continued Patronage of the Federation of the Fused Mains

See Federation of the Fused Mains/secret.

Foreknowledge of the Empress Wave

In exchange for their early help during the Yaskoydri Technocracy's Fourth Doctrinal War, Society scientists were given access to the remains of the invading ships. Little noticed beside salvage teams from the Pirian Domain and Solomani Preserve, they knew exactly what they were looking for.

When the Society split from the Yaskoydri Technocracy, some of those who split were better aware of the Technocracy's legacy and mission, and concerned the Technocracy had lost their way - not that there was anything that could be done about it at the time. They wanted to at least be somewhere other than where all the aliens were arriving, so as to safeguard the mission once more information became available. This legacy was preserved, and occasionally cross-referenced against new arrivals once Society scouts began helping the Technocracy with first contact with incoming aliens fleeing the Empress Wave, always directing them toward Yaskoyloyt.

This came to a head in 249 when a massive alien fleet arrived, having apparently evacuated an entire homeworld on a massive ark-ship. They thought the Yaskoydri had sacrificed themselves to buy the fleet time to evacuate, and were surprised to see similar faces at this end of their voyage. Surprise turned into suspicion, and soon the fleet began gearing up for war. Attempted reconciliations turned into an effort to buy time; the entire Society navy was pressed into service. It was barely enough. When everyone else assumed the aliens had simply been hostile all along, the few Society officials who knew different said nothing, taking the secret to their graves. (Tiji has logs from the Mobile World that could prove this, but he does not know or care, especially centuries later.)

Data from the fleet's logs confirmed the location of the Empress Wave - still about 20 sectors away. A scout expedition was sent to measure it. (The Society had no idea that the Zhodani Core Expeditions had likewise encountered this, though the expeditions had not yet figured out what they were seeing.) The ships never returned. Further attempts to survey would be sent out over the next several centuries. (Not that anyone was around to see, but their efforts to measure the Wave involved intercepting it, which resulted in self-spacing crews for the first, second, fourth, and sixth attempts. The third and fifth ones fatally misjumped during the long voyage.) Finally, in 979, the seventh one (having jumped right over the Wave by accident) returned with grim news.

Excitement at finally being able to confront the mission of their ancestors was palpable among the Yaskoydri segment of the populace (and those of mixed blood who identified as Yaskoydri), easily infecting the Pirian portion. A mania of solutions was attempted - much of which distilled to attempts to experiment with psionic technology by those with no training in psionics. By the time the Wave arrived, these "solutions" had strained and stressed the residents to the point that even garden worlds were left barren within months of the Wave's passage.

Word of failure after failure from coreward finally spurred the mass creation and deployment of low berths in which to sleep out the Wave, only in time to save three worlds. (Blade Spike could have been saved too, but given the environmental conditions, abandoning that world was deemed a safer move.)

Faced with an apparent choice between blaming the dead for their fate and saying nothing, Society leaders once again opted for silence.

The Anagathics of Back Spike

See Back Spike (world)/secret. This was the reason why Society leaders focused so many resources restoring its technological manufacturing capability.