Captain’s Log #3042-BM: The Miranda Nexus#

Captain’s Log, Stardate 45.7.21#

This is Captain Helena Zhao of the salvage vessel Second Breakfast, recording log #3042-BM.

This is the grimmest assignment I’ve ever faced.

A number of weeks ago, the primary sun in the Miranda system went supernova without warning, destroying the entire system. The inner planets - vaporized. The outer planetoids were flung into the darkness of space to become lonely rogues.

A debris field is now expanding at an alarming rate, and systems within light years of the Miranda system will be destroyed when the shockwave reaches them. Quite frankly, the devastation is so astounding there is nothing to salvage.

This is a job that should have been assigned to a science and research vessel, but here we are, scanning the cooling remains of a nebula slowly rotating around a stellar core that should be a shining stable sun.

Our initial scans of the nebula show a high concentration of Fe and Ni isotopes, consistent with a Type II supernova. However, the sheer scale of the explosion and the speed at which the star collapsed defies all known astrophysical models.

Captain’s Log, Stardate 45.8.15#

We’ve been drifting through the expanding debris field that was once the Miranda system for three weeks now. Our mission is to determine the cause of the unprecedented sudden supernova of the primary sun in the Miranda system, though what we’ve found raises more questions than it answers.

Yesterday, our sensors detected a quantum resonance signature pattern. After triangulating the source, we deployed drones into a particularly dense pocket of radiation.

What we recovered is… unsettling. Not just because of the content, but because of the contradictions.

Upon our initial scan, we found what seemed to be ordinary radiation signatures, but as we approached, the readings shifted. It was as if the very fabric of reality was trying to hide something from us.

In the end, the drones returned without any data that could be reconstructed, but the radiation readings were off the charts. The tachyon emissions were unlike anything I’ve ever seen—the radiation was concentrating in a manner that was breaking the second law of thermodynamics. Instead of decaying into entropy, it was reconstituting itself into order—as if it was reversing its decay.

After the drones returned, some of the more sensitive crew began to complain of headaches and nausea. I ordered a full scan on any crew member who made contact with the drones—out of an abundance of caution. No abnormalities were detected…

The crew’s symptoms faded, though I personally have begun waking from shifts with my uniform collar damp with cold sweat. I asked the doctor if others experienced this; she looked at me strangely and jokingly suggested I should relax and get a drink.

I’m documenting everything here for the Temporal Archives, though I expect half of this will be classified before we even reach port. The irony isn’t lost on me that I’m essentially preserving fragments of something that someone went to extraordinary lengths to erase from existence.

The Temporal Anomaly, Stardate 45.8.18#

The crew remains focused on their duties, but I’ve started experiencing… lapses. Dreams that feel more like transmissions. Three elderly men playing cards, their faces blurred by cigar smoke. A figure in a fedora ordering “a Bloody Mary, no pickles, make it a double” - the phrase echoes in my head during waking hours.

My xenolinguistics officer confirms the phrase has no special properties, but when I whispered it in the mess hall last night, I swear my coffee cup vibrated slightly. I’ve forbidden myself from speaking it aloud again.

Personal Log Addendum: The Witnesses#

Last night, I dreamt I was in that saloon again, playing cards with those old men. Unlike before, this dream was clear - I’ve never had a dream so vivid. When I woke, I could smell the old cigar smoke and pickles.

Exposure to the radiation in the sector is doing something - and it’s getting worse. The ship’s counselor says it’s just stress, but I’m not so sure.

I have begun to compile my dreams into a research document. When I compare my logs I can vividly see the movements of the old men staring back at me. I notice the changes in the story based on different dreams. It’s as if I’m experiencing the same event from different perspectives, yet each perspective has slight variations in the events. Feeding the document to the ship’s AI has it flagged this as a potential temporal anomaly.

If the Miranda system was truly destroyed, nothing should have survived—not people, not records, not even quantum echoes. Yet here I am, sharing distinct perspectives on an event that may or may not have occured. I must keep under wraps until there is enough data to make sense of it.

The Mechanical Observer, Stardate 45.8.25#

We have had a breakthrough in our broader investigation

On Miranda, all RF transmissions were being broadcast with no issues right up to the moment of the sudden stellar collapse. It appears there was an automated service unit forwarding observed data to metadata scrapers.

A copy of this data has been recovered from a transmission center on one of the outer planets—Miranda-7. The transmission center itself was damaged beyond repair by the supernova’s shockwave, but the data was intact, and we are retrieving it.

I wish I could claim ownership of this success, but it was shared far and wide by a network of data brokers—seen by countless individuals across the galaxy before it found its way back to us.

It seems us at ground zero are the last to know.

What is most interesting is that the data stream in the logs is much longer than it should be—1,342 times longer than the time it should have taken to transmit the data. Most puzzling of all, the transmission continued after the initial shockwave from the sun passed over the planet, which should not be possible.

The data is fragmented and incomplete, but it appears to be a series of conversations between the bartender and an absurd number of variations of a Bloody Mary.

When hearing the report, I broke out in a cold sweat. The hairs on my next stood on end. The science officer paused and asked if I was okay. I told him I was fine. If the crew were to hear my account, they would think I was losing my mind. The officer asked if I was going to join the crew in the mess hall for a drink later. I told him I needed to personaly review the data. He looked at me strangely and said the data was corrupted.

Despite the odd timestamp of the files, I’m inclined to trust the mechanical observer’s account. Machines don’t have the same perceptual filters we do. But even its data is compromised by the temporal distortion affecting our perception. Still, the precision of its timestamp—8.7 seconds—appears in all accounts. Something significant happened in that window.

Personal Log Addendum: The Old Mans Account, Stardate 45.8.26#

Last night, using my logs, I had a large enough sample size of dream accounts for our AI to simulate one of the old men in the bar called “Fruzzy”. When I saw the result—it was disturbingly lifelike. When asked about the time loop, it looked right through me and said:

“Time doesn’t move like people think it does. It’s more like… a rope. A three-dimensional rope with different strands… and I’ve seen what happens when it frays. Who’s turn is it?”

Personal Log Addendum: The Sandwich Thief, Stardate 45.8.27#

Most intriguing is the collection of accounts from multiple sources regarding an unidentified individual, sometimes referred to as “The Sandwich Thief.” While fragmentary and largely unverifiable, these reports suggest patterns that have led me to question whether the Miranda incident might have involved deliberate intervention rather than natural phenomena.

The temporal radiation signatures in the debris field display unusual organization that, if shown to some theoretical physicists, they would argue purposeful manipulation.

The Recipe Fragment#

Cross-referencing information from the old man’s account and the robot waiter, I was able to simulate the recipe for the Bloody Mary I see in my dreams. It has been transcribed to hard copy only, and I have locked this in my private vault.

Three times now, I’ve found the hardcopy on my bedside table despite never removing it. When I sleep, the activation phrase “Bloody Mary, no pickles, make it a double” crawls behind my eyelids.

During the day, from the corner of my eyes, I get glimpses of an entity called “the Purple Force.” During my last shift, I found myself obsessively explaining to the first officer why we should never, under any circumstances, add pickles to a Bloody Mary.

Medical reports confirm the crew’s sleep patterns remain undisturbed. This should reassure me.

The activation phrase from the recipe haunts me: “Bloody Mary, no pickles, make it a double” spoken in a deep harsh voice. It sounds absurd, yet when I read it, I feel a strange resonance, as if reality itself is listening. I will not speak it aloud again. I will not think of it again. I will not write it again. I will not even think of the word “pickles” again.

The Cosmic Traffic Jam, Stardate 45.8.38#

Last night, something unprecedented came to light in our investigation: the final transmissions from Miranda are finally being picked up by stations in the surrounding light cone. The RF data travels faster than the cast-off matter from the star’s final moments.

Though I feel sorry for these doomed inhabitants—many unable to use FTL to escape the expanding energy shockwave—they re-transmitted this data along with their final communications before their own planets’ atmospheres were peeled off. All possibility of life within several light-years is set to be wiped out, and this quadrant will inevitably become a cosmic graveyard.

Among these final transmissions is what appears to be traffic controller communications of a queue of ships suspended in the upper atmosphere where Miranda once orbited. Included are excerpts of this fragmented communication:

It’s as if we’re detecting an echo of something that both happened and didn’t happen—a temporal ghost. Regardless, I am thankful that we were able to recover these fragments before the signal dissipated below the cosmic background radiation threshold. We are unable to determine the ultimate cause of this catastrophe, but seeing and hearing the last moments of Miranda offers closure to the crew, and perhaps a glimpse into the nature of time itself.

Captain’s Final Notes, Stardate 45.8.39#

Tomorrow we leave the Miranda debris field, but I’m not certain I will ever truly leave it behind.

These fragments have changed me. Last night in the mess hall, I caught myself ordering “a Bloody Mary, no pickles”—I stopped before completing the phrase. The bartender looked at me strangely and asked if I meant a tomato juice. I said yes.

When he served it, I could have sworn it glowed slightly. And for 3.7 seconds, I understood everything—the nature of time, the purpose of the Transtemporal Singularity Conflict, the significance of the Perfect Mary. Then it faded, leaving only the taste of celery salt on my tongue.

I’m sealing all these findings. Some knowledge is too dangerous. Some recipes should remain lost.

Access Vault Archives#

Input access code to view recovered documents.

123456789CLR0ENT

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Access Granted. Documents Unsealed:

The Miranda System Anomaly

The most comprehensive scientific analysis of what might have happened. I've read it seventeen times now and still can't decide if it's established physics or fringe speculation. The implications for causality theory are... troubling.

The Perfect Miranda Bloody Mary

A varaition on the Miranda Bloody Mary. I DID NOT REALEASE THIS. IT IS STILL IN MY VAULT. Some knowledge is too dangerous, especially recipes that allegedly broke time itself.

This investigation is part of the Miranda Temporal Anomaly Archives, preserving evidence of one of the most mysterious stellar catastrophes in recorded history and its impossible aftermath.