• DOCUMENT ID: AAR-771-INV
• CLASSIFICATION: Level 4 Threat Engagement (Restricted, Eidetic Analysis Required)
• SUBJECT: After-Action Report, First Contact with Unidentified Entity, Designated XB-881, Axiom-7. Vessel: Hegemony Recon Cutter Stasis Invictus. Commanding Officer: Legate Kyra Valerius.

[TRANSCRIPT BEGINS]

[00:00:01] LEGATE KYRA: Log, begin. We are at station in the Axiom-7 anomaly. Visuals confirm a single, non-luminous mass. Scans show a fluctuating signature inconsistent with planetary bodies. Tac-Op, initiate standard survey protocol.

[00:00:24] TAC-OP: Affirmative, Legate. Launching probe. Active scan initiated… Anomaly is reacting to the scan. Surface composition is shifting, forming a crystalline lattice.

[00:00:51] LEGATE KYRA: A defensive hardening. Predictable. Increase scan intensity. I want a full material composition analysis.

[00:01:04] SCI-AN JORIC: Legate, there’s a surge in Eidic resonance from the target… but the pattern is… wrong. It’s coherent, but it has no depth. It’s… flat. I’m reading our own probe’s output signature, reflected back at us but amplified.

[00:01:21] LEGATE KYRA: A mimic? Some kind of advanced cloaking?

[00:01:25] TAC-OP: Negative, Legate. The object is not cloaked. It is… building. We have multiple weapon systems forming on the surface. Confirmed: weapon signatures are a direct match for our own ship’s loadout. It is replicating our torpedo tubes.

[00:01:48] LEGATE KYRA: So it’s a threat assessment. It’s showing us it can match our capabilities. A standard intimidation display. Helm, maintain distance. Tac-Op, bring weapons systems to full power. Target the primary emerging weapon array. Show it the difference between a copy and the genuine article.

[00:02:12] SCI-AN JORIC: Legate, I advise against that! The resonance… the new weapon system’s energy signature did not exist until our own weapon systems came online. It’s not matching us, Legate. It’s becoming us. The process is reactive, not interpretive.

[00:02:33] LEGATE KYRA: Explain your theory, Sci-An. Now.

[00:02:35] SCI-AN JORIC: It’s an Eidomorph. A perfect one. It has no native form. Its physical structure is determined entirely by the Eidos directed at it. Our intent—to probe, to analyze, to target—is being rendered into matter. We are literally building our own enemy.

[00:03:01] TAC-OP: Threat profile is escalating in direct proportion to our weapons charge, Legate. It is now deploying countermeasures that perfectly correspond to our offensive frequencies. It knows our strategy because our strategy is its strategy.

[00:03:19] LEGATE KYRA: [A long pause. The low hum of the ship’s bridge is the only sound.] It’s a feedback loop. All standard engagement protocols result in mirrored threat escalation. To attack is to arm it. To defend is to teach it our weaknesses. This is… an untenable tactical situation.

[00:03:45] SCI-AN JORIC: The only action it cannot mirror is one we do not take.

[00:03:52] LEGATE KYRA: [Voice sharp, decisive.] All stations. Belay attack order. Power down all offensive systems. Disengage targeting locks. Go to silent running. No active scans, no comms. Nothing. We will present it with a null variable.

[00:04:15] TAC-OP: Complying… all weapons are cold. All active sensors are dark. We are drifting.

[00:05:30] SCI-AN JORIC: Legate… look. The entity’s weapon forms are dissolving. The armor is receding. The resonance signature is flattening… returning to its baseline state.

[00:06:50] LEGATE KYRA: And its physical form?

[00:06:53] TAC-OP: Amorphous. Featureless. A perfect, silent void. Just as we found it.

[00:07:15] LEGATE KYRA: Log my final report. Contact with XB-881 confirms a new ontological class: a Reactive Eidomorph. Standard threat assessment protocols are not only ineffective but counter-productive, resulting in symmetric escalation. Further engagement is counter-indicated. I am classifying Axiom-7 as a Level-Omega strategic hazard. The threat is not the entity; it is the fundamental nature of interaction with it. Containment protocol is not to build a wall, but to forget the address. The only winning move is not to play. Valerius, out.

[TRANSCRIPT ENDS]