Source: Rafinin Family Drive, last known owner—Isi Rafinin (inherited from Trevor Rafinin)

  Type: Video Log Transcript

  Publication Date: Zethren 17, 98 AFB

  Catalog ID: DWR-C8-549-127

  Visual actions from the tape are noted for ease of reference.

  Speaker: Captain William Rafinin

  Appearance Notes: Older, graying, seated in an armchair. Age at time of recording 143.

  [BEGIN TRANSCRIPT]

  It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these. I’m not truly sure that I should be making this.

  [Someone snorts off camera. Rafinin smiles at someone off screen.]

  I’m not sure, I should be making this, but I will. Someone convinced me that it was important.

  [Rafinin smiles.]

  I’ve lived a long life. My granddaughter teases me that if our medicine matched how our technology outside looks then I’d long be dead, and she’s right. Fortunately, that long life has given me many years to try and unravel one of the greatest mysteries of my lifetime.

  [Rafinin looks towards one of the walls, fingering something on the arm of the chair.]

  I don’t know why they haven’t killed me yet. Perhaps, I’m too prominent. Perhaps, as I’ve kept silent about my discoveries, they don’t care. Regardless, I’ve shared these secrets with precious few. For a long time, some of them were not mine to share, but with Mara gone…I feel like I have to put this somewhere.

  [Archival Note: Mara is the former first officer of the Atalanta, and late wife of Captain William Rafinin]

  [Rafinin turns back to directly look at the screen]

  I do not share this lightly. I know that some will find me despicable for concealing it in the first place, but there is danger in secrets, and this one carries more danger than most.

  It began before we even landed here, though I didn’t know it at the time, a conspiracy that stretched so deep that I’m still not sure I comprehend all the implications. Someone wanted us here. Someone wanted us to be stranded. We’ve given this mysterious group or individual the codename the Enigma. It seems to reflect their nature well. I don’t know if we will ever know for certain why they decided to strand us here, though I have my theories.

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  They are just theories, but it’s hard to ignore the fact that people started changing after a few years of being stranded here. People could suddenly manipulate light, heat, sound. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it. Personally, I can’t even make a finger glow, but Mara can, and our children can do such incredible things with light.

  [Rafinin leans back in the chair slightly. He shakes his head.]

  And it’s not just our children. It’s all the children. It’s hard not to think that it might all be connected somehow. There was a period that I thought someone was trying to build up some superpowered army, but we are still here. I don’t know what to think now. There is clearly some sort of plan in motion, but I have no idea what the end goal is, or even who the Enigma is.

  Mara met them, or at least someone working for them, at the Daedalus Spaceport. We moored there for two days. It’s not really my story to tell, but I saved Mara’s account here. It’s worth reading.

  Knowing Mara’s story, I did everything I could with Novem.

  We have done well, but… despite my best efforts, I suspect leaks. I don’t know if they are systematic or if someone in the organization is working for the Enigma, but I suspect information still may be leaking through.

  But I have to trust someone. I’ve put my son in charge of all this now. I’ve done my best.

  I'm almost certain that there are people on planet working for the Enigma, though it's still a puzzle to me what they are getting out of it. I have my suspicions of course. There are people who gained power after being stranded here, particularly some of the Portilian families.

  With all the equipment they had stored in the Atalanta, they gained plenty of power and wealth. I know they were headed to help colonize a planet, but it still strikes me as convenient, particularly since so many of them had already worked on planets with solar flares.

  Still, it’s all just suspicions, and maybe they are just as much victims as I am. I certainly gained plenty of power. Can’t say I’m grateful. Maybe we needed their expertise for some unknown reason. Since we don’t really understand what the Enigma wants, we can’t rule that option out.

  Regardless of who this agent for the Enigma is or what their motives are, they pose a problem. They seem content to leave us alone as long as we stay quiet. There seems to be certain information they don’t want to be passed around the general population, but lately it’s been less people disappearing and more… perhaps you would call it sabotage. Ships that couldn’t leave port, destroyed artifact sites.

  [Rafinin leans forward, steepling his fingers in his lap.]

  The only people really disappearing now seem to be the people calling attention to those facts with claims of conspiracy, so I’ve initiated the Enigma Protocol. All such reports stay within Novem… and from what I can tell it’s worked. The Enigma doesn’t seem to care as long as the general public continues on in the dark. Why that is, I have no idea.

  I certainly don’t plan on letting them win, but I’ve lost enough people that this seems to be the best policy for the time being.

  [Rafinin lets out a long audible breath.]

  I’ve compiled some of my thoughts here along with incidents associated with the Enigma Protocol. I just hope that someone can make more sense of it than I can.

  [Rafinin nods to someone off screen.]

  [END TRANSCRIPT]

  Filed under: Captain William Rafinin, Enigma, Enigma Protocol

  [Lev] That file always makes my skin crawl. Here's my rent, probably much more enjoyable than files that helped upend my life.

  ? Overpowers: Magical Girl Crossover ?

  by Moawar

  He, Life, had a simple job.

  His responsibility as an Overpower was to make sure that fiction stories and the characters in them follow their dictated path. He always did his job well enough, not more or less than was needed.

  His latest assignment, however, would, in retrospect, prove to be his most challenging one of all.

  He would find himself in a unfamiliar world. There he'll have to quickly adapt to guide Nozomi.

  The strongest magical girl with the potential to accidentally destroy those she seeks to protect in her fight against evil.

  What to Expect: A love letter to fiction, where each relevant character represents a different genre in fiction with a few twists to make them fresh. Ex: Isekai, Shonen, Magical Girl, Tragedy, Cultivation, Regression, Tokusatsu, Horror, and many others. All are united under one theme: life and how each character will choose to live theirs.

  If you like the psychological aspects of Madoka Magica and the mixing of different genres a crossover story brings then this story is for you