Personal Log – Miran Lalor

Posted on Tue Jun 17th, 2025 @ 8:35am by Cadet Freshman Grade Miran Lalor [Lalor] HRH

Mission: Season 6: Echoes of the Zynari
Location: Miran and Raye's Cabin
Timeline: MD5 -22h00
508 words - 1 OF Standard Post Measure

Personal Log – Miran Lalor
MD 5 – 2200 Hours
Location: Cadet Quarters, USS Elysium
Access: Encrypted

I don't really know how to start this.

We’ve been in the Circinus Galaxy for almost a year now, and I thought I’d seen strange things—ribbon storms that sing, voids that twist light, planets that blink out of existence—but today… today was different.

It started out simple enough. Raye and I set up a holodeck sim for a night in “New Paris”—sky towers, hover lounges, neon cafés, the usual kind of cityscape fantasy. Just something to unwind with. We invited Tali, Lia, and Selin too. We’d planned a race or two, maybe some mock combat. Nothing serious.

Then… it changed.

The sky went all pastel and swirly. The music glitched into something that sounded like laughter and windchimes. It wasn’t anything we programmed. And the sim started leading us—literally, like breadcrumbs of light—into a part of the program that shouldn’t have existed. At first, we thought it was a malfunction, or maybe a prank. But it wasn’t the holodeck acting up. It was them.

The Zynari.

They didn’t appear like a normal lifeform. They drifted into view like mist wrapped in starlight—glowing, flickering, half there and half not. And they… they weren’t scary. They were curious. Playful. Weirdly kind. Like kids, almost. Ancient ones.

One of them came right up to me and took my shape. Not like a hostile copy, more like… trying to understand what it felt like to be me. It didn’t speak words—not really—but I could feel what it meant. That it was watching, listening. Learning.

They showed us pictures—murals on the walls that weren’t there before—images of our lives. Moments we hadn’t lived yet. Dreams. Memories. Selin with a paintbrush, Raye in a pilot’s seat, me… standing in a crowd of people with my hand in someone else’s, smiling.
I don’t even know what that meant.

They left gifts for each of us. Mine was a word.

“Learning.”

It wasn’t spoken—it just arrived in my mind, like someone pressing it gently into my thoughts. I think it meant them. But maybe it also meant me.

What if they’re not just pranksters? What if they’re trying to connect? They’ve been poking at systems and messing with routines for days now—but what if all they really want is to be noticed?

I don’t think they’re dangerous. Not yet. But they’re powerful in ways we don’t fully understand. And if they’re children—or beings who think like children—then we’re dealing with a species that plays to communicate.

And we need to figure out how to play back… without breaking anything.

I’ll talk to Phoenix tomorrow. Or maybe Avalon. I think they’ll want to know.

I’m not scared. Just… thoughtful. And curious.

Which I guess makes me a little like them.

End log.