When I was exploring the city, I wasn’t exploring it randomly. I was collecting beacons.

In my neighborhood, I had come across the link to the Great Zero antechamber, here. Inside was a DRC notebook that gave a short (and really unhelpful) explination for what the Great Zero machine is, and how to get it working again. The first step was to use the KI machine pictured here to modify your KI. Once that was done, beacons would then be visible to you when you were near them. They would even make a soft beeping sound. You had to collect fifteen of these throughout the D’ni cavern, and then return here to load that data into the Great Zero. Once that was done, your KI allowed you access to the main chamber of the Great Zero machine. You can see the blue crystal vaguely through the window.

Here, you can see the machine in all of its operational glory. When I got in here, though, the machine was still and silent. I received the information that there were fifteen more beacons to find, and once those were found, you would be let into the next part of the chamber, which channeled the beam (when the machine is working) from outside, into the generator. The machine had to be calibrated before it would function properly, and these beacon searches were part of that calibration. I got the next fifteen, and let myself into the last chamber (pictured below), but did not embark on the last series of calibration beacon searches. I had begun in Teledahn, and was finally ready to embark upon Yeesha’s Path.

When I returned, I had received news through my KI that the Great Zero machine had finally been calibrated, and was now operational. This confused me. When turned around from the spot pictured here, you can see what appears to be a thermometer-like measure of how many people have completed the calibration runs. Both and I figured that the machine would not be calibrated and activated until this was full. Oddly enough, it remains at its low level, despite the machine’s activation. This means that either the DRC has somehow bypassed the proper operation of the machine (odd for an organization hell-bent on safety) or the measurement lights measure something else entirely. OR, we were right about what they measured, and something else will happen once it has been filled. Perhaps it will open the two doors that are still sealed.

In either case, I am now working on finishing the runs. You get a starting point, if you can interpret the picture next to the run button, but I’ve yet to figure out the logic of where to go from there. So, I’m wandering the cavern and the Ages, looking for white, silent beacons that you no longer need to be close to to see.