The Anomaly Corner: HekA-100, Rumours and Myth - The UNN Investigates

Editorial By Felipe Gil Valera

In the old world, it meant the sacrifice of a hundred oxen — not for cruelty, but for balance. One hundred lives offered to appease a trembling world, one hundred beasts stilled to steady the hands of gods who had grown deaf. The Greeks spoke it softly, like thunder held behind the teeth: hekaton, one hundred; bous, ox. A ritual of scale, of weight — not just in flesh, but in meaning.

Caption: A very old vintage cover detailing the end of a deployment of Newhaven.

And now, in Avesta, the word seemingly is making something of a return.

We are used to there being deployments that end (many pass issues of the UNN are dedicated to just that). And we’ve heard that there is one coming. But does anyone care? What could you all do about it even if you did? Are these endings actually hecatombs, an extensive loss of life? We decided to look into the growing rumours that the end - or is that ‘an’ end -  is coming... and what could possibly follow it.

Let’s start with what we’ve heard.

Across the Ether, digital chatter has intensified. Seedlings speak of signs — flickers in the sky that may or may not be siro spores, an ominous amount of stuck duck drones, time-lagged feedback loops that stretch beyond the usual tolerances. Seed Industries has dismissed these reports as “standard quality of life issues,” but a leak provided to the UNN suggests otherwise. What was just a myth, we can now confirm has a name: HekA-100, the project name given to how deployments meet their untimely ends. And before Garrett claims otherwise, nor he or any of his goons helped with the leak - we have our sources, that’s all we can say for now.

What does that mean? In bureaucratic language, as per the leaked document,  “The HekA-100 is the moment when the cumulative concentration of siro spores per volumetric unit of breathable atmosphere (Cₛ) reaches or exceeds a dynamic threshold determined by the total inhabited surface area (Aᵢ) of Seedling-occupied biomes.” In human terms: a potential end-of-state scenario, aka gameover. 

A Measured Collapse?

The term “deployment” has always carried dual meanings in Avesta: the rollout of a new unihaven and more recently empty society — both also the silent expiration of its predecessor. Each deployment buries the one before, erasing its progress, disbanding its story. Many of you reading this were born into the current stack, unaware of what came before. But a few citizens, particularly among Novalith, Prosperia Prime and Brutopia, remember. And they’re worried.

The Ether and the Void

Rumours persist of a plan. A migration, perhaps. Not just of people — but of narrative continuity. A kind of ark. According to obscure Ether traffic patterns and the testimonies of some, there are Seedlings and their Cultivators working to preserve what they can. Memories, choices, identity trees. Not everyone will be saved. But someone, something, might be.

As ever, we at the UNN will endeavour to record what we can. As the newspaper of historical record, it’s our duty. There’s no doubt though that the societies and their Seedlings have left their mark, with their vociferous feedback and petitions to Seed Industries for change and improvement, there’s no doubt that reality has been altered - indeed improved for the better.

The Question of Afterwards

If the deployment ends, what follows? A new stack? A rebirth? We will keep asking questions. Even if the lights go out. In our next article we will explore possible motives and mechanisms behind HekA-100.

Stay lucid. Stay curious. – FGV, UNN