Necrodiving

Etymology

The term Necrodiving originated from an event that predated Necrodivers and Necrodiving as a whole. During what became known as the Kyushu Bloom Incident, the entire visiting population of a GoTo Mall was pulled beneath the earth, entombed in the walls of the now buried megastructure. By the time rescue teams were able to procure early Drill Rig technology to tunnel into the Mall, all that the remained was the corpses of those who were trapped in their concrete cage. Upon exiting, one of the first responders was quoted as saying, "It was as if we dived into a Necropolis, they were all so still and there were many of them..."

When artifact retrieval from dangerous areas started to gain traction as an established industry, participants harkened back to the GoTo Mall excavation and coined the term Necrodiving and referred to themselves as Necrodivers. The industry dealt with diving into monuments of an old, dead, and decayed society, so the term seemed to suffice rather well.

History

The Kyushu Bloom / GoTo Mall Incident

The Kyushu Bloom Incident itself is considered the catalyst for the fall of old world Japan and surrounding areas. With a massive and most likely human originated ecological disaster originating in @old world Kyushu, Japan, a massive vegetation bloom created destructive geological changes in the course of hours, with one of the largest tragedies the almost near instant burial of the GoTo Mall.

An almost monumental building from the GoTo Group, the megastructure super mall and its surrounding environs was caught in the wake of the initial Kyushu bloom and was buried under earth and sealed by the almost instant growth of large vegetation over the new mountain of earth. While rescue teams were able to unearth the surrounding buildings with varying levels of success, the GoTo Mall itself provided a true challenge. The steep almost mountainous mound that covered the mall and indeed the reinforced concrete of the structure would take months of excavation using local techniques.

With a bit of ingenuity and quick witted planning in a little over a week, rescue teams and government aid groups were able to scrounge together a large , yet quickly deployable drill nicknamed "@Jagamaru" for its supposedly irregular potato-like shape. With the help of Jagamaru, rescue teams were able to breach the ground and continue into the concrete chambers of the GoTo mall. The effort was futile though as the survivors of the initial incident had already succumbed to death.

Though unsuccessful, the development of a quickly deployable drill into irregular sites and the breaching of a megastructure became the basis for what would eventually become Necrodiving.

Dawn of Necrodiving

The earliest form of Necrodiving as a practice was started by PGK in an initiaive to reclaim @old world technologies and artifacts in areas of interest around the world. From their Headquarters in @The Acropolis, PGK developed what the called "Drill Rigs". These early drill rigs were only able of completely vertical excavation, but their innovations of anchoring and cable, especially the @Eurydice MkI, are still used for horizontal breaching for many contemporary drill rigs.

Using these early horizontal breaching methods, early PGK Necrodivers were able to successfully excavate technology and artifacts from the ruins of nearby old world @Singapore. The technology and information PGK was able to extract help The Acropolis grow and eventually PGK styled their headquarters and the reclaimed land around it as @New Singapore.

True Necrodiving

The success of PGK showed the profitability and relative dangers associated with Necrodiving, revealing it as a viable industry. Unfortunately, old world Singapore was claimed in its entirety by PGK and they offered no chance for private organizations to tap into its riches. However, they did offer up (for a fee) an area south of the original Acropolis and next to the @Gasworks where private organizations to stage their own dives.

Luckily for Necrodivers, the old stories of the GoTo Mall incident in which they carried their namesake carried with a possible target: @Jumoku no shima, the former old world Japan. Japan in the old world was known for its megastructures and many of them had been buried either from the years after the inital catastrophe or in the subsequent centuries. Though it posed many unknown dangers, the lure of the technology and artifacts was enough for it to be the first major site of Necrodiving. Thus true Necrodiving was born, with the Necrodivers Union or NDU being formed not long after to support the industry and to cover the costs that were levied by PGK for their staging area.

Characteristics

Location

One of the main determinants on what constitutes a Necrodive vs. something akin to an archeological excavation is the relative danger and risk of a target location. While most if not all contemporary archeological excavations are done by private companies which comes with substantial personal protection, locations that are often targeted by Necrodivers can hold much higher difficulty needing more specialized techniques.

Target Regions

@New Singapore's location within South East Asian seas makes it a perfect centralized point for focus in South East Asian and East Asian Theaters of Necrodiving. Most sites focus on former centers of commercialization, but Necrodiving theoretically can be be done anywhere in the world and historically has. Though the viability of such sites are considered quite low and very risky without a dedicated staging area like in New Singapore. Still, some organizations for various reasons still conduct Necrodiving internationally and often have a signing bonus to offset the danger, making it up to the crew whether they will

Site Types

Necrodiver sites categorized by expected complexity of the site rather than danger. All necrodiving carries substantial risk by definition and the unknown nature of what has occurred while the site has been untouched is almost impossible to predict. In many cases, the original layout of the building in question has been unearthed, either from PGK databases from their forays into old world @Singapore or from subsequent Necrodives which have successfully extracted old data. Occasionally, surveyors will find unknown buildings, which serve as extremely dangerous, but possibly profitable targets.

Hazards

Almost every type of hazard one could think of have been found in the process of Necrodiving . The nature of diving into long sealed megastructures lead to the risk of many things that could have arisen within the megastructures during the time it was sealed.

A more detailed description of these Hazards can be found in: The Necrodiver's Handbook

Structural/Physical

While most diveable structures are largely intact, the act of Necrodiving can distrupt the integrity of a structure, either by the excavation itself or the sudden weight of the drill rig. Some structures may also be heavily filled with earth or submerged underwater, which may require further drill rig specialization.

Biological

While sealed from human contact, some megastructures may have been breached by other kinds of life. @Jumoku no Shima sites infamously are known for hyper evolved flora and fauna inhabiting them and adapted to the dark conditions. In rare circumstances, an isolated environment gives rise to a special biome with its own unique lifeforms.

Occupation

Some megastructures may seem unbreached, except possibly by flora or fauna, but this may false. Humanoid beings such as squatters or bandits have been discovered on necrodives, as well as sometimes rogue AI constructs.

Supernatural

Occassionally, a structure may be considered "Haunted" or is occupied by supernatural forces which can manifest in a variety of different ways. This hazard is one of the hardest to predict and few necrodivers are readily prepared for such incidences. Nevertheless, some crews do employ personnel or other means of mitigating such circumstances.

Equipment and Machinery

Necrodiving is a very specialized industry and therefore utilizes equipment that is made specifically for Necrodiving.

A more detailed description of equipment can be found in: The Necrodiver's Handbook

Drill Rigs

Necrodiving would not be possible without Drill Rigs. While larger or mobile drills did exist in the old world, drill rigs are unique in that the drill is directly connected to the main structure, the entire super structure is self contained, and that it acts as a conveyance with larger drills even acting as a home for more experienced (or wealthy) crews.

Setting up a drill rig for use is generally a very expensive prospect, therefore the ceiling for starting off as a Necrodiver is extremely high and generally not done without support of an organization or a well established crew. To offset these costs, some early career Necrodivers employ smaller scale Drill Rigs or single occupant drill rigs. The early @Eurydice models, though considered quite obsolete, are often a cheap way of starting off Necrodiving. Though without the protection newer and larger models give, many crews have had their careers cut short.

Specialized and Custom Drill Rigs

Some drill rigs are either made to be specialized for certain situations or customized to mitigate certain threats. The @Narwhal SR series, for example, is made specifically to be fully pressurized and variably buoyant, allowing less risky excavations into areas with underwater hazards. Customization can be quite varied with a range of as articulated arms for moving objects to engraved runes and sigils to deter supernatural threats.

Movement

Most drill rigs can only excavate buildings with limited movement range. The most common Methods are to breach the building vertically and then transition to a horizontal excavation mode. This way involves creating an anchor point and then lower the drill rig via rear mounted cable, which, when returning to the surface, is used to bring the drill back up. In some situations, a horizontal entry may be utilized, with an anchor sometimes being used incase of a vertical drop.

During horizontal excavations, most drill rigs can also travel diagonally downwards, creating a ramp in which it can move back up to return. This can be risky as the structural integrity of the megsturcture can be compromised or the rig could fall into an empty space and cause a dangerous situation to escape.

Exceptions to this style are the old style Completely Vertical Excavation or the Omni-direction Excavation.

Completely Vertical Excavation is the old way of using the drill rig from an anchor point, but the drill rig never transitions to a horizontal mode, nor detaches from the anchor cable. The drill rig essentially becomes an elevator, with the crew proceeding on foot, a very risky, but cheap method.

Omni-direction Excavation is available in mostly very expensive or very specialized drill rigs. These rigs are equipped with arms or braces that allow the entire rig to rotate to a point where they can drill any surface and then utilized ways to move in whatever direction that is. The crew compartment often must be heavily modified in order to allow them to rotate or stay level with the drill rig's turning and therefore may become monumentally more expensive than their non-omni counterparts.

VTOL Frames

VTOL Frames are vertical take-off landing vehicles utilizing multiple rotors or jet engines that are used to ferry Drill Rigs and their crews to their destinations. Commonly VTOL frame are rather barebones with mainly just engines and fuel and controlled remotely from the rig itself to maintain a lightweight structure. For drill rigs with restrictive crew compartments, some VTOLS are also used as motherships of sorts for the crew to live in outside of excavations. Larger more established crews have frames that also has room for their auxiliary personnel and even carry multiple drill rigs. Companies completely worked around ferrying rigs for hire are also available for those without VTOL Frames.

Personal Equipment

Personal equipment is varies by crew and generally is based on personal preference or situational. Commonly a Necrodiver will wear personal protection equipment such as armor and be equipped with tools and weapons depending on their job. Some more science based crews will also have equipment to analyze the environment. Equipment to deal with other environmental hazards are also employed if Needed.

Crews

A more detailed description of crews can be found in: The Necrodiver's Handbook and in: Necrodivers

Necrodiver crews, no matter the size, are led by a person generally referred to as a Captain. However, during an excavation, the person in charge of the drill rig or excavation leader is usually referred to as the Captain or Skipper if they are the crew's captain or not.

Besides the captain, other roles may be assigned to other members or members may carry multiple roles that overlap each other. New crews may not have any roles at all, until members find their niche. Established crews may have very strict roles in order to streamline their processes.