#42 Hadolight Station

Age: 20 Years

Hidden or Lost?: Lost

History: Hadolight Station was meant to be the most advanced undersea research facility ever built. But whatever it uncovered there at the bottom of the sea quickly turned it into one of the greatest mysteries in the history of oceanic science.

Consisting of a network of linked pods, each built to withstand the terrific pressures of the deep, Hadolight Station was nicknamed “The Molecule” by the eclectic group of researchers, hunters, and even a private investigator that made up the unusual crew. At the launch of the station’s inaugural six-month research mission, the assigned personnel were sealed into the facility and it was lowered in its entirety into a newly discovered hollow within the ocean’s hadopelagic region.

Hovering just above the ocean floor, the station was able to catalog new life forms and geologic phenomena never observed anywhere else in the ocean. But then, just two months into the mission, the emergency line to the surface was severed and the station stopped transmitting.

Equipped with an aquatic nursery for food, oxygen scrubbers for air, and an arsenal of dive suits, subs, and other equipment, the crew could survive, but they were trapped at depth. The team on the surface assumed the station was simply malfunctioning, but in reality it was under attack.

Unbeknownst to all, the inventor and financier behind Hadolight Station had been receiving visions of an undersea civilization, and she had built the outpost intending to make contact. Unfortunately they were not as friendly as her visions had led her to believe, and they were not the humanoid merpeople she was expecting to greet the crew. Instead, Hadolight Station had been positioned in the territory of a civilization of intelligent squid. A civilization that preferred to stay hidden.

As guardians of the world’s core, the powerful squid creatures did not want humans to discover and exploit the heart of the planet. As the crew of Hadolight Station found out too late, it was a rogue faction of the ancient squid that had made contact, a group that wanted to see the surface world join with the water-dwelling kingdoms.

As Hadolight Station fell under attack from giant squid behemoths, the rogue unification faction that had summoned the station arrived to help save the humans inside. After a great battle that claimed the lives of almost all of the Hadolight crew and the unification faction, only the private investigator and the rogue faction’s leader survived, escaping by altering the ballast of the whole station and sending it drifting out into the open water.

To this day, Hadolight Station, manned only by the PI and a revolutionary squid, floats aimlessly through the ocean, avoiding attacks from the core’s guardians and human recovery teams alike. If the fugitive station manages to survive, it may yet be the key to unifying the worlds above and below.

1. Decompression Airlock

2. Search Pod: Poseidon

3. Search Pod: Cousteau

4. Control Promenade

5. Master Server Control

6. Habitation Diamond

7. Nursery and Food Store

8. Submersible and Pressure Suit Repair

9. Central Octagon

10. Armory

11. Brig

12. Research Labs

13. Specimen Vaults

14. Waterside Hangar + Viewing Window