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KEY FINDINGS:

A major discovery! With the aid of key Exile agents, Doctor Belle Walker has discovered and explored a operational Eldan exo-lab in Algoroc. This facility was protected by an Eldan AI designated the Caretaker.

Access to Exo-Lab 14 was difficult due to the equally operational Eldan Annihilator, a massive construct reactivated along with the rest of the facility's defenses. Had it not been trapped by malfunctioning systems it could have escaped to threaten all life in Algoroc, and perhaps the planet.

An extremely dangerous nanotechnological affliction of Eldan origin has infected both local wildlife and primal elementals.

CONCLUSIONS:

The XAS will be studying Exo-Lab 14 for many years to come, but even though Belle Walker and her allies deactivated the most dangerous threat in the area - the Annihilator - extreme caution should be exercised to avoid augmentation. There is no known cure except death, and Eldan augmentor constructs still roam the area. It is hoped the Caretaker AI may be able to help us understand this threat more completely, although his knowledge seems as fractured as his personality.

It is uncertain what purpose augmentation served for the Eldan, but it seems logical the observed effects are intentional. The leading hypothesis is that augmentation was intended to weaken the free will of biological organisms, making them perfect servants. With no Eldan to command them, however, the augmented creatures near Exo-Lab 14 have defaulted to an aggressive, feral state. We can conclude, however, that the Eldan did not succumb to augmentation at this site, or they would still be there in some form.

The Annihilator is our most powerful evidence yet that the Eldan created truly monstrous machines of destruction as well as wondrous forms of life. This particular Annihilator appeared to attack all life forms with impunity, and it is not difficult to imagine such creations breaking free of their creators' control. Could this be the simplest answer to the Eldan mystery? Did their own gigantic mechanical servants do them in?

Or was it, perhaps, whatever the Annihilators were built to fight that did it?

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ADDITIONAL

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Doctor Walker's scanbots have offered their own analyses, available in the complete encrypted XAS datafile. Scanbot designated Rusty also wished to express the belief that the XAS should honor Doctor Walker yet again for her achievements in Algoroc since she is "just the greatest scientist in the whole blamed Exile fleet." The scanbot designated Bolt disagreed, placing the blame for the outbreak and the annihilator squarely on Walker's shoulders, adding, "If I have told her once, I have told her one thousand times - you do not need to push every random button and flick every random switch you find."