In 2105, United Nations Security Forces (UNSF) executed a warrant to secure the derelict Artemis ALSO (Advanced Lunar Surface Operations) base from unauthorized occupation — an operation that began as a routine property-recovery action and ended as the largest single UNSF find of illegal human biological modification on record. Twelve individuals were confirmed dead. Twenty-three children, none older than roughly twelve, were recovered alive from a locked chamber deep in the facility.
The Base
Artemis ALSO was formally abandoned by NASA in 2099, when American lunar operations were consolidated in favor of the agency’s Mars programme. UNSF surveillance had periodically flagged unexplained activity — rover movement, occasional landings at the original ALSO pad, and on at least two occasions at the nearby Guanghan approach corridor, using markings and transponder codes consistent with official American government equipment despite the base’s abandonment. UNSF monitored this activity for several years; a Oracle-flagged pattern assessment in early 2105 was the immediate trigger for authorizing the raid.
The original ALSO facility, quietly expanded by NASA with shafts and subsurface chambers throughout the 2030s and 2040s beyond what public documentation ever described, had been retrofitted extensively into a network of underground laboratories, living quarters, and what UNSF medical teams described as an active human experimentation facility.
The Group
The occupants identified themselves as Dominium Hominis (“dominion of man”). Resistance was armed and immediate on the upper levels. One individual killed in the initial exchange had visibly altered blood — described by UNSF medical personnel as black in coloration — and stood at approximately 6 feet 8 inches, with elongated skeletal structure tentatively attributed to generations of low-gravity adaptation combined with deliberate biological modification. Descending into the lower levels, UNSF documented extensive anti-CAI graffiti and mural work throughout the access shafts, and recovered a black flag bearing a white circle bisected by a diagonal cross. Occupants at this level were uniformly dressed in black robes.
A second, more sustained exchange occurred at the facility’s residential and medical levels, resulting in the majority of the twelve confirmed deaths. The individuals killed were, based on preliminary medical examination, themselves subjects of extensive self- and mutual experimentation — adult members of the group having undergone the same biological modification programme documented in the facility’s medical records. Elderly and unarmed individuals surrendered without further resistance and were transported to UNSF post at Guanghan for questioning.
The Children
The twenty-three children recovered from a locked chamber were uniformly bald and dressed in black jumpsuits, showing extensive needle-mark scarring consistent with repeated, prolonged medical intervention. They were transferred to Guanghan for full medical evaluation; UNSF and Guanghan medical administration asked that no further detail be sought while evaluation was ongoing. Identifying next of kin, if any survive outside the facility, was named a priority.
The group’s ideology centered on explicit opposition to Oracle and algorithmic governance, expressed through the slogan recovered from mural work throughout the facility: Caro Supra Machinam — flesh over machine.