The Odyssey's best linguists and cryptographers worked day and night on the Continuity's signal. They found something buried in the sub-harmonics, a pattern that wasn't part of the official message. It was a ghost signal, a whisper riding on the main transmission.
When isolated, it resolved into a different voice, older, strained with what sounded like urgency.
"Do not trust them. The Continuity is not what it claims. They are the Architects. The Filtering was not an accident. It was a... pruning. They are returning to assess the crop. The Custodians were not our jailers. They were our quarantine."
The message repeated twice before dissolving into static. "The Architects." The word hung in the air, cold and terrifying. The signal's origin point was traced back to a small, stealth probe of human design, presumably launched by the original Aris Thorne or his allies, which had been hiding in the Kuiper Belt for centuries, listening.
They were now caught between two narratives: the official, diplomatic overture of the Continuity, and the desperate warning from a ghost. Who did they believe?