Surveyor

 

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Surveyor
General information
Type	Exploratory spacecraft
Affiliation	NWOC oil corporation
Usage
Makers	NWOC oil corporation
Used by	Sam Stone

The Surveyor was an exploratory vessel mentioned in the Serious Sam backstory, as well as in Serious Sam 4 and Serious Sam: Siberian Mayhem. Despite not making an appearance in the titles, it plays a vital role in the series' backstory and was what had awakened Tah-Um from his slumber.

Overview

The Surveyor was a type of spacecraft designed by the NWOC oil corporation for exploring regions of space that could serve as being beneficial to mankind. According to the official backstory, the Surveyor was described as being "bigger than a good sized aircraft carrier". The ship was equipped with sub-light propulsion engines that allowed it to travel at the speed of light.

The ship was piloted by Captain Sam Stone prior to the outbreak of the Mental War, in the year 2104.

History

The Surveyor was used for the interstellar mission to the system of Proxima Centauri and Canis Major, during a time when humanity had become advanced enough to establish colonies in outer space and on other planets. The Surveyor was the first exploration ship sent to gather basic information of the Sirius system, the former homeworld of the extinct Sirian race, and prepare for future interstellar missions.

One day, Sam Stone, the Captain of the ship, piloted the Surveyor towards the constellation of Canis Major. Upon arrival, the super-light part of the voyage was over, and the main computer had switched the engines to intrastellar mode. With the ship's speed reduced to 10% of the speed of light, the ship slowly approached the outer limits of the system of Sirius. The crew has already waken up from hibernation and they are now busy running around the decks getting all the systems up and running, preparing the instruments to start scanning the system for possible traces of civilized life.

Something strange appears

Everything was going smoothly so far, and things were more or less as expected, accounting prior experiences in dealing with systems previously inhabited by the Sirians. There was one thing, however that didn't stand out. According to the ship's scans, there was an asteroid belt surrounding the four planets of the system. More specifically, it was more of a "sphere" than a belt. This array of pieces of rock were very similar in size and distribution. The asteroids were all sized like a medium mountain, and at a distance between each other one hundred times that of the one between Earth and the Moon.

The Surveyor crew were not particularly concerned about this "bubble", since it didn't cause any navigational problems to the ship, since the layer was thin and the asteroids were away from each other enough to make a smooth pass between them. The strangest thing, however, was that the Sirians had never mentioned this "bubble" in their ancient texts. Captain Sam is standing on the bridge, staring at the monitor showing the empty surface of the artificial asteroid in front of the Surveyor. The ship is now parked steady relatively to the asteroid, following its orbit around the star.

The exploration begins

A shuttle is sent down with a scientific team to explore the surface of the asteroid. The situation was strange, since the survey team didn't expect to find something like that. The entire crew was a bit afraid and no one was really eager to just go through the monstrous layer of asteroids and proceed with their voyage inside it. They were cut off from the company headquarters on Earth, since they didn't have an interstellar transceiver built in with the ship. They were supposed to deploy a team on the outermost planet, which would unfold a large transmitter's antennae and mount a relay station for interstellar sub-etha communication. Before that was done, they were just stuck with conventional radio signals, and it was of no use to wait sixteen years for the return information.

The survey team were left with two options; to go through it, or get back to Earth, or at least to Alpha Centauri, and ask for further instructions from headquarters. Strategic consultants on the ship had no desire on approving the idea of returning back. The S&E and HBM missions were on their way to Canis Major too, and the company had a invested great deal of money and resources to this mission. They didn't really want be the second ones to get there. Anyway, it was the captain's word last and he would rather go back than rush in crazily, but he didn't want to give up so soon. So he decided they take a closer look at one of the asteroids, just to gather more information. Maybe they will know what to do when they get to know more about the nature of those asteroids.

A big mistake

As the shuttle hovered near the asteroid, Stone began to suspect that something wasn't quite right about this strange belt of asteroids, but he couldn't quite tell what was wrong with it. With the time that followed, however, that will be considered the greatest mistake in the history of mankind. As the shuttle was exploring the asteroid, the shuttle's crew made a few circles around to observe it and then set out to explore it personally with some jetpacks. The crew discovered an underground cave filled with machines that appeared to be on non-Sirian origin. After significant amount of analysis, it later turned out that the asteroids had been placed there by Mental. As a precaution, the latter set up an automated system in place to warn him if any intelligent life reappears too quickly. The asteroids were connected in a lock-out network of radio signals, which made an astromonical sized alarm device that detected anything that could pass through. It appeared that the shuttle's circling was enough to trigger the mechanism and Mental was now active again, one hundred thousand years too early, of course.

The aftermath of awakening Tah-Um from his dormancy was perhaps the biggest mistake ever made by mankind. Although everybody was more or less sure that the conflict was inevitable this way or another, captain Sam Stone, just as most of the others from the crew of the unfortunate Surveyor, kept blaming himself for the mistake of triggering the ancient mechanism. Stone just could not forgive himself. He joined the Earth Defense Force to atone for what he had done, awakening Mental, and dooming humanity to extinction.

After the team and Stone awakened Mental from his dormancy, this caused public outroar back on Earth. Sam and the team were accused of misconduct for inadvertently awakening Mental, but Lieutenant General Howard Brand of the Earth Defense Force rushed to Stone and the crew, and strongly defended them, commenting that Stone "was just following orders". Public opinion was divided; some people blamed Stone and the crew for awakening Mental, while others demanded the immediate seizure of all NWOC property, as they blamed th corporation for "greedily perverting the greatest undertaking in human history" and ignoring the warnings about Mental left behind by the Sirians in their ancient texts.

Appearances

Serious Sam 4

The Surveyor is mentioned in Sam's NETRICSA description under the "Dossiers" tab.

A ship, assumed to be the Surveyor, is seen piloted by Sam during his tranquilzer trip as he is been transported to Howard Brand's transport plane.

Serious Sam: Siberian Mayhem

The ship is mentioned in an excerpt from a newspaper article that can be found in the campaign. The article mentions the incident about Sam and the Surveyor crew awakening Mental and the aftermath of what had transpired.

List of appearances

• Serious Sam 4 (Mentioned only)
• Serious Sam: Siberian Mayhem (Mentioned only)