Marker 2A

Marker 2A was one of the first artificial Red Markers, built in secret by the Sovereign Colonies on the remote planet of Aspera. It was created from the same research that produced the other reverse-engineered Markers, and like them it carried a signal that turned the people around it murderous and insane. On Aspera that signal found a catalyst in the convict Istvan Sato, and the experiment ended in a Necromorph outbreak that wiped out both the research station and the penal colony it had been built beside.

Origin#

In the decades after the Black Marker was unearthed on Earth in 2214, the Sovereign Colonies government studied its structure in the hope of using it to solve humanity's resource crisis by unlocking a source of renewable energy. Eighty years after the artifact was first exhumed, it was successfully reverse-engineered, and at least three copies were produced. These replicas were sent to three remote planets: Aspera, Kreemar, and Aegis VII. The copy delivered to Aspera was designated Marker 2A.

Aspera was selected for two reasons. It was distant enough to keep the work hidden, and it already held a penal colony whose inmates could be used as test subjects if the research demanded it. The team assigned to Marker 2A was led by the doctors Enoch Briden and Callie Dexter, the former a member of the Church of Unitology, as were several of the project's scientists.

The Aspera outbreak#

As Marker 2A was completed and began transmitting, the prisoners of the penal colony felt its effects. They grew erratic and slowly lost their minds. One recent arrival, Istvan Sato, began to see hallucinations of people he had known, including his dead mother and a deceased politician who spoke to him of a "marvelous Convergence" and urged him to "find" them. In time the signals of Marker 2A, the Kreemar Marker, and the Aegis VII Marker converged on the colony, telling the scientists that something important to the Red Markers lay there. Dr. Briden's team determined that Istvan himself was the focus of the signals.

Brought before the artifact, Istvan was enveloped by it, his mind filled with what felt like liquid fire, and he collapsed as the Marker released a burst of energy. By reading his brain waves the team concluded that the Marker's signal was adapting to his mind and his to it, and that his mere presence strengthened the transmission. Istvan refused to leave the Marker's side, speaking with it through the apparitions of the dead, who instructed him to carry its blueprints and spread its replicas to other worlds so they might be made "whole again." He agreed to remain until it had taught him all he needed to know.

The hallucinations finally told Istvan to stay beside the Marker so it could protect him from what came next. The artifact then released a burst of energy and began a Necromorph outbreak on Aspera, while identical outbreaks erupted around the Markers on Kreemar and Aegis VII. Istvan survived within the dead space at the Marker's foot while the Necromorphs killed everyone else in the facility and the colony. His brother Jensi reached the chamber intending to free him, but the Marker drove Istvan to attack him. When Istvan came to his senses, he killed Briden with his bare hands, having realized the scientist had only ever valued him as a key to the Marker. Still in the artifact's grip, he asked Jensi to join him in using the Marker to raise the dead as servants. Horrified, Jensi shot his brother in the head. Istvan then appeared to him as a hallucination and compelled him to turn the weapon on himself.

Cover-up#

It is unclear whether anyone survived the Aspera outbreak. Before leaving, a Sovereign Colonies gunship under Commander Grottor deployed several mines in orbit around the planet. Aspera was ultimately blacklisted during the execution of Scenario Five, the operation undertaken to leave no evidence of the experiments performed on the Markers.