Vector Catastrophe

"There must think there's something wrong with our navigation systems. It's saying that Vector's right in front of us. But, that can't be it... right?" - from the log of the ship Torias (42 SE) Vector was a planet in the Proxima Centauri system and was the first planet colonized from Earth. By the time of the Vector Catastrophe, it had a population of well over 20 million. While the exact catalyst of the Vector Catastrophe is still unknown, its effects on the Conduit were massive and still continue to this day.

Communications Blackout
On 1-1-1 : Y.42(2), all communications with the planet Vector suddenly ceased. Due to the lack of FTL travel, there was no way to find out quickly what happened. Luckily the trading ship Torias was only a few months from the system.

The Surface of Vector
As Torias entered the Proxima Centauri system, it found the planet Vector in a state of complete ruin. Long distance sensor data showed that what had once been a lush green world home to millions had been utterly ravaged.

The most common theory was that nuclear war had somehow broken out on the planet. What the crew of Torias discovered on the surface of Vector however, seemed entirely unbelievable. Gone were the massive Earth-like oceans and lush ecosystems. Where the oceans had been were massive dry basins and where forests had once stood were vast swathes of blasted rock. Additional observations revealed that the planet's topography had been entirely altered, with the land level dropping at least several meters at every place that was checked. Most extremely, all of the planet's mountains had been reduced to nothing. This destroyed land hadn't simply been moved to another place on the world, later measurements showed that the planet's mass had decreased by a small, but significant amount.

It was clear that this this was not the result of nuclear weapons, but no known Earth technology had even close to this level of destructive potential. Fear quickly spread that this was the start of some form of alien attack.

The Destruction of Vector's Star
The Torias continued to observe the planet for several more months. As time went on, unbelievably Vector continued to shrink. Measurements showed as if the matter was simply vanishing into thin air. There was never any rubble and the massive amounts of energy that would have been released if the matter was being converted into energy was never detected, the world was simply dissolving into nothingness.

The phenomenon began to affect the other planets in the system as well and, on 4.8.42(2), the system's star began emitting massive solar flares. Fearing the destruction that would occur if the star was slowly dissolving like the planets, the captain of the Torias made the decision to evacuate the system.

Several hours after their evacuation request was received on Earth, communication with the ship was lost. The following day, the ship's communicators connected to the Conduit hub on Earth, but no message was received. Several minutes later, the connection dropped for the final time.

The next ship that was able to reach the system didn't arrive until 44(2) and found that the entire system had vanished. There was no trace of the star, the planets, or even of any asteroids.

No further information has ever been discovered about what happened to the system.