Project Sunlight
Sarna News
Project SUNLIGHT was a joint ComStar–Republic of the Sphere investigation focused around HPGs, founded by Tucker Harwell.
Contents
History
After Gray Monday, almost all HPGs, which allow faster-than-light communication, were burned out by a virus or destroyed by direct attacks; only some older generators remained operational. Most of the Inner Sphere fall into chaos and wars erupted across the Sphere. The last operational ones became priority targets for the warring factions.
ComStar attempts to repair or rebuild the HPGs failed; any core burned out barely seconds after being turn on. In 3135, some hope appeared when technician Tucker Harwell managed to reactivate Wyatt's HPG.[1]
However, a second repair on Millungera didn't last. There were so many factions wanting to reactivate the HPGs that Tucker's success made him a target for Republic forces, the Spirit Cats, Bannson's Raiders and the reborn Com Guards, who finally seized his team. However, Harwell failed to repeat success with the Wyatt facility.
The Republic created Sunlight to uncover the cause of the blackout and reactivate the HPGs. They focused their work on Northwind because that HPG, older than others, initially went dark but later inexplicably began transmitting again.[2]
This made the planet a target, and a three-sided battle erupted around the HPG complex between the Northwind Highlanders, the Draconis Combine and the Capellan Confederation, forcing the defenders to blow up the HPG to drive both invaders offworld. However, they kept the underground part of the HPG intact, and it remained critical to Sunlight's research.[3]
In the end, Sunlight was described as a doomed effort. However, Clan Sea Fox, using a markedly different line of research, managed to find an undisclosed solution, and in 3152, they managed to restore the Alyina HPG and began building new ones, immune to whatever caused the blackout – the first was on Twycross – while they replaced ComStar as the controllers of interstellar communications.[4]
Notes
The virus that shut down the HPG appears to be Clarion Note, a Devlin Stone secret project, but he claims he didn't activate it.[5]