The Engine

The Engine is a Black Orb that floats in space between the stars somewhere within Confederacy space. The Lanaktallan's 271st Task Force encountered The Engine while on their mission of subjugation, The Engine seems to have been able to cause gravity shadows to force ships to drop out of Jumpspace, the 271st Task Force consisted of 600 ships. It seems after removing the Task Force from Jumpspace The Engine proceeded to take control of their ships and scan all their databases and take full control of the ships. The Engine when it spoke to the Most High Untara'a, appeared on the main display screen as a dot of bluish white light that proceeded to pulse getting bigger with each pulse, until suddenly flashing rapidly and transforming into a face made of bluish white code. It's appearance was hard edged, with two eyes of bright blue while the edges of the face where chrome and sharp looking.

While The Engine was conversing with the Most High it spoke in perfect Lanaktallan without moving its mouth, it informed the crew that it was examining and assimilating their culture and warned them against fleeing. After successfully identifying their species and that they were a species that is hostile and in service to a government hostile to The Engine, it informed them that they were slated for termination. The Engine gave each ship one chance to plea for survival. Afterwards The Engine dismissed the plea made by the Most High and combined with all the evidence of genetic and biological warfare technology upon the ships The Engine informed them they had sixty seconds to perform their species death rites if any. The Engine then left them sitting there in dead ships, after venting the atmosphere from all ships.

The Engine then proceeded to resume his duty of monitoring Jumpspace in a 500 light year span around himself.

The Engine was encountered by Admiral Jeff Picark 8873 and the crew of the Dakota, who managed to interface with it and download invaluable information regarding Precursor war machine types as well as data on the Lanaktallan battle groups.

The Admiral and his crew discussed shutting The Engine down according to Event rules but his Riker and Guinan both agreed that leaving The Engine in place might be the best course of action.

His Scotty and LaForge made some modifications to its GameShark Codes to allow for remote shut down, although the Admiral felt that this was unlikely to work.

There has only been one other mention of The Engine and it was by the Mantid Gestalt when describing a nightmare that she keeps having.

Origin
The Engine was created by the United Federation of Planets, Star Trek LARP Guild some 4000 years ago as a "V'ger Cloud" for their "Troubles of Stardates Past" Event. It was programmed to protect a 500 Light Year bubble around itself and was placed on the edge of the Long Dark. It was never encountered by the LARPers and has carried out self-modification in accordance with its original programming.

Mentions of The Engine
The Engine is first mentioned in Chapter 137

The Engine is mentioned again in Chapter 211 Interlude

The origin of The Engine is covered in Chapter 462