The Rosetta Stone is a titanium alloy monolith standing near the Axum Observatory in the Karakorum region of Proteus. Scanning it gives your scanner the key it needs to translate the Axum logographic script, opening up every Axum-language databank entry you've collected or will collect.
What the Rosetta Stone is
The monolith is a tall, black-and-green slab built about 250 years ago from titanium alloy, using construction patterns that mimic Architect block work seen on planet 4546B. It rests on a limestone tabletop above water-carved alcoves, just outside the alien observatory that breaches the surface in Karakorum.
Each of its seven panels carries the same passage written twice, once in Architect Linear and once in Axum Radial A. Architect Linear is already known to Alterra intelligences because of prior contact on 4546B, so the bilingual layout lets your scanner cross-reference the two scripts and treat the unknown Axum glyphs as a solvable cipher.
How to reach it
Step 1: From your Lifepod, head roughly 1000m east toward the Karakorum region. A Tadpole Diver makes the trip far safer because it preserves oxygen and gives you a quick escape from Leviathan-class predators along the way.
Step 2: Hug the sea floor as you approach the Zezura Desert stretch. Staying low reduces your visibility to large hostile fauna patrolling above.
Step 3: Once the Axum Observatory tower comes into view, breaching the surface, swim toward its base. The Rosetta Stone is a short distance away, resting on a flat limestone shelf and clearly marked by its alien inscriptions.
Step 4: Equip your Scanner and scan the monolith. The initial scan logs it as an artificial structure with two scripts; the full scan completes the Rosetta Stone story goal and POI investigation.
What scanning unlocks
Once the monolith is fully scanned, three things happen at the same time. The translation effect is retroactive, so any Axum text you previously photographed or logged becomes legible without revisiting it.
- The Axum Glyph databank entry is added.
- All 85 Axum logograms become translatable.
- The Rosetta Stone story goal closes, and the POI is marked investigated.
The seven inscriptions
Each panel pairs a sequence of Axum glyphs with its Architect Linear equivalent. Together they introduce the Axum as a species, identify the planet as Proteus, point you toward the observatory, and teach the language through a familiar mathematical anchor: prime numbers.
| Panel | Decoded message |
|---|---|
| We call you Architects | We call you Architects. We call ourselves Axum. This world is Proteus. |
| We beg your pardon | We beg your pardon. We called to you for help. We know it is your delight to visit and study. |
| This observatory will survive | We believe this observatory will survive our drowning. We chose it to hold our message. |
| Open the observatory | Open the observatory. Find the computer hidden inside. It will tell you what we ask. |
| Soteria quote | "If you become weak, seek remedy in strangeness." Soteria. |
| Prime numbers | 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31 |
| Language teaching | This message is the same in your language and ours. The purpose is to teach you our language. |
The prime number panel includes 1, which modern mathematics no longer treats as prime. The inclusion is consistent with older human conventions and is plausible for an alien numbering system, so it isn't an error so much as a different definition.
How it fits into Karakorum progression
The Rosetta Stone is one of several interlinked points of interest clustered around the Axum Observatory. The observatory itself is sealed behind a locked Axum Door that requires an Alien Generator to power. The monolith's fourth panel explicitly directs visitors to open the observatory and find the computer inside, which frames it as the next step after translation.
Nearby you'll also find the Needler Nest, another Hot Cave with Gold and Sulfur, and a second infected Angel Comb whose cankers need a Sonic Resonator to clear. Celestine is the notable resource in the surrounding biome.
Why the monolith exists in the fiction
The Axum left the stone as a deliberate message to Architect visitors. The bilingual format is a teaching tool: by anchoring unknown glyphs to a script the Architects already understand, the Axum guaranteed that any Architect-aligned intelligence arriving later, including Alterra's, could decode their writing without a living translator.
The full scan also flags a practical warning. Because the monolith targets Architect readers, the databank conclusion advises staying alert for signs of Architect activity in the area, including robotic constructs and traces of kharaa bacterium.