This is the list of expeditions sent into Area X by the Southern Reach for the purpose of investigating and researching. Despite their abundant number and resources, the expeditions had little success in understanding the nature of the area. They also incurred in heavy losses: most members did not return from their expeditions, and the ones who did sometimes did so with severe trauma, cancer, or other changes. Information was retrieved in form of journals, pictures, testimonies or video tapes (the latter only in early expeditions, before modern technology was banned from entering Area X). Other findings accumulated under a trapdoor in the Lighthouse or discarded or lost.
Despite its name, as of the "Twelfth" expedition, there had actually been 38[1]. The purpose of this naming convention was two-fold: On one hand, it indicated that the different expeditions named similarly had common characteristics (for example, all "Eleventh" expeditions were composed of fully male teams[1]). On the other, it allowed the Southern Reach to keep track of the expeditions without communicating the extent of their failure and losses to potential volunteers. The real number was also kept from confirmed expedition members.
List[]
- Rabbit border experiment
- First expedition
- Second expedition
- Third expedition
- Fourth expedition
- Fifth expedition (7 missions)
- Sixth expedition
- Seventh expedition
- Eighth expedition
- Ninth expedition
- Tenth expedition (at least 3 missions)
- Eleventh expedition (11 missions)
- Twelfth expedition