Star Log Sec8 Sub2-1

This planet is incredibly pastoral-seeming for one which appears to be on the cusp of space flight.

We could not locate its factories at first, because they were all under a thick mound of dirt and foliage.  We could not find its population centers for a similar reason – trees, which a further probe discovered were actually artificial constructs  – reach up taller than their highest skyscrapers.

There are pockets of more standard-looking industrialization across the planet, but those seem stuck in the steam era.

We picked the prettiest city and sent down a greeting probe.

Star Log Sec8 Sub2-2

This planet, at first, looked like a giant monoculture, almost one plant over the whole thing.

“This,” Erki said, “is what happens when you let morning glories go unchecked.”

I never did find out what Erki has against morning glories: Lerin found life.

Life in small nests, each under a slightly to much taller plant with a broad flower. Each nest had twenty to five hundred beings, and they seemed to communicate along root-ways.

We found radio signals and underground structures, but each being seems connected to the flower, and all the flowers seem attached.

Morning glories, indeed.