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Tootplanet: Explorers’ Logs Planet 7-23-3

Mar19

Explorer Log 7-23-3

The first thing we did on landing was set up a null-charge shield around our living pods.  The lightning storms – “dry lightning”, my granny would say – come down so frequently it was three days before we saw the sun.

Flora and fauna here seem adapted to the storms. Either they have channels for the electricity or they’ve learned to hide from it.

I tell you, a thing that looks like a giant moose with electricity arcing from its antlers is a terrifying sight.

But the mountain cat leaping into the storm was even worse.

We haven’t lost anyone yet, mostly due to an abundance of caution.  I’m not sure how long we’ll be able to say that.

Planetary Date 109

We have figured out the trick.

We nearly lost Ewro and Tagked, but we figured it out.

There’s a combination of trees and a certain element that completely repels the lightning.

And certain vines are lousy with that element.

We’re now living in a clearing in the forest under a very nice net-and-canopy that keeps us safe.

And we’re herding Giant Moose and Red Pigs, which are neither really red nor really pigs.

This might work out.

Tootplanet: Captain’s Log Sector 7, Subector 23

Mar19

Star Log, Sec. 7, Sub 23-1

The galaxy is full of surprises.

This planet is very nearly lifeless – scant vegetation, only a few lifeforms, most of the water heavily salinated, burning sun.  Humans COULD live there, but only as a last resort.

Yet our first probe found life and civilization.

Not a lot – and it turns out not CONSTANT civilization.  No, this place boasts an impressive natural cave system, and in there it turns out there’s a vast smugglers’ hideout.

We left a sneak-probe and took some notes.

Star Log, Sec. 7, Sub 23-2

I’m starting to think some other civilization is using Subsector 23 as a dump.

Ok, that’s not the weirdest part of 7-23-2.  The weirdest part is that the dump – decommissioned ships, from the looks of it, gunners and cargo ships – is set up like we’d set up something with no breathable atmosphere. Double airlock on a dome near the landing bay, a deep underground facility staffed by five life-signs.

Yet the air here is perfect for human life and on the other side of the plant, away from the desert and the dump, is lush, green terrain.

What DO these aliens breathe?

Star Log, Sec. 7, Sub 23-3

The lightning storms!  The wild lightning arcing across the northern hemisphere of this planet! It’s beautiful, albeit deadly.  

But the southern hemisphere is just as rich in metal as the northern, and there are wide grasslands and hilly regions between the mountains. The soil might be shallow; there’s metal close to the surface everywhere.  But very large herbivores and rather large carnivores roam the surface, even in the north. This planet can sustain life.

We sent a team to see just how MUCH life.

Star Log, Sec. 7, Sub 23

This last star system on the edge of the sector might explain much about the entire sector.

We found a dead planet covered in ruins first, and then a planet almost suitable for humanoid life – covered in far newer ruins.  Its satellites – three – were covered in the detritus of what looked liked several wars.

On the far side of the last satellite, we found a small grouping of aliens still alive.  We sent down a greeting probe and, with it, a query: Did they need aid or rescue?

They shot a rocket at our ship and nearly managed to hit us.

7.23.3

Tootplanet: Captain’s Log Sector 7, Subector 22

Mar13

Star Log, Sec. 7, Sub 22-1

This planet is one where we almost screwed up.

It’s a very nice planet, although it has only scattered landmasses, most of them only a few km-sq. On the land, there is not a single sign of civilization.

On the above-water land.

Once we sent probes beneath the surface, we found a drowned civilization that, rather than actually drowning, had begun to thrive under water.

Signs show that the water is retreating again.  I wonder what will happen to the water-people now?

We left them a polite note. I felt a bit guilty about almost invading them accidentally.

Star Log, Sec. 7, Sub 22-2

Even if we could breathe the atmosphere on this planet, I’m not sure we’d want to colonize it.

We can’t: low O2 & high argon & CO make it uninhabitable.

But that was obvious already from the HUGE SWARMS OF INSECTS swarming over more than half the planet’s surface.

I went into space for a reason. There are no bugs in space.

We think they’re non-sentient.  We sent several probes and sample-collectors on the theory that the place might have something we could use.

I spent an hour in the shower afterwards.

Star Log, Sec. 7, Sub 22-3

This planet was just barely within the livable range of its sun, and if we were to colonize it, it would have to be with Alaskans, Scandinavians, and Russians.

There IS a narrow band of warmth around the equator, and it looks as if it stays clear for three-quarters of the year, but the rest of the planet – a small one, on the scale of livable bodies – is covered in snow and ice.

There is animal life here but, unsurprisingly, no visible civilization.

We left probes as a just-in-case.

Star Log, Sec. 7, Sub 22-4

Sometimes I’m just glad we can’t colonize a place for solid, scientific reasons.  This planet is one of those.

The water is low across large portions of the planet, with only a few deeps and a few rises – none high enough to be called mountains.

The tidal pull of its single moon and the shallow water means that much of the planet is a tidal mudflat, filled with insects.

The CO2-based atmosphere is un-breathable, even if one wanted to squelch around in the mud.

Tootplanet: Explorers’ Log Planet 7-20-1-β

Mar9

Explorer Log 7-20-1-β

Planetary Day 100 

The science log can tell you anything you absolutely have to know about the last 100 days.

I have an apartment, of sorts, in the second tallest building.  I have to climb 109 stairs every time I want to get to it, after a ladder.  A hexagonal ladder.

It’s worth it.

We’re pretty sure what got the Hexagonals now. It hasn’t gotten any of us, but there were a couple close calls.

On a clear day, you know, I can almost see the people on the other moon.

Tootplanet: Captain’s Log Sector 7, Subector 21

Mar9

Star Log, Sec. 7, Sub 21-1

This planet looks as if it was habitable – and habitated! – at some point.  Vast structures stand empty on the highest points, while much of the rest of the planet is covered with a rust-red scum.

Three small areas still looked livable, and on two of those, we found much smaller civilization-signs – tiny buildings and green-stone roads.  We sent down a couple cautious probes. There is insufficient land for a colony, but we might be able to learn what happened here.

Star Log, Sec. 7, Sub 21-2

After a certain point, you learn to recognize the look of a colony settled from another planet.  You end up with a high-tech grouping in a small area.

This is the first such we’ve seen on this circuit, and to be honest, although it fits in our qualifications, these colonists are welcome to it. The land is half desert, half ocean, with a cold tundra in the middle riddled with rivers. Humanoids could live there – but the six-limbed creatures who are farming it seem to thrive.

I wonder, though, where the rest of their species is.  I don’t see any base of production for those plows or the plascrete buildings.

Star Log, Sec. 7, Sub 21-3

This planet was one of those “If we didn’t know it was inhabited, we’d never believe it” sorts.  

Initial scans show a swampy, wet planet, with no real oceans but several inland seas and a great deal of murky swampland & dark, damp forests.  They also showed very few heat signatures and almost nothing in the way of construction.

Our first probes, on the other hand, showed a large and sprawling population of damp, green, cold-blooded people living in short, mostly-buried buildings in and around the swamps.

We sent a polite greeting, but not before they had sent one to us.

 

Tootplanet: Explorers’ Logs Planet 7-20-1-β

Feb28

Explorer Log 7-20-1-β

We set down in a large clearing between several tall buildings & ended up making base camp in the tallest still-standing tower.

The buildings are strange to us – everything in hexagons, including the doors and the roofs – and the ceilings either far too low or far too high, but the winters appear to be cold here & we’ll be grateful for the shelter from the winds.

Meilos has started in on the language & Nepsi is working on xenoanthropology while the rest of us see if the place is long-term habitable.

Meanwhile, we hope what got the Hexigonals doesn’t get us.

 

Tootplanet: Captain’s Log Sector 7, Subector 20

Feb28

Star Log, Sec. 7, Sub 20-1

The planet here is not the interesting part.  That is: the planet is a gas giant.  There may be life on it, but nothing that we could detect.

On the other hand, three of the moons showed signs of old, dead civilizations, with one of those showing signs, too, of a newer, more compact society, and a fourth (of eight) moons appeared to have a tidy and thriving society living across three craters.

We sent greeting probes to the active societies and a team to the larger of the ruins.

Star Log, Sec. 7, Sub 20-2

This planet had so little green that at first we passed it by but, thinking of some of the earlier planets which had proven habitable, we searched it a little more deeply.

From space, it looks to be mainly gold and orange and brownish-grey, but the swirls of orange were revealed to be something like a cloud; much of the rest is giant fungi and a sort of water-based fungi island.

We send down several probes, but detected no intelligent life.  Still, we did not send down a team.  It didn’t seem kind.

 

7.20.1

 

 

Tootplanet: Explorers’ Logs Planet 7-19-2

Feb22

Explorer Log 7-19-2

We landed on an area covered in the shortest flowers possible.  We’ve already nicknamed the planet Flora, even though Gerj has been pointing out that just means “plants” to anyone who listens.

The question we’ve got is, if there’s all this flora (you’re welcome, Gerj), where are the fauna?

We’ve found some insects – nothing that seems to like the taste of us, but one that gets in your face like nothing & another that stings – but nothing bigger than that, yet.

If there’s no animals on this planet, it’s going to be a long five years.

Planetary D21

We found animals!

The problem was, we’d thought they were flowers at first.

They are small, no bigger than the palm of my hand, and they are covered in fur whose patterns match the flowers they live in.

With that in mind, we’re going to do a more thorough exploration for fauna.

I’m a little bit worried what we might find right under our feet, to be honest.

Planetary D121

After observation that consisted of sitting very, very still for many hours, we’ve been able to identify five animal species.

Three of them have egg-based birth, one live birth, and one is something similar to a marsupial.

None of them appear to be flight-capable, although three live in the tree-flowers. None are bigger than my two hands together.

And one, a ground-dweller, makes the most lovely songs when it thinks it is alone.

I love this planet.

 

 

Tootplanet: Captain’s Log Sector 7, Subector 19

Feb22

Star Log, Sec. 7, Sub 19-1

There were theories that the farther from Earth we went in any given section, the less likely we’d be to find habitable life.

Those theories aren’t holding true.

This planet would be warm for most humans, but were it not already inhabited by a lizard-like race of bipeds, it would be a very nice place to settle.

Their technology is fast approaching space-faring.  We sent down a greeting probe and took quite a few recordings of their transmissions.

It appears, if translations are correct, that they enjoy soap operas.

Star Log, Sec. 7, Sub 19

I didn’t want to send down a team to this planet.

It’s not like me to let aesthetics get in the way of the mission, but this planet is lovely.

Flowers cover almost every cm of the surface – water flowers, land flowers, even what looks like flowered ground cover on the mountains.  They sway in meadows and make thick, flowered forest-like copses.

We did send down a team, with a suggestion to tread very carefully and, perhaps, bring the boss a bouquet on retrieval.

Star Log, Sec. 7, Sub 19

We thought our lenses were broken when we first looked at this planet.

There are several civilizations growing up on this large planet – on the high side of what we’d consider livable – but I doubt they’ve encountered each other yet.

There is, among other things, a hundred-mile forest and a mountain range separating the two closest.

The trees are only 2m at the highest, and the sentient lifeforms range from 15-30cm.

We could settle on an empty continent, feel like giants against their fauna & flora, & never see the natives.

We moved on instead.

7.19.2

 

 

Tootplanet: Explorers’ Logs Planet 7-18-2

Feb18

Explorer Log Planet 7-18-2

We went down loaded for bear and packed up for mid-winter.

What we found wasn’t nearly as cold as we expected – not by almost 5 degrees C – and was very occupied with pleasant animal life. Small things, fluffy, sweet-looking.

Of course, we’re so close to the pole and so close to “summer” here that we’re in a period of long days and long nights.  And the sun just set.

Those fluffy creatures don’t look so friendly in the twilight, let me tell you.  And I’m wondering if we prepared quite well enough.