Star Log, Sec. 7, Sub. 14
We came out of superspace almost in front of this planet, and from the looks of it, we were not the only ones who had. Circling the planet, we counted at least ten landing stations, flying all sorts of colors, in all sorts of styles. None looked like Home, but several looked like we could probably fit in with minimal effort.
We made a note to visit on the way back. Sailors always enjoy a bit of shore leave, after all.
Star Log, Sec. 7, Sub. 14
We explored more of this subsection than originally planned: it was surprising to find so many uninhabited planets so close to Spaceport-planet. Or maybe not: nobody wants the campsite next to the bathroom.
3 daysā travel from Spaceport, we found a small, habitable planet. By small I mean tiny, approaching Little Prince status.
We sent down aā¦small team. If they have not explored the entire planet by the time we return, I will be surprised.
#tootplanet
Explorer Log Planet 7-14-2
Landmasses here are small, reasonably: the planet is small. By all rights, it shouldnāt have a breathable atmosphere, but it does & weāll take that.
We landed on a continent that is ~20 sq. mi. in a rough comma shape & in five days have explored much of it. Itās separated at the tip-by a channel we can almost jump across-to another landmass of similar size. Thereās even a lake ~ 1 acre large.
I keep expecting to discover this is a prank.
Star Log, Sec. 7, Sub 17
This planet looks so much like Earth from a distance that I checked all our readings 3 times.
Indeed, it is inhabited-the continent we had to keep resisting calling Africa shows signs of dense population & industry, as does all of the southern hemisphere.
We caught a few video transmissions, & they seem remarkably humanoid, although with little-to-no cold tolerance.
We sent 3 polite greeting probes & took more photos than strictly necessary.
#tootplanet
Star Log, Sec. 7, Sub 17
On the far side of Sub17 we found a smallish planet teeming with life and sparkling with silver speckles.
The mountains, the water, even the animals seemed to glitter, and much of the plant life is a gilvery-drey.
There were more animals on this planet than we had ever seen in one place, but no signs of civilization.
We sent down a team with a well-armored settlement pod. Some of those animals were definitely carnivores.
Star Log, Sec. 7, Sub 18
This planet is larger than Earth but not amazingly so & dryer than Earth but not horribly so.
What is really notable is how FLAT it is, w/ only a small amount of variation between the high & low spots, & how QUIET it is. There is little axial tilt, but enough to make it homelike; the tides ride far up on the beaches.
There is civilization here, thoā they appear to live in low buildings made mostly of wood. Stone & metal appear in short supply.
Star Log, Sec. 7, Sub 18
We were uncertain at 1st glance if this planet could sustain life. Its land masses are almost all at its poles with only a scattering of small islands like a crooked dotted line between them. But the southern continent-almost as large as Africa, if rounder-has greenery & what appears to be some sort of animal life.
We were reluctant to send down a team, but w/ readings that good, it was hard to resist. A small colony might be very happy here.
Star Log, Sec. 7, Sub 18
This planet is lightly inhabited-the equivalent of early Iron-age technology. We wonāt bother them, tho we will note to visit every 100 yrs.
The strange thing here: continents & landmasses are bilaterally symmetrical; seas could be drawn with a compass, mountains with a ruler. But their buildings, structures, even their roads are defiantly asymmetrical.
We would blame it on some trend, but even the ruins weāve seen share the same lopsided style.
#tootplanet
Star Log, Sec. 7, Sub 19
There were theories that the farther from Earth we went, the less likely weād be to find habitable life. Theyāre not holding true.
This planet would be warm for most humans, but were it not already inhabited by lizard-like bipeds, it would be a nice place to settle.
Their tech is fast approaching space-faring. We sent down a greeting probe & took recordings of their transmissions.
If translations are correct, they enjoy soap operas.
Star Log, Sec. 7, Sub 19
I didnāt want to send a team down here.
Itās not like me to let aesthetics get in the way of the mission, but this place 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 & make thick, flowered forest-like copses.
We did send a team, w/ 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 here-itās on the high side of whatās considered livable-probably unaware of each other.
Among other things, a hundred-mile forest and a mountain range separate the 2 closest. The trees are only 2m at highest & the sentient lifeforms range from 15-30cm.
We could feel like giants against their fauna & flora.
We moved on instead.
Star Log, Sec. 7, Sub 20
This planet isnāt interesting. That is: the planet is a gas giant; there may be life on it, but not that we could detect.
On the other hand, 3 of the moons showed signs of old, dead civilizations, with one of those showing signs, too, of a newer, more compact society, and a 4th (of 8) moons appeared to have a tidy & thriving society living across three craters.
We sent greeting probes to the active societies & a team to the larger of the ruins.
#tootplanet
Star Log, Sec. 7, Sub 20
This planet had so little green that at first we passed it by but, after some of the earlier planets which proved habitable, we searched it more deeply.
From space, it looks mainly gold, orange & brown, but the swirls of orange were revealed to be cloudlike; much of the rest is giant fungi & 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 didnāt seem kind.
#tootplanet
Star Log, Sec. 7, Sub 21
This planet looks as if it was habitable-& inhabited!-at some point. Vast structures stand empty on the highest points, while much of the rest of the planet is covered with rust-red scum.
3 small areas still looked livable, & on 2 of those, we found much smaller civilization-signs-tiny buildings & 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
After a certain point, you learn to recognize the look of a colony settled from another planet: high-tech groupings in small areas.
This is the 1st such weāve seen on this circuit, and to be honest, although it fits in our criteria, 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 6-limbed creatures farming it seem to thrive.
#tootplanet 1/2
Star Log, Sec. 7, Sub 21
This planet is an āIf we didnāt know it was inhabited, weād never believe itā sort.
Initial scans show a swampy, wet planet, w/ no real oceans but several inland seas & a lot of murky swampland & dark, damp forests. They also show very few heat signatures & almost no construction.
Our first probes, however, showed a large, sprawling population of damp, green, cold-blooded people living in short, mostly-buried buildings in & around swamps.
Star Log, Sec. 7, Sub 22
We almost screwed up on this planet.
Itās a very nice planet, thoā it has only scattered landmasses, most of them only a few km-sq. On land, there is not a single sign of civilization.
On the above-water land.
We sent probes beneath the surface. We found a drowned civilization that, rather than actually drowning, had thrived under water.
Signs show that the water is retreating again. I wonder what will happen to the water-people?
Star Log, Sec. 7, Sub 22
Even if we could breathe the atmosphere here, I wouldnāt want to colonize it.
We canāt: low O2 & high argon & CO make it uninhabitable.
But that was obvious from the HUGE SWARMS OF INSECTS swarming over more than 1/2 the planetās surface.
I went into space for a reason. There are no bugs in space.
We think theyāre non-sentient. We sent several probes and sample-collectors in case the place has something useful.
Then I spent an hour showering.
Star Log, Sec. 7, Sub 22
This planet was just barely within the livable range of its sun & if we were to colonize it, it would have to be with Alaskans, Scandinavians, & Russians.
There IS a narrow warm band around the equator & it looks as if it stays clear for 3/4 the year, but the rest of the planet-a small one, on the scale of livable bodies-is covered in snow & ice.
There is animal life here but, unsurprisingly, no visible civilization.
We left just-in-case probes.
#tootplanet
Star Log, Sec. 7, Sub 22
Sometimes Iām glad we canāt colonize a place for solid, scientific reasons. This planet is 1 of those.
The water is low across large portions of the planet, w/ only a few deeps & a few rises-none high enough to be called mountains.
The tidal pull of its single moon & 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.
Star Log, Sec. 7, Sub 23
The galaxy is full of surprises.
This planet is nearly lifeless-scant vegetation, only a few lifeforms, most water heavily salinated, burning sun. Humans COULD live there, but only as a last resort.
Yet our 1st probe found life & civilization.
Not a lot-& it turns out not CONSTANT civilization. No, this place boasts an impressive natural cave system & in there thereās a vast smugglersā hideout.
We left a sneak-probe and took some notes.
Star Log, Sec. 7, Sub 23
Iām starting to think some other civilization is using Subsector 23 as a dump.
Ok, thatās 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 weād 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.
( #tootplanet #tootfic 1/2~)
(#Tootplanet #tootfict 2/2~)
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
Lightning storms! Wild lightning arcing across the northern hemisphere of this planet! Itās beautiful, albeit deadly.
But the southern hemisphere is just as rich in metal as the north & there are wide grasslands & hilly regions between the mountains. The soil might be shallow; thereās metal close to the surface everywhere. But very large herbivores & rather large carnivores roam the surface, even in the north. This planet can sustain life.
My #tootplanet #tootfic (#MastoArt) follows an exploration team as they look for places to colonize - and often find other races already there.
The Explorer Logs show stories of the landing teams, and the āanother viewpointā pieces show the exploration ship from the viewpoint of extant alien populations.
@watahbufala *preens* thank you very much!
Itās certainly more of a possibility here than on birdsite.
Explorer Log 7-20-1-Ī²
We made base camp in the tallest still-sound tower.
The buildings are strange to us- everything hexagons, including the doors & roofs-& the ceilings either far too low or far too high, but the winters are cold here & weāll 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 and hope what got the Hexis doesnāt get us.
Explorer Log 7-19-2
We landed on the shortest flowers possible. Weāve already nicknamed the planet Flora, even though Gerj keeps pointing out it just means āplantsā.
The question is: thereās all this flora (youāre welcome, Gerj), where are the fauna? Weāve found some insects-nothing that seems to like the taste of us, but 1 that swarms & another that stings - but nothing bigger than that, yet.
If thereās no animals on this planet, itās going to be a long 5 years.
Explorer Log 7-19-2
Planetary D21
We found animals!
The problem was, weād 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, weāre going to do a more thorough exploration for fauna.
Iām a little bit worried what we might find right under our feet, to be honest.
Explorer Log Planet 7-18-2
We landed loaded for bear & packed for mid-winter. What we found wasnāt nearly as cold as we expected-not by ~5Ā°C- & was occupied w/ pleasant animal life. Small things, fluffy, sweet-looking.
Of course, weāre so close to the pole & to āsummerā here that weāre in a period of long days & long nights. And the sun just set.
Those fluffy creatures donāt look so friendly in the twilight. And Iām wondering if we prepared quite well enough.
Explorer Log Planet 7-17-2
The glitter, it turns out, is biological.
We landed, & everything was fine for the first 2 days. We noticed no dangers in the air, nothing on the surface or the rainwater that would cause us issues.
We sent Spifio out as our canary, and after two days he was glittering.
The thing is, thereās nothing wrong with Spif yet, not as far as we can tell, except the glitter. And the way words seem to glitter in the air when Spif speaks.
So far, our filters are holding out. Weāre giving Spif a week to see what happens with the glitter.
If only Spif didnāt SPARKLE so much when we said he had to stay outside.
Explorer Log Planet 7-17-2
P-D47
We all sparkle now.
After 5 days we let Spifio back into the enclosure.The only ill effect seemed to be the glitter hanging everywhere & the animals seemed much more interested in sparkling at Spif than in eating him.
Turns out the glitter has a pheromone which says āone of usā, except that thereās several different pheromone sets.
#tootplanet / #tootfic (~1/2)
#tootplanet / #tootfic (2/2~)
Good thing they sent us down with a splittable pod, because I canāt stand the sight of Spif, Lee, or Garana now and Tellie almost strangled Lee last week.
Explorer Log Planet 7-14-2
Planetary Date 26
Weāve been here nearly a month and I am fairly sure nothing is a joke.
Weāve been mapping this as seriously as if we think it will take us our entire tenure, and we continue to find interesting anomalies.
There was the chain of volcanoes, for instance.
Or the tiger-like creature that came up to our knees but was very sharp & had not one but two rows of teeth.
It might be a tiny planet, but itās still trying to kill us.
Explorer Log Planet 7-14-2
Planetary Date 92
The short days and nights on this planet are a little distressing, but it is to be expected on a planet this small.
We have cataloged no fewer than 100 species of animal and 50 plants, although many of them are variations on themes.
The pocket tiger has a cousin, a pocket wolf. This one is even more violent, albeit smaller.
And did I mention the hawks?
(~1/2)
#tootplanet
#tootfic
#tootfic
#tootplanet
(2/2~)
These things are like rocs to this planet, despite being only a little larger than an Earth eagle.
Our habitation is steel-reinforced and cement-roofed. Iām still worried about the two pregnant women. Around here, the birds might really steal the baby.
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Lyn Thorne-Alder š
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