12hr Game Story

[Cyrien]

(Special note. For close or same room communications I am using standard "text" to denote communication. For distant interplanetary or intersystem communications I will use -*text*-. All communication is telepathic in nature but I hope it will limit confusion to delineate between local and distant communication.

2400.7

The Exploratory Team leader was eager to be away. It had been almost a half month since the tragic news of the Alteri loss of the exploratory vessel to unknown life forms. In that time their ship had traversed the final distances to their new home and had colonized this planet. The first priority had been to setup vacuum domes to prevent the deadly atmosphere that would eat away at their exoskeletons and leave them to linger in slow agonized deaths. The second order of business was this expedition.

Since the initial contact with the new life certain patterns had been detected that could be signs of this life being in other areas. This planet was one such place, and the only one readily available for exploration and probing. Their own scanners had added nothing to what the older exploration data showed. That as to be expected, as all those with the strongest gift in remote mental scanning went with the exploratory ships and the colony ships where only going where those ships had already passed through. Their scanners should not have needed to be so skilled.

This meant that only through vissiting these locations physically could any additional information be obtained. The preperations were well underway. Soon they could set out and see what was out there.

________________
A few days later.


The city was massive, impressive, technologically advanced, and like the rest of the planet very much empty of any life. The exploratory team was scattered all throughout searching, exploring, studying.

"We have something over here!"
The thought leapt out and brought the rest of the team to converge rapidly on the decayed remains of somesort of ground based platform. The most skilled of the team reached out and studied the device.
"It has an active power source still flowing through it. Most of the connectors appeared damage and it itself is badly decayed. Yet... this one device here seems to still function."

The leader of the team reached out to far distant minds more capable than his own to make decisions regarding such a find.
-*We have found an artifact but nothing else of value. I do not think there is more here, but we shall continue our search.*-

-*Salvage it. A science team will be sent to study or retrieve it. If there is no life, there should be no threat. Continue your search and studies but do not allow it to hinder colony growth.*-

The leader turned and relayed the orders.
_________________________
The Homeworld - Meeting of the Council and Grand Speaker.

"The colony has found only ruins. It would suggest that other life has been around for a great time. Time enough to grow greater than we are now and time enough to fall into memory."

"We do not know why they fell?"

"No. It is not known. The only ruins we have access to offer no clues to this."

"Then we shall proceed with caution."

"The other life that destroyed our ship... there is one that has touched their minds and understood what is there. They do not mean any great harm to us."

"What? They destroyed thousands of young lives! How could they mean no harm?!"

"They destroy hundreds of thousand of their own lives regularly. They call it 'war'. It is how they settle their disputes. They feared us when we appeared out of nothing. The one who has touched their minds says they use 'war' when they fear a thing."

"This is strange. I can not understand such things. The thoughts are not right."

"It is as you say. But the one who does understand claims we should leave them alone and they will not harm us. She says that they do not know how to traverse the warp points. They are as we were 150 years ago. Possessing the technology but not the knowledge."

The Grand Speaker considered this and spoke for the first time during this meeting.
"Then we have time enough to deal with them. Leave them to their system... for now."

The rest of the meeting was spent in the standard discussions that were necessary to run an ever growing nation spanning the stars.