NationStates Jolt Archive

Edit:OOC:Although it was first part of something else, I'm now going to use this as a way to 'advance' the race, and be the first one in a small string of threads to change the Exodian Empire. I guess that makes this kind of closed and stuff...:OOC

IC:
After a day of preparations, two Exodian colonization ships were sent out towards the Frozopian discovery. Two small colonies were to be set up far away from the Frozopian one, using force to succeed in this if necessary. The final numbers were entered before the FTL-drives would take the ships to the Trulon system. The travel would take almost a week itself, but it would be absolutely worth it.

The first two days of the travel nothing happend, space was just it's boring empty self, and travel was going the same as it always did. On the third day however, things changed a bit...

Unexpected and suddenly, one of the two ships got scamped by a rock that just happend to be there before aybody noticed. Although this didn't cause any structural damage, one of the FTL-drives was knocked out, the remaining two sending the ship in a wide arc away from the normal path.

While the other ship continued to it's destination, expecting the first one to be lost, the ship was flying about aimlessly, unable to return to a straight line for several long hours. When the problem was solved, the drives were shut down, and the colonists looked in awe at what they saw.

Below them was an ocean world, almost completely covered in water, with several big islands scattered about. It looked like they were dreaming, but it was really there, and nothing appeared to be living on it yet.

"We will take this planet, that can save us a lot of problems with other races later." the captain of the ship decided.

"But Sir, shouldn't we contact the others at home and on the other ship first? They probably believe we are dead by now."

"Good point, send a message telling we are fine and colonizing this new planet. It shall be called Cafor after our ship."

"It will be done Sir."

"Good, now start the descent, we're going to take the biggest island down there, to make sure we won't miss it..."

TAg for interest

When the message was received at Calxion hours later, it became evident how far away the colony ship was from the original target. How it got there was still unclear, its own engines couldn't possibly have gotten it there, no matter what kind of weird accident would happen to them. It didn't really matter to anybody though, they were at their planet, it appeared devoid of other life, and most important of all, they were still alive.

"What are we doing now, Sir? We're years away from any other races, including our own."

"We do nothing, we just stay here and continue colonizing as planned. The only other thing we have to do is find out what lives here besides us."

"I thought the scans told us there is nothing in here that lives on the land, Sir?"

"They did, but one of the ACV's found several unknown trails near us. Something is living here, but it isn't planning on showing itself to us yet. And therefor we are going to find it ourselves. Have the production center build two Exploration vehicles, tomorrow a party will head out to follow the trails..."

***The next day***

The EV's were standing ready at dawn, awaiting the brave 'volunteers' who were going to investigate the situation. But before they could go, another strange report came up.

"It appears that our continent has expanded greatly overnight, and not just ours, all of them have, Sir."

"Strange, we'd better get the teams to continue towards the oceans when they have found out what makes those trails..."

And so both EV's left with their ten explorers, going after the strange trails that had appeared around the ship. There were multiple of them, so they decided to follow the one leading to the oceans. What they were following was unknown to them at this point, but they would certainly not like it...

With the goals of the expedition set, and with the explorers on their way, the other colonists and their ship couldn't do anything but wait and continue as normal. Meanwhile the twenty explorers would try to discover what was living around them without their knowledge, and also what had been happening to the continents. Although it would take several days just to reach the coast, it was hoped that all mysteries would be solved soon enough.

The first thing that had to be done was finding out what kind of creatures had left the strange trails around the colony, and the easiest way to do so was to follow them the other way around. But the trails were longer than expected, much longer. They appeared to be going towards the coast themselves, passing through all kinds of areas on the way there.

***2 Days later***

Around the colony, the amount of trails continued to grow. From high points it could even be seen that they were starting to form a complicated pattern, with the colony directly in the center of it. This didn't go unnoticed by the colonists, and work on expanding the colony was halted. People were getting nervous because of these unexplained things happening at night, and were now hoping more than ever for the explorers to find out something useful quickly.

The explorers weren't too lucky themselves right now. The trails led them further and further away from the colony, without any signs of ending soon. With the other colonists wanting them to hurry, all of this was getting quite a stressful situation. Something had to be found quickly, or panic would strike the colony. And if that happend, it was certain to break the colony down from inside, eventually having the colonists die out without their rescources.

It was at the third day something interesting was found. The trail which the explorers had been following, had entered a large cave. Judging from their location, and the fact they had been going down-hill all the time, the explorers figured that this cave had been submerged untill the waters had withdrawn. Because of the size of the cave, they could drive the EV's in with them, or atleast untill the cave would become too narrow.