NationStates Jolt Archive


Colony 'Gamma' (FT)

Mykonians
27-05-2007, 05:39
As was by now standard procedure, the planet was identified and studied before being designated as suitable for Mykofication. The first and only planet in orbit of a blue supergiant, so colourfully designated as X-356456 according to Mykonian naming conventions, it had two and a half times the mass of Earth, which was compacted into a diameter only one and a half times larger. This gave it an intense gravitational field, which successfully grasped hold of a thick nitrogen atmosphere several times heavier than Earth's - too heavy, but that would not be a problem for long. It was located in an orbital path hundreds of astronomical units away from the star, and yet still had moderately high surface temperatures.

As to how the planet came to be there, investigations were ongoing. Blue supergiants were renowned for their short lifespans, usually too short for planets to form. On the other hand this also meant that life could not exist here. If the short lifespan of the star was not sufficient to preclude its evolution, then the incredible levels of heat, luminosity and radiation would certainly finish the job. Heat and light was of no concern to them, of course, nor was the lifespan of the star - for, while it may be shortlived in cosmic terms, it still had millions of years left before it began to go supernova, which was more than enough time for them. Had they more immediate time available, a detailed investigation would have been undertaken to determine where the planet had truly come from, but the Unity required resources, and resources they were going to get.

For the initial stages, this task would befall MMTS1-6816, the massive object which now loomed ominously above the craggy surface of the world in wait. Its bare metal hull had absolutely no aesthetical considerations whatsoever, with no uniform shape of any kind, no paint, no markings, many different modular sections jutting out harshly from the main bulk of the craft (apparently each capable of moving independently, causing the exact dimensions of the craft to be a variable), and no apparent sign of running lights or even internal lights. Nor engine ports, for that matter. It appeared to generate momentum via some kind of internal machinations which were not readily apparent from the outside. Lifesigns? If it were possible to detect such an impossibly vague moniker as 'life' with pseudo-magical sensors, none would be found here.

From within the belly of the mechanical beast a large cylindrical object was fired. Several hundred metres long with a girth of dozens, it plummeted down through the thick atmosphere and impacted with the rocky surface - hard. A cloud of debris so large that it was visible from space billowed up from the massive impact crater it had generated, causing a shock wave that would have easily been potent enough to cause a mass extinction on the world, if anything lived there in the first place. When the dust finally settled - days later, mind you - the cylinder remained, almost completely embedded beneath the glassy rock at the centre of the crater. Already, strange, mechanical tendrils had spread out some distance around the object, and showed no sign of stopping.

Meanwhile, MMTS1-6816 had moved to the other side of the planet, and launched a second cylindrical device down into the planet, which began a similar process on the opposite hemisphere.

Mykofication was underway.
ElectronX
27-05-2007, 22:31
Obsolete Hardware popped back into reality after a short trip from another system using its skip drive. It was several hundred AU from a blue super-giant, basking in its radiation, protected only by a static-field and a tenth of an inch of flashmetal casing.

It noted immediately that a rocky planetoid was within the system, denser than most planets of its size, containing an atmosphere, and also above-average on the mass scale. It was intrigued.

--

"Shift's almost over." Hardy said with a sigh before gulping down the rest of his coffee.

"Thank the almighty Lord." Leston replied under his breath. He pressed his palms against his face and let out a groan; it had been long day for the Astronet Supervisor.

"... Fuck, AP-341b just found something." Hardy said with disgust.

"Which means we're going to be here past our shifts right?"

"Yeah." Hardy manipulated the data with virtual hands as it was transmitted from his console into his cybernet. It wasn't very interesting; stars that normally did not allow for the formation of planets had been encountered before, but corporate policy still required an investigation.

"Well what the fuck is it?" Leston said with a growl; he wasn't in the mood for another round of flow-charts and data-crunching.

"D-Class planetoid around a D-class star. High gravity and density, mass above average. Atmosphere detected." Hardy said in a dull monotone.

"Heh, double D eh?" Leston laughed at his own joke, with others following suit, more out of shock than actual humor.

"Hmm, there is an anomaly; the probe is currently investigating it further."

"What sort of anomaly?" Leston said incredulously

"Data is still coming it, but it looks like a ship of unknown origin, big too."

"What is it doing?"

Hardy looked at the data with reddened eyes for a moment, cycling it through various processing and interpretive programs. IP's rendered what assistance they could, and within several milliseconds a decision was reached.

"Dunno. It appears to be doing something akin to terraforming, but without more data we can never know for sure."

Leston wasn't surprised, but for a second there he thought they'd get a straight answer for once.

"Then have the AP get closer and begin deep scans of both the ship and the planet. Hell, have it open a channel to the ship if it can. We can ask them ourselves what they're doing." Leston said while he had a secretary refilled his coffee-mug.

--

Obsolete Hardware activated its skip drive, disappearing in a cyan flash. It appeared just a moment later only 25 AU away from the planet, bathing in radiation and solar wind.

Several antennae deployed from its cube-like form, focusing their gaze upon the ship as it dropped its payload. X-ray, infrared, radio,and microwave; the entire EM spectrum was analyzed as the sensors examined the unknown ship. Another antenna began broadcasting to the ship, cycling through various frequencies in the IR and radio spectrum.


TO: Ship of Unknown Origin

Hello, this is Leston Mygar of the AstroEx Corporation. We have noticed your actions in this system, and would like to inquire as to its purpose.
Commonalitarianism
27-05-2007, 23:20
A von neumann probe entered the system. It was a device designed to replicate itself endlessly going from system to system and recording whatever it encountered. It would simply go from object to object in the system and record what it encountered using a complex array of scanners.

There was an AI that beamed the recorded information back to a station in deep space from the probes. The probes had been wandering from system to system for over 200 years so the originating civilization had seen many strange things.

There was no attempt to make contact simply record.
Mykonians
01-06-2007, 22:03
Unsure of how ships, or probes, had managed to penetrate the Mykonian spatial borders, which had been tightly sealed to all incoming and outgoing traffic for decades now, MMTS1-6816 thought little more of it and wasted no time in sending an extremely short wavelength message in binary to the invaders, that lasted less than a nanosecond:

Leave Mykonian space.

At that, MMTS1-6816 returned its attention to its Mykofication process, and launched the third and final cylinder down to the planet. By now, the sprawling tendrils had spread several dozen miles around both of the existing devices.
Commonalitarianism
01-06-2007, 22:37
The Von Neumann probe picked up the message Leave Miconian Space, and forwarded the message to central. It did not attempt to interpret the message, but instead went back to wandering around the system, until it found an asteroid where it started the process of making another probe...