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The planet looks like an ideal spot for colonization from a distance. Covered with a range of biomes, from lush forest to long coastlines to roaring rivers. However, when the Amentans arrive they quickly notice anomalies on their scans.
A population of humanoids lives on the planet, scattered - sometimes individuals are spotted alone and other times they appear in groups of up to a few thousand. They appear similar to child Amentans, except for a general lack of bright hair colors. Civilization appears primitive - in some cases so primitive that it's confusing how they survive at all, with small groups managing to survive in environments as harsh arctic tundra huddled around campfires, in sandy villages in a desert with a single well. A small number of cities exist, most without obvious sources of sufficient food to support them.
As the Amentans investigate further they notice more anomalies of a far less consistent nature. There's an aurora in the northern hemisphere that shines continuously, day and night. One of the cities appear to change subtly in composition and position constantly, with no obvious construction visible. A group of the humanoids appear to live underwater, alongside a gigantic manta ray, hundreds of feet in breadth. A giant skeleton statue of green crystal seems to be moving. A blur of feathers and wings zooms across the planet like a missile at one point. Except for the humanoid species, none of the anomalies repeat.
These are just the anomalies they notice easily from orbit, more may be found on closer inspection.
Well, that's... weird... but it won't deter their explorers, not if the atmosphere scoops come back safe.
It does! Except for near a cluster of volcanoes, which nonetheless has a small group of the humanoids.
Well, they'll land their initial team not near the volcanoes, then. How about this not very anomalous looking beach, to start out, with enough space to make a camp and hiking-friendly terrain.
Landing and setting up camp goes well! Flora and fauna appear similar to their home planet. They discover a single lone humanoid, napping in some tall grass at the edge of the beach. She really does look like a little Amentan girl, with strangely dark brown hair and rustic but well made woven clothing. She is clutching a blanket of scraps of fabric sewn together.
Nudging her works!
She opens up and rubs her eyes. Then she looks at the Amentans. Then she rubs her eyes again. Oh, the Amentans are still there. She tilts her head to the side and asks something in an unfamiliar language.
That's exciting! The greens they brought along will start trying to establish communication with her while the greys hike some more.
She tries talking to them - she has trouble paying attention to learning their language but is happy to play charades to teach them her's.
The greys hike to a forest, where a pile of the humanoids are napping together. One of them has a small amount of thin green vines clinging to her. In a different part of the forest they encounter one of the humanoids awake, climbing a tree.
The greys take pictures and also wave to the climber, but they don't disturb the nap pile.
They take video of this but they're not the linguists; they keep spiraling out and getting a sense of the area and mapmaking.
The forest is dense but not large, to one side they encounter a rushing river and on another they find a swamp.
Near the rushing river they encounter a majestic looking white dog (apparently a german shepherd) that appears well groomed.
In the swamp they spot a group of the humanoids, playing by bouncing on the inflated vocal sac of a gigantic frog like it's a trampoline.
Nope! It looks very friendly and like a good dog. It will enthusiastically try to lick them if they get close enough, unless they appear scared of that.
One of the greys will in fact let the space doggo lick her.
They circle back to the camp, where the greens are trying their best at learning the local language from the local cutie.
The space dog will follow the nice grey back to camp if she doesn't seem to mind.
The greens have made progress - they've figured out that the humanoids call themselves "Amaliens" and that near the beach is a comfortable place to nap but not on the beach cause then you might get wet.
It looked very comfy, yep. Does she have a name? Does the dog have a name? Does the beach?
Her name is Ariana! She isn't sure about the dog but it might be called Fluffeld. The beach is named ... she visibly makes something up ... Sandy.
Meanwhile, as the Amentan spaceship orbits the planet, the strange aurora responds to its presence nearby, increasing in speed as if excited.
The aurora moves towards a village in the arctic tundra, almost touching the ground. The waves of light there form regular patterns, like spoken language transmitted in glowing hues.
Well, maybe the computer can figure something out, if the locals are somehow generating it?
The computer can indeed figure something out! The language is easily translated, initially appearing to mostly be a special dialect focused on coordinating groups of people in emergencies, though it has enough grammar and vocabulary to be used for other things as well.
However, the computer soon reports that further analysis that the initial assumptions were wrong, and the language is mostly composed of varying degrees of basic interrogative clauses expressing confusion, with the same caveat about having enough variety to be a general purpose language as well.
It's not entirely clear why the computer's analysis changed so dramatically - that doesn't normally happen!
Uh. If they run an analysis on only the initial batch of data with a clean version of the program then what. They're going to denetwork these computers just in case.
Still mostly interrogatives clauses, though with more words for expressing questions that the speaker is nervous about the answer to.