View Flat HTML
View Metadata
Search Post
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.
It's a bit less effective then it would be on an Amentan, but it still works pretty well. Wears off much faster though.
They can give her another dose as needed unless she's experiencing any side effects.
...weird? Maybe part of how their healing and durability mechanism works is building up a tolerance to environmental stuff. They can get her an ice pack and see if that helps for longer.
...that seems like not something an Amentan would do with a bad ankle but she is hundreds of thousands of years old so okay...
She climbs while keeping the icepack on her foot, sometimes with a hand and sometimes by pressing her feet together and other times by pressing her foot against the tree. She ends up on a nice sitting spot and relaxes there.
Cute!
Eventually the blue representative's shuttle lands, complete with another grey who piloted her down.
The amaliens gather together when she arrives. Lucien and Meelia are a bit in front of the others
Out comes the blue. The pilot scurries off to join the other greys. "Hello!" says the blue in Cryptophasia, once the pilot's out of earshot.
"Hello! I'm happy you could come down to talk to us cause we're not very used to meeting new people who aren't actually there and Lucien things it's important for us to do this right. It's nice to meet you!"
"It's nice to meet you too! I'm Shani Tion. Tion means 'star' in Tapap, our language, and it means that I am our ambassador to other stars."
"Oh that's really pretty!"
She's actually a bit jealous and wants to ask if she can visit other stars but Lucien would be unhappy if she got distracted right now so she can do that later.
"I'm Meelia! I don't know if it has a meaning but it sounds sort of like 'amalien' so maybe I was named after that?"
"We're excited to meet new people and to get to know you and help each other."
"We sometimes find new friends on our own planet but didn't realize there were other people to meet outside of our planet! Also there's a lot more of you then any new friends we've found."
Meelia's eyes go wide.
"Wow that's so many!"
She thinks for a bit.
"Earlier you said there's a thing were you can have too many people on one planet. Is billions too many?"
"No, but we have to work very hard and make a lot of people really sad to make sure it doesn't become too many. That's why we're exploring, so we can have enough space not to need to do that!"
Lucien would really prefer she not offer things without everyone thinking it over but there's not really a chance they're going to say no, not completely anyways. Their planet is pretty big.
"That's what we were hoping! It's a really nice planet and some people would love to live here and be friends with you."
"What sort of things would you need to live here? Also also, could some of us also live on your planet sometimes?"
"Sure, some of you could come to Amenta and check it out if you like exploring! You might have to learn Amentan languages to be comfortable there long term, because I think Cryptophasia will probably need to stay here on this planet, but we'd be happy to teach you. Here all we need is space and an introduction to some of the friendly monsters and warnings about where the unfriendly ones live, we can grow our own food and build our own homes."