YR3 (cont):

Feb 17, Semichi III High Orbit, Aboard Diplomatic Vessel Patroclus:

Teacher Hecuba of Pella, the new leader of the the Kapetyn Diplomatic Mission to the Neighbors, sputtered out a series of low energy pops as he replayed the report.  Prior to his appointment to his post, he had focused primarily on the mission work so far completed - the significant progress made in delivering infrastructure to millions.  After all - most of the reports had been focused on the situation at the landing drop sites, which had now started to stabilize somewhat.  However, hiding behind that thin veneer of progress was a much moldier and more worm eaten truth - the rest of the planet had gone to smeg.

The latest report from the southern plateau, so far untouched by Kapetyn landings, drove home the truth - drone footage of roaming cannibal bands fighting to the last neighbor, with the victors commencing to smoke and preserve the deceased in situ.

For the first time, Hecuba came to fully understand the fatalistic reverberations he had been inundated in since his arrival on the Patroclus the week prior.

OOC: Stability on Shahrewar has hit 1% (minimum). 

---

Feb 27, Gaia High Orbit, Argos Yard

Cronos of Argyroupoli splayed his spines to regard the exuberant youngster before him and shook himself, trying (not very successfully) to clamp down on the hum of mirth alloyed with irony which he could feel seeping out of his every pore.  Fortunately, Peisandros of Baris was far too animatedly blatting out his proclamations of the new doctrine of shipyard streamlining and project management to spare much bandwidth for detection of such a subtle undertone.  Still, Cronos feel the slight mirth mixed with embarrassment echoed back to him from a few of his other colleagues in the room - who were not so warp deafened, and redoubled his efforts to clamp down.

Cronos was not sure if he should be feeling elated or insulted.  For the last two days, Peisandros had been holding seminars on the 'new doctrine' of shipyard management.  All of it amounted to little more than common sense, so far as he could tell.  However, nothing the youngster was spewing out into the airwaves was outwrite wrong, which was a bit surprising, coming from an egghead.  And, after being at ground zero for the lack in common sense two years ago during the first rush to produce the Aphrodite class, perhaps it wouldn't hurt to go about formalizing some of these supposedly 'common sense' procedures.

---

March 1, Gaia, Perugian Embassy

Bahraman contemplated on the nature of relativity for perhaps the 10,000th time since his arrival on Gaia, as he bounded across the large pressurized enclosure which constituted his embassy.  Although traditional theory dictated that length contraction should only be noticable at near relativistic velocities, he was starting to have his doubts. 

The enclosure itself measured well in excess of 100 body lengths to a side, with a ceiling rising too high to touch, even with a full leap in the local (minuscule) gravity.  By the standards of a Perugian who had been hot bunking in an underground shelter for the past several years, it was truly gargantuan.  It was an edifice which effectively and wordlessly communicated both the largess and the power of the Hedgehogs.

And yet... as he made great bounds across and around the space in an effort to maintain his health (physical and mental), the space seemed to shrink down to smaller than even the living space of Bunker III.  While he could still, in theory, go outside here with a similar level of protection as he had back on Shahrewar -- it was just so... different.  Even in the worst storm of radioactive dust, Shahrewar had felt... correct somehow, in a way that the murky atmosphere, dull tiny sun, and pitiful gravity of the rift valleys here in the Hedgehog's den never could.  Isolated on an alien world in this palatial chamber, he somehow felt more claustrophobic than he ever had back in that delipidated bunker.

As he eased back to a more normal pace and slowly bounced across the space to cool off, his mind once again snapped to his desk, and the reports half formed on his slate.  At least the Hedgehogs provided him with many interesting distractions from his solitude - like the most recent matter he had been asked to translate.

---

March 2, Shahrewar, Bunker III

Abbaseh read the latest report beamed to him from orbit, contemplating briefly the inconvenience of having to trust the Hedgehogs to relay messages for them.  But, his mind quickly focused on the matter at hand.

This was... promising.  It would seem that the Hedgehogs had come across some rather... interesting phrases in the old tongue, and had asked Bahraman for an interpretation. Bahraman had in turn asked him for his opinion first.  After all, with light speed communication provided free of charge, it was fairly trivial to send over a daily report and bury the most important part a third or so in. Fortunately, the Hedgehogs were not much for the subtleties of the Perugian language as of yet, and much could be read between the lines of a sufficiently large wall of text.

It seemed that it was time for Bahraman to take a little... artistic license in his normally dry translations.  Now, how to tell Bahraman that, without telling him that, per se...

Perhaps he would have to consult with an authority on the old tongue and relay their translation... yes. Of course, he would neglect to mention that any adult Perugian was perfectly fluent in the few formal phrases of the language which survived.

---

March 9, between the orbits of Semichi VII & VIII, Persius 001

Deipylus of Naxos sputtered and chirped indignation and vile profanity in tight directed bursts towards anyone and no-one, sweeping the cramped space of what was (for some long forgotten reason) referred to as the Boiler Room with a searchlight beam of indignation and detailed negative assessments of the character of the yardmen at Heraclea.  Her digits bled as she hoisted the replacement engine ducts into place, sweltering from the effort - although the ship itself was in freefall with the engines acceleration cut, holding the mass of the ducting steady without allowing it to crash about the cramped cabin was still a straining workout in precision and control.  And, if not careful, the mass could still inflict more than adequate damage in freefall, as her digits attested. 

Adding to the pressure (both on her mind and of her profanity), she had discovered that this was the only piece of such ducting stocked in ships stores by the yard.  Perhaps a suitable replacement part could be printed if some other less vital components were melted down for scrap - perhaps.  If this job was botched, it would be a long walk home, and she had no real desire to make the trip on a jury rigged component.

The detailed (and profanity laden) report blat - more of a sirens wail, truly - which she would submit to her captain would find itself reflected and magnified up the chain of command with surprisingly little censorship - only further embellishment by each successive layer of the newly created Kapetyn Survey Command. 

The final explosion of indignant radiation which would reach Alphios of Myndus' office in some weeks would cause his entire staff to blanch and lead to a full re-check of the maintenance status of the survey command, as well as the diplomatic and logistics vessels.  It would also prompt some belated thought on the amount of engineering and maintenance bay space which should be considered 'adequate' for a long haul survey craft. 

---

OOC Authors Note:  Thanks for the prodding to keep this going.  I've had a bit of writers block because it felt like the game side of things was limiting my ability to control the pacing of the story side of things, and I am not quite sure how to resolve that.  For now I'll just try to power through the first arc, haha. I suspect at some point my work of fiction may decouple completely from my actual game, but that's still quite a ways away .

An Wizard AAR commenter is never late, nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he means to. 

In those days, Bahman was nowhere to be found. Tauriz rose ascendant, and Hordad was cast down from the heavens in fire, flung into the arms of Anahita upon Shahrewar, chased by unbending lighting. 
-Excerpt from the Perugian Epic of the Sundering

Now I want a spinoff in which you carefully lay out the entire Perugian mythology with thinly-veiled yet obvious references to Aurora lore and game mechanics in the guise of deities and miraculous events. 

For the better part of a year, ever since Gestures Wildly had first made the offer, he had petitioned to be allowed to make an extended ground mission to the nearby Neighbor population center, but his requests had been bogged down, slowly percolating up the layers of civil servants until they reached Alphios of Myndus' desk - who had promptly rejected the proposal as needlessly dangerous.  The prevailing opinion back home, amongst the Kapetyn who had not actually interacted with the Neighbors (and many of those who had), was that they were dangerous and possibly insane. 

The classic assessment of the overburdened benevolent overlords regarding the primitive colonials in a faraway land since time immemorial, naturally.

Less sardonically, I do like the intriguing and quite natural consequence of two species perceiving different parts of the EM spectrum. Oddly, while we don't see too much of that in our world for various biophysical reasons, we do see this with the acoustic spectrum, so it is a logical extension.

One wonders if the Perugians will be clever enough to devise new writing inks or paints with both "visible" and microwave spectrum components? I'm not sure what kind of technological trickery this would require but I do think not too strong of an emitter additive would be needed.

It would seem that his Hedgehog ‘friend’ had been recalled back home to a new posting, a more prestigious one, or so he infered.  And Bahraman would be joining him for the ride, in his capacity as Interstellar Ambassador (and his new side gig of first interstellar spy), much to his chagrin.

I predict hilarious ambassadorial hijinks.

OOC: Side Note- Since my name convention was Persian/Iranian and my system theme was Demon Lords, I pulled some (semi) random Zoroastrian daeva/avestan names to give my Perugian mythos and clan names some flavor.  No real connection to Zoroastrianism is intended, no offense is meant to anyone, I know nothing about these names beyond a 1 sentence wiki summary plz don't hurt me ;p. 

Aww...does this mean I came all this way with a stake and a torch for nothing? Well, damn... someone find me a space witch to burn, then. 

Year 2 Round Up:

Perugian Status

Population : 8684m -> 7565m
Death tolls continue to mount.
Infra: 22486 (supports 576m)  ->28657 (supports 735m). 

The initial burst of infrastructure production by civilians across the planet in YR1 has slowed precipitously as readily available scrap and salvage dry up -the majority of Perugians are still left without adequate food or shelter and are only becoming more desperate.

Almost all remaining buildings and materials which could be salvaged or converted to survival shelters have been.  Billions are still struggling in inadequately sealed and insulated buildings, or simply starving trying to eek out a harvest in the very short growing season.

Infrastructure drops have accelerated in the last months of the year, now spreading beyond just Spruzgar, and some other lucky clans are starting to see some hope as prefab shelter for millions will fall from the sky in a matter of days.  Spuruzgar remains the central hub for aid, the one region of the planet where cannibalism is now rare. 

A total of 1152 infra was delivered by the Kapetyn this year - sufficient to house 29 million.  In the same time period, more than a billion souls are estimated to have perished.  This is not a sustainable model - terraforming must commence immediately if there is to be any hope of saving the majority of the Neighbors.

To that end, 1.2 terraformers have been delivered, but no Kapetyns are present to operate them and the Perugia have not puzzled out the TN tech necessary to operate them either.  Bahraman Afsarzadeh briefly managed to power on the Terraformers after much gesticulation back and forth with Iatragoras, however a scrubber failed within three days and he was unable to decipher the debug messages relayed at microwave frequencies.  While the Perugians are vaguely aware of the intent of the facility, they have no way to support the trained manpower required to maintain and operate it. 

Stability 52.38% -> 6.58%   

OOC: The unanticipated (by me) stability hit to the Perugia due to inadequate infrastructure has basically taken them out of the game at this point, unable to build ground forces to better police the planet without years of build time, and unable to research TN tech.  They did start training some militia units, but none of them actually finished before unrest maxed out - I started too late and the units I queued were too large to complete.  This is going to end up putting a bigger tech and progress differential between the two races than I had expected when conceptualizing this playthrough.  Oops.


Kapetyn Status:

Produced:
3x geosurveryors, 3x grav surveorys
3x Caracks
2x Cargo Ships
3x Orbital Platforms (sans tugs) - this lack of tugs is starting to become a boondoggle. 

Started retool for a tug platform and an orbital terraformer, started construction on a terraformer habitat.   

Increased construction factory and mining count, started laying down a new naval yard as well as adding Carrack and Cargo slipways.

Wealth is starting to be a little strained by the current maintenance and orbital building demands.  Maintenance stocks are very high, as are fuel, so temporarily putting a halt to their production/refining.

Stockpiles OK for now - most minerals (save duranium) are in sufficient stock for 5-10 yrs.  However, many deposits will mine out in the next 2-5 yrs, starting with Mercassium. 

Current plans call for one or more of the new platforms to be towed to VI-M7 to support duranium mining efforts, as well as (hopefully) to any new found Mercassium sources. 

Some also advocate for the emplacement of mines on Semichi III to mine and produce infrastructure in-situ.  This may be doable if production is focused in the orbitals above the crushing grav well, and mines are mostly teleoperatred.  This plan of directly tearing into the neighbor’s planet is met with some trepidation, but it may be the most efficient way of delivering added infrastructure.


 

Consider us all very teased.   
In fact, consider me hooked.

Thus far the story has been mostly about the Kapetyn saving the Perugi, however as the story is titled "Symbiosis" I wonder what the Kapetyn get out of this besides warm feelings of moral superiority? Do they need the Perugi for reasons yet to become clear?

Well, one thing they have gotten already is a break out of the stable but stagnant state of their society, which had been stuck at early TN tech on a single world for a very, very long time.  It's unclear if this is actually a benefit tho.

As for other benefits, well, without saying too much you may need to wait for the second plot arc 😆. 

September 14, Shahrewar, 09:34 local time

Farshad lay prone in the flattened rubble of what in a previous age had been called Indar.  The seal of his envirosuit was slightly askew, fogging his vision.  Fortunately, his objective was close enough that he did not need to see particularly well to gauge his timing.  Unfortunately, it was also so close that he did not want to move to clear the seal, lest he give away his position.

Around him, laying in other piles of rubble and pressed up against ruined fragments of former walls which still held more verticality than most, were the other five members of his hand picked squad.  Ahead of him, it’s bulk still slightly settling into the rubble as wisps of steam rose from its recently superheated surface, lay his objective.

He surveyed the scene again, once again impressed by the scale of the thing.  The largest Indar asset to reach orbit of Shahrewar had been perhaps the size of a small personal vehicle - small satellites, primarily for surveilling the activities of other clans.  The massive vessel before him had already disgorged two massive lorries while he watched, and he suspected that those were just the stragglers.

So far, everything about the vessel was lining up with the accounts from their scouting team.  Now, everything hinged on two observed behaviors of these mysterious vehicles, and their interplay.

Firstly, it had been observed that the doors of the lift vessel would open when a cargo lorry approached, just wide enough to allow it’s entry.

Secondly, it had been verified that the lumbering lorry would stop when a large object (or being) interposed itself in its path.     

What was unknown was if the vessel doors would shut if unauthorized motion was detected.  Or if the lorry would still slow in such a case.  His team was about to find out.

And with any luck (and copious shaped charges) they would find out whatever was piloting this craft as well.  He was not confident he had enough charges to breach the exterior airlock, but any interior doors should be a cinch.  They would then detain whatever beings were inside for interrogation and secure the craft for more detailed inspection and disassembly. 

---

September 14, Shahrewar Troposphere, 09:54 local time

There were no interior doors.  The whole craft appeared to be automated, just like the lorries.

And indeed, the blasting charges were inadequate to re-open the airlock doors.

The shaking began to stop as the craft exited the troposphere.  The first Perugians to orbit Shahrewar glanced at each other nervously and double checked their stocks of canned air for their (unpressurized) enviro-suits. 

---

September 14, Cargo Hold of the Aphrodite, in transit from Gaia to PIII

Iatragoras reviewed his message blat once more before flicking his spines and squirting the relay command at the controller. 

It was unfortunate that the minute or so light speed delay prevented a real time communication with Automedon of Zancle, Captain of the Asmara.  He was clearly shaken up by the events of the last days, and Iatragoras regretted not being able to console him in person.

It was understandable that he was shaken, given the unexpected situation.  Stowaways!  And, worse, stowaways which could not breath methane!  It was fortunate that there had only been one casualty. 

As much as Iatragoras would have liked to try to speak with the neighbors daring enough (or mad enough) to sneak onto the Asmara via cargo shuttle, he agreed with Automedon’s decision to send them back down via shuttle as soon as they could be corralled back aboard, along with their fallen comrade.  To extend their abduction may have exacerbated the incident.

Nobody had expected Neighbors to burst forth from the shuttle upon its arrival, certainly not the maintenance tech standing in the bay to check the odd fault messages being thrown by the shuttles airlock and it’s lorries.  Thankfully, the tech had kept his head - and that gesticulation seemed somewhat universal.  When the neighbors surrounded him and gestured for him to move, he had moved.  He had led them into the airlock they had directed him to. 

Then he had sealed it and called for orders from Automedon. 

Automedon had elected to simply close the blast doors leading to the lock, disconnect the airlock module, and pack the whole lock into another shuttle for return to the surface, maintenance tech, neighbors and all.  Then a volunteer crew had suited up in the available powered exosuits (typically used for heavy lifting), entered the shuttle, opened the lock, and escorted the tech out.  A focused microwave blast from the crew’s elected peace officer had discouraged any further scuffle from the somewhat terrified neighbors, who had seemed a bit more concerned with the seals on their environmental suits than any further kidnapping attempts - a small glimmer of sanity in an otherwise crazy incident. 

It was only after the tech was secured and the first shuttle was swept that they found the corpse. 

---

October 25, Shahrewar, Bunker 3:

Abbaseh sat alone in the dimly lit room, his back to the door.  He knelt and ran his fingers through the urn in front of him, feeling the roughness of the fragments of chiten inside and listening to their crinkle.

The tiny fragments under his fingers were the final memorial of Abbaseh’s ancestors - a tiny fragment from each of his forefathers, the oldest ones ground to dust and settled to the bottom by generations of stirring. 

Abbaseh’s father had told him, on the day he exited the creche, that within this urn was a scale from Jaleh Spuzgar himself, founder of the clan.  But then, every member of the clan would claim thus, but only a few dozens of his scales would have been collected, by his direct sons, and placed in each of their urns with the evenly divided portion of Jaleh’s own urn.  Abbaseh’s father had been a braggart - odds are not even a speck of dust from Spuzgar lay in this urn - his genealogy was certainly not so great as to have been traced back so far. 

Abbaseh’s thoughts drifted to the generations before them and the struggles they must have overcome, and weighed them against his own.  Perhaps some few of them had faced such trials, but he found himself doubtful.  Why seek aid from ancestors who had never had to face such a time?  Still, the ritual itself was calming. 
 
From behind him, Jaleh asked “Something on your mind?”

Some Perugians claimed that during their commune with their ancestors, they would converse with them, being granted advice for the future, lessons from the past, or even blessings and mana.  Abbaseh firmly believed that such claims were made entirely by two types of Perugian - charlatans and madmen. 

Of the two types, unfortunately he was the latter, Abbaseh thought to himself. 

“Still angry at me for telling you to volunteer for that first survey patrol I take it?  We both know that if you hadn’t volunteered for that patrol, you would have volunteered for the soup pot soon enough.”

Abbaseh turned to face Jaleh, looking him in the eyes, unable to ignore his goads any longer “Would that have been any worse?”

“Oh please, enough with the fatalism.  It’s ever so dreary.  What are you planning to do about the news from Bahraman and his pet hedgehog?”

“Oh please yourself, we both know it is Bahraman who is the pet, and the hedgehog who is the master.”

“Aha, so you are thinking about it!”

“Of course.  And the implications.  If Bahraman’s interpretation of their silly wiggle dance is correct, the hedgehog’s aid drop protocols have changed due to some incident elsewhere on Shahrewar.  Just “some incident”!  He doesn't even know what happened!”

Abbaseh stood and paced back and forth across the room perpendicular to Jaleh, glancing at him occasionally and seeing his infuriating smirk.

“Our very lives depend on aid from the hedgehogs arriving like clockwork, each time those great ships make a circuit.  Some idiotic Xeshm or Sawar clansman taking a potshot at a hedgehog could jeaporize the lives of every Perugian on the planet!  Sure, the hedgehogs treat us as pets now, but if we bite the hand that feeds...” Abbaseh’s outburst slowly faded as he followed that thought to its logical conclusion, his eyes unfocused, facing the closed door in front of him.

“And what can you do about that?” Jaleh asked with an eyeridge quirk.

“Nothing!” Abbaseh yelled, his voice reverberating in the empty room.

“Nothing… yet.”  Abbaseh muttered to himself.  His expression subtly shifted, a hardness coming to his features, as his eyes came back into focus. 

“Now you are thinking, oh Great leader of the Spuzgar'' said the greatest Clanleader in the history of Spuzgar, his voice dripping with sarcasm as a grin split his maw in an uncomfortably predatory expression.  An expression which seemed familiar to Abbaseh. 

Ahh, yes.  He had seen it in the mirror occasionally of late.

---

Nov 18, Deep Space:

A strangeness in the warp, the medium through which the weft is conducted, is detected just beyond the orbit of Semichi VII - what Kapetyn scientists theorize could be a gap in the warp itself, and if some further energy was input, perhaps a bridge to... elsewhere.  As a pure science project, this was potentially world changing.  In any other time, this would be incredible news and make headlines across Gaia, but in the context of the current catastrophic death toll on the third planet, it hardly made the news.

---

OOC: I actually had my geo and grav survey orders flipped this whole time :|

April 6, Gaia:

Alphios of Myndus reviewed the plan proposal before him again.  On a second pass, it still seemed slipshod.  Then again, many of the hasty measures in the last year were.

A design had been submitted for an orbital terraforming habitat, which would enable Kapetyns to rest in relative comfort between short shifts on the surface of the Neighbor's world with it's crushing gravity.  In theory, the design itself was quite sound, and would address the current pressing need to commence terraforming ASAP.  It was now clear to all involved that the current aid mission was just too slow to make a meaningful dent in the death toll on Semichi III.  Polyas had circulated the feed data from the surface after his most recent circuit (much to Alphios' chagrin) and now many Kapetyn were pushing for a more drastic direct action.  He was going to have to approve construction of this habitat, there was too much pressure resonating through the commune to allow him to stay the course with only their current aid drops.

There was an obvious, glaring flaw with this plan, however.  This habitat would be built in situ in orbit of Gaia, with parts launched from the surface construction factories.  No shipyard was large enough to house it. 

And it didn't have engines.

Currently, the Kapetyn did not have any practicable solution to mount engines on this monstrosity without shaking itself apart from internal stresses.  Many pointed to Kephalon of Antiochia's recent papers, reviewing older papers, which hinted at a theoretical 'traction' system which would allow a tug vessel to apply thrust evenly to the full habitat at one time, eliminating the risk of buckling.  However, the older papers didn't report anyone actually building a 'tractor beam' -not even a downscaled proof of concept.  They were heavy on math and light on engineering, as was the way with most research papers.  Still, Kephalon trumpeted that it could be done to all that could receive, and the signal reverberated far and wide in the Commune.  He would have his funding to try. 

In approximately two months, at best estimate, a new orbital habitat would orbit Gaia.  And there it would remain, until Kephalon of Antiochia could come up with his 'tractor beam', and figure out how to fit it onto a hull.  Any, presumably someone would have to design this 'tug' class vessel and tool up and build it.

This plan was not firing on all 88 spines, but nobody had presented him a better one.  With a blat of frustration which reverberated and amplified off of the other Kapetyn in the office, he slammed down his approval on the proposal plate.

---

May 14th, Shahrewar, Indar Final Redoubt

A great bounty of much needed supplies had fallen from the skies onto the radiated outskirts of Indar, former capital city of the Clan of the same name.  Over the past few days, this unexpected bounty had been squandered by the survivors on the surface, too fractured to make productive use of the resources, instead destroying both the resources and each other in an orgy of misguided survival instincts.  It was only recently that Indar patrols had stumbled across the burning wreckage and pumped some survivors for more details. 

Kambiz Pakdaman had been caught off guard by this unexpected activity on the surface, too focused on consolidating his power below, cleaning up the last vocal dissenters against his recent rise to power, but he would not be caught with his guard down again. 

Kambiz had made it clear to Farshad, his right hand man, the brutal facilitator of his recent rise - if the others returned, the goods were to be secured for Indar at all costs.  Secure the landing site.  Secure the goods.  If possible, capture one of these 'others' so that there clan affiliation may be determined and the source of this bounty ascertained. 

---

July 23, High Orbit above Gaia, Antioch Yard

The launch of the Hector fuel harvester, first of it's class, was met with little fanfare.  It was only notable as another of the many recent failures of planning.  The Hector class fuel harvester cum-tanker was certainly useful, but not needful.  Current fuel refining facilities on the surface were more than adequate to meet the needs of the sole Carrack operated by the cargo fleet.  Another Carrack hull was to be laid down in the Antioch Yard as soon as the Hector cleared the birth - this was the only real sign of progress towards the overall goals of the Commune held in this news. 

Most awaited with limited patience the upcoming launch of the Asmara from Phocaea Yard, scheduled next month.  The Asmara was the first of her class, a cargo ship just slightly smaller and slower than the Aphrodite- a compromise solution designed to fit the limitations of the existing yards and get more lift capacity into vacuum as soon as possible.

Agitation and outright dissent bubbled across the commune - a rare wave indeed in the typically stagnant and contented Kapetyn.  Such mishaps could not continue to happen when millions were dying every day.  Someone must be held accountable. 

---

August 30, Shahrewar, Outside Bunker III

Bahraman Afsarzadeh had managed to procure a small telescope - a high end ‘prosumer’ model found in the shed of a farmhouse, apparently a hobbyist.  With that and some finagling of the airfield radar array to look more ‘up’ and run a narrower sweep, he had been able to ascertain that the periodic deliveries of water, pre-fab structures, basic goods (lamps, blowers, generators of unknown nature) were all coming from a single LARGE craft holding in perfect geo-stationary orbit - at what appeared to be too low an elevation above the surface for such an orbit. 

Further, he had been able to make a rough estimate of it’s speed (FAST, in excess of 1000km/s), acceleration (instantaneous!) and rough direction of travel (towards planet IV), and with some back calculations had inferred the craft was running a circuit from planet IV.  He had even been able to predict it’s arrival with some accuracy of late.

The craft was still outbound, and this was his first night off from the work crews at the landing site this fortnight. 

Despite this fact, the sound of aerobraking and the roar of rockets decelerating had a secondary effect of accelerating his rear chitin plate out of his bunk and onto the floor, as his bunk mate Jamshid shook him awake with little ceremony. 

"Abbaseh wants you."

A few hours later, shivering in the cold and pointing his telescope up through the cloudy, ash filled sky, he would finally get his first glimpse of the vessel in orbit.  This ship was not quite right.  It seemed a bit smaller.  And, it departed a little sooner as well, leaving less goods on the dusty plane. 

Furthermore, the usual stilt-porcupines were nowhere to be seen.  These shuttles simply dumped goods via parachute and departed immediately, never touching down at all.  Something had changed.

Of course, Abbaseh would be expecting an explanation for this change in his report, not just the clear fact that there was a change. Luckily, Bahraman had gotten good at idle postulation and making statements which were easy to walk back of late.

---

OOC: I've slowed down the pace of updates a little as I have hit year ~20 or so and realized the pace of gameplay and story worthy content may also slow a bit, and I don't want to catch up too fast.  Also I'm lazy.