Scivener’s Log I
Tumblr: Brokenballoons
Color: Cool Black
Scivener’s Log, day 498
Atomic date: 3/25/985 R.S.
Coordinates: 3.72.382.23.3 Alpha quadrant of the Niskun system
Landfall was made today. From orbit we could see lights, but we’ve landed far from them, no need to scare the inhabitants, for there are indeed some. We landed inland, since most settlements seem to be near the coast and made our way north to where we knew there to be an unpopulated stretch of coast. The land is mostly flat, and covered in a tall blue grass. I’ve never seen blue grass before, apparently some of our scientists never have either, they’ve taken samples. The soil is soft under our feet, recent rainfall no doubt and the sky is… well it’s purple. At least there is enough oxygen to breath, though there’s some unknown particle in the air, it isn’t lethal though, so we’ve forgone the breathing masks. Thank the Lady for that, nothing is less fun than to try to be active in one of those things.
A mile from the coast we crossed a dead-land that stretched east and west, I sent a drone to check it out, it follows the line of the coast almost unerringly. Soil samples say it’s full of salt, a dangerous salt that carbon life-form can’t digest, or at least none in our party can, as there are all types of life in our galaxy, who knows what sort develop outside it in another?
We found coastline not long after that, water tests were run, the sea has a 6% salt ratio, which is insanely high, especially in a world ocean like this one. Well, we assume it’s a world ocean, no idea if the natives have given it a name, split it up and all. But the sea here is vast and the tide rises high at strange times, not a surprise, this damn planet have five moons. Five moons on a planet this size, surprised they haven’t crashed into each other yet, well maybe they have at some point. Not my area of expertise.
Not even a worry at the moment, we’re here to check if this place is habitable. Well obviously it is. We’ll have to see how the natives respond to us. Lets hope they’re peaceful. For their sakes I hope they’re peaceful. Should be, the initial scan only showed small cities, low tech, they don’t even have electricity. No match for our ships.
…
The commander showed us a map. We’re heading back inland tomorrow. Scans from orbit show that there is a forest three day’s travel from here, across the Dead Belt (as we’ve taken to calling the salt flats), so we’re going to it, find out about the local flora and fauna.
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Scivener’s Log, day 502
Atomic date: 7/25/985 R.S.
Coordinates: 3.72.382.23.3 Alpha quadrant of the Niskun system
We’ve been in the forest for over a day now. There are more varieties of plants here than our scientists know what to do with themselves. We’re laughing at them as they stumble over trying to collect samples, sending them back to the ships in drones.
So far we’ve identified fruit baring trees with food that… probably, isn’t poisonous. We’ll be doing more testing on some but there is one— It’s already become a favorite among the crew and I’ve seen several of them stashing it away in their knap sacks in place of our MREs. They’re these dark blue, ugly as sin, egg shaped pods. The flesh on the inside is bright bright yellow but tastes like shit. The seeds are covered in the same flesh, but if you can get to the seeds they taste like candy and are really soft, almost jelly-like. They’re tough to get at, but worth it. I’ll admit to having stored some away myself.
We can hear animals around as well, the world has a four limbed anatomy from what we’ve seen, but someone says they saw something that looked like an eight legged deer yesterday. We aren’t sure as we’ve seen very few animals and even fewer insects, a blessing if there was one. I hate insects, especially alien ones. Maybe the world is too cold for such small creatures since the entire planet’s average temperature is a balmy fifteen degrees C. It’s miserable for me, I grew up on a hot world, this one seems to be a cool one. I’m sure we haven’t seen many animals because of our noise, we’re probably scaring them. I don’t doubt that when we make—
Some natives appeared in our camp.
They don’t look………………………………………….
