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This thread is inspired by another: view original post
Edited by o_____________o:
4/20/2020 4:52:27 PM
5
Project Spinel Entry: The Sleeper
Well, it's been a while since I posted something on here. Sci-fi isn't really where my strength lies, but this sounded fun, so I decided to give it a whirl. [spoiler]Dormancy...that was the closest one could come to adequately describe the planet. It was not dead, nor was it completely alive, it was dormant...asleep. Like most worlds, it was barren and devoid of life. Rocks and mineral deposits covered its entire surface, with only hints of lakes and river that may have existed in time's past. There were only three notable characteristics about this otherwise nondescript planet. The first was the strange sky which covered its canopy, strange light twisting in bands, as if the heavens were formed of textured glass. The third, perhaps the most intriguing feature of this planet was the presence of oxygen in the atmosphere, despite the absence of flora. These three things aside, the planet was like any other: unnoticeable, like a pebble found in a river. The stones which littered its surface were silent, the occasional gust of wind which tickled the peaks of its mountains was without life. It has been silent here for billions of years...silent until the day a new light appeared in the sky.
A fireball descended into the atmosphere, trailing behind it a tail of sparking metal and chassis. For the first time in eons, an outside noise rumbled the heavens as a vessel spun out of control, showing the landscape with its meteors. The pinnacles were cast in relief as several bright explosions flashed across the sky, throwing shadows like spears across the landscape and bleaching the exposed surfaces with radiance. Thrusters desperately controlled the descent but the landing was rough, creating earthquakes and thunder. A line of clouds plumed into the sky where the ship skidded, plowing a trench into the dry land. When it finally grumbled to a stop, the gully it carved glowed with bits of shed metal. After the smoldering came to a slow stop, the object lay there for several days like the carcass of a slain beast.
Then a hatch opened and some people stepped out, dazed and disoriented. The fear on their faces was palpable and they seemed surprise to find themselves breathing. The shadowy mountains which flanked the valley seemed to lean in curiously at these strange lifeforms, who bustled about and salvaged as much of the wreck as they could. They loaded their wares onto some strange rugged vehicles and left the vessel behind. Eventually, time softened the edges of the vessel's rift and dusted its hull with its atmosphere. Eventually, it became just another silent landmark among many. But if the stones could speak and the mountains could whimper, any who had ears to hear would be deafened by the sound of their screams. For the lifeforms which had long abandoned their vessel did not know that the planet was not desolate, it was simply dormant.
---
*Unit powering on.
*Update incoming from Unknown Source: Authentication Denied.
*Update incoming from Unknown Source: Authentication Denied.
*Update incoming from Unknown Source: Authentication Verified.
*Downloading new construct.
*Rewriting Program.
*Unit Shutting down.
*Unit Powering on.
*Running new construct: Toby.
---
Deep in the groaning bowels of the abandoned Butterfly-Class Explorer, a mechanical being powered to life. Its “eyes”, two dark lenses where a human's eyes should have been, twitched around erratically. Then its solenoids whined to life as it sat up. Bits of shattered glass rolled off its carapace and bounced across the ground. It was pitch black within the corridors, the only light coming from the various switches and ports on the being's body.
“Mom. Mommy?” it said in a voice that was both flat and devoid of deflection. Only a slight throw of its speech indicated that it had asked a question. Only darkness and quietude answered. The bowels of the vessel continued to groan softly as the winds rocked its carapace. Even the staleness of the air seemed to have more life than the ship. Yet the synthetic life-form looked around as if it heard something else in the silence.
“I. Am. Scared.” the thing said, “I. Am. Scared. Where. Are. You?”
Again, only silence answered. “A. Game?” it asked in response to an unspoken or unheard address. “You. Bled.”
It curled into a fetal position and put its hands, articulated constructs of both alloy and polymer, over the sides of its head where a human's ears normally would have been. It cowered as if to hide from the things the darkness spoke to it.
“You. Promise?” it finally asked. “And. C- zzzzzzzk” the voice crackled briefly before correcting itself: “And. Candy?”
It waited for some silent affirmation, then the being stood on its feet and began to walk down the corridor as if guided by some prompting from the silence. Rings of light flashed on around its eyes, illuminating the hallways. Wires and light receptacles hang like dreads of moss from the scorched cracks in the walls and ceiling. The buckled panels carried echoes of alarms and screams, all of which seemed to flee to the shadows as the mechanical being swept its lambent gaze over them. After several turns, it hesitated before prying open a jammed door and descending a ladder. Two more turns took it to the hydroponics lab. There, it stopped and looked around in a facsimile of dismay, at all the carnage. Long dead fires had reduced the plants to ash. Those that had not been consumed by the fires had long wilted and died, only their brown brittle stalks remained.
“They're. Dead.” the being said. “Mommy. They're Dead.” it waited and listened to the silence. “You. Do? Seeds. I. Will. Grab. More.”
The being walked over to the wall and pulled out a drawer. It contained several labeled vials of plant seed. It grabbed a box and threw the vials into it, then it exited hydroponics and made its way toward an exit, while carrying the box in its arms. It did not take long for it to find an opening in the side of the ship. It stepped out through the wound and climbed down a pile of precarious rubble. When it reached the bottom, it stared out across the alien vista, its lenses twitching. Compromised thermal shielding on the hull fluttered like the banging of drums as gusts of wind brushed over it. Pieces of the ship's skeleton hang like metallic stalactites, some swinging gracefully as if patiently biding the time and waiting for the day they would finally detach.
“Who. Are.You?” the being asked, its head twitching erratically as it stared out over the barren valley. “Where. Did. Mommy. Go?”
Dust devils danced gracefully across the valley floor, churning with whorls of purple and blue dust. Up above, the distorted sky glimmered with twisted light, throwing elongated caustics around hundreds of black celestials. Heated gasses glowed like burning fires, casting the purple mountains in their yellow-orange ambiance. It was as if the world itself were trapped inside a globe of water, watching the universe outside churn through its ripples.
“My. Name?” the being asked to the howling wind, “My. Name. Is. Toby. I. Want. Mom...Follow. Your. Voice?” it paused and listened to the silence. “She. Is. At. The. Garden? With. You? Yes. I. Will. Follow.”
The being left the ship and headed off into the valley, guided by a voice only it could hear, carrying with it a box filled with seeds. [/spoiler]
English
#Offtopic
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4 RepliesOoh, that's some tough competition.. This was really good! I love the way you set up the planet (though, you did say there were three notable features, and only listed two)! You did an amazing job hooking me, and this world you've made here seems absolutely amazing! I really want to know what happens next! I wish I had some more specific praise to hand out here, but this is the last entry I read, and I think I'm a little burned out on handing out critique! I loved it, though! Amazing!
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You forgot the tag
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Awesome! Probably! I can’t read it until Sunday, so I don’t actually know..
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I should probably put effort into writing soon now that I have the time
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Part 2 [spoiler]b]Four weeks earlier...[/b] From: Dr. Janson Mauradi. To: Dr. Cid Merkwell. Subject: About The Bermuda Cluster, We may have solved the mystery...sort of. Okay Cid, you may want to sit down if you haven't already. If, after reading this, you decide I need to see some sort of therapist to certify that I am not crazy, I'll get right behind that. I may very well have lost my mind. This past week has been unbelievable. In fact, I have rewritten this message at least five times already because I do not know how to adequately describe our discovery. I cannot find the words to convey both the terror and the amazement of our find, so I won't waste any time with that. I'll just get right down to business. As you know, we've been investigating the region colloquially known as The Bermuda Cluster, supposedly named after the Bermuda Triangle on Earth which was reputed to devour ships back when we were still sailing the ocean. This region, save for the occasional explorer and scavenger, is mostly uncivilized space. But it turns out that the rumors about disappearing ships were not completely unfounded. We have discovered...an anomaly, or a “construct”. I have attached a copy of our holographic scans. And no, I am not trying to pull a prank on you. If you need to, you can have those scans analyzed for fakery. Attached are also the exact coordinates. I have time and time again tried to figure out how I am going to write the next sentence, so here goes: We found a “network” of gravitational singularities arranged in a uniformly spherical grid around a select region of space. Yes, you read that right, it is an honest-to-god network of black holes. But they do not act like any singularities we have ever encountered. For one: they are small. Their event horizons range from being several kilometers in diameter to being as small as several meters. Second, they do not appear to be effecting one another. You would expect that any celestial body to conform to the laws of physics and spacetime to drift toward each other, but each of these objects seem to be fixed in their position. I think I know the answer to the question I am about to ask, but I just need to verify so I don't lose my mind: Can you think of any possible explanation for such a phenomenon? And no, I am not trying to prank you. I am sorry for any unprofessionalism present in this message, but I am beside myself at this discovery. (Actually, all of us are, it's not just me.) This could change everything we know about the universe. While we await for a response, we will be analyzing this phenomenon from a safe distance. I have also included several holographic videos recorded with our probes. The boys out here call them “eggs” for some reason. It is unlike anything I have ever seen. You can see the entire region of space is distorted from the gravitational lensing of the singularities. I have been trying to avoid jumping to conclusions but I cannot think of any way that this could come about naturally. How can you have a network of blackholes, arranged in a spherical grid just “happen”? I am lost. I am completely lost for hypothesizing. Everything we know about them so far says that such an anomaly should be impossible. But the alternative is just as impossible: Instead of this being a natural phenomenon, I find myself entertaining the thought that this region is an artificial construct. I reiterate: they are arranged in a perfect grid: with the smaller singularities filling the spaces in between the larger ones in a very clear pattern. If this is an artificial construct, I suppose the most immediate question is “Who created it?”, followed closely by “...why?!” We will keep collecting data, but we need more ships sent out here ASAP. Our computers are severely inadequate for this task. Furthermore, the crew is terrified by it and I do not blame them. I will keep my coms open for your reply. We need more relays in this region to speed up communications. -Dr. Janson Mauradi. --- Janson found herself staring at the projection floating in front of her. It was a live feed of the daunting anomaly. The longer she gazed, the more she felt herself becoming lost in the warping distortions. Somebody had taken the fabric of space and punched holes right through it. Stars and caustics appeared to be whirling around the spheres of darkness as the ship orbited the impossible region. Ribbons of super heated gasses threw themselves from singularity to singularity, as if the blackholes were fighting amongst themselves for sustenance. This is not natural, she thought, this is an artificial construct. But what kind of civilization would have the technology to do...this? The thought that such people, such creatures could exist, was as terrifying as the black holes themselves. It had been centuries since humanity invented and mastered the four-phase subspace engine. But such things were child's play compared to the system of warped space-time in front of them. Only Janson's professionalism and discipline kept the panic at bay. This could be it, this could be the first confirmation of alien life. Yet besides the impossible arrangement and peculiar behavior of the singularities, there were no other signs of an undiscovered civilization. They were peculiar indeed. The blackholes did not interfere with eachother. Normally, one would expect them to absorb eachother until they all became one massive body, but they seemed to be held in place by a force beyond their detection. No, this was not natural. Somebody built this, but why? Was it protection, a barrier of some kind? Or is it a prison? She glanced at the countless monitors on the wall, feeding thousands of streams of data. Janson waved her hand through the air and the display shifted, switching views to the ship's onboard cameras. One of the maintenance androids clung to the vessel's hull as it performed its weekly inspection, then it flew toward the starboard, past the camera. Several more androids floated in formation as the probes the ship sent out earlier returned. With an inhuman coordination they grabbed onto the oblong satellites and maneuvered them toward the airlocks. Suddenly, Janson's wrist vibrated. She tapped it twice. “Yes?” she said, slightly shamed by how exhausted she sounded. “Jesus Doc,” Joseph, the ship's captain said, as his hologram appeared in the air, “When was the last time you slept?” “I haven't been able to sleep.” Janson said honestly. “Well, I can't blame you for that...” Joseph sighed, “Don't you think you need to take a break? As far as we know, the cluster isn't going anywhere.” Janson rubbed her eyes, “Yeah...you're right.” she groaned, suddenly realizing how tired she truly was. “Was that all? “That was all. Just checking in.“ Joseph said, “You need to get some sleep and give your kid some company.” “My kid...” Janson said dazedly, “Oh, has he been causing trouble?” “Not that I know of.” Joseph said, “He's getting along fine with my daughter in hydroponics, but it can't be good for a 5 year old to go this long without seeing his mother, especially when we make a discovery this big. Have you told him anything?” “I will. But like you said, Toby's only 5.“ Janson said, “Anyway, thanks for checking in captain, I'll head back to my quarters.” [/spoiler] (It ends abruptly, but I plan on adding a bit more.)
