| Name: | Antigone (submitted for Galactic Mapping Project) |
| Game map search ref: | PRUA PRAU IH-Y C3-0 |
| Description: | Roaming the galaxy, I found a place which should teach us all a story. Following a lone encrypted radio signal close to PRUA PRAU IH-Y C3-0 brought me to two earth like bodies in close orbit to each other and a small world which could be seen as their "moon". The sight of two "earths" was unbelievable, but the signal did not lead to any of them, rather the small moon was the source. Adhering to the first directive of not disclosing your own presence to pre-interstellar flight civilizations, I approached carefully. This close to the signal, by board computer was able to decrypt the cipher. Universal translation indicated a kind of automated SOS, in an ever repeating loop. But why encrypt an SOS? Closer inspections showed some early space flight structures on the moon, habitats and solar panels. Clearly, this colony could not survive on its own and was depending on regular supply. But there was no other signal of any kind around...and no sight of any life on this moon either.
I approached the first earth like planet and found it lush and green. But no civilization. The same sight waited for me on the second planet. Carefully I flew deeper as my planetary landing kit did not allow me landing on such a body. Scanning the surface, I found strange structures and craters below what I would call "tree tops". What I believed from the orbit to be lakes turned out to be huge flat glass surfaces. Puzzled I visited the other planet for the same sights. As landing was not an option, I continued my scans and found a lone satellite in the Lagrange Point between the two bodies. It was dead, but capturing it with a limpet was no problem. The cipher turned out to be the same as from the earlier signal, and a story untold started to unravel when activating the satellite as it connected back to the same station sending the SOS. I was able to pull more and more information, so I recap what seemed to be the final days of these two - now unnamed - worlds. For eons, both worlds orbited each other, and two civilizations arose, watching the close sibling in the sky. Each civilization watched in awe their partner. They both rose quickly, having a clear goal in sight where they each wanted to go to. One civilization finally made the race, and the first inter-planar travel occurred. But the first meetup was bloody. The visitors from the sky were behold as gods but instead of praise, death awaited them. Both civilizations were yet to learn the foundations of philosophy and art, of mercy and patience. The second expedition was more careful, and observed the evidence of the massacre of their first crew. They answered with fire from the sky. In the following centuries, both civilizations were bound by a single common goal to conquer each other's earth. With the first spaceship landed on their planet, the second civilization caught up quickly in technology. Weapons and shields were build, bigger ships with bigger weapons. Rockets. Nuclear weapons. An inter-planetary war of hundreds of years ended what could have been a symbiosis of two alien races. One civilization was able to build a small colony on the far moon-like planet, but survival was depending on the supplies, which ceased after a phase of cold war turned hot. Now, this single signal is all what is left. A SOS, encrypted, to even protect from an enemy without mercy so close. It might cease soon, so I rather repeat the story here to not have it forgotten. Commanders, let's take a minute of silence for those two civilizations, which rose each with the sight at the horizon like the picture below, nursing a belonging for the skies... but falling short so miserably. This is CMRD Arnagus, last witness of Antigone, signing off. |
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