Utopia
The Second Wave

Posting One

The Tended

Agricultural world · temperate · no prior survey on file

Fig. 1 - The shed at the north end, and its mast.

Arable, temperate, no indigenous industry detected. A population of approximately four hundred humanoids works cultivated land in the northern basin on a regular seasonal cycle. Survey classes them pre-literate and non-hostile; they have shown no interest in our landing.

You are advised that they are not to be interfered with, and that the structures at the north end of their settlement are of no economic interest.

Posting Two

Orrigans

Extraction world · arid · native operators in place

Fig. 2 - The machine yard at dusk.

A dry world carrying substantial worked mineral deposits and a native population operating extraction machinery of unfamiliar manufacture. The Orrigans maintain the machinery competently, keep shift patterns, and have made no hostile move toward the survey team.

Note for the commander: the population has repeatedly put a question to our translators, rendered as are you the ones who were coming. Answer in the negative only if pressed.

Posting Three

Cinderkin

Exhausted extraction world · population in the spoil

Fig. 3 - Settling ponds on the southern tailings.

Heavily worked. The visible ore bodies have been opened, exhausted and abandoned by an operator we are unable to identify, and the tailings now cover eleven per cent of the land area. The indigenous population lives in the tailings and has adapted to them in ways the medical officer describes as structural rather than behavioural.

Your colony's viability depends on the seams beneath the spoil. So does theirs. The Government does not consider this a conflict of interest.

Posting Four

Volmekai

Crystalline world · established religious culture

Fig. 4 - The passes into the eastern range.

A settled indigenous culture organised around a site in the eastern range, to which access is controlled by a priesthood and refused to outsiders. The Volmekai are technologically modest and socially cohesive, and their objection to approach is absolute.

The site is a landed vessel of Terran manufacture. Recovery of its records is a secondary objective of this posting. It is not to be described to the Volmekai as such, or at all.

Posting Five

Kessarin

Ice world · two settled populations, human-descended

Fig. 5 - The cliff face, both settlements visible.

Two populations occupy opposite faces of the same cliff system. Both are human-descended. One holds the other under guard, in an arrangement that survey describes as stable and of long standing. Neither group has attempted to leave the cliffs; neither shows any curiosity about our arrival.

Our anthropologists advise against asking either group why the arrangement persists. They further advise that the question appears not to be understood.

Posting Six

Broken Choir

Stone world · sessile indigenous forms · continuous emission

Fig. 6 - A line running to the horizon.

The indigenous forms are sessile and arranged in lines across the valley floors, at regular intervals, over distances of several kilometres. Approximately half emit continuously in the ultrasound. The remainder emit nothing and appear otherwise identical.

The emission is structured. Analysis has not resolved it and jamming has not interrupted it. You will find the silent lines easier to build around.

Posting Seven

The Quarantine

Ice world · one sealed installation · hazard weighting applies

Fig. 7 - The seals, from outside.

The world carries a single installation of Terran manufacture. The seals are on the outside. Survey has not entered and is not equipped to.

Biological activity is detected across the northern hemisphere and the affected area is increasing month on month. You are to establish in the south. You are not to approach the installation under any circumstances, and you are not to accept material from the northern hemisphere into your colony.

Posting Eight

The Still Watch

Uninhabited · eleven active installations

Fig. 8 - A station aperture, tracking.

No population. The world carries eleven hardened installations set out on a great circle, all powered, all tracking. Three survey drones have been engaged and destroyed on approach. Nothing on the surface has been engaged at any time.

You are cleared to establish beneath their arc. Do not attempt entry. The installations are of Terran manufacture and their command authority is not on our register.

Posting Nine

The Late Relief

Second Terran colony in place · not on the register

Fig. 9 - Their command centre.

A Terran colony is already established here. It is not on our register. Its people speak our language, use our protocols and decline our signals. Survey estimates sixty years of continuous settlement.

They have put one question to us, on first contact, which our officer recorded as has the Empire been in touch. We did not understand the question. We have not asked them to repeat it.

Posting Ten

The Signal

Uninhabited · one transmitter · third posting to this system

Fig. 10 - The transmitter, at distance.

There is no population. There is a transmitter. It predates every other structure on the surface, by a margin our geologists decline to estimate, and it has never stopped.

Two prior postings to this system were withdrawn. The withdrawal orders are sealed. You are the third.

Your command centre has been fitted with a filter.