- Scarlet: Such as?
- Julius: Elisa wrote there were blue trees with triangular leaves, animals that can breathe underwater, and animals that are so small that you can’t see them!
- Scarlet: Cool!
- Scarlet: Are there also humans on other planets?
- Julius: Probably. And Elisa believes that a few of them even visited Lavarel.
- Scarlet: When was that?
- Julius: That must have been even before the founding of the Arcadian Empire.
- Scarlet: Maybe these humans from outer space will help us when they find out how bad the situation on Lavarel is.
- Julius: That would be nice…
- Tibor: Scarlet, it’s getting late. Let’s go home!
- Scarlet: See you tomorrow, Julius!
- Julius: Bye!
A Sky Full of Stars 035
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30 thoughts on “A Sky Full of Stars 035”
Kazuma Taichi
hopefully those presumably kind humans can swing by Earth sometime too
Tadrix
Probably did. Probably ended up disgusted, then, as is normal for a UFO, got chased by some fighter planes, realised it’s our warplanes that are chasing them, “got the message” and promptly left, never to return. Unless they had the dubious luck to show up over some active war zone — then the message was even more pronounced.
Dilandu
Aliens that could sneak up through space unnoticed (which is extremely hard) but could not do the same in Earth atmosphere (which is very simple) are probably too alien in terms of thinking for meaningful contact anyway)
HKMaly
Actually, finding ship in space is quite hard when you have no idea where it is … unless it’s engines are on. Like for example when breaking before entering atmosphere.
However, if aliens have some sort of reactionless drive, they can get quite close with level of stealth already available to US.
HKMaly
Earth is where they came FROM. IMHO this is FUTURE in which humans colonized big part of galaxy and Lavarel is one of those colonies so old people forgot it’s a colony.
Because parallel evolution doesn’t go THAT far to claim two species evolving on different planets are both humans.
Dilandu
Agree completely. Lavarel have a clear “lost colony” vibe; the climate system is artificially supported, the local ecosystem is extremely limited (just TWO plants edible for humans and large animals). My personal speculation, is that its a terraformed planet, presumably settled by one-way expedition (or maybe even a seedship-type probe, that constructed foxes and wolves species as backup in case humans would not be able to survive here)
FuryoftheStars
Just to note, I believe the two edible plants thing is what is left that can still grow in the current climate, not all of what they’ve ever had.
Otherwise, yeah, definitely feels more like a lost colony, or a situation where the past astronomer was just fantasizing/making stuff up.
Dilandu
Considering that Lavarel is populated by humans and Earth animals descendants, those visitors probably ARE from Earth.
NN
Probably were from Earth
Fred
The backstory is both beautiful and terrible at the same time
BlackDragonSlayer
It would be extremely interesting, imo, if the planet was a former colony planet that got abandoned because the main civilization ran into its own problems and couldn’t maintain contact. That might explain the purpose of the machine (the planet was unsuitable for habitation before terraforming and requires regular intervention to keep it habitable), why it no longer works, and why nobody has ever bothered or been able to perform upkeep on the machine (such a seemingly important machine!!!) or restart it.
HKMaly
… not only interesting, I’m failing to find any other explanation matching what we were told.
Well, except small unimportant differences like the main civilization possibly overextending itself so being unable to maintain contact with all colonies is not result of specific problem but kinda expected.
BlackDragonSlayer
It could be a red herring (there were a few similar ones in Gaia as well). If there is some sort of main civilization though, it’s likely the event was something sudden and unexpected (say, a gamma ray burst taking out critical infrastructure, or intentional sabotage/civil war by a regressive faction).
Dilandu
Well, the explanation may be that there is no FTL in this universe. Interstellar travels are sublight and therefore slow and costly. The colony is supposed to rely on its own resources; any possible help from other worlds would took decades (or centuries) to came. The Lavarel seems to be unable to maintain high-tech infrastructure and reverted to lower level; the lack of radio and laser emissions most likeky make other settled worlds to conclude that colony on Lavarel is doomed and not worth massive resources to mount some kind of relief efforts.
Arthur
One possibility is that humans were not seeded by humanity. Some ancient scientist may have abducted neolithic humans and had them placed in another planet for experimentation and observation. Maybe they also uplifted the foxes as well.
Hegel-Marx
I love how Julius sits in the lotus. 😉
Anonymous Pie
And them the Imperium showed up.
Fan
This reminds me of Le Guin’s Hainish universe a bit.
MegaJar
Waaaaait a minute…
“Blue tree with triangular leaves” = blue spruce (the “leaves” are needles)
“Animals that can breathe underwater” = marine mammals (whales, dolphins, etc.)
“Animals so small you can’t see them” = bacteria
…He’s talking about US! WE’RE the humans on other planets! Ze fourth wall, she eez broken!
HKMaly
We WILL be.
He is talking about parts of Earth biosphere which was never imported on Lavarel but was imported into other Earth colonies. Well, was from his point of view, will be from ours.
Mersharr
Marine mammals can NOT breathe under water. Fish however can.
Crystalgate
This is getting interesting. The possible existence of space faring aliens may give some credit to the possibility of a machine of eternal summer, although it most likely would be called something different.
HKMaly
Yeah, sure, no machine can ever have a poetic name as “machine of eternal summer” or “squirrel-cage induction motor”.
Not all engineers lack sense of poetry.
Dilandu
Interesting. So Lavarel apparently:
* Lack any maritime or river fauna (the water bodies are dead, then)
* Lack the microbiota (outside of symbiotic bacteria, I presume, since without them the digestion would be impossible)
Looks like the import of Earth species on Lavarel was extremely limited, even by terraformed worlds “standards”. Possible explanations:
* The planet was settled by seedship-type probe – that transported only DNA of species for in vitro cloning facilities, not speciemen themselves.
* The terraforming wasn’t finished for some reason, and only a limited ecosystem was established
FuryoftheStars
I mean, it’s still likely there is bacteria here. They may just not know.
Arthur
A lack of symbiotic bacteria could explain the inability to eat most of the plant life on the planet.
Dilandu
A good explanation, yes!
Crystalgate
It is my understanding that the cold has killed most edible plants, not that the humans have poor digestion system.
doclbn
… did I note yet that Elli‘s colouring is totally stunning? 🙂
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