I wish the first me, the one rotting in a ravine, would’ve kept a record of the sky. If I’m playing the long game I need to know what else is in this system.
There’s many bright stars in the sky, and I’m willing to bet several of them are other planets in this system. I’m a long way off from making a telescope, and much, much, longer from going to them myself.
Why, you may ask?
A warp core requires a lot of very specific parts, and very specific materials. Materials I may not find here. Materials that only exist in billion-year old asteroids, or stellar remnants, or in this case, other planets.
That’s my newest addition to the rulebook: Keep track of the sky.
I’ve spent the day wandering around the woods. Poking around in the dirt and on the trees. Something that I can eat. Something that I can grow.
Now that the sun is going down, I have a nice collection of berries, roots, leaves, and other such edible-looking things. I’ll try them each one at a time. If I eat them all at once and then get sick, I won’t know which one poisoned me.
I’ll start with these berries. They’re a light blue, but resemble cherries, and always have three seeds inside. The seeds are big, without much juicy stuff around them. No intelligent race has bred them into giant balls of pure calories yet.
They tasted like blueberries. A good source of antioxidants, maybe?
Right, nutrition. Humans and dwelves both work the same. When we run low on a nutrient, we crave the foods that have them. That doesn’t work as well for an alien ecosystem.
My body did adapt well to Earth food, though I haven’t spent enough time anywhere else to have the same effect. And with me disposing of bodies like they’re car tires…
That won’t be good.
I took another trip to the beach, and by the end of it I had sand in every crevice of my clothing, rubbing my skin red.
At least there’s something here like home.
I was more interested in what was deeper. I swam further out than I ever did before, diving down to see what I could find.
The animals at the bottom were alien enough, from the quick glimses I could get. Like something out of Earth’s Cambrian period.
That blue and green seaweed I’d seen washing up was abundant. Lots of soft-bodied worms and fish-like animals darting through them. Plenty of larger shelled creatures too.
The thing that struck me the most was what looked like a rock. But it wasn’t. Think more like a clam. I watched it open its gaping maw and suck in an unfortunately little worm and close again. Now just another rock on the seafloor.
I hope that’s as big as they get.