Posted by Vice Admiral CockRoach (GM) in Main Sim - Bridge - Those Who Remain Behind
[snip]

NL Reggie Green sat in the cramped area of the bridge designated for Engineering. At least it was cramped to him as he was not a small man. Big boned is what his Aunt Bernice used to say as his small bulk rampaged through the house like a tiny tank in his growing up years. He split his attention from the data screens before him and the main screen. As he watched the shuttlepod descend he both envied Serinde and didn’t. He would have enjoyed having had a look under the hood of a real shuttle that old, but ever felt claustrophobic in those cramped tiny shuttles, and longed for the day when they were more spacious and, perhaps even capable of days or weeks long travel in them. He tugged at his beard.

“Commander,” he said, his voice matching his hulk. “If they were about there for any time and had time to build that wheel and modify the shuttle there should be graves about. A graveyard of sorts. In those days that was a much bigger thing and a plot of land would be marked off or at least gravestones or markers. Someone built that up, so someone was there, so someone must have lived and died. Even overgrown I wonder if we could pick something up in the area.”

NL Green

NE Susan over by the science station spoke up after Green, “..We have been trying to get such scans, but the local interference makes it almost impossible. So far no signs of human life, living or dead, though the second would be even harder to pick up if it’s in the ground. However, we did find a small cave area about a quarter mile into the forests on that plateau, if someone did live and die on this planet from that shuttle and built that water wheel jury rig thing, then I would bet they holed up there..” She said.

“These were Americans,” Green said with a touch of disdain. “Even for them it would have not been typical to bury their dead in a cave. Live there maybe. If we can get a visual that good on that shuttle and a water wheel gravestones or such would not be hard to see. I’d have buried any close to the shuttle. That would seem more appropriate.” He was musing as he thought. “But it didn’t look like that thing crashed. Safety measures in there would have helped a lot. And this one hardly exploded.”

NE Cornbuckle at the back of the bridge, who had the lowliest job of them all by monitoring the ship’s waste reclamation statuses from the bridge, spoke up. “..Just uh a thought? If that shuttle crashed here just under 150 years ago, forget how or why, but if it did, and obviously at least two people survived based on the earlier radio message we picked up. Then lived and died in that time frame, wouldn’t that meant the generator down there would show more visual decay then it does?” he said pointing to the screen, “..Seems to me it looks pretty well maintained, even the shuttle though rusty in spots from the weather shows little overgrowth of the local life and grass. So someone has to be regularly maintaining it even as of a few weeks ago no?” He proposed.

Green looked at that obvious clue and frowned, but gave Cornbuckle a grudging nod. “Good lad,” he said. He would have placed the green space as a natural field and so not of need of grooming, but he could see his point.

NE Susan considered this and turned back to her scans, turning back from the view hole she nodded, “..NE Cornbuckle is right sir, the overgrowth of the shuttle and generator is almost nothing. Even if those two survivors had a child that child would be dead by now. The only answer is that they had more than one child, and uh.....well those children had children..” she said with a nose wrinkle. “..as uncomfortable as that sounds in the implications it’s the only answer I can see to explain how the generator and such is still so well maintained..”

GM CockRoach

“Assuming only two lived. There was a crew of, what, seven? But you are right. On a process of multiplication over 150 years there could be a small community there.” He squinted. “But on your own thought, can we narrow magnification and see if there are any trails? Even game leave trails and even a couple of people taking a path each day would leave a bit of a trail. Even if we can’t see past the trees.” Of course Green thought that the shuttle hovering overhead would be able to see the same thing with likely better acuity, but he felt a jealous resolve to best Serinde.

• NL Green

Ne Susan nodded, turning back to her station and making a few adjustments, on the view screen a series of enhancement grids came up and then zoomed in almost by a factor of 3 ahead of what they normally could make out through the interference without pixelating their view. The result was a yellowed outline of a faint trail near the water wheel, this then led to the shuttle, and also in turn to a fainter path across the clearing to the trees, if the course held right this also would lead them to the direction of that hill and cave picked up. “..This is the most obvious on scans with the changes programmed in.” She said.

“Very good,” Green said, squinting and leaning in as though that would make anything clearer.

Zooming out a bit more she reran the scans with more fine tooth adjustments, another path got lit up. This one was a bit larger and more decayed, it lead to from the shuttle site, to the trees along the north of the clearing and if the path held true through the thick tree cover ended once more at the far north end of the plateau about a mile and a 1/2 away near the edge. There they could just make out what seemed a series of wooden structures, it was hard to get a clear picture, but at a rough guess the structure or perhaps pair of wooden structures were 20 feet wide by 40 feet long and going off the vague shadow impressions they gave probably around 8-12 feet tall. “..Just found this too, no idea what they could be, the interference causes too much pixelation to render anything clearer from here. Also impossible to say what its used for, though there is some sensor data that indicates possible smoke currently rising from it complete with organic matter..” she said.

“It tells us that there is more than one or two people down there, or at least were. That would be a big undertaking to build. One or two would have built an enclosure around the cave and worked out from there.” He shrugged a large shoulder. “My guess.”

NE Cornbuckle spoke, “..Maybe a cabin? Or maybe a smoke house? The placement of the building or buildings would be useful for that second regard of meat and such with how the sun and such rises here..” he offered.

GM CockRoach

“Some of your ancestors hunters then Cornbuckle?” Green asked. “Mine’s a history of mariners. We don’t know what meat is unless it’s from a salt barrel. But you say there’s some smoke coming from it. Best take those images, detail them as best you can and send them down to E..” he almost had said Elemirre but that wasn’t right. “To the Captain and the MACO’s.”
- NL Green