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

“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

NE Cornbuckle nodded, “..Working on it sir..” he said turning back to his console to flip some dials and switches.

After a few minutes he put the comm piece to his ear and then flipped another switch entailing in voice and text/pictures what they had found.

GM CockRoach

Green looked at the magnified view of the area tugging on his beard. They had come a long way from the old style telescopes that mariners spied on each other from across the waves. Even pre war satellites took some impressive images from space. Another world. Green was a career sailor. Still he had mostly been in space about Sol. He wasn’t a Boomer like some traveling for months between ports at slow warp, but had often dreamed of that and being out there. Now that he was, here he was looking down on another world. After the transmission had been sent Green said, “Can you set this up to flag anything that moves that is bigger than a dog? Motion sense? There’s so much there for area we could be looking at the shuttle and missing someone moving from that cave to a tree.”
Green, NL Eng