Episode 5: Space whale cousins

 Star Log date 24 echo sixth circle of scroubley; Captain Sheriden reporting:

Today we are picking up our hunt with a side journey to document a perceived Space whale cousin called the Conetopter. It is unknown if this is actually the home planet of the Space whale and if these are one of the many evolved forms of space whales or if these are a variety of space whale that made their homes here after traveling to this world, or if these are entirely their own species. What is known is that this particular species is no longer able to leave this planet if in fact they ever could. They don't seem to have much in the way of a visible lineage on this planet though and seem like they found their way here, adapted rather effectively, and have been unable to, or uninterested in leaving. The floating above in the clouds ability that they posses is actually performed by the use of a series of gas sacks. This includes the rather large ones on their backs which assist in a series of gas exchanges in order to effectively allow these massive creatures to float. The release of certain gasses also assists in the creatures propulsion. Additional propulsion is accomplished by the use of fin like extensions and is able to heavily assist in steering. The number and nature of these allows for exceptional mobility despite size. However they are not particularly quick, merely highly mobile.

The planet we are on today is called Krealoe. Krealoe is an exceptionally large planet which is rather unusual for a native life containing planet that also has a space capable civilization upon it. Infact their are two respective and separate civilizations that live on the planet and whose governments never interacted officially until after both races became spaceflight capable. We will be stopping by a Krealoan Tegger space port in order to trade and get a better view of the Conetopters in the area. The other group known as the Yppilogs are equally as friendly however the particular season on this planet is known to have a burgeoning of the Conetopters food source at the moment so it should allow us an excellent chance for viewing. The creatures we see in the vicinity of these space whale cousins are known as Liptrites. They are commonly seen around the Conetopters in a fashion of both cleaning and scrounging for scrap food. They actually are known to be rather protective of their meal tickets and will typically protect their larger halves from perceived predators or hazards.

Currently two of our crew members have been ordered to gather samples from the nearby flora and fauna yet it is suspected ship cadets Liam and Mohammed have been screwing around and harassing some of the locals. If they continue giving the ship and her crew a bad name, we may have to find some additional duties for them to perform in order to keep them busy. Talk amongst the crew suggests that they should be given the task of cleaning the ships exterior engine while in mid flight. other suggestions have included requiring them to get stomach samples from some of our larger subjects before, during, and after digestion. At the moment though we have to get them to stop playing with their PED's (Personal Entertainment Device) and get back to work, otherwise we are going to have to drop them from the crew and recruit two additional members. If it comes to that, then I will be canceling all of the credits they have earned and sending letters to their schools (they are student cadets and doing this for course credit....) to inform them about their lack of commitment and nonprofessional conduct. Hopefully we can get them to straighten out and fly right before it comes to that.

Well thats all for this week fellow space farers. And never forget that hard work will get you some place. and screwing around will get you eaten by giant alien monster things.

Episode 4: Space Ray narrative

Star Log date 24 delta sixth circle of scroubley; Captain Sheriden reporting:

We have just arrived in the area known as the ray dunes. The "rays" that occupy they area actually show a tremendous amount of variety. Which is an uncommon thing for creatures that don't seem to have evolved here or around here but seem to have all been relocated here. Although some are occasionally seen far away from the dunes, it is actually quite uncommon for any of the rays cataloged here to be seen very far away from here. One of the particular species of rays seem to possess an electrical discharge/ absorption ability. In fact a member of a ship studying these particular rays lost at least 2 members of their crew to petting the rays before they realized that this particular specie was the discharging type. We have additionally sustained slight damage to our hull from numerous near collisions with some of these majestic creatures. Thankfully they haven't done more then short out our electrical shields and leave a few light scoring marks.

Some of the crew are a little afraid to go out and repair the damage while the rays remain close. Some of the crew decided to look up an old biologist and wild life enthusiast named Steve Irwin. His nickname was the Crocodile hunter. His unfortunate death has led to a number of the crew most particularly aware of extraneous portions of the dune rays anatomy, despite the rays not have a single sharp object in their posterior (that is known to strike....).

One of our crew members did receive some electrical burns through their suit when they got a little too over zealous about exploring the rays. Upon noticing the crew member, the ray immediately propelled itself away while sending out an electrical current. Without time to react, the crew woman was slapped and shocked and sent adrift with a twitch. We recovered crew woman Georgia and she is now recovering quite well.

The area of the dunes is called so due to the numerous thin sheets of dust and asteroids that are all around this sector. The clouds are not irradiated like the lily Nebulae so do not glow in pretty colors. Yet the light from the nearby stars seems to not only be so strong as to light up vast expanses, but the layout of many of the stellar bodies seems to reflect the light back in a way that makes the whole area light up like a vast desert. This phenomenon is believed to have been created by at least 2 of the planetary bodies in the system having collided. One of these bodies has been called Exillius and the other believed body has been called Dualuorientus for the belief that it was a planet like object that for some reason fell out of orbit and directly collided with Exillius. The debris pattern is what we see now as the habitat for these numerous rays. Some think that if there were any sentience in the rays that they may have had some part in it. Although the motive for this is unclear, it is also considered rather ridiculous that rays that can naturally traverse space would loose the intelligence required to perform such a feet and then simply wait around to be discovered for their assault on a planet that, as far as we know, had no discernible form of life. Another theory claims that if the rays do indeed come from the area, that perhaps they were one of the species that inhabited one of the two planetoid before destruction and upon destruction of their home planet (or planets...) that they adapted to the vacuum of space. This is also another outlandish concoction that doesn't take into account the instantaneous effects of planets colliding which leaves roughly 37 hours to "adapt" to the new environment. Then again maybe they just wondered into the area after the whole thing went down and decided to set up shop.
Regardless of any past transgressions against or by untraceable species, the area has become a sort of tourist attraction for those who can afford the trip which requires at the very least a lot of rubber insulation. In addition to this we are including an updated map of our journey up to this point.

 

That is what we're pretty much covering for this week. Next week we're going to stop near a relatively friendly sector to explore what is believed to be a relative of the space whale. So long!

Episode 3: Temporary set back

Star Log date 24 charlie sixth circle of scroubley; Captain Sheriden reporting:

   Today we were traveling on the next leg of our journey when mid flight we had a small explosion near one of the storage compartments.  Apparently one of our young scientists decided to place our solid potassium and lithium formation next to some of our deionized H20 and didn't check to see if all the containers where sealed. So we had a brief stop mid space in order to fix the damage. One of the things that where also in that storage area where a large collection of our micro repair drones. The explosion activated them but without being synchronized with our ships computer systems they began repairing the exploded containers along with themselves and ignored the damage to the ship. Eventually we were able to shut them down but it did give us an opportunity to sync them with the ships systems so they are ready for any future needs.  In addition to this delay we were also held up in our initial departure. Those Blefergs took quite a while to dislodge from the hull and view ports. So now we are pushing our engines to about 25% in order to maintain our schedule. 

While we are in transit we are going to be checking in with our on-board Ionian labs. These labs are not only equipped with numerous high tech analysis tools but also linked to the galactic "suds"(Solar Universal Dispersion System) space network. This network acts like something of a galactic linking of information libraries and general communication devices. This is similar to the world wide web back on earth but not limited by wires or servers. 

I also wanted to cover some of our history with the mythology of the Space whales which we are so adventurously attempting to observe. Humans alone have been looking to the skies for uncounted generations, and even the old constellation Cestus as seen from earth was seen as the great Whale in space. Later it was also associated with sea monsters but, in general the theme of a large and dominating presence in entity is throughout. 
Even a famous scientist of older times named Carl Sagan, a famous astrobiologist whom assisted with numerous scientific exploits with NASA, was famous for his early theories on outer space organisms and much of his work was inspiration for early interest in space whales! Simply more evidence of our long running love of the mighty space whale!

Despite these almost premonition like insights, actual knowledge of what we now think of as a space whale was not obtained until several hundred years later. It wasn't until deep space travel expeditions and contact with other forms of communicable life was obtained that we were able to obtain more reliable information about the beautiful space whale. 

With a bit more information on our subject of inquiry, and a bit more tidying up around the ship after working out a few more "kinks", We are nearly at the next leg of our journey. We'll pick up with you next time future crew members. 

Episode 2: The Lily Nebulae

Star Log date 24 Bravo sixth  circle of Scroubley; Captain Sheriden reporting

We have come out of our first leg of our hunt for a space whale pod into an old breeding ground for the space whales long before they moved to other known spawning grounds. we arrived in the Lily Nebulae and are stopping near some old historical sites near a colony of Blefergs.  The Blefergs are something good of a curiosity. A race almost entirely servile, to what I don't even think they know. Resembling something akin to a kangaroo and a Frog combined, they have rarely been seen bouncing. Their skin is hairless but does not appear to be as sensitive to their surroundings as earth frogs. They are all over the Galaxy in small pockets but where first noticed her near Phobos by humans and have since been associated with this region. It is still not known from where they originated, and all though communication is at times difficult due to most being a series of eye blinks and enlarged throat bubbles, the little communication that has been accomplished appears to suggest that they don't know where they came from either. They are quite nice, relatively harmless and not even a nuisance. They seem to be making the local market outpost nearby. They have a most curious way of traversing the vacuum of space. They use what appears to be a triangular or pyramidal bubble. Their bubble seems to depolymerize when they no longer have a need for it and is stored into one of their vents on their back as a sort of gas waiting to be semi solidified upon release. This bubble seems to be able to protect them from more then the vacuum of space and also seems to be able to act in a rejuvenating manner in that they can use it to heal a number of injuries and diseases. Well the exact nature of these processes has yet to be fully understood, many scientists and doctors have made numerous medical and scientific advances by studying these membranous structures. This has yielded very interesting results in surgical practices in which the decrease of infection and the increase in healing time has been substantially stated. In fact one of our multiple shield technologies is based off of the as yet partially understood physics of these phenomenon. Although this particular defensive safety measure is not necessarily good against energy weaponry, it does seem to be very effective at softening the blow of solid object impacts. In fact early attempts to recreate these shields resulted the famous bumper boat fiasco of the 5th circle of Scroubley date 18 Echo which although it resulted in no damages to the ships, It did result in the Largest number of cases of space sickness, and additionally led to the mass installment of sick bags throughout starships as a standard.

 (Some rural developments in coordination with Blefergs)

Upon entering the area we made contact with the locals and have began scanning and taking samples of what we believed to be an old space whale breeding ground. Amidst the Patches of almost flat pancake like clouds of irradiated particulate, are mass remains of preserved cellular material from what is believed to be baby space whales. They are at times difficult to differentiate from the rock but in general are believed to be hundreds of thousands of years old at the latest. This suggests that the space whales had to leave this area behind for new breeding grounds due to some phenomenon that is possibly associated with the radiation near the clouds. There does not seem to be a correlation between the location of the clouds and the locations of the specific breeding sites. In fact the breeding sites seem to be clumped together and the clouds seem to be in a haphazard pattern. Two of our young crew members Eric and Cody are going to be attempting to visually document and hopefully recreate some of the scenes we have constructed here for better understanding later. these samples are going to be used to help us locate some of the older routes that are believed to have been in use by the mighty space whales long ago. Once we finish our collections we are going to make a few adjustments to the engines to see if we can get those vacuum cells to be a little more efficient. From there it will be on to the next post and if we still don't have the quarks worked out by then, we should be able to get some help from the engineers that reside in the area. It will be a larger collection of cities then we have been to thus far on our journey and has at least One star port to dock at.
 The current landscape is by no means miniscule but the city in the area that is run by the Blefergs is by no means equipped to handle space ship repairs.

 (view of a colony)

 With their bubble technology they have little need of ship repairs. They are most eager to help but seem to only be able to offer window washing services. My first officer is reporting that we are nearly ready to depart for our next destination as soon as we are able to clear our kindly window washers from our path. Heaven forbid we accidentally crush or smoosh one. Not that I have ever heard of violence from the Blefergs by any means, but to have callously Injured a being that would not likely seek attention for grievous wound by star ship bumper would be a most inappropriate stain upon the ships honor. So upon my command I have issued an instruction to eject some of our trash and see if it likely distracts them. You'll know if it worked if the next time you hear from us we have actually left the area.