Procyon Dawn

[Unwashed_Pleb]

The sun dawned on the glimmering world, the massive, mile high crystal spires catching the rays and splitting the light into a million shades of color. Youth Minua, a young podling, stared out of the domed observation wall onto the world, enthralled by its amazing beauty as the world shone with a mother-of-pearl effect as light caressed its semi-crystalline face.

"Beauty such as this is rare" swam the thoughts of the elder, "feel fortunate that you see it before you join the black"

Minua's thoughts squirmed a bit, "Something is odd about this place, Elder, It intrigues me." whispered the thought of Minua back.

"Intrigue and fear go hand in hand, youth. Be sure to discover the difference."

Minua swam in a small circle as his thoughts tried to wrap around this concept, before he could respond the thoughts of the elder spoke, "We are moving closer for the deep scan. Be wary of gravity pull"

Minua quickly swam to his station, his instruments floating up from the waters below as he summoned them, the small hexagonal spikes glimmering with mental-activated power as they interfaced with the machine. "Deep Scan ready, elder" he transmitted

"Activate, youth"

The data swam into the ships semi-sentient computers, information on atmospheric conditions (almost non-existant Minua noted), temperature and gravity. A deeper scan showing a world almost devoid of the element carbon, but rich in radioactives, metals and silicate minerals.

"Something is strange. I feel minds" thought the elder for all of his podlings to hear.

"Elder? surely there are no minds on a world with no life" transmitted another podling from the engine section.

"Open your thoughts, feel the impossible" spoke the elder.

As she ship grew as close to the planet as its stutter drives could bear, Minua opened his mind, and felt something truely different. It is not the low rumble of the Tarka mind, or the sharp, direct sting of the human, Nor the many-voiced chorus of the Children. It was something new, it darted excitedly from point to point, all light and color.

Minua felt the other's retract their minds in confusion, but he pushed further, intrigued by this strange new mind to explore. The mind didn't think in words, but thought in colors, more colors then the rainbow had to offer. Patterns of light and shadow, pulses of radio and UV light, and always the light show of the visible spectrum. He pushed further, even beyond where his elder would go.

He felt the emotions of the alien beings, Excitement, reverance, curiosity, and above all, an overwhelming love of their world in its metallo-crystalline beauty... and the desire to spread its light to all worlds like it.

"Elder. They live."

[Stonefish]

I knew translation research was quick, but damn

[Baldrick]

lol stone

[Glacialis]

Recognizing sentience and understanding it are two separate things.

[Blazer]

Good work, I at first had no idea the characters were Liir and was getting all bothered by telepathy and such.

[CatchCharyou]

That was really neat.

[Mecron]

bonus points for Procyon!!!

[Gakl]

bonus points for Procyon!!!

Procyon? I thought that would be too close for a race to have been discovered so comparatively late in SotS time line. I figured a world would really have to be close to 1000 ly out for humans not to discover it w/ all their fancy shmancy node lines and such. Even if no direct line, i would assume that curious clever apes would at least have sent a sub-light probe to search for promising node links). Even lacking a node line, anything reasonably close to earth would be important to inspect, lest you risk a bug infestation again!

[Slasher]

Unless that was a "Battle at Procyon" reference.