Anomaly
A Planetary Machine
Machinerie planétaire
Description
This planet is covered from pole to pole in rusting, ancient machinery, much of which is itself covered in an unidentified, organic tissue. What manner of creatures could have built this technological curiosity, and what happened to them?
Where to find it
No particular location is required.
Possible outcomes
Rewards read from the event effects. Some depend on conditions (empire type, earlier choices) or on chance.
Planet-Wide Machinery
Console: event ancrel.2050
Description
There is decaying machinery covering …, originally constructed a staggering seventy-thousand years ago. The fate of the alien engineers who built it is unclear, as they no longer inhabit the planet.
Their machinery spanned the majority of the surface of the planet, crisscrossing mountains and oceans alike - and even extends far below the planet's surface, in a vast network of underground facilities. It has been constructed using identical materials and serial codes, suggesting a single institution created the entire network. From the long-overgrown agricultural sectors, to the collapsed energy generation and transformation systems and extensive communication arrays, all of the industrial and entertainment needs of this planet's lost inhabitants were met by this one supermachine.
Remarkably, some of these mechanical sectors are still functional: sending and receiving local signals, lighting up long-rotted ghost towns, and watering great swathes of what must have once been agricultural land. Deep scans of the planet's crust suggest the sprawling machine's control center is located underground - we will have to excavate if we wish to reach it.
As for the strange organic tissue covering most of the planet-spanning machinery: our science team thus far remains baffled by its nature and its purpose.
No reward described.