Plentiful Fossils

We scanned the surface and found a few promising deposits, filled with the remains of a variety of different species. Some resemble those still living on the surface, while others are nothing like we have seen before.

Although the work is hard and the wildlife is agitated by our presence, … has already made remarkable discoveries and managed to reconstruct some of the extinct species. This, in turn, sparked a dispute among the research team. While some want to display these species in exhibitions, others prefer to study the material, as they are the best-preserved fossils found to date, and this dig site is almost exhausted.

Exhausting the first site, we decided to move to more remote places in search of more material for research. … found a good enough spot, a cave that served as a home for some intelligent extinct species. Careful probing and examination revealed something unusual: whatever lived in this cave used an ingenious dye that reveals itself when exposed to heat and light.

We have identified two types of paintings: one telling the story of the past, and the other portraying daily life. Unfortunately, we disrupted the delicate ecosystem that preserved the drawings. The resulting chain reaction, combined with the age of the dye, causes it to fade and disappear on short notice. The team must decide which one is worth saving.

Exploring further into the deep chasms of the cave, we came across a grotto with a strange bone structure inside. Given the current state of the structure, it looks like it collapsed and sank into the ground - probably as a result of an earthquake. … ordered a camp to be set up, and we have already done some perimeter scans, but the ground is not stable. We may not have adequate time to examine the structure fully once we get inside.

The greatest potential yield for our studies lies in the building itself. We can either study the intriguing bone-like material or focus our efforts on exploration, searching the structure for more clues about the aliens who built and used it and their daily routine.

We finally reached the end of the cave. We entered something that resembled an old abandoned bunker built deep underground. It doesn't look like anything we've found before: we assume alien visitors set up a research lab down here. And given the dilapidated tanks, various bones, and fossils lying around, they were studying these species just as we were... Only they had this opportunity to conduct research when their specimens were still alive.

… immediately jumped to work, trying to gather any useful information from the site and data banks, as soon as we plugged them into the power source.

We compared our knowledge from previous studies to the information from the databanks. The conclusion we made is disconcerting. It appears that thousands of years ago, a space-faring civilization landed on this world and found the indigenous specimens easy to train, using their genetic manipulation techniques. At first, they enslaved the population of intelligent - albeit not fully-developed - autochthons, and conducted various experiments on them. These included making them into living tissue for construction purposes. Or into obedient slaves. Or into pets and livestock.

The previous instances we found were probably remnants of these species before they devolved into the non-sapient biosphere that now thrives on the …. A horrifying end for a species that could, one day, have traversed the galaxy just as we do.