Point of Origin

We began excavating one of the more complex-looking facilities at this site, in hopes that its substantial climate-control system may have better preserved the interior. Though some hopes were dashed, our find still exceeded all expectations: a compact series of processing and storage centers for the very foods our species evolved to live on.



Each unit functioned as a kind of manufactured grotto, providing crystal beds and evaporation pools - their contents long since rendered unpalatable, but still viable for study. We also uncovered databanks filled with chemical profiles for these minerals, many of which may still form in isolated pockets of the planet's weather-beaten surface. We have made this information available to all short-range scanners in the vicinity.

This find alone cannot tell us what our species' eating habits were, nor can it tell us if our ancestors practiced any sort of dining culture. For some interested parties though, it still amounts to a captivating glimpse of our past.

A short distance from the food vault lay the foundations of a museum. Only its basement archives remain in tact, but this was enough to preserve almost an entire database of articles this institution once held for display and storage in the wrecked galleries above.

This is the first time we've countered longform writing in one of our own languages. Superficially at least, the script is surprisingly similar to our present … dialect, but the grammar feels unwieldy and alien. We do not even know if we would be pronouncing these words correctly. A lot of the literature in this catalog cites the regions and peoples who donated these artifacts, but their names feel especially strange to us. Curiously, none of them refers to our planet or our society as a unified people. Perhaps we never were, until the Machine assimilated us.

The museum appears to be one of a cluster of buildings which catered to a visiting public. Further excavation will require extensive resources; where should we focus our next dig?

We traced a batch of utility lines to a fortified basement complex under a prominent mound, which we now believe to have been part of this world's capitol complex. The scale of its foundations suggest this was a rather impressive building. Unfortunately most of the interior has been stripped away or ruined, though we did make one conspicuous find: a single, color-faded flag draped over shattered pieces of a scale diorama. Reconstructed, the scene appears to depict our moment of first contact with the ….

Scattered documents and plaques around the site suggest the Machine visited our homeworld approximately eight centuries ago, though evidence gathered elsewhere in the city suggests the … had been drip-feeding us advanced technologies for decades prior. At the time, our ancestors seem to have welcomed the Machine warmly - this doomed relationship was founded on claims of mutual cooperation and enlightenment.

What we find most telling is that there is no record of what happened afterwards. It is as though the history of our species stopped dead the moment we shook … with the robot figure depicted on this diorama.