Tower and Town, May 2017 (view the full edition)Landing With The CaptainLadies and gentlemen this is your captain speaking, we have found an appropriate planet with suitable conditions in the Orion arm of the Milky Way, it is somewhat on the periphery but remote surveys look promising. We shall be landing shortly on the new world so please listen to the following short briefing. The climatic conditions look very favourable and the descent should be straightforward, so begin your preparations for the landing and encampment. Unfortunately the meteor showers that we passed after the last jump have dispersed the fleet and we have been unable to regroup, so we will be the only ship landing in this section of the galaxy. However, great care was taken in the selection of each passenger complement to ensure self sufficiency so there should be no major difficulties with establishing a base. Local fauna can be considered dangerous and care should be taken, even with the hominids which seem barely more advanced intellectually than apes although they have created primitive tools and weapons. Approach with caution and we will be able to use them rather than enter into conflict, which will enhance our workforce resource and enable us to build the structures required for the following ships and our own departure. Thank you for listening and prepare for landing - Captain out. Roy Smith |
Contact with the other vessels has been lost due to damage sustained in the communication section of the ship; we are continuing to work on repairs and this will be simplified when we land and are able to work easily outside the ship. This means that it may not be possible to link up with central command so we must assume we are on our own for the time being. Support vessels will be following at intervals to bring additional supplies and assist in the collection of any resources that we may be able to extract to return home. This will be later when we have had time to explore and in terms of the planet we are landing on, it will be in three full cycles of the planet around the local sun. Each of these cycles is split into 365 intervals when the sun is visible from the equatorial region where we will be landing. This will provide a temperature and conditions best suited to us.