Silent Cities

set default image size: small | medium | wide

by Lig

Gallery

Worked on this one for a lil while and very happy with the result. ^^ For this one I'll be doing a species Codex and an entry from the individual's personal log.

The Insotok are an insectoid species from the planet Insolon. They are a hardy species resistant to Radiation. Parts of their homeworld have high radiation levels that few other species can survive. From the archeological evidence it appears another sapient species lived on their world ions and subsequently wiped itself out. Due to this the Insotok have always had reminders to be considerate of their collective actions. Insotok as a species are highly social and matriarchal by nature. Most of the species is comprised of males with reproductive females typically taking on leadership roles. Insotok are a driven species and tirelessly pursue anything of interest to them. This has driven their species into the stars as explorers.

Celken's Log. Ship Pioneer

"A few days ago while performing independent studies with the Pioneer I detected signs of a primitive civilization. A Radio bubble. Old style Radio transmissions leaked into space. After notifying the Exploration Council I was given authorization to peruse it. As I traveled deeper into the Radio Bubble the transmissions I picked up became more advanced. More complex. Then they just stopped, Two light years away from their system of origin and the transmissions ceased. The system itself was fairly ordinary. Average middle age star gas giants, rocky planets. The system had only one habitable planet. Orbit scans revealed a number of artificial satellites in orbit and a number of cities. In fact I could see the lights from a number of them from orbit. After doing a number of scans thought I found something odd. Despite these cities appearing to still be operating there were minimal life signs within. Given the transmissions I'd picked up showing organics as being the planet's populace I was quite confused. After sending down a probe I confirmed that the cities were indeed empty save for robots which maintained them. None of which responded in a sapient manner. Upon receiving further permissions from the Exploration council I proceeded to land to investigate. I landed in a city park and moved out from there. The city was perfectly in tact. Every now and then I spotted a robot going about it's business maintaining something. No signs of whatever had happened. I was obviously not going to find any clues there. So I moved on to the outlying towns. With far fewer machines to maintain anything but a few stores i found the towns in significant disarray. There are ground vehicles scattered about clogging up the roads. I found packs of quadruped carnivores roaming the town. Found one inside a home with a robot. However I declined to investigate that home as well the roar the animal let loose indicated it wanted me to stay away. As i explored I began to discover bodies. I found no signs of physical trauma on any of them save for the self inflicted variety at least thus far. I am still uncertain of what happened here. My only working hypothesis is that this world suffered some type of global pandemic. The nature of which is still largely unknown."

Well hope you guys liked the pic and the story. ^^

Keywords