Foundation Stage; Day 6Over the night yet more drones are called down from orbit, in this case being three Medical Drones. Almost immediately upon landing they are set to work, one rolls off into the desert alongside a security drone to work on cataloging the wildlife, another is sent straight to the river running through the perimeter, to check for algae and verify how edible it would be, and the third is dispatched immediately to try and recover the unconscious native.
Fortunately the native did not appear to be particularly hurt by its fall and when the Medical Drone arrives to examine it, it manages to ensure the creature gets a presumably healthy dose of water from the river, and eventually decides on monitoring it as it rests. For this purpose the drone moves the creature into the habitation complex to keep an eye on it, and it seems to work, the creature wakes just as the local sun rises. Unfortunately it does not seem to take its situation very well, it immediately starts screeching before launching itself at the drone in complete defiance of international law under the eighth Geneva Convention! Fortunately while not as hardy as other units, Medical Drones are still machines, and this creature appears at least to not be particularly strong compared to others of its species. Once a Security drone stomps towards it it soon cowers in a corner of the room, where it seems to remain for the rest of the day, cowering in the corner. Again not a great impression but it is alive, what to do with it now, well that is a good question.
The drone examining the local river is able to make several observations, for one there do appear to be fish-like creatures in the water, though the Medical Drone is ill suited for capturing these, but it is very capable of collecting the small bacteria and algae (or rather the nearest approximation) in the water for examination. After about three hours, a fairly long time of a Medical Drone, it is able to conclude a number of findings. Firstly it identifies the local Algae as being safe for human consumption, though it may require some adjusting for the Human digestive systems. One fact that may become disconcerting for the humans is the fact that it appears this planets chlorophyll equivalents in the plants are purple, which would explain the purple tones in the few plants your drones have observed. Next it observes that the bacteria will need to be thoroughly purged from all local foods until the Human can be immunized for any potential threats posed by them, it recommends the Human be placed in containment at first before a test group is selectively immunized and adjusted to the local micro forms over a period of four years during which the humans should utilize hazardous environment suits whilst outside until they can adjust. Finally it notes that the large number of Nanomachines in the water will not pose any problem for the humans (also there is a large number of Nanomachines int he water), it doesn't seem to elaborate much on why it thinks that, but you can't help but agree.
The drone sent out to catalog the wildlife runs into some problems, namely catching the wildlife. Medical drones need to be very close to things to work on them, but the local wildlife proves remarkably uncooperative in sitting still and letting the Medial Drone run diagnostics on them, how rude. The large hulking and slow security bot wandering around behind it might be contributing to the scaring off part.
All other operations meanwhile continue without change. The Developer drone sent north manages to construct a small but simple refinery, a mining drone is still required for now to transport the goods, but it does increase overall production, especially as the other drone is able to just mine non-stop. This is estimated to double the supply of Minerals, though that will not take effect until the next day. In the meantime the natives continue to observe the convoys moving back and forth between the mining site and base, but still seem content to keep their distance and don't follow them to either location, peeling off after about two hours of observation. There are also no Snake-worms near the drones today, so that's a plus.
The Southern scout meanwhile continues to observe as the fleeing local cartographer makes it all the way back to one of the cities, causing quite a ruckus when it gets there, so there's that now. The perimeter scouts, joined by the scout that had given the gifts to the "Saakin" continue their search to document local wildlife, progress is slow but they do manage to catalog more wildlife, and as a bonus they spot a few local tribes, scattered a good distance from the base to the north and northwest, for now they don't seem interested in approaching the colony, but perhaps the ones following your convoys come from one of these tribes?
The Perimeter for a nice change experiences no breaches today, only creatures to small to be considered a that enter and leave, it appears that centering the base around this small river valley may perhaps turn this into something of a hotspot for local wildlife, water in a desert is a precious resource after all. The turrets around the habitation complex are now complete, with its Developer drone now waiting on orders, perhaps it could start working on a deterrent fence around the perimeter, the current model in the archive relies on electrical bursts and high frequency sound waves which theoretically should work, though you haven't quite tested it yet. Of course a perimeter fence would be a very long and expensive project to cover the entire perimeter. There is also the possibility of a drone refit shop to modify the drones, turning an Aerial scout into a carryall would be a complicated process, the scouts are a bit small so it would involve making an entirely new body, but with a refit shop it would be possible.
Near the end of the day you note that the gifts you gave to the "Saakin" are moving south-southeast.
You have confirmed that the Algae at least is edible, you could begin farming it for a food supply.
The locals made it back to their city, you should expect word about your base to be spreading among those southern natives.
You now have a living native in captivity for now, what you'll do with it remains to be seen.
There are a large number of Nanomachines in the water, but they're harmless, you know that.
Command Post (Secure)
Perimeter Sensors (Active)
Basic Habitation Compound (Secure)
-Attached Auto-Turrets (Active)
Drone Hub (2) (Secure)
Basic Farms (Secure) (Inactive)
Network Usage 15/21
3 Units of Security Drones (Active)
3 Units of Scout Drones (Active)
2 Units of Developer Drones (Active)
2 Units of Miner Drones (Active)
2 Units of Aerial Drones (Active)
3 units of Medical Drones (Active)
Is there a reason we need the entire biopod brought down? Surely it has maintenance access, which could be used to move some algae samples to a drone with storage, which could then be launched down to us. Our colonists won't be thrilled with it, but it lets us get started on food production before the colonists come down to help with the natives and deal with the biopod consequences.
There are no active personnel on the Mothership, human or drone, everything is in special pods that are supposed to be launched to the planets surface. Even if you could get someone active up there to access the Biopod, there are no spare pods that the algae samples could be put in and survive the fall to the planet surface, it's the whole pod or nothing.
So there where a lot of suggestions but very few votes here, so from this point forwards any suggestion will need at least two votes (not including the one who makes the suggestion) before it will be implemented.
And as a reminder when drones run out of orders they don't do much, so you need to give them a list or a continuous job otherwise they just revert to default programming.
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Topic: Colony Command (Read 9113 times)