dark forest kaleidoscope

TIMELINE GROUP A - SURVIVAL, INTACT (SAPIENCE AT 0 B.E.)

1. Nomai, 281,000 B.E. As previously recorded. An abrupt ending by ghost matter leaves many structures unintentionally abandoned, but for the planet of Coleus’s endearing semi-aquatic lifeforms, the deliberate conscientiousness of its visitors ensures minimal impact on the species’ early evolution.
2. Hattans, 282,000 B.E. Multiple settlements and extensive infrastructure remain in place in Tallpines and Deepwater after the ghost matter wipes out their inhabitants. Resulting civilization is a “junkyard species” of sorts, building villages directly on the exposed steel ruins of their predecessors.
3. Roa, 189,000 B.E. Planet RFS-9J3Y44-II is catalogued under automated survey as an area of low risk: pollen contamination unlikely within next quarter-million years. It is subsequently left to its own devices.
4. Poloni, 74,000 B.E. Planet of Bountiful Geysers is noted containing a nascent sapient species, and subsequently marked off limits for future visitation (concessions for indirect study notwithstanding) until proof of interstellar travel can be confirmed, per the Primary Law of Contact. Of course, the universe won’t last long enough for that to ever happen. A nice thought, though, wasn’t it?
5. Quartil, 11,000 B.E. The research outpost is ordered to cease ground operations after the first three centuries, as the species is reclassified as a type II primitive sophont protected by law, but the cultural memory of mistreatment long outlives its creators. A suspicious and uncertain species grows up aiming flint-knapped spears at the still-orbiting satellites with dead batteries and blinded cameras. Spacefaring carries an air of trepidation; the sky people might strike from any direction. (But of course, nobody believes in sky people anymore – have you ever seen one?)

TIMELINE GROUP B - SURVIVAL, TECHNICAL (PERMANENT REGRESSION; DOMESTICATION)

1. Myrans, 202,000 B.E. An invading force assigned to an unfortunate outpost. Inhabitants primarily regard the local salamanders of Noteworthy Planet 311-2 as bushmeat; the local term (used for many such species) translates roughly as “supplementary rations”. Species survives in spite of frequent efforts, but sacrifices intelligence and social cohesion for rapid breeding and accelerated maturity.
2. Tsedang, 257,000 B.E. After settling the system and appraising for resources, specimens of the Cordy’s Star-II aquatic midsize lifeforms are re-engineered for domestic usage, primarily for meat and roe. The wild strain is rapidly eradicated as fisheries expand, eventually exterminated as an inconvenient pest.
3. Samir, 199,000 B.E. After no source is found, Second of Voidsong’s native “land fish” are domesticated to multiple ends, as livestock and in a more intelligent form as working animals. Typical uses are as herding and hunting animals, social support, or companionship. Laboratory studies test regenerative capacity and use the species as a potential source of novel chemistry, as is common for exoorganisms. Feral counterparts linger, but in small, dwindling numbers, dying out by 195,000 B.E.
4. Ilawak, 262,000 B.E. While the ecosystem of Faint Melody’s Second is initially left untouched, water-lizard specimens are captured for scientific study, and later poached for exotic animal trade, becoming moderately popular in domestic form as pets. The original species survives, but never expands to dominate the surface, blocked from this niche by encroaching Ilawak colonies.
5. Yeq, 214,000 B.E. Terraforming efforts transform the environment dramatically; what survives must set aside intellect in favor of high acid, toxin, and temperature resistance. The hot springs salamanders of Fountain Peaks, charming as they are, never surpass their ancestors' height of intelligence, though a few allow themselves to be tamed as companions.

TIMELINE GROUP C - EXTINCTION

1. Cloud-Star-Three, 156,000 B.E. Silicon lifeforms whose primary interest is the stones and metals of the planet’s core. Organic life is a disgusting contaminant to be cleansed, not unlike mold found growing in the back of a refrigerator. Judicious application of ionizing radiation, planetwide. Extinction is rapid and absolute.
2. Dimolan, 285,000 B.E. For mineral-based life mining the core of Hot-Water-Table-High-Jets, most larger organics are a nuisance to be removed. Due to damage from operations, ghost matter easily penetrates to the planet’s core when the comet arrives, though by then little life remains on any part of it.
3. Talai, 271,000 B.E. Unregulated mining and exotic-matter-recovery operations on Malo’s Treaty System XIV-II rapidly degrade the surrounding habitat and drive most key species to extinction within a few centuries. It will be approximately three thousand years before life recovers enough to return to land; intelligent successors evolve beginning 20,000 years later from a kind of large, mutated crustacean.
4. Everyone’s Body, 105,000 B.E. The formless hivemind readily assimilates the small stone-age population, as well as most other sentient life, into its collective amorphous biomass. It splits several times, with its last offshoot containing any biomatter from the nameless geyser planet dying around 23,000 B.E. There is a flamethrower involved.
5. Oscovi, 108,000 B.E. Conquest of the Land of Plentiful Blue Trees is barely even a challenge. A defiant stone-age species with no meaningful contribution is to be decimated, enslaved, and replaced. A small population circulates, scattered across the stars, for less than a century before dying out. Ecosystem is replaced by invasive species, eventually naturalized to the environment.
6. Thaucinite, 52,000 B.E. Per holy edict, any inconvenient natives of “undiscovered” lush, fertile land such as Geyser Valley are exterminated as a matter of course, to make room for new inhabitants. The engineered plague administered at the first contact festivities kills the majority of the population within six weeks. More active extermination of holdout pockets continues for several more months, and the planet is declared “habitable” by the year’s end.
7. Abnakite, 24,000 B.E. To showcase such a jewel as Pinewood Heights, of course, one must first conquer and extinguish its resistance. One-seventh of the primitive population is retained for display, so her Eminence may see the humble common people of this hidden beauty as they labor under the heel of the Empire. When they are deemed unnecessary, the end is swift.
8. Variskine/Bright Three, 300 B.E. The early radio calls of a blooming civilization attract unwanted attention amid a rare era of protracted interstellar warfare. Variskine forces arrive first, recruiting alarmed and bewildered natives at phaser-point to convert their largest settlement into a hidden base, where they will store munitions and house soldiers a few light-hours from the contested interstellar border. Bright Three forces first bombard the planet a month later. By the end of the war, nine years onward, little else remains.