Captain’s Log: Advanced Civilization!

We have arrived within the Oort Cloud of C-224, and lo and behold, we can already see that they are an advanced civilization, with ships plying the ways between various planets in the system.  The ship has decided to continue entering the system on a powerless trajectory, which feels like standing still relative to even the high sublight speeds possible with the FTL drive.

Maria has been set to analyzing the data, and she has already made a number of discoveries.  The two nearest planets to the sun appear to have been torn apart, and are in the process of making two ring systems.  There also appears to be some manner of super-massive structure above the solar plane, hovering above the sun.

C-224 itself seems to be technologically active, to say the least, with the majority of the small world covered in a sprawling metropolis.  Maria believes there may be a space elevator, but isn’t sure.  I think that Zephyr would like a space elevator, rather than having to undergo the stresses of landing again.

In the outer system, there appears to be activity on the nearest gas giant, most likely some kind of gas mining facility.

In short, a civilization more advanced than our own, albeit limited to a single system.  This is what I dreamed of when I became Captain for the Astral Zephyr.

And yet… I understand why the ship is taking a cautious approach.  After what happened in Arcadia, it is easy to dream what might happen here.  Given warning and distance, Zephyr can easily outrun anything, even light itself, but if taken by surprise, we are as vulnerable as any conventional ship of our size.

The other, more mundane reason, is that this isn't a deserted system, and there may be man-made objects lurking around outside of planetary orbits, particularly as we get closer.  It would be embarrassing to end our voyage on the approach to such a wonderful planet, simply because we ran into a stray debris field.