One of the larger moons on 1438 has a dense atmosphere with very high CO2 content. The planet appears to have been largely razed and fires are still burning. Thick clouds of smoke cover the planet, and there appears evidence some nukes may even have been used. Scans indicate little life is left...

A closer scan does indeed indicate the presence of a single bug ship. Rather than a planet wide war, there seems to have been a process of extermination. No advanced non-bug technology is identified by your scans, but the scans are reduced in effectiveness by the smoke.

Some continents are 'burnt earth', others are still burning. The clouds do filter the lasers and plasma's reducing their range.

A large swarm of bugs rose above the clouds to greet you, but many were destroyed before they got near. Only a few manage to dive back to the cover of the clouds, and fewer yet manage to disappear with out being traced at high speed to the surface. when you analyse the sensors about 10 seem to make it back to some sort of cover.

A survey ship is dispatched with two fighter, one flown bu Brutus, as escorts. There is some ground fire targeting the surveyor from several directions. It is ineffective while above a lot of smoke though, as the smoke filters it out. They would like to survey from lower down to get better readings, but await direction.

24 July 2188, System 1539, Supplies: 5600 person days, Vatfacs can cover all, $87,496,300

No lower, Unless you want to be surveying from bug feeler distance.

Gloria wants to reduce the bug menace to as closeto zero a possible and look for surviving inhabitants.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:10, Sat 01 July 2023.

In reply to Gloria Flake (msg # 2):

Ok, so you are pretty much commercial airlines height at the moment, around 30,000 ft if you get no closer as directed.

24 July 2188, System 1539, Supplies: 5600 person days, Vatfacs can cover all, $87,496,300

That's fine ... hings are a wee bit different than now I will assume and we should be able to use multi spectral scans to find survivors and Bugs. May take a bit more work, but we can do it.

In reply to Gloria Flake (msg # 4):

of course. There will just be bigger penalties than there would be from lower down. At that range, it would be nearly impossible to determine the difference between a bug and some other unknown alien life form, at least partially because you have no real idea what the locals look like.

24 July 2188, System 1539, Supplies: 5600 person days, Vatfacs can cover all, $87,496,300

Yeah, they could even be good bugs... but I'll bet they are huddled in groups while the bad bugs are spread out more.

The pair of fighters escort the survey ship, one flying ahead and below and the other behind and above.
Vertical separation is around 1000'.

"Square spiral square search pattern out to 2,000 feet," promts Brutus. "Then we repeat two thousand feet lower."

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OOC: Can he see anything more suspicious being that little bit closer?

Stay up, we can't replace the Surveyor easily or any of our people.


I assume we can get a general lay of the land ... water? Mountains, flat lands?

In reply to Gloria Flake (msg # 8):

Yeah, even from 28,000 ft, you can see the general lay of the land. You would see buildings too if there were any, if it were not for the smoke. But the clouds of smoke bloke a lot from that height. Smoke clouds start to reduce around 10,000-15,000 ft.

Between the clouds of smoke you get glimpses of low lying foothills, plains and river beds beneath.

24 July 2188, System 1539, Supplies: 5600 person days, Vatfacs can cover all, $87,496,300

Clouds mean nothing much to radar, Multispectral viewers can also see in wavelengths less affected by the smoke... and buildings should likely remain, as they did even near ground zero in Hiroshima. Rivers? Lakes? oceans? Major Roads?

I assume we can estimate the relative size of the weapons used by the damage size and patterns.

In reply to Gloria Flake (msg # 10):

There are scanners less effected by smoke, that is true, but they are still effected, and there is a lot of distance with smoke between you and the ground.

You are right about buildings remaining, as would signs of infrastructure, such as roads. But there is no sign of either.

It does not look like nukes were used. Rather, low level fires started systematically possibly by weapons such as flamers.

24 July 2188, System 1539, Supplies: 5600 person days, Vatfacs can cover all, $87,496,300