The storm finally started to clear for the distant peaks, so I had the drone surveying the peaks as they became safe to fly over behind the storm. There are lots of structures there, of varying ages, and of varying sophistication.
One of those shows clearly advanced brick and mortar work, including structural arches and foundations. One even had what was clearly a fallen stone bridge over a large gap between peaks. It would have provided a safe passage across the water. As it was, someone had recently built some rope bridges between some of the still standing supports, though not enough to fully cross the distance.
I have also had an underwater drone crossing the distance, and it arrived shortly after the storm as well. The foundation of the supports for the bridge appear to be intact. The bridge just needs to be rebuilt to be useful, so I am left to wonder who built it, as it is clearly very old, based on the sediment and growth around the base of the supports.
My drone was shot at by the first group it came across. A group that was clearly not like my friends. Four arms, and two legs that become four, splitting at the knee into two legs. Their gate is interesting. They have bows, and it was an arrow they shot at my drone, with an obsidian tip. Got a good picture of it as it went by. Had the drone keep it's distance from them. Zoom on the cameras was enough. Their building techniques are no more advanced, and maybe less so than my friends. More just thatch huts, and they were slowly rebuilding post storm.
The second group I saw included what appeared to be the same species as my friends, as well as at least three others, including members of the first. Their construction techniques are very similar to mine. Far more robust, and they weren't rebuilding so much as cleaning up after the storm. They even had laid stone pathways in some areas. They also didn't fire at the drone with they saw it, instead collecting, pointing at it, and discussing. I wasn't sure I should get close enough to use the microphone and speaker, but I might.
At least one of their buildings was more stone work than the wood construction that most everything else was. Though even their regular houses had fireplaces in them, built much as I am going to show my friends how to build. The rest of the peaks I was able to survey were varying levels of primitive and very primitive.
This group with the stone work building and the fireplaces. I was able to make out at least four different species, and there might be more, I don't know. I think I need to at least try to make contact with them.
Something my underwater drone found that is also very interesting, potentially game changing. There appears to be what look to be old damns. The mountains there create a ring, and there appears to be, or had been at one time, an effort to build up damns between the various peaks to protect the shallow bowl inside from the tidal waters. If they can pull that off, if it is this clearly more advanced groups doing, they'd be able to have a much safer and larger place to retreat to, perhaps even stay permanently. All the more reason to reach out to them. Such a safe haven would be absolutely perfect to let a burgeoning civilization preserve itself more readily and continue to grow, despite the tides. It would just be a matter of getting the damns high enough.
An interesting thing though. The dams appear to be maintained, and all at the same height, as if it was meant to give more time to get to safety, but not prevent the tide from filling the basin. I wondered why until I sent my underwater drone into the basin. Down there at the bottom, is clear farmland, houses swallowed up by the tide waters, roads, and at least three towns linked by those roads. It dawned on me that the damns keep the water out long enough that more people have time to escape, while letting the waters bring in the sediment and nutrients for the soil. There are also a collection of deep lakes which probably fill with the fish that get trapped inside as the waters recede.
Looking at that, assuming what I am seeing is what I am seeing. That's actually rather brilliant, if that is what it is. Given that the construction seems very similar to that of the more advanced group, I have to suspect that those are their homes, when the tide is not in. That also means that I'm likely to find more groups like them on other peaks of the chain.
They also have boats that they put out into the basin area to fish from. It would be relatively safe as I don't think the tide gets high enough for the real monsters to get inside the basin. They have also built their sanctuary much higher than my friends, the mountains are higher there than the one my friends and I are using. There are structures lower, but not used. I suspect they may have just kept building higher until they got high enough that the waters never reach them.
I suppose I have talked myself into making contact with them. No clue if they'll speak anything even similar to what my friends have taught me, and if they are descendants of the same crashed ship. Their version of the language may have diverged greatly.
Observations and new simulations are worrying. The conjunction in question seems to still be ongoing, to the point that, while I don't expect the waters to get any higher, baring another storm, they are not going to start receding for months. There is a conjunction of the more distant worlds that is resulting in the nearer ones sliding in and out of the conjunction, but causing the tide to remain in place, the inner worlds pulling some of the water away, and thus keeping it at about the level we see.
The water is going to go out in a few weeks, dropping about a hundred meters for several weeks, only to return. This is going to happen at least a dozen times before the conjunction fully breaks up and the harmonics of the system break the tide. Or so says my current simulations. I really wish I had contact with one of the satellites. I can talk to one periodically, but not yet enough to do me any good. I just don't have the resources I need to this right.