Come on... Stay working!
YES!!!
The systems are finally up again. That's fifteen standard days of work. At least the backup systems for the printers didn't get fried. What a nightmare, The waters have receded and we are back in the main village. It actually has a name. You'd think I would have asked before, but no, not me. I really do get too hung up in my own head sometimes. The name of the village translates to Hope, but I rather like their word for it. Gooth, pronounced with a long, hard oh.
What happened? Multiple seals failed on the Module, and some systems shorted out. Lost some data, mainly logs that I though I had uploaded and so removed from my tablet for space saving, only to find out that they never made it to the storage array. As such, I suppose I'm going to have to summarize the last year and a half. Yeah, the conjunction was repeating across the entire system, and since the water was already in place, it stuck around. I was beginning to think that we were going to be stuck up there permanently.
The harmonics of the system have shifted back into a more typical pattern. Though I really have no idea what typical is for this system. There are so many variables, until I get a few satellite's up there, or many decades of ground observations, I suspect my models are going to be poor representations of what is going on here.
Now that I have the full systems of the module back up and running, I'll be able to get a much better simulation up. One thing I did keep a copy of is observations and data from my monitoring station set up on the secondary peak, as well as the main peak where Sanctuary is. That data, and the continued observations from those vantage points will greatly improve my models, even if I am learning that they are still going to have some serious gaps. I'm going to outfit a drone to deliver another observation point at the distant mountain ring. It's actually going to be more than that. It'll let me monitor the people of the basic and surrounding area until I can build a flyer and make contact directly.
I'm going to print up some new things as well, though I am going to need to replenish materials soon. I think I have a way to do that. First though, let me break down what happened in all the lost logs.
Funny, I'm going to have to print the parts I need in order to replenish the materials reservoirs so that I can print more parts. The water has sufficient trace elements to do what I need, along with processing some soil, I should be able to replenish the basics. I've also noted some interesting veins of material that I'm going to investigate as possibly more ready sources than water filtration and purification. Though that'll also provide the ability to improve watering of the crops as I'll have cleaned water in abundant supply.
Now to what happened. The seals actually failed because some sea-life decided they'd test the flavor. They didn't like it, but that damage was enough to let the seals fail. Once that happened, the water was inside and all new sea life decided to munch on some of the components that were exposed. Most of the module remained dry, it was just in the one area, which by bad luck had a different kind of seal to that of the rest of the module. I printed up replacement seals from the same materials as those the seal life didn't show any interest in.
Everything is cleaned out and fixed, samples taken, etc... Now I can start my analysis of all the samples and such I took over the last year and a half.
Frydai still has his pet, as does most of the village. The little creatures seem to be quite happy to stick around with us. The trip back, once the waters receded for real, was as suggested, a trek unto itself. The life that woke up on this world, post Tide, was and is amazing. I have tons of samples, and was also very glad I taught my friends how to use the weapons I took with us. As well as being very glad I took those weapons with us. Their spears and arrows were not enough. The pulsed lasers and the Heavy plasma rifle proved absolutely indispensable.
The giant tree is in full foliage, and looks like any tree back home, save that it is kilometers tall. The leaves are truly massive things. Of course I've gotten samples of that as well. Considering using the leaves as additional construction materials. There is so much of this world that is fascinating, and on massive scales. There were animals that pulled themselves up from the ground, massive predator and pray species. We used the lasers to warn off the prey types, and the plasma rifle to convince the predator's that we were not worth the effort, even if it did take a half dozen shots. I think that last shot that I got up its' nostril, convinced it that we were too spicy for its taste. Though now I understand why they would lose several people on the way back to the village.
I of course have samples, all lined up and ready to be tested and cataloged, now that I have the other systems up. It'll give me stuff to do while I wait for parts to print, and when I'm not teaching. I've started a swimming class, and a school, though the computers do most of the work, I am still working out the curriculum.
This is one of those moments when I wish I had the AI back. It would be ideal for lesson planning. I was only educated enough to do the basic jobs of my level. Only when additional training was needed for a new job did I get that, liked this job. As educated as I was at launch, that was only because I needed to be educated that way to do this job. I've expanded on that education in the years since because I had the option to. Back home I did not.
The AI would have also recognized what had happened with the seals and addressed it right away. There were backup systems, but because of the nature of them, it expected input that couldn't happen, because I was on the top of a mountain instead of in the module, and the AI is non-functional.
As for the sea predator's, I never did see one. The distant mountains and the bowl created from the mountain ring, worked as I was beginning to suspect it would. The water drained and left the bowl full, the fish and other life forced to retreat with the water into the deep lakes and ponds in the basin. I've watched the residents leave their mountain top haven and travel back down to their homes in the basin. Thing is, only part of them went, the rest stayed there, at the mountain tops. They appear to be permanently inhabited, the settlements of the more advanced groups. The less advanced retreated down the face of the mountains and back out into the wilds.
I still haven't been successful in making useful communication with them. Once I build the a flier, I will visit them. Maybe in person I can do what I cannot via the drone. Gods knows what they think of it, and I've wondered if that isn't the problem.
The stay at the top of the mountain at Sanctuary wasn't that bad, even though it lasted far longer than expected. We fished, captured more in the stream, farmed; I helped the village build better homes up there; and I watched as Frydai became very interested in a small group of the females of his same age group.
I've asked his uncle about it, and he advised that Frydai will probably get himself a mate at the festival of returning. Essentially as celebration of their return to the village of Hope. I look forward to that, the festival. It should be fascinating.
The squirrel like creatures that my friends corral for food have returned and we captured a group of them in the first few days back. There were some repairs to be made to buildings, retrieving all the stuff from the cave. I still need to review the pressure sensor data from the cave, but everything appears to have stayed dry and safe. The camera I set up captured something, so I will need to review that footage as well.
Really there wasn't much to report from the mountain tops. More observation of fish, even the monster sized ones, of several species. My examinations of the life from the side of the mountain as it sat underwater, etc... I'm going to take up marking things down in a physical journal, as well as my regular logs.
Time to get back to work, specifically, I've got lots of samples to prepare for analysis, next weeks lesson plans to program, parts to print, etc.... Lots to do.