Exogenesis.
The hypothesis that life began…elsewhere.
What if we brought exogenesis to the heavens? What if in our hubris we played god?
We the survivors of the scientific vessel Yggdrasil request that anyone listening to this broadcast avoid the planet designated Valhalla at all cost. What we did there…What I did there is monstrous and we are no longer what you would consider…human.
There is only death here.
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Humanity has been a spacefaring race for hundreds of years; we have terraformed and occupied hundreds of solar systems. We are to our knowledge the sole masters of the galaxy. No other intelligent race has challenged us or even deigned to appear, sure we found lower life forms but it seems that we are the first intelligence.
Earth was left for nature to reclaim, designated a galactic historical site and unlawful to inhabit. Its exact navigational coordinates a closely guarded secret though the military of the Federation of Human Systems does maintain a shipyard in Jovian orbit. There exists vast mega corporations that own entire systems, empires in their own right.
Genetic engineering is a highly regulated and highly stigmatized science, most galactic states prohibit the practice and Federation law expressly prohibits its use on or to create sentient life.
But the largest and most powerful corporation Goddard-Slyphtech (Often referred to as The Company, especially by employees), the company behind most of the major tech that allows for space travel, hyperion drives, AI, cryosleep chambers and the like does not like being told what it can and cannot do.
A Company probe discovered a pristine exo-earth orbiting an M-class star, one of only three near clones of earth ever discovered. Luckily the probe discovered this whilst mapping a relatively unique nebula in Company space. The extremely magnetic nature of the nebula makes communication from within nearly impossible. It is difficult to see out of, difficult to navigate and most importantly to The Company, nearly impossible to see into.
Instead of sharing this major discovery with the Federation the probe ‘malfunctioned ‘ and flew into a star, all data was erased except for onboard one ship.
The Yggdrasil.
A former terraforming vessel the Yggdrasil was retrofitted into a scientific vessel, carrying with it the materials to establish a planetside base and to function itself as an orbital station when it reached its destination.
The Company then reached out and gathered a team of scientist who had been prosecuted for their beliefs, many rightly so. Geneticists, exobiologists, geologists, physicists, and the like. But all these various experts had one common thread.
They wanted to play god.
The exo-earth, named Valhalla, had rudimentary plant life, mosses, lichens etc. Its two continents were covered with hundreds of quick rivers and streams; the atmosphere was extremely thin but breathable. Any strenuous activity requires an oxygen tank.
The project was to establish a base and from there with the help of the Ark (A codec of every genetic code known to man), several AIs and a nanite production facility this team of scientists would create an entire ecosystem in their image with the goal of creating another sentient organic lifeform.
This goal they labored towards for fifteen years and then it happened. They arrived with little fanfare and in a short time they would change everything the little gods of Valhalla thought they knew.
The satellite system the scientists had was pretty rudimentary, meteorological mostly as they rarely traveled more than a few hundred kilometers from Oroborus base, but the Yggdrasil detected sizable atmospheric entry nearly on the other side of the continent.
Several scientists decide to go check it out, thinking it was perhaps a meteoric impact. This is where we begin.
I’m only looking for a few people as this story is going to be pretty tightly managed (as far as plot goes, other than that you’ll have a lot of freedom and creativity). If this gains traction I’ll lay out some more plot points/ lay out the base etc.