Good Intentions Are Not Enough

Star Probe: Good Intentions Are Not Enough Season 1, Episode 3

By Bob Layzell

The T'tet slipped out of the Void into the vastness of space. Immediately the great hive was a buzz with activity. The nearly two thousand souls were rushing about. Scientists began preparing their probes. The Pilots of the ship scanned the system, astrogators and navigators eagerly collected data on system C19 Red 0. 

Captain's Log: Over the next month the T'tet's crew correlated and have classified all they could. Survey crews explored planets, moons and identified possible hazards and resources. Perhaps the most exciting moment was when life was found, intelligent life, civilized life and so very alien from ourselves. The crew was almost giddy at discovering a Class 1 system, a system with intelligent indigenous life. The life forms where still technologically primitive compared to the T'zkt and the ship sociologists class their society no more advanced than TSL3. Soon science and survey teams were eagerly trying to learn all they could about the creatures, their customs, and languages. 

The creatures are bipedal and covered with fur. A mammal that gives live birth with five digit hands and a spinal system that included a tail. They do not posses an exoskeleton but have an internal skeleton. The creatures posse a sensitive sense of smell and hearing with their ears placed high on their heads, two eyes and a long protruding jaw. The creatures are carnivores mostly by nature and have tightly organized family units. The hunt and customs surrounding hunting are extremely important to them. Naturally the whole crew was excited about the prospect of opening up trade relations and possibly in the future an outpost colony and a more extensive exchange of knowledge.

Despite our attempts to negotiate and show our intentions were nothing but good with trade gifts, help in healing some of their sick and injured something went wrong. At first we thought they were just shrewd negotiators. No one knows what went wrong, everyone who was on the planet has a different theory. Perhaps these beings simply could not believe we came in peace or perhaps we violated a primitive taboo of which we were ignorant of or caused some sort of instinctive territorial reaction we do not understand. Perhaps they are simply xenophobic, but the natives launched a coordinated well planned attack on all of our away teams. We are still unsure how they achieved this but thankfully our superior weapons and our well trained warriors were able to protect all the worker and technician teams on the planet. Unfortunately I had to order the T'tet lay down a beam attack on the planet to get our teams out safely, countless natives where killed by our barrage from space and from our defensive actions on the planet. We experienced no loss of life amongst our forces however several warriors were wounded but are expected to make a full recovery. Our linguistic experts reported that the howling aliens in their first wave of attacks on our defensive positions were screaming that they would eat our hands. Perhaps a reference to a custom of their war bands. The planet must be classified as hostile. We were able to secure and load 2 Megarons of cargo before events turned hostile on the planet which is disappointing as we had originally negotiated 7 Megarons of cargo. It is with sad hearts we will leave this system. End log entry computer.

The Captain leaned back in her seat in her personal quarters. Her antenna twitched as she reflected silently the review board would be most displeased with this turn of events as the goal of her mission was to make allies not enemies. Letting out an audible sigh fallowed by a loud clap of her mandibles she spoke to no one present "At least none of my people died." She reached across to the ships internal communication system "Astrogation this is the Captain, progress report on new course plotting."