Starship Armstrong - Season 1

Part 34 - "We Come In Peace" (II)

"Oh this is beautiful, simply beautiful," said Dr. Kang "A jewel world with a thriving human colony is suddenly and completely overrun by an alien ecosystem in the space of a week. I like this one. This is a worthy puzzle."

"I'm so glad it meets with your approval," the Captain deadpanned "What can you tell me about it?"

"Well I'm cooking up some savory little hypotheses at the moment, but I'm going to need to get down there and take some samples before I can give you the definitive answer."

"Humour me," said the Captain.

"I always do," said Dr. Kang "I'm here aren't I? I don't have the part of my brain that has gut feelings with me at the moment, but if I did I think it would say something about this looks deliberate. Perhaps some kind of highly efficient alien terraforming process? I'd guess an automated one since there doesn't seem to be any signs of civilized habitation here. They might send it ahead of their colony ships to prepare the planet for their arrival. In any case the process of de-terraforming the planet would certainly have been interpreted by the inhabitants as an attack."

"Hold on," said Commander Gibson "Your first guess is intelligent aliens?"

"Closed minded as ever, I see," said Dr. Kang "If the solution to this was going to be something conventional I'd have thought of it by now. Therefore this must be something unprecedented. There's absolutely nothing illogical about the premise of space faring aliens. We're here, are we not?"

"Not that I'm ruling it out," said the Captain "But do you have a theory besides intelligent aliens."

"Of course," said Dr. Kang "What do you take me for? My next best hypothesis would be that a group or groups hostile to the Huxley Foundation developed a form of weaponized terraforming and used it to render Gaia uninhabitable as a political statement. I suspect if this is the case the transmission of some manner of crazy manifesto will begin shortly, and we should certainly be in range to receive it. This neatly avoids the involvement of the intelligent aliens that Commander Gibson finds so objectionable, but they could also be behind such an attack."

"That sounds more reasonable," said Gibson.

"If your opinion on this matter was relevant," said Dr. Kang "Then you would be the one postulating and I would be the one making snide comments."

"If we could all please stay on topic," said the Captain "Are there any other strong contenders, Doctor?"

"I could go on like this for hours," said Dr, Kang "I will never run out of theories. There is, however, one truth and I will be able to find it once I get down there and start pulling things apart with my machines."

"Alright, Mitzner, you take Dr. Kang and his team to get suited up. You're heading down in the Shenzhou to try and figure out what in all the stars happened down there."