Author's Note: The prompt for this round was to describe something without naming it in under 300 words (not counting these notes, lol
."you're an alien come to earth, encountering the item for the first time. You obviously don't know what it is called and you have to relay information on your discovery to the mother ship"
Report 454430a
We touched down at 06:00 ship's time as ordered. The planet's primary star was just appearing over the horizon, allowing us to see that we had landed close to our goal.
Sckrrt, as designated first contact officer, stepped outside into the alien atmosphere and proceeded politely towards the alien personage. On closer inspection, Sckrrt reported that the personage was not as similar to ourselves as the image taken from the ship had indicated.
True, the personage displayed the requisite number of limbs, five on each side, attached to a sturdy torso. The opulent tail was proportionately larger than ours, even allowing for the differences in scale. The armour was a handsome red, similar to the colour of our ancient ones, though the eyes were rudimentary and quite different from those of our race. The frontal appendages, although prominent were not prehensile, nor were the antenna retractable as far as Sckrrt could tell.
Much to his disappointment, Sckrrt was able to establish immediately that the personage was not a personage at all, but merely a reproduction or model. The obvious question then became, to what purpose was this structure erected?
We cloaked our ship and were able to observe the structure for several hours without detection. Unfortunately, it appears evident that the dominant life form is more primitive than we had assessed, given the nature of the technology we observed from orbit. Although there is always a risk in anthropomorphising an alien race, initial data suggests the structure is an object of worship. Many natives stopped what they were doing to come over and pay their respects, taking images of themselves with the structure and stroking it.
Although it is too soon to initiate contact, indications are promising that this species will welcome us warmly in the future.
Author's Note - Object was Larry the Giant lobster - located at Robe, SA.