How Orestes Was Won

[Myroria]

Roughly halfway through March, 172,057 BC
Cydonia, Orestes

The nurse with pale white skin tried her best to comfort her patient crying in agony. The great Orestesi - or Lovelings, as they called their race, once divided through war between the great empires of Spurius, Mariniara, and Antiochus (each named after their capital city), had banded together in the final months to treat a massive epidemic of radiation disease. Each thought it was from a different cause, whether it be from the divine gods or from the gods of science.

The real cause couldn't be stopped. Orestes, or Love, as the Lovelings called it, was once a wet, tropical planet, but the bringer of life, the great Circular Fire in the Sky, now brought desert and famine. Scientists quickly noted symptoms, astronomer-astrologists looked into the dark sky for answers, but all they saw was their own moon, and the nearest planet. They named it Envy, as they named all the planets after emotions.

Envy used to be Adoration, but it was renamed as the deserts of Love overtook the water. The Lovelings/Orestesi now envied Adoration. And so it was renamed.

Love survived only 30 more years, before the entire civilization died, never to be seen again.

At least that's what the last Lovelings assumed.


Sometime in early May, 2007 AD
Novrith Space Center, Myroria, Taijitu

"And so, I present to you, the robot probes of Love and Adoration!"

The crowd clapped as Juliette Gaëlle bowed and the white cloth draped over two 3 by 4 meter containers fell to the ground.

"Love and Adoration are going to be sent to Orestes to study the soil and planet evolution. Each one will function for at least three years, and may travel as much as five miles in their lifetime, unprecedented for this kind of project!"

"What about little green men?" asked a reporter for some foreign news network.

"The probes are meant just to check the origin of Orestes. Though no probes have been sent there before, I see no evidence to suggest it was ever inhabited. Any more questions? None? Then thank you, and good night. Launch of the probes will be 4:00 PM, after they are loaded onto the Delta II rockets. I hope to see you all there."

[Myroria]

OOC: I didn't RP the rocket takeoff. No one wants to read some boring post about how a rocket took off successfully.

IC:

December 14, 2007
7 miles south of Cydonia, Orestes

The airbags around the heat shield deployed successfully and the moveable probe, Love, bounced along the Orestesi surface from its initial landing point 5 miles south of Cydonia to it's final landing spot 7 miles south. The airbags deflated and the heat shield collapsed as the robot probe unfolded it's tires and took the first color photograph of Orestes:


OOC: The Orestesi sky is a reddish color like Mars', but it's planetwide desert is more like the Sahara.

Nothing around for miles and miles, just as anticipated. Finding a rock nearby, and testing it, it seemed to be just like any normal one on Taijitu. What they came for was insight into planet formation, and this just seemed to be a Taijitu desert, but even hopes of desert life were shattered, as no plants or animals were spotted anywhere. The robot's video eyes scanned the horizon besides the south they were facing for any distinguishing features, any at all. Once they were facing the back of the rover, something was spotted. On the horizon, what appeared to be a collapsed, tan column, hardly distinguishable from a dune, was spotted. Though the picture took seven minutes to reach ground control, that made it no less amazing. Of course, Juliette was quick to remind her colleagues not to overreact. What looked like a face was seen on one of Calypso's moons; that didn't mean it was one (And, sure enough, it wasn't). She calmly instructed the rover to head for the fallen column.

[Myroria]

What was originally meant as a seven to eight hour excursion ended up taking days. The rover repeatedly got stuck in sand dunes, of which Orestes had plenty to offer. Sure enough, however, upon arriving, the rover's fan blew away the sand covering the object and there were neat, carved ridges on it. Though this Pelagianesque column in itself was near conclusive evidence, skeptics remained at Ground Control. Slightly under half demanded bones of the "little green men" before they believed, and even then they insisted they be brought back to Taijitu and analyised to make sure it wasn't the dead bodies of long-lost, secret astronauts.

These columns, these fabrics, these artifacts were horrible things to have known to Ground Control. Taijitu, should the artifacts really be non-natural (As many, if not most, assumed they were), would have to be prepared for the greatest culture shock of all time, and that was hardly easy with around eighty people knowing this secret. Juliette thought for a fleeting moment killing everyone inside. That, of course, was impractical, but that was still the only reason stopping her from ordering it. She decided to, again, play moderate and wait for the next, immobile, rover to land. It was armed with the best cameras money could buy, and it's eyes virtually made it mobile. If something was discovered there also...well, she would then prepare the populace.

[Myroria]

December 26, 2007
Chryse Planitia, Orestes

Adoration, like its sister, rolled and bounced on the ground before finally coming to a stop. The probe, sitting in it's fabric airbags, opened it's top, and unfolded it's three solar panels, with the underside of the top unfolding its video camera, still camera, robotic arm, and microscope. Immediately being told its mission by Ground Control, the video camera hardly had time to start up before the computer onboard directed it to perform a 360 degree panorama. The panorama began much like Love's, with just miles upon miles of sand and rocks. Then it spotted something to the north-north east. A beige (with white spots here and there; it was expected nothing here would remain pure for long) column, no, several, topped with a partially collapsed, reddish-orange roof. The camera zoomed in, and in, and in. There, lying on the floor of the temple - was what looked like a dirty, brown, old, fragile, skeleton.

December 26, 2007 (about seven minutes later)
Novrith Space Center, Orestes Rover Program Ground Control

"My God. My God." that was all Juliette could say. No, she wasn't having another 'encounter' in her office, oh no, she'd just seen the pictures relayed by Adoration. Though they meant nothing to the probe, it even converted the moderate Juliette. All over the hall were screams, claps, fainting, and more screaming. Juliette didn't try to calm down the group, she didn't even care. Finally she turned to another team member.

"Get me a planetary evolutionist. And Mr. Hanso. Go."

[Myroria]

Uneven clicks of shoes down the tiled hall of Ground Control faded into uneven patters of shoes on the carpet of the Orestes Probe Room.

"Alright Juliette, what did you want to show me?"

"This, sir." Juliette pointed at the television screen on the wall.

"Mmm. I heard you found some columns, so what? I could have come down here later."

"These are no columns. See that brown spot right there? Somewhat circular?"

"Yes, I see it. Heh, and those two black spots look like eye sockets."

"They are, sir."

A short pause faded into a chuckle.

"Ok, where is this? New Delfos? Rataka?"

"No, this is Orestes. And that, sir, is a skull."

"Are you shittin' me?"

"I ain't shittin' you."

"We're goin' public."

"What?"

"We're showing this to the public. This is the greatest discovery ever made!"

"Mr. Hanso, we can't do that! Do you know what this would do to religion?"

"Uh, nothing. Well, at least to ours. 'God created all Men, of any sort, in His image. He looks like all Men.' Oh, and the other religions can go suck it if they've gotta problem."

"Sir, I really suggest you re-think this."

"Re-thunk, Julia. Make it public!"

Juliette sighed.

"Good, good! Ready the cameras! Get a spot on the Imperial News Service! FXX! JNF! VNN! The Sun!"


Early the next morning

"Good morning Myroria. For our first story, IASA has called an emergency press conference at their headquarters in Novrith. We go to Juliette Gaëlle now."

The small thumbnail on the topright corner went full-screen. With a light cough, Juliette began.

"Yesterday, at about 12:30 PM Myrorian Daylight Time, the immobile rover sent to Orestes, Adoration, sent its first pictures of the Orestesi surface to us...

...Among the pictures sent was what appeared to be...a skull...inside a large, cavernous building nearby the rover." - Cut to gasps -

"Analizing the pictures, IASA came to the conclusion that the object was most likely a skull, but that the pictures were not of clear enough quality to determine from what creature."

"As such, IASA has declared its preparation of an automated collecting machine to collect bone dust and take close-up pictures of the suspected skeleton. With all of the pictures collected - not all have been released to the public - the IASA scientists came to the conclusion that...an intelligent civilization once, or still does, exist on Orestes. Thank you."

[Myroria]

OOC: I'm done RPing the discovery. I'll make a thread for the reaction of the Myrorian people after my current one is done. Feel free to RP your nation's reaction or letter to the government here if you want.