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Tootkin's avatar
Tootkin

Hello! Here's my entry for this reward.

That was a fun prompt, I decided to expand a little on the fauna surrounding gyre trees. I thought this ecosystem could well use some scavengers, so I did just that! For the fun of it I decided to present it as a lost page of a field study made by a space biologist who, for some unknown reasons, still uses paper, ink, and watercolor.

https://embed.bsky.app/oembed?url=https%3A%2F%2Fbsky.app%2Fprofile%2Ftootkin.bsky.social%2Fpost%2F3ltacrnnuxc2u

image description: A digital image reproducing a field note book with two colored sketches of a creatures that looks like a nudibranch mixed with a wormbag. one of the slug is green with big red patches, the other is yellow with black and purple lines and spots. There's several pieces of text that reads:

"Hermit Bunny. This small creature of 10 to 30cm has been observed crawling on Gyre Trees and on several asteroids surrounding them. They seem to feed on micro-organism lining the surface of the Gyre Trees, but they have been reported to flock around dead organisms too. They might be opportunistic scavengers.

When approached, the Hermit Bunny retreat into its shell. The shell is made of various objects of their surroundings and seems to protect them from solar flares, as well as providing a camouflage that has fooled us for many years. While most specimens used tiny rockes for their shells, some have been observed using metal fragments from specaships or Gyre Tree bark. They rarely mix materials, hinting to a sense of aesthetics."

Several annotations around the sketches read: "floating between trees!", "ship hull fragments", and "extremely diverse colors and patterns... aposematism?"

B
Beetlejude
Tootkin

oh these are gorgeous!!!

they sort of make me think of the artwork in some of the "we were here" levels

Tootkin's avatar
Tootkin
Beetlejude

Aww thank you! We Were Here has been on my playlist for a while now, I think it might be the sketchy aspect that does it? I tried to keep it lose and to not clean up the drawing too much to keep the "scribbled by some explorer" effect =)

B
Beetlejude
Tootkin

there are a lot of note books you need to scrutinise - in one of the games you're in a botanists lab/ studio / greenhouse. it's gerat - there's a proper little shop of horrors plant there

Alex Sinclair's avatar
Alex SinclairMod
Tootkin

This is so cool! I love the exobiologist notes! Congratulations on first-place!

Tootkin's avatar
Tootkin
Alex Sinclair

Thank you! It was such a fun prompt, it was interesting to see what everyone came up with =)

Dydo's avatar
Dydo

REPORT - ULTRA CONFIDENTIAL

July 7, 3311

TO THE PILOTS' FEDERATION

December 18, 3310, marked yet another historic day for humanity. Greater than the discovery of atomic energy, and perhaps surpassing even that of hyperspace travel: the new and greatest victory over our most formidable enemies, besides ourselves, with the defeat of the Thargoid Titan Cocijo in the Sol system. Since then, celebrations have erupted across the occupied galaxy, and the news from Galnet, our primary communication channel, has been solely what follows a military triumph of this magnitude: looting of the Titan's remains and the reoccupation of the HIP 22460 system, held by the Thargoids since 3303.

However, this event seems to hold far more for us than merely the end of a war. At the galaxy's core, in the Eembaisk DG-O e6-2972 system, also known as Red and Green Glory, a solitary tourist beacon rests in orbit around planet 1A, waiting to be scanned by some commander. But this report concerns a curious phenomenon: instead of transmitting data, this beacon received data, and we, from the Event Horizon installation in the Stuemeae FG-Y d7561 system, near Sagittarius A*, during a routine sweep, appear to be the first to access it, as news of this nature would spread rapidly among humanity: an intelligent alien species has made contact with us. And they are pleading for help.

First and foremost, it must be noted that the transmission was received on July 4, 3311, apparently through gravitational waves, which, after extensive investigation into the anomaly of the wave patterns, were converted into radio wave format with an ease that seemed to be intentionally made, prompting deeper scrutiny. Without further ado, after this process, we received, in addition to the images at the end, the following text:

Come to us, humans, for you are the hope of an entire race.

We are the Resonari, and we have waged a silent battle against the Thargoids for thousands of years. When they came, we already had interstellar colonies. Billions of Resonari perished within months. Our only option was to submit to them.

You must understand: the Thargoids do not seek to be the only life in existence — they seek to be the greatest life in existence. As long as their hegemony remains unchallenged, there is no war. But the moment even the idea of that dominance is threatened... well, we believe you know what happens.

We did not submit without a plan.

Thargoid communication is based on biomechanical capabilities still unknown to us. They maintain a hive mind: what one individual knows, all others know. Yet their knowledge is limited by what they can sense. This, too, is why they often do not attack sentient beings in altered or low states of consciousness — there simply isn’t enough energy for them to detect.

Using our own biomechanical expertise — for the Resonari have always been attuned to electromagnetic communication — we made a painful choice. A large portion of our kin was sacrificed so the rest could vanish. We built a refuge: an asteroid, invisible to Thargoid sensors, where the few survivors could remain hidden.

You may judge us. But this decision was made by our ancestors millennia ago.

Since then, we have watched. We have endured. We have witnessed the minds of our people taken by the Thargoids, while we searched for the slightest hope to resist. We tried, again and again. We failed.

But you have succeeded.

We have monitored the Thargoid collective mind — it has expanded steadily since the earliest Resonari records. Until recently.

For the first time, we detected a decrease in its activity. A significant one. It took months of observation, but the cause became clear: the destruction of several entities you call Titans.

This changes everything.

And so we reach out to you — a peculiar species, lacking in biological or technological superiority, yet remarkably organized. And it is through this organization that you have accomplished what no other species has. Your technology may not dazzle, but what you’ve achieved with it is... unprecedented.

Perhaps we are the only ones to reach the interstellar stage after the Thargoids’ rise. And perhaps we will continue to be — if we stand together.

That is why we ask for your help.

Teach us, and we will teach you all we know. A new transmission will arrive in one month, with information on how to respond. We are eager. We are desperate. And we are hopeful.

We also wish to introduce ourselves properly. Enclosed is an image — a depiction of what the Resonari are. We cannot offer further explanation now, as this communication method was developed specifically for this message, and remains unstable.

It is with great gratitude that we send this message, speaking for all Resonari who remain free — and for the hope you have ignited, after millennia of utter darkness.

The attachment to the message is a 3D model — not a live transmission, but a visual representation. It depicts two beings who appear far more recognizable to us than the Thargoids ever have.

https://embed.bsky.app/oembed?url=https%3A%2F%2Fbsky.app%2Fprofile%2Fdy-do.bsky.social%2Fpost%2F3ltfuoyvdjc26

Naturally, we must consider the possibility that this is a deception: a trap set by the Thargoids themselves, or perhaps an operation engineered by one of the human Galactic Powers, aiming to sow confusion and unrest. Yet we must also consider a more profound possibility — that this may be one of humanity’s most significant moments: first contact with communicative, peaceful alien life.

For this reason, we submit this report.

Beyond immediate guidance on how to proceed while we await the next scheduled transmission — expected to arrive on August 4, 3311 — we urgently request additional resources. We believe crucial information may have been overlooked in the initial rush to comprehend what the beacon transmitted.

Furthermore, we request more scientific personnel, as the complexity of the received data is unlike anything previously encountered. Strangely, despite this complexity, the message was easily deciphered, arriving fully structured in a universally intelligible human language.

Perhaps the Resonari know more about us than we can imagine.

SCIENTIFIC TEAM OF EVENT HORIZON


END OF REPORT

Some prints of the creation process:

https://embed.bsky.app/oembed?url=https%3A%2F%2Fbsky.app%2Fprofile%2Fdy-do.bsky.social%2Fpost%2F3ltfupbyku226


Alex Sinclair's avatar
Alex SinclairMod
Dydo

This is great! You narrowly missed out on a podium prize, but we wanted to tell you how much we liked it anyway!

KiwiMecha's avatar
KiwiMecha
https://www.instagram.com/p/DL0Z1CaR93W

A migrating species of alien that travels in small groups called "pods". Not only are they migratory, but their primary method of travel is through witch space, leading many to give them the name "Witches". Some even refer to the pods as a "coven"

On their journey through space they will find themselves accruing quite a bit of space debris and must therefore stop for a bit of grooming, conducted with their many jelly-like tendrils.

Having traveled to and from such unfathomable distances, the debris collected on their shell is often quite rare. Some commanders have taken to mining the material, which is a win win. The Witches get assisted in grooming, and commanders get rare materials in exchange. It appears their shells withstand known weaponry, and their jelly-like tendrils are equally unaffected, leaving no risk of harming the Witch in the process. When the shell has been scrubbed, Witches give off a spray of color through the unblocked ventilation ports in their shell, something some commanders have taken to be a sign of gratitude.

There is a rumor that inside a Witches mouth is a wormhole, and if you fly inside you'll come out somewhere else. Wise commanders tell another rumor that that somewhere else is the butt.

Alex Sinclair's avatar
Alex SinclairMod
KiwiMecha

Excellent concept and design. Congratulations on third place! We strongly considered this for first and second place too!

B
Beetlejude
https://embed.bsky.app/oembed?url=https%3A%2F%2Fbsky.app%2Fprofile%2Fbeetlejude.bsky.social%2Fpost%2F3ltd5qnscyk2i

here's the in game description for the Irucama snail - "Despite appearances, the species discovered on Irukama are not strictly snails. These indigenous creatures almost destroyed Irukama's native habitat after their sole predator was culled, due to the threat it posed to human settlers. Now actively managed, the surplus stock is sold on as a delicacy. The meat from a single snail can easily fill several standard-size cargo canisters"

I have thought a lot about the nature of the spice beetle living on the swamps of Hanandroo in Tarach Tor.

The unusual orange and green of an ammonia atmosphere seems a funny place for the shellvole to live and I wonder what they breathe to look so familiar to us. He's not really a vole - I imagine that people have cast about for the most familiar connection. he's certainly not a hermit crab. I imagine the liquid he's sucking through his curly tongue might well not be potable for a human either. He's got big eyes for his size, they seem almost prawnlike in themselves - maybe there's some distant primordial link to the hill prawns. it's not a long day on this planet. The amber light is as bright as it gets , then it fades to dull red then dark sepia. The voles hide in their shells and fix onto rocks to withstand the harsh nights. They are neither medicinal nor edible nor especially pretty but they have a humble kind of charm I think.

Tootkin's avatar
Tootkin
Beetlejude

that's a very cute creature! I love the colors you chose in the final illustration, and it's very cool to see all the design process you went through =)

Alex Sinclair's avatar
Alex SinclairMod
Beetlejude

Well that's just adorable. I want one. Congratulations on second place!

Limal's avatar
Limal
https://twitter.com/Limal432320/status/1941962769529541026

This evening I dived into fantasy with my kids, and we used plasticine to model a new species.

They called them Chitin Dragons, so I checked some Latin vocabulary and came up with a name: Chitodracus.

There are three of them. They look different, but I’m pretty sure they all come from the same tribe.

Lore. Log Entry BZ-YC-126-0705

We found them near HIP 36601 A 1 – a scorched, airless rock with strange mineral deposits scattered across. A field team stumbled onto a cave system crowned with old Guardian ruins. Inside those tunnels, sensors picked up movement. Deeper scans revealed something unexpected. Creatures, weird-looking ones.

About 2 to 3 meters tall, compact, hunched, with layered exoshells in chaotic colors, like a child’s drawing brought to life. One was curled up like a coral serpent. Another moved like a 8-legged brute. The third stood tall, with stiff antennae and branching claws. None of them showed aggression, but they made clicking, rusty sounds. Might be a form of communication.

They’re organic, but there’s something underneath. Chitin-like plating over what could be tech—maybe synthetic nerves, maybe hollow. The team couldn’t get a clear scan through the outer layers.

Some scientists think they’re Thargoid offshoots, forgotten subspecies, abandoned ages ago. Others say they’re constructs, built to mimic life and seeded across moons like probes or sentries. There’s even a fringe theory they were once pets, domesticated and later left to survive on their own.

Whatever they are, they haven’t left the caves. They just patrol. Slow, circular paths, always along the same lines. Like they’re waiting.

For a signal. For orders.Or maybe... for someone to come back.

Sturmer's avatar
Sturmer
https://embed.bsky.app/oembed?url=https%3A%2F%2Fbsky.app%2Fprofile%2Fsturmer-ja.bsky.social%2Fpost%2F3ltcmh4oyak2q

The Neutron Drifters

Beyond the Thargoid incursion zones and Guardian ruins, something else is drifting in a void of endless particles' dance. Commanders call them Neutron Drifters.

No one knows what they are, maybe they’re creatures, machines, or both. They look like massive squid, floating through space with slow, deliberate motion. The biggest one on record was estimated at nearly 10 kilometers long. They don’t show up on scans. No heat, no signal. Just shapes, moving through the dark.

They always show up near neutron stars, never anywhere else, that’s the only pattern so far. They gather in loose groups of 3, sometimes as many as 20, hanging just outside the beam cones. You’ll spot the tentacles first: three long limbs, waving as if they’re riding invisible currents. Some think they’re collecting particles, maybe feeding or recharging.

They’ve got three big eyes on the front. Black, glossy, reflective. They track movement. They see you. But they don’t react much unless you get too close. As they move, its fast, almost like a Frame Shift signature, but quieter, clean. They simply vanish, leaving no tracks.

A few logs picked up strange signal bursts near them, tight EM patterns, almost musical. The pulses travel near light speed, structured like a broadcast. It could be communication or something else entirely.

They’ve never shown aggression. No attacks. No responses to pings or scans. They just drift through the void, always on the move, always heading somewhere.

Some think they’re ancient. We still don’t know if they were built by someone, if they’re carrying something inside, or if they’re just spacefaring creatures—like Terra’s whales, drifting through the void.

All we really know is this: if you’re out near a neutron star, and your sensors go fuzzy for no reason, take a second look. You might not be alone out there.

J/
Jimmy0916 / Cmdr Donald Duck
https://www.instagram.com/p/DLzL5uuo5xd

BREAKING NEWS – NEW ALIEN SPECIES DISCOVERED? – BREAKING NEWS

As leaked documents show, researchers in an undisclosed space sector appear to have encountered two solar systems colonized by a previously unknown alien species.

The species is described as a modular, biomechanical life form with a crystalline base, appearing in various, often insect-like forms. These forms can seemingly change at any time, starting at the molecular level, and adapt to the respective circumstances. There are indications that the species is assimilating new materials or technologies; mechanical and electronic components have also been seen.

The documents do not reveal to what extent the species possesses consciousness.

Most of the planets and moons seemingly colonized by the species in the two systems are coated in a modular crystalline layer, which appears to be produced, excreted and worked on by the species. This has been observed on bodies in both systems that have not yet been completely coated. The consequences of this coating for the bodies and any life on them are unknown.

This behavior at least suggests invasive behavior on the part of the species. Whether it is also an expansive species remains open, since the distance between the two systems is unknown, which could indicate a possible crossing in normal space or hyperspace capability, on the other hand.

EDIT: Replaced the AI thing with my hand-drafted "art-work"... 🤣🤣🤣

EDIT2 Background considerations:

Crystals, such as Quartz or similar, do have very interesting physical and chemical abilities, not to be found in any other materials on Earth. Some of them react with their environment, mostly on an electro-magnetic level.

Imagine a kind of crystal on a far planet, which is able to somehow intelligently "read" the atomic/molecular structure of anything that touches it, learn biologies, techniques and technologies, assimilate and reproduce them, create new structures like bio-mechanical machines or bodies, including the new molecules. This is done by try-and-error, resulting in several mutations until the one working is found. Additionally, all these bodies can disband, change form and re-arrange according to requirements on a molecular level, e. g. a group of 'tanks', 'cranes' or 'bugs' can transform into a 'space-ship'.

Like every life-form its primary task is reproduction, which is supported by expansion and invasion, and is fired by raw materials mined from invaded bodies. For this reason they cover the respective body with a crystalline layer and carve out the body under this skin. When the body is depleted completely, the remaining sphere is dismantled and used elsewhere.

Whether they have individual or swarm intelligence remains to be seen, however any newly acquired knowledge is shared immediately amongst the whole life-form. If, for example, one structure would be destroyed by a laser, they would learn how to counter this laser with the right frequency and get immune to this kind of damage.

It probably all started somehow when a piece of human or even alien technology or parts of a space-ship crashed on the crystals' home-world and touched them. They assimilated this and use it to fulfill their main task.

They don't seem to have gotten in touch with carbon based life so far, but no-one can say what would happen if - for example - a fly touches them... 😉

W
Wotherspoon

For clarity, are we talking about sentient alien civilisations, such as Thargoids and Guardians, or does this also include non-sentient alient life along the lines of the Brain Trees that are in your picture, or the various molluscs and simple life forms we see at Lagrange points ("notable stellar phenomena")? I appreciate there would need to be a good reason why they haven't yet been discovered, but I'm just trying to ascertain what sort of IQ level the alien life would need in order to qualify.

Alex Sinclair's avatar
Alex SinclairMod
Wotherspoon

Wotherspoon Good question! And one I'm glad I get to consider as part of my job. On the topic of theoretical alien IQ:

There are no strict rules on this. We'd envisaged entries more along the lines of sentient civilised species, because that - at least at first - appears to be the most obviously interesting choice for a species with deeper, more interesting lore. However, don't let our lack of imagination stymie yours. On reflection, there's plenty of scope for mycelial networks and insectoid colonies. If you have a great idea for an alien species no more intelligent than a pak choi, it'll still be a valid entry.

D
DemiserofD

It won't let me post my image because my image isn't verified even though I linked my other accounts...

So I'll just post the text here because I'm bored.

Olaunt

The Olaunt are a massive and long-lived species, but their slowness belies a mental structure that is deceptively powerful. The Olaunt have a unique capability to fragment their consciousness into multiple independent shards, each capable of independent cognition while remaining connected to the whole. This allows an Olaunt to solve multiple problems at the same time, carry on multiple conversations at once, or control multiple aspects of a ship's subsystems simultaneously. Similarly to their minds, their bodies are fractal-like, with three central limbs which each branch into three smaller jointed limbs, which each have three more digits, each of which has three smaller digits...since any subset of digits may be partitioned off to a shard of consciousness, this gives a single Olaunt almost infinite adaptability.

As a result, Olaunt ships have almost zero processing-level automation. All ship controls are handled by Olaunt sub-processing, sometimes by as little as a few tiny digits the size of hairs.

Because Olaunt naturally fragment their consciousness, they tend to solve individual problems relatively slowly. However, this neglects the fact that they are constantly solving multiple problems at once, sometimes hundreds of them. As such, their society tends to shift slowly but totally, integrating or disregarding multiple entire concepts at once.

The Olaunt fought the Thargoids aeons ago, and unlike other races like the Guardians or Humans, they didn't attempt to find weaknesses in the Thargoid defenses. Rather, they simply continually overpowered their weapons and armor until the Thargoids were unable to adapt.

The Olaunt approach warfare with the same approach as the rest of their lives; slowly, but on every level simultaneously. As such, they tend to progress every aspect of their war machine simultaneously, and tend to reject heroics in favor of overwhelming power in every respect.

Olaunt ships are simply massive, with enormous armoring making them virtually indestructible to anything but the most dangerous of attacks. Their weapons, similarly, are enormous, capital-grade weapons capable of overwhelming defenses even in their point of strength through sheer massive firepower, capable of destroying even thargoid interceptors, normally nearly indestructible to normal damage types, with pure thermal damage. Anything too small to hit with their weapons cannot effectively damage their hulls, and anything large enough to damage their hulls can be obliterated by their weaponry. And unlike other species, which often only advance in the face of dangers, the Olaunt continually upgrade their arms and armor at all times, a virtue of their parallel processing.

However, their primary defense is more manifold. They have created impossibly complex spatial disruptions around their systems, making it impossible to establish a lock on Olaunt systems and jump in. The answer to this problem might seem to be a finely-tuned password, but in reality, the answer is merely to blast through the interference with massive power - but inevitably reveal yourself to be attacked by every single Olaunt ship in range, attacking simultaneously. In the past, Thargoid attempts to attack with Titans has simply been met with the combined force of every single Olaunt ship available, instantly slagging the attacking Titans and preventing further attacks.

The main weakness of the Olaunt is that they ARE slow and ponderous. On a shard level they think slowly, preferring to ruminate and think over all the possibilities - something they're all too good at. They also reproduce slowly, by virtue of their very long lives(a single Olaunt can live for tens of thousands of years, and olaunt medical science is advancing faster than they are aging, so for all intents and purposes, they are immortal). As such, they only expand to a new star system every few hundred years.

This has in the past given other races an unwarranted overconfidence against them, but it wouldn't be wise to ignore their parallel processing capability. While speaking to an Olaunt might make it seem slow, it is ALWAYS processing a thousand other problems at the same time, behind the scenes. As such, surprising an Olaunt is nearly impossible.

I'm not very good at art, sorry. Here's my best depiction of an Olaunt! Imagine something kinda between an Elephant and a living mountain. Size-wise they're pretty huge, 30-40 feet tall. Their ships are big heavy curves, and even the smallest ones are much larger than the biggest human ships.

<image expunged>

Olaunt have some interesting religious beliefs as a consequence of their fragmented reasoning. In essence they believe that much as they are made of many shards, the universe is also made of many shards, and ultimately makes up one greater being attempting to solve some infinitely complex problem which will be revealed at the end of the universe. As such, it is their duty to live their own lives out to its maximal extent so as to best serve their role as shards in this overarching universal narrative. As such, when they talk, especially when a shard is to be re-integrated with their higher self before being remade, they will often use religious nomenclature, like that they pray they will meet you again, and that when they are reformed it will still be them. It's a complex thing to be you and also part of something bigger that controls you but also IS you.

Since Humans repelled the Thargoid attack, the Olaunt have finally begun to notice Humans, and after considering ALL the options, they've decided to extend an Envoy, before humans attempt to break into their permit locked zone... how they will respond to humans in the long term will very much depend on how all of us respond to them.

Alex Sinclair's avatar
Alex SinclairMod
DemiserofD

Hey DemiserofD, that sounds like it could be a bug - let's get that sorted for you. Could you please share the link to your social media post in a reply to this comment?

You shouldn't be blocked from sharing it if it's a reply. Once you've done that, our engineers are will be able to investigate the issue. It also means that we can't resolve the issue before the reward deadline, then we'll be able to judge your design and manually award you a prize if it's prizeworthy.

Thanks!

Alex Sinclair's avatar
Alex SinclairMod
Alex Sinclair

Update: DemiserofD - I've just looked at your account and it's showing that you only have YouTube connected. If you're sharing it from another platform, such as Instagram, Bluesky, or Twitter (x), you'll need to connect that account to be able to be able to enter.

Alex Sinclair's avatar
Alex SinclairMod
Alex Sinclair

Hey DemiserofD - thought I'd send you a last reminder to submit as this reward closes in seven hours and it'd be a shame if your hard work went to waste

Sturmer's avatar
Sturmer

Almost done XD

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