Evolution

The ship informed me that it had taken advantage of the proximity to Calypso to deploy a probe to a remote location where there were no human or robot presences and gathered samples from the flora and fauna on the planet in order to continue its study of these fragments that we were able to find. It had extracted several more types of fragments and was already in the process of improving the habitat based on what it discovered. At this I decided it would be a good time to find out what the ship had been up to while I had been working on the new drive and upgrading the ships defenses.

The fragments had a drastic impact on the species. Many of them had become much larger, although they were still sickeningly cute. A few of them were showing signs of advanced intelligence and the plants had modified themselves a bit more to suit their new life in the ship. In essence, everything was making changes at a rapid rate to accomodate the new place it was living. The ship seemed pleased with the progress that the fragments had brought about. I informed the ship to not continue this type of study too much or else we might be overrun with more advanced life than we were ready to deal with. It informed me that it had already figured this study would be hazardous if continued too far and assured me that it had learned what it needed to already and would just keep the information in the database should we need it. This being done, I silently praised the ship for making the changes, it would be nice having creatures and life that was better tailored to surviving in the ship instead of worrying about how they would be negatively affected by all the moving around we would be doing.

I took some time to study what the ship had figured out about the fragments, both the old and the new. There were definitely some tests we would need to do on them to find out more of what we could do with them in our technology. I knew from my previous experience with them that the technology developed from them was very fragile, this would need to be remedied if we were going to use them for ourselves. I started off by creating the various enhancers that had already been developed and then studying them to see how the fragments had already been utilized. Most of what was done seemed to involve feeding energy into the crystals that would enhance signals within the electronics. Based on which crystal was given the energy and how that energy was delivered determined how the circuitry responded, meaning that sometimes it would allow the technology to create a more powerful explosion, make a beam hotter, or amplify a signal being sent out. All of the research into this was going to be very involved, however I had the time to do it, we weren't even half way through our trip to the next system.

I decided that before I would settle into exploring the new potential technologies that I would enjoy a little bit of relaxation in my little haven. As I lied there allowing my thoughts to drift I heard some rustling in the undergrowth near the entrance. As I peeked over at it I saw two little black pearls shimmering in the low light, I instantly knew it was a creature's eyes that I saw. What was odd is that normally the creatures ignored me and what I did and had no interest in getting near me. I inquired of the ship what kind of creature was there, however it responded that the sensors were not picking up a creature's signal in the near vicinity of where I was. A bit alarmed I got up and cautiously approached the location where I saw the eyes. The creature, whatever it was, instantly turned and ran away, all I could make out of it was a shadowy mass. Again I inquired if the ship had sensed what it was, but it informed me that despite it seeing what I saw that no sensors could pick up a creature that had moved in the area. I knew then that the evolution might have gone too far, these creatures were developing a sort of technological stealth and we were going to need to capture and study them to figure out how to keep track of them.