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SOPHIA: the Research Division of OmniVersity-Combine.
SOPHIA is pleased to announce that it has been successful in securing the contract for overseeing the survey-work in Sector G9 of Kepler-22B. We are proud to be associated with this project, especially since Johanes Kepler, who dedicated his life to study of the universe and after whom the telescope that was used in the discovery of Kepler-22B was named, worked at two of the OmniVersity’s constituent institutions, the Universities of Graz and Prague.
SOPHIA will shortly be dispatching the Curiosity, one of its two Corona-class starliners, as a base for its survey teams. Commanded by Captain Zhao Jing, a veteran of 16 deep-space survey missions, the Curiosity is expected to be home for the next four years to the crew of 44, and survey teams numbering 119 scientific and technical specialists.
SOPHIA’s survey teams are under the overall supervision of Project Director Professor Aslan Kapanadze of the Tashkent Foundation for Science, one of Earth’s leading experts in the field of geo-chemical processes; and a Senior Research Team consisting of Professors Andrea Martin (Xenobiology, Colonial University Research Institute); Jada de Silva (Meteorology, Havana Technical University); Noel Musa (Astrophysics, Albanian Academy of Sciences); Sofia Horvat (Palaeontology, Bologna University of Science and Technology); Francesco M’Bala (Geography, American University of Kampala).
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Crystal Plains (06.25)
In this region is a large area of vitrified mineral deposit some 35km wide. It is composed of a form of quartz which seems to have been fused by immense heat. Whether this has been caused by a natural geological process, or by some application of unknown technology, is not at present known. The process appears to have happened in the relatively recent past, perhaps between 2-5,000 Earth-years (2,700-6,300 stellar orbits of 22B). Preliminary analysis of high-altitude survey data suggests that there may be several other locations where this phenomenon has occurred.
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One of the G-9 creatures:
Drifters (flexures volans Keplerii-Martinii) (also known as ‘Jellybirds’): These organisms resemble jellyfish, but utilise a lighter-than-air gas in their membranes to ‘fly’. They are composed of a cluster of lifting-sacs with dangling tentacles approximately 2m long which trail on the ground or dangle a little way above it. The lifting-sacs tend to hover around 1-3m above the ground. The tentacles can deliver electrical or poison attacks, or grasp and exert force in a similar fashion to an octopus on Earth.
Combat with these organisms is additionally hazardous as the gas they use to fly seems to be hydrogen. Projectile and edged weapons can damage the sacs, but energy-weapons should be used with caution as they can cause the Drifters to explode by igniting their lifting gas.
While, at surface level, only small groups (typically in the range 4-10) have been encountered, large groups have been seen at a distance at higher altitudes (several hundred at a time). This could indicate that these organisms are migratory, either through design or as a result of dispersal through weather-patterns. It is not known at present whether these organisms are intelligent in any way, or what (if anything) might attract them.
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We eagerly await further reports on this sector of the super-planet!
