Tales from New Terra

Prologue: Falling Star

Earth:

August 12, 2259

Unknown:

Month ?? Day ?? Year ????

High above the world, four hulking monoliths emerged from the void. Their formerly state-of-the-art spacetime modification drives had long melted to slag, their star charts were somehow wiped of all useful information, and each ship shed increasingly large pieces of superstructure as they hurtled through the cold darkness of space.

JW-100X3 Spacetime Modification Drives compromised. Hull integrity compromised. Main reactor temperature critical.

Initiating ATLAS Emergency Protocol 1: Spacetime Modification Drive shutdown commencing.

ERROR: Spacetime Modification Drives unresponsive. Sealing drive compartment.

Initiating ATLAS Emergency Protocol 2: main reactor shutdown commencing.

Main reactor shutdown complete, engaging auxiliary reactors.

It was a miracle the once-mighty supercarriers had survived, after missing their intended destination and careening blindly through space for decades.

Initiating ATLAS Emergency Protocol 3: searching for landing site.

ERROR: Inertial navigation system unresponsive. Rebooting...

Reboot complete. Gantris system not detected.

Searching for new landing site: Engaging telescopes for long-range scans.

ERROR: Telescopes unresponsive. Engaging long-range radar.

Star system detected, engaging planetary thrusters and adjusting course.

It was an even bigger miracle the ships emerged near a planetary system, instead of the cold darkness that made up much of the universe.

Long-range radar scans complete. Four planets confirmed orbiting star.

Two planets detected within habitable zone. Atmospheric sensors engaged.

Planet 1: Not within habitable zone. Confirmed not habitable.

Planet 2: Within habitable zone. Atmosphere detected, not suitable for human life. Confirmed not habitable.

Planet 3: Within habitable zone. Atmosphere detected, suitable for human life. Liquid water detected. Confirmed potentially habitable.

Planet 4: Not within habitable zone. Confirmed not habitable.

Plotting intercept course to Planet 3.

Initiating ATLAS Emergency Protocol 4: engaging planetary landing procedure.

Stable orbit confirmed, planetary thrusters disengaged.

Initiating reentry sequence. Heat shields engaged. Retrothrusters engaged. Course adjustment thrusters standing by.

Four brilliant streaks of light lit up the night sky as the supercarriers made their descent through the planet's atmosphere, growing larger and larger as the ships plunged toward an uninhabited landmass.

Preparing for final approach. Heat shields disengaged. Engaging landing gear.

And by far the biggest miracle of all: The UPLS Nagglfar, Argo, Sarengo, and Reagan landed safely on a habitable planet, with all 40,000 passengers surviving.

Initiating intra-atmospheric scans.

Resource deposits detected, suitable for extended settlement.

Bioforms detected, planet confirmed habitable.

Initiating ATLAS Reseed Protocol.

Author's Note:

This is the start of a fanfic loosely based on the lore of the video game series Starcraft and the world of Nihonkoku Shoukan. The story opens in the same way as in Starcraft, with four human colony ships making emergency crash landings after wildly missing their original targets. Though the story will open very similarly to NHS, mostly because I'm extremely lazy, both the lore and worldbuilding will diverge significantly and only implement general ideas from the source material. Unfortunately, updates will be fairly slow, but hopefully y'all will enjoy nonetheless.

PS. For those unfamiliar with Starcraft, here's a very basic summary: after the supercarriers crash land in the Koprulu sector, the story follows our Terran heroes as they get caught in the middle of a war between the hyper-advanced Protoss and the insectoid, hive-mind Zerg. The Protoss and the Zerg both seek total annihilation of each other, while the Terrans are just trying their best to survive.