Second Chances (136 page)

Waddler: small biped, birdlike creature herbivore/ and eats insects. It is the turkey equivalent of many of the alien animals. Forest dweller. Does not fly.

Tauntauns (star wars): bipedal mammalian with ram horns. Four arms and kangaroo pouch. Primitive fur. Herd animals, plains & forests herbivores.

Snow monster: six-legged shaggy bull like creature, flat face, with two horn tusks. Prefers snow omnivore with bear like qualities. Has mix of brown and white fur.

Barox: omnivore beast, looks slightly like a bison. Four legs, hump with horns. Low slung head with tusks. They have rich creamy milk and good meat.

Bolladon: four-legged creature. Nasty oily meat. Two-three meters tall, with a body covered in bone armor. A narrow big beak, offset eyes on short stalks. Herbivore. Spiked tail.

Hex Croc: six-legged croc creature.

Tentacle creature: water born creature. Tentacles, green skin. Attacks from behind, or ambush.

Alien parasite plant in tropics. Eat it but it is a xenoform. Inside is a parasite covered in sweet fruit rind. Eat it, digestive juices digest outer rind, when it gets to inside wakens eggs. Eggs like flatworms get into intestinal track. Feeds off food. Expands, kills host, lays seeds to new plant to grow while feeding off remains of host.

Scavengers come to feed on dead host unwittingly pick up eggs. Eggs expand on food for some time, feeding in body until host dies, then cycle continues.

Very dangerous plant/animal hybrid. But doesn't like cold. Tropical only, below 60 goes dormant, dies below freezing. (Water) most active in warm climates.

Alien being seen. Three-four meters tall. Four spindly legs, two long arms that end in spear claw tips. They wave the arms like insect legs. Thorax sticks out the rear. Most prominent thing is tall vertical ovoid that was half translucent flesh backed by darker flesh. Inside the translucent ovoid bubble is a stalk, with polyp like structures arrayed sticking out the sides. Two whip-like antennas stick out at the base of this structure. The creatures are a dark gray in color, trimmed and spotted in shades of green and yellow for the larger creature, and shades of blue for the smaller. The ovoid was also colored in the trim color.

“That's an eye!”

“Is it?”

“The giant polyps inside, they are photocells I bet. That's how the thing can see! That's amazing!”

“If you say so, Doc...”

Earth ice age:

Mammothoids (mammoth, mastodon): herbivores herd animals with matriarch leaders. Migratory like all dinos; heads north during summer due to heat, then south in winter.

Giant sloth (herbivore): solitary giant forest dwellers endangered, with few animals due to competition and easy target for predators. Though many will avoid them because they taste terrible.

Brontotherium: Rhino-like animal with a split V horn. Larger than a standard rhino but with the same mean disposition when bothered. Herbivores, they travel in small groups in mixed herds.

Woolly rhino (herbivore): solitary animals but will follow herds. Pairs with alien cassowaries for defense and parasite control. Rare, possibly endangered. Has terrible temper and poor eyesight like its Terran cousins.

Ancient pig (omnivore): massive creature, nasty eats everything. Small herds, forest or swamps year-round.

Ancient horse (herbivore): plains animal, small as dog. Herd. Spotted like deer. Migratory

Auruch (cow) (herbivore): herd animals, plains. Larger then modern domestics. Usually mixed with bison herd. Migratory

Dire wolf (predator): pack hunter seasonal, comes south into base area when autumn and winter hit. Leaves in late spring. Rare animal, possibly on edge of extinction. Cannot compete with alien and dino predators is speculated.

Dire bear (omnivore): solitary creature, massive four meters tall. Hibernates in caves. Rare, another animal on the possible edge of extinction due to competition.

Ancient giraffe (herbivore): solitary creatures forest dweller. Shaggier then Terran version with long fur in winter. In the area around base year-round.

Ancient bison (herbivore): plains herd animal migratory.

Giant elk (herbivore): forest and meadow animal. Mostly small pairings or herds during breeding season year-round.

Wappi deer (herbivore): herd forest/meadow animal. Year-round.

Gopher (herbivore/insect eater): burrowing animal forests or plains. They cluster in large numbers and are the favorite prey of tremor worms.

Primitive birds: (evolved microdinos with teeth, one with four wings) flock or solitary creatures, follow herds. Forest dwellers.

Notes: Many herbivore species group together for mutual protection. Some of different species with different abilities form perimeters with sharp-eyed animals keeping watch for predators.

...and all Fauna and Flora seem to grow and heal fast as well, possibly due to the seasons and diet as much as any genetic tinkering...

Flora:

Primitive grasses, conifers (pines, spruce) ferns, deciduous trees, berry bushes, and alien plants for botany. One alien plant looks like bloated purple translucent sack smells of garbage with vines.

Another is a giant Venus fly trap. For some reason the plants have an extremely high caloric and vitamin count; some have massive amounts of sugars, allowing animals to thrive. If plant does not get entirely eaten, it can regenerate in less than a month. Some plants have multiple cycles in one year during the growing period (spring to late autumn).

Flora and Fauna:

http://io9.com/imagine-trying-to-outrun-this-600-pound-chicken-from-h-1547312978

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthropleura

http://www.hobbyfarms.com/livestock-and-pets/emus-on-farm-14787.aspx

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citipati

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camptosaurus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dinosaur_genera

http://io9.com/oh-hell-yes-tauntaun-butcher-chart-1584222661

http://io9.com/what-sound-did-t-rex-actually-make-1591173199

http://grimchild.tumblr.com/image/90766223779

http://observationdeck.io9.com/dinosaur-discovery-suggests-feathers-widespread-amongst-1610428745

http://observationdeck.io9.com/a-comprehensive-guide-to-dinosaur-feathers-and-scales-1603368757/+charliejane

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangolin

Tech/mech:

http://www.deltaveng.com/gauss-machine-gun/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-altitude_balloon

http://www.wikihow.com/Blow-Glass

http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Metal-Forge

http://www.wikihow.com/Kill-a-Scorpion

http://www.wikihow.com/Reload-Ammo

http://io9.com/5987086/meet-the-scientific-accident-that-could-change-the-world

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Loon

http://gizmodo.com/make-a-diy-3d-hologram-like-the-one-that-brought-tupa-1574476335

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction

http://www.dvice.com/2014-5-29/intel-wants-you-start-3d-printing-your-own-robots-years-end

Medical:

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/003519.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthelmintic

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypovitaminosis_D

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tapeworm_infection

Other:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boric_acid

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caving

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethylene

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propylene_glycol

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sefer_Torah

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ant_and_the_Grasshopper

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trona

http://www.goingrank.com.au/glossary.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kruskal%E2%80%93Szekeres_coordinates

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoelectric_generator

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wormhole

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov_An-38

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cessna_208_Caravan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cessna_400

Here is a clipping from the first chapter, and yes I know I cheated by posting it on the blog and FB group. Sorry about that. :)

Sprite came up from her record research to find the admiral elbow deep in a repair project. She was concerned he was back sliding, forgetting his duty to the big picture. She would have to do something about it she thought. First she pinged Lobsterman for a quick status update and then made an ahem sound.

“Yes, what is it, Commander,” the admiral asked, clearly distracted.

“Admiral, a moment.”

“I'm a bit busy here,” he said, pointing out the control runs to the tech. “Can it wait?”

“I'd actually like to talk to you about what you are currently doing,” she said.

“See this ODN cable with the green and white fittings? It has a candy cane stripe. That's a data line. Part of the subnet actually. If you plug your tester here into this port...” He plugged a tester into a junction. Red LEDs began to flicker madly. “Okay, we have activity, but it is unstable. If it was stable, we'd see the top light, which is the net light, be constantly on. Something is hinky here. It could be software related or hardware. Now, we push diagnose on the tablet, and the tester probe links to the tablet in your hand and will give you a reading.”

The Veraxin looked down at the tablet and then up. “It is hash.”

“That's the code sample,” Irons frowned, looking over the bug's shoulder to see it. He could always access the Wi-Fi signal directly but he wanted his student to learn it himself. He recognized the code string. It wasn't jumbled, but if you weren't a native coder you wouldn't understand it. “Okay, I'm guessing you aren't a coder?”

“No sir. I took the basic course, but I barely passed it. I was planning on taking another when I was transferred to
Firefly
and well ...” The Veraxin shrugged and motioned third-level chagrin and embarrassment with both sets of upper arms.

“Okay. Well, you can call a coder in, or we can do a test run of the line with someone else. Basically they hook up another probe to their end of the Optical Data Network line and then you hit test. Your probe would send a series of pulses down the line to their kit and then you would pool the results. But we've got a clean line here, so either something is hashed up in the code or in the hardware.”

“Okay. And how do we figure that out, sir?”

“Well, since you aren't a coder, you have two choices: pull in someone who is or pull hardware, swap it and then put it on a bench and check it later. But since someone might be using this computer node, say, an AI, we don't know what is going on. So...”

“So call an expert in, sir.”

“Got it. You do that, I'll just check in with the commander for a moment,” Irons said. He got up and patted the Veraxin on the upper shoulder and then went off to the corner for a modicum of relative privacy.”