8 Collecting
I made a mistake when researching the starships. The Hyperdrive Class should be as small as possible and not big. I didn't know anything about starships, so I hope you forgive that mistake.
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I was currently working on the hyperdrive. It was necessary to do so. I might be immortal, but that doesn't mean that I want to take thousands of years to reach planets. I created the Explorer as a sentient, Force-sensitive starship. So when I channel the Force through the ship, it wouldn't matter what class the hyperdrive was, it could reach any speed. But I didn't want that. I wanted to have as powerful of a ship as possible.
Considering the size and weight of the ship it made sense that the hyperdrive was this bad. I had just invented hyperdrive technology after all. But that was no excuse. I went ahead and began to improve it. The hyperdrive was located in the middle of the two circular parts of the Explorer. I decided to change some things now and in hindsight, it should have been done in the beginning.
This took me a while. I was technically making tens of thousands of years of technological progress in a short few years. And I was doing it all on my own. But that was what I enjoyed anyway. What would I do otherwise? Create a planet?
Yes.
I was going to create a planet. And the reason for this was that this was called the 'Star Wars' Universe. Wars were nothing unusual. On the contrary, wars happened all the time and I wanted to have a planet where I could have a base of my own. I didn't want to settle for an already existing planet, because I wanted to have a mobile base. I might be powerful after the creation of the Explorer but I am still a long way away from moving planets.
So I was going around the galaxy and collecting samples from different and interesting planets. I was going to create a new ecosystem. Of course, I would also create a new race. A new species. For that reason, I will also go around the Universe and collect samples of already existing evolutionary powerful species and then add my own touch to complete it. I am also interested in guiding the evolution of a species on the planet I will create.
Another thing I thought about was whether or not I should create an AI. The Explorer is already semi-sentient and given time, it could develop full sentience. So it won't be necessary to create an AI for the ship at least. When I create my planet, this might change though. I know nothing about artificial intelligence though, so that might take a long time. Well, that doesn't matter, I have a lot of time.
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I continued to work on the hyperdrive and reduced the Class to 12 and then to 7. So it would only take a few months until I probably reach the lowest classes and increase the ship's speed. I am looking forward to that time, but for now, this is more than enough. I can still channel the Force into the ship or the ship can do that itself, to increase the speed. So I finally left the planet I had been staying on all these years. I am glad that I can finally travel through space and explore the galaxy.
I board the Explorer and then enter the command deck. I sit in my seat, I have created.
"How are we feeling, Explorer?", I ask out loud to the ship. I have decided to call it Explorer and it seems to have accepted that name. I know that the Explorer is semi-sentient and given enough time that I will spend here, it will most likely evolve into full sentience. But before that, it will take for us to communicate through the Force.
I feel the Explorer answer me and feel that it is telling me about itself. I have designed this chair in the command deck, to channel the Force into the entire ship and essentially power it and connect to it. I have full control over the entire ship from here and it is also very comfortable ...
Anyway, I feel the Explorer tell me about all the current systems and essentially gives me the go-to start.
"Very well. Then let us start our first-ever flight, what do you think?", I say out loud again. I then feel the power coming on and the smallest of vibrations located at the power source. I will have to improve that later on. But the vibrations are immediately absorbed by the Forcium and stored for further use. I feel the status of the ship and smile when I feel the power which is getting powered up.
I have created a monster. I feel the Explorer notify me and tell me that all systems are ready. I checked as well and confirmed that everything is working perfectly. I control the systems and then take off. Ever so slowly, the ship begins to hover in the air, using propulsion tech, I created in the last couple of years. I looked into ways to 'reverse' the effect of gravity and integrate something like that into the Explorer.
And now, I just checked that it does indeed work. Technology can truly be mistaken for magic if you don't understand it. I am currently controlling every process of the take-off on my own. This is due to me wanting to make sure that everything is working perfectly.
The Explorer rises into the air and slowly positions itself in the perfect position to take off. I then begin to slowly add more and more thrust. This is what it must feel like to sit inside an electric car. Following my will, a large screen comes down from above, showing me a 360° view of what is going on outside. I see the planet getting further and further away and smile to myself.
Another screen comes down from the ceiling and that shows me the status of every single technical device and system on board. It looks like a strange railway plan or a sci-fi picture of a circuit board. And in a way that is correct. I created this 'language' to make it simpler and get more information about all systems and those that are connected to them.
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When everything is as it should be, I give the command to enter hyperspace. Now here's the problem. The Explorer can't really travel through hyperspace yet. Not because there is a technical mistake, but because I haven't created any system which allows me to see the entry and exit points of the hyperlanes. I do this manually. That's right, using the power of the Force, obviously, I use something called 'Instinctive Astrogation'. This particular power allows me to find a route and navigate through hyperspace, fast and safely without the use of a computer or droid.
I activate the hyperdrive. The surroundings shift and it looks like the stars elongate as the Explorer enters hyperspace.
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And so my exploration of the galaxy began. I travelled from planet to planet and began to create a giant map, which I would store in my brain as well as the central archive on the Explorer. I take my time to study the wildlife as well as take samples of both the planet's resources and the genetic samples of those creatures or animals, I find interesting. I feel like Brainiac, only that I don't take away free will and leave everything as it was.
Many of the later species aren't around just yet, but there are many who are the predecessors of the later more famous species. An important species I visit and take samples of are the Wookiees. They are a species of tall, hairy humanoids that were native to the planet Kashyyyk.
When I was on Kashyyyk, I spent a few years there, learning their language and simply living among them. I studied them and also told them that I was simply there to observe. They didn't have a problem with that, as they saw the power I wielded.
They could grow to a height of nearly three meters. They were covered from head to toe in a thick, shaggy coat of hair with water-shedding properties that notably came in shades of brown, black, grey, and white. The species had two sexes, female and male. The latter grew long beards in adult life. The average male weighed 150 kilograms while the average female weighed 100 kilograms. The Wookiees' eye colour ranged from blue to brown. Wookiees were big eaters, with the average adult requiring 3,500-6,000 calories a day of food. Their diet consisted of wild plants, berries, meat, and spices. They preferred their spices to be hot.
I didn't want to cut their deceased up and conduct a biopsy, so I simply used the Force and some of the thousands of medical serums or potions, to help them and create anatomy diagrams.
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Wookiees had extendable claws which they used for climbing; using them for anything else violated the Wookiee honour code. Despite their fearsome appearance and volatile temperament, Wookiees were regarded as intelligent, sophisticated, loyal and trusting. When angered, Wookiees were known to descend into a berserker rage. Wookiees had an average lifespan of 400 standard years, and they appeared not to age over a span of fifty years.
I spent many years among them, teaching them the basics of crafting and although a rare phenomenon, Force-sensitive Wookiees were possible, and to those I taught the basics of connecting to the Force. Those Wookiees became a source of great pride for their people and they appreciated me as a sort of bringer of peace and great change.
I never intruded on their customs or tried to change anything. I only came to learn and if they wanted, to teach some basic things, from which they would then learn to advance further. As for the Force-sensitive Wookies ... well there were two in total and I taught both of them respect of the Force and only showed them the basics of how to feel the Force and how to meditate properly. Everything else would come naturally since the Wookiee are a species closely connected to life and the planet itself.
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I saw many different species on my travels which included amphibians, birds, felines, insects, mammals, mollusks, reptiles, reptomammals, rodents, etc. But there were many more, like plant-based sentient species which would be called the Neti.
The Neti especially interested me, since they were a species of shapeshifting sentient plants who generally stood between 2 to 5 meters tall, but skilled individuals could morph its shape into a roughly humanoid solid treelike mass anywhere from 2 to 9.5 meters tall. They evolved from the trees on the forested planet of Myrkr.
As plants, Neti survived through photosynthesis, though they also needed some water to survive. Neti were extremely long-lived, with an average life span of several thousand years. Neti reproduction only occurred once every few centuries. Seeds often remained dormant for more than a thousand years before germinating.
All Neti were Force-sensitive ... all of them. The Force led me to the planet Myrkr, where they had begun to evolve and a small settlement was already created. When I came, they tried to hide immediately but as the years passed, they began to open up to me. They could feel my powerful connection to the Force which was still increasing over the years.
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As the years passed, the Force made me aware of something that might interest me on a planet that I recognised as an important one ... the planet of Lehon. There was something going on there that would shape the future of an entire species in the future and explain, why so little would be known about them in the future.
When the Force told me about the planet and what was going on, I instantly grew interested and led the ship towards the fastest way to planet Lehon.
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Guess the species.
