The Mesh’Hsari as a whole have always had a hands on approach to scientific study. As soon as the enigmas of our own planet were exhausted, we launched into the cosmos to assuage our burning curiosity and need to understand the inexplicable. It has been that way for all our recorded history. Every now and again exploratory fleets would discover a planet with a functioning ecosystem and our research commissioners bid for the right to catalogue and explore its biosphere and any subsequently discovered anomalies discovered along the way. Even so, with our ravenous need to discover the grand honor had still been eluded to us. Other naturally occurring sapient organisms. Certainly we’d discovered a near countless archives of sentients that show awareness yet none have naturally attained the wisdom that can classify them as intelligent life. Simple beasts with complex thought processes. Endlessly we combed star systems only to find everything from dull rocks to verdant ecosystems, we even found a biosphere entirely based upon a liquid gas instead of a element seven mixture, but still we were unmistakably alone.

Exploratory Fleet Fen-Haran was set to explore a Main Sequence star orbited by nine stellar bodies. Nothing initially extraordinary about the group, an ice dwarf planet, twin blue gas giants, one with admittedly striking rings, a sizable, red banded gas giant, the remnants of cosmic debris that failed to form rendering it an asteroid field. The planets within the great ring were being surveyed until several automatic alerts triggered and gained the momentary attention of a few monitoring assistants.

First Alert: Frozen water, not uncommon for a terrestrial planet.

Second alert: Liquid water on the third planet from the star. This raised moderate interest among the staff but only among the younger scientists who had yet to pen their mark in the grand archives.

Third alert: Foliage detected, this turned quite a few heads and now even the more adept researchers were taking a glance at the incoming data.

Fourth Alarm: Fauna detected. Now even I couldn’t ignore this one.

“Researcher H’Sash!”

“I’m aware. Initiate through scan, the last two planets can wait.”

“Confirmed. Deploying Probes. Standby” The flush of blue upon their faces betrayed their emotions yet they still performed their stations admirable. A fine crew. My crew.

“Atmospheric composition of primarily element seven, eight and eighteen. Almost textbook life sustaining ratio.”

“Mark that for later give me images.”

“Yes Director. One moment.”

A screen of greens and blues flashed on the screen. Trees, shrub plants, fruit bearing and otherwise, grass and vines all with water of a deeply enchanting blue.

“A veritable paradise.”

“Or a green hell, keep watching those monitors.”

“Sir! Abnormality witnessed on drone 361…Yellow?”

“Vegetation is dependent on chlorophyll making it green, perhaps you’ve happened upon a withering patch?”

“If it is its massive.”

“Stop focusing on just yellow you blind fools! Deliberate patterns! Those are crop fields!”

Silence washed over the entire room. In a single moment a three thousand year old question had been answered. We are not alone. But who were these new beings we were fated to meet? I could barely ponder that over the cheering.