Lukona

The moon of Lukona is similar in many ways to Quantum Prime – it has rich soil, a well-developed biosphere with tens of thousands of species of plants, and animals … and, like Quantum Prime, it gave birth to intelligent life. Unfortunately, unlike the Toba of Quantum Prime, the inhabitants of Lukona seem to have died off at some time in the distant past. Toba scientists and archaeologists studying the lost race - and the structures and artifacts they left behind have puzzled over the mystery, trying to piece together the story of this brother-race that shared the same planetary system in the Toba prehistory. Did they kill themselves off in a cataclysmic war? There’s no evidence of that – no fallout, no huge glassy craters. Did a comet strike the moon? Again, there’s no evidence to support the theory. Geologically, evidence does show Lukona suffered some type of climate catastrophe. The evidence of massive flooding was uncovered among the ruins. But an entire moon wiped out by flooding did not seem plausible.

It wasn’t until after the Nea Prime disaster did the Toba understand what happened to the Lukonans. And that discovery was the motivation for the Observational Trips.

The Lukonans left behind vast ruins of their stepped pyramid cities, miles of underground chambers, and the strange artifacts that are still regularly unearthed from beneath the encroaching jungle. For the Toba that work the ruins, the fate of the Lukonans is only spoken in whispers.

The Archaeological Dig is a deep pit in the middle of the jungle. The area immediately around the dig is cleared of jungle foliage and filled with sports utility buildings, tents, and a small, improvised spaceports for the Toba archaeologists. The dig is vast, because at the bottom is another city of the lost race - this one better preserved than the one on the surface.

Ladders and ramps dive from the surface level down to the first ledge, and then more ladders and ramps dive down deeper to the second ledge, and so forth, until the absolute bottom of the excavation, which is a cross section of the sewers and underground tunnels.

Toba scientists labor at the various levels of the dig, inspecting roof tops, ancient chimneys and fresh air vents at the top-most layer, street level of the ancient city deeper down, and delving for forgotten artifacts and ancient clues in the deepest levels where the buried refuse dumps of this ancient city hide their secrets.

The City of The Lost Race is one of the better-preserved cities of the ancient lost race that disappeared in the Aluza system. Time has long since rotted whatever books, rugs, and furniture once filled the homes and schools here, leaving behind just the empty shells of the now crumbling buildings.

Canals teaming with fish divide up the city, while vine-covered monuments with inscriptions written in pictograms dot the intersections. Rocket Dogs likely won’t have time to go inside any of the buildings or pause to drink from the ancient fountains that still flow with water fed by underground springs but will instead just race past the empty doors and windows, but that doesn’t stop them from wondering what brother-race built these roads, houses, and factories …and why they no longer exist.

The Library of The Lost Race is a vast building, cathedral-like, if not warehouse-like, in scale, and the Rocket Dogs race runs right down the middle of it. Bright sunlight courses in from glassless windows and collapsed holes in the mighty roof. The floor of the library is thick with green shrubs, growing in soil made of wind-blown leaves that have accumulated over millennia … and the long since rotted remains of the millions of books that used to cover the endless shelves. There are rumors that a small percent of the lost race’s books were printed on metal, not paper, and that these books still survive, buried in the shrubs and grasses that floor the library. Is that bright glint a puddle, or a silver tome from a long-lost race? Is that yellow flash under a tree a fallen leaf…or a page torn from a book printed on some golden foil? There’s no time for Rocket Dogs to slow down and investigate - there’s a race to be run!