The Ventana system is not well-adjusted to the needs of humans and humanoids … although, now that I think about it, neither is all of the Solar System. Earth is home. Mars is workable. Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Uranus, Saturn, Neptune, Pluto, Quaoar, and the rest? Not so much, although Saturn does have some workable moons.
Some planets can be terraformed as Mars has been, and in the Ventana system, there was talk of terraforming Ventana 4 and 6 to add capacity to bustling Ventana 5 when I got there (although Ventana 5 was the size and climate of Earth and nowhere near capacity).
But then, at long last, the native Ventanans were discovered on Ventana 4, when instruments finally were brought to bear that can see through the constant dust going up in magnetic tornadoes and coming down in cloudbursts of lightning lighting up a pyrotechnic show in the rain full of that dust.
As humans, and generally as humanoids, we tend to assume that other creatures have family groups like our own … the conclusion is very tempting with the group of native Ventanans above, with a pair of mature adults and a great number of littler and not-yet-as-colorful-but-plenty-beautiful-enough offspring in the swirling dust. It is very hard not to see a loving “dad”...
… and a loving “mom” …
… interacting pleasantly with their children here, exchanging energy and love.
The most amazing thing that was seen – and why these creatures were discovered – is what this pair did when a magnetic tornado came up and threatened their family group. They bundled their children behind them and combined their energy …
… and just dissipated it. Then they returned to just doing whatever native Ventanans do when taking a walk – a walk? – with their little ones … which is the picture you see above.
Needless to say, Ventana 4 went off the terraforming list – not that it was more than a marginal idea, because the lack of a stable magnetic field would have made it nearly impossible to get Ventana 4 to even the point of being stable for mining like Ventana 2 and 3.
But, the population on scientists on Ventana 5 went up at that time, just to study the life now discovered on Ventana 4 … which meant that a lot of scientific equipment needed to be brought to and around the frontier.
I'm an engineer and scientist at heart, but I also was setting up the frontier headquarters of Kirk and Dixon Shipping on Ventana 5.
The discovery of the native Ventanans made me happy on all fronts.
A fractal, a couple of different zooms, and a slight tweak in the same fractal made in Apophysis 2.09 give us this family story from the colorful world of Ventana 5 ... and, it won't be alone!