Local Date: 02517-09-14T04:41:37 (Tuesday, September 14, 02517, 4:41 AM)
From: Vanda Escamilla (v.escamilla@records.stineslegacy.ship.ithacus.star)
Subject: Did someone misplace a planet around JDSPS2401.4.718L?

Hello out there. I am Vanda Escamilla, historian and records officer on the 
ark ship Stine's Legacy. Pardon me if I do not comment yet on what I've had 
time to read in the QEC logs. Because as perplexing and confounding as the 
messages I've skimmed through have been we have a mystery of our own. You 
see when the our voyage was being planned we were very careful to pick a 
destination which would serve our needs and yet be unlikely to be attractive 
to anyone else. The place we named the Ithacus System (catalog number 
JDSPS2401.4.718L) was picked for the evidence of an asteroid belt and no 
habitable planets. The surveys didn't even show planets which looked 
promising for terraforming.

Why then do our telescopes show a near Earth sized planet that was not on 
any of the telescopic survey observations? A near Earth sized planet which 
is showing the lights of settlements when the night side is viewed.

Despite only seven of us being awake yet and Captain Nath saying not to do 
so we now have a betting pool just what has happened. I've put an hour each 
of kitchen and housekeeping duty down on a human Luddite colony seeing as 
how we have not picked up a single radio broadcast. The same wager on someone 
tampering with the Jovian Deepsky Planet Survey data. Marian, he's the medical 
officer among those of us who woke up, put a but on a navigation error leading 
us to the wrong destination. Sorry Marian, but too much matches up with what 
we expected. Just so long as you ignore the unexpected planet.

If I'm wrong about the inhabitants of Ithacus IV being Luddites and you happen 
to be reading this, Good News, we are not here for your planet. We don't want 
your pile of dirt. We're here to embrace the vacuum of the Ithacus System. 
If you see a new wandering star in the sky in the next months that will be 
us. Soon the sky will blossom with habitats. You can settle for the ground 
we just want the sky.
