For most of the day today, our DOT-9s have been conducting recon down on the surface of Earth 2. Small teams of these robots have been sent to four locations on the planet: Paris, New York City, San Francisco, and London (where we detected large areas of visible ruins). Manned aerial flyovers of other parts of this planet are taking place as well.
So far, these recon efforts have determined that, here, on this planet, most of the great cities we know from our Earth, are completely gone – collapsed into rubble, and overgrown by forests and vegetation. Chunks of concrete and rusted metal debris can still be found peeking out of large forested mounds – mounds where tall buildings once stood. Most of what remains of this civilization, however, appears to rest under many feet of dirt and sediment.
Debris, rust samples, and other close terrain scans, also seem to support the analysis that this civilization came to an end roughly 400 years ago.
A few notable landmarks do remain, however, like the lower half of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, as seen in this photo taken from one of our DOT-9s. Parts of the Statue of Liberty, all of Mount Rushmore, the Pyramids, and the entire Great Wall of China still stand as well.
So far, though, our DOT-9s have found no evidence of current humanoid life.
Our Marines are preparing to go down and secure landing zones, and our away teams will follow shortly thereafter. Science personnel and wilderness experts comprise most of these scheduled away teams so far. They will be setting up temporary base camps from which to operate. I will be part of the team heading down to the New York location.
Whatever we find down there, it may not be enough for us to determine what happened to this Earth, and the people that once lived here. There just isn’t much left after 400 years.
-Lieutenant Sam Archer
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May 7, 2365 -- (Original Devron Timeline)