Well, this is interesting. We are in orbit above Earth. Not the real Earth – which is many light years away from here, but, apparently, an exact copy of it – right down to the seven continents and massive oceans. This class-M planet that our runabout detected is, somehow, identical to the third planet in the Sol system.
In fact, early scans even suggest that this entire star system is a duplicate of the Sol system – copies of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune…. they’re all out there – beautiful and untouched.
We’ve attempted to contact anyone on the surface of this Earth, and have received no response. To add further mystery to this discovery, our scans indicate that this planet is likely uninhabited. There does not appear to be any humanoid population on the surface, and where major cities would be (on the real Earth), we’ve detected heavily overgrown ruins. Skyscraper ruins. Steel and brick. There was, clearly, a population here in the past, however, the planet appears to have been wild and deserted for centuries.
There are no man-made satellites, of any kind, in orbit.
I’ve done some historical research, and it appears that Captain Kirk’s USS Enterprise came out this way in 2266 – May 6th in fact – exactly 99 years ago, as of tomorrow. They conducted a few passive scans of this region, and designated this planet as, UFC 347601, but did not stop and explore. There are no records of any other ships out here since then.
We have a mystery on our hands, folks, and a copy of Earth (and the Sol system) that, by all rational explanations, shouldn’t exist. Captain Picard has ordered away teams to prepare for planetfall within a day or two. I’ve put in a request to be on one of those teams. I hold a degree in history from the Academy, especially in relation to the real Earth, and would be extremely useful to those exploratory missions.
I don’t know what’s down there, or what happened to the population of this “Earth 2”, but I sure as heck want to find out.
-Lieutenant Sam Archer
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May 5, 2365 -- (Original Devron Timeline)