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Description
So this started as just me playing around with new methods to make planet rings today while I ate lunch and waited for the internet to come back up (I've been losing it for long periods of time thanks in part to severe thunderstorms rolling through the American Midwest, happens every year but this is the worst I've ever seen in terms of outages), and things just got a little out of control. One thing led to another, and I made this piece I'm quite proud of and consider to be one of my best works yet. I've been playing a lot of Stellaris (so glorious), so I named this piece after my favorite song from the soundtrack, which I may or may not have been listening to on a loop for the last few days.

For this piece I wanted to explore something I don't think I've touched on with regards to my ongoing worldbuilding in my spacescapes: how planets are actually scouted for colonization. I've shown several colonies, and I often imply that there's a lot of procedures and regulations in place, but I've never talked much about those in favor of talking about the actual planets in question. Seen here are two autonomous droneships moving towards a recently discovered planet. They're equipped with a number of sensors and a highly advanced AI capable of rapidly analyzing planetary survey data without human input. The droneships themselves are not capable of faster than light travel and were probably part of a compliment of such vessels carried on board a ship, in this case a Magellan-class exploration ship from the United Earth Federation. The UEF has a special military branch--the Exploration Corps--dedicated entirely to exploring new frontiers and seeking out potential sites for colonization and resource exploitation. The Magellan-class is the workhorse of the Exocorps, as they are colloquially known, and is capable sustaining a crew compliment of 135 operating in deep space far from any port for up to seven years at a time. The Magellan-class is only eclipsed by the Armstrong-class ship which carries a crew compliment of 2000 and is fully self-sufficient. An Armstrong-class exploration ship can operate efficiently without resupply for up to twenty years and is the foundation for the Gagarin-class ship currently in development, which, with the addition of a fully functional manufacturing bay capable of processing raw resources into construction materials, could theoretically function indefinitely without requiring returning to a port for maintenance and resupply.

While an Armstrong-class ship is typically used for exploring distant and uncharted stars a Magellan-class ship is used for exploring regions closer to home. Exocorps orbital observation relays are strategically placed along the borders of the UEF and survey nearby stars and the planets orbiting them from a comfortable distance. They are cataloged and prioritized, and Magellan-class ships are dispatched to begin an initial survey. When they come across a planet of interest, such as the one displayed above, they dispatch droneships to do a more in depth analysis while they move on to the next star system. Smaller exploration ships designed to operate solely only the UEF border such as the Zheng He, Cook, and Sacagawea-class ships are then sent in to do a full survey of the system. The droneships pictured above are usually reserved for potentially colonizable planets or celestial bodies exhibiting possibly useful resource or anomalies. They have different protocols for different possibilities regarding the type of celestial body (planet, asteroid, moon, etc) and intention (colonization, resource exploitation, scientific research, etc).

This planet has been marked as a potential colony site. The droneships function in pairs, and in this case one will survey the northern hemisphere while the other surveys the southern. At first they will focus on gathering atmospheric and oceanic data from orbit for a period of a year to extrapolate weather patterns and gather climate data while simultaneously creating a detailed map of the entire planetary surface. They'll use these to determine fertile areas and use that data to search for pre-industrial native civilizations (an industrial civilization would have a distinct atmospheric signature which would be picked up by the orbital observation relays prior to a ship ever entering the system, which would be marked as off limits to prevent any possibly hostile first contact or accidental interference with a non space-faring species). They will scan for heat signatures produced by large urban areas first, and if they find no evidence of large cities they will systematically search the planet's surface from orbit, starting with the most fertile regions, for evidence of artificial structures indicating agricultural settlements or activity by pastoral nomads. They will do this for a period of ten years and if they find no evidence of intelligent life by that point they will move on to the second survey phase by dispatching aerial drones onto the surface of the planet.

The aerial drones are not unlike larger versions of quadracopter drones one can get today, though these are much more advanced and loaded with all manner of sensors. These drones will be accompanied by small dirigibles acting as an aerial carrier of sorts, which also acts as a server for the swarm intelligence inspired AI network the drones utilize and as a relay station for the data they gather to the AI in the droneships still in orbit, which have more advanced AI and more processing power available to them. This phase will continue for twenty years, during which time more detailed environmental data will be gathered and a final sweep for any neolithic, paleolithic, or otherwise nomadic intelligent natives will be made. If no sign of intelligent life is found then after sufficient data has been gathered the droneships will send a signal back to the nearest orbital observation relay giving the green light for the final phase of the survey: boots on the ground. One of the smaller classes of exploration ship will be dispatched to do more specialized research, scout out sites for potential colonies, map mineral deposits, and find other natural resources to exploit. This will go on for about five years before the planet can be officially registered with the government, which can then stake a claim and open the planet for either general colonization or allow bidding by private special interest groups for exclusive colonization rights.

The droneships are repurposed stock from here:

Description
So this started as just me playing around with new methods to make planet rings today while I ate lunch and waited for the internet to come back up (I've been losing it for long periods of time thanks in part to severe thunderstorms rolling through the American Midwest, happens every year but this is the worst I've ever seen in terms of outages), and things just got a little out of control. One thing led to another, and I made this piece I'm quite proud of and consider to be one of my best works yet. I've been playing a lot of Stellaris (so glorious), so I named this piece after my favorite song from the soundtrack, which I may or may not have been listening to on a loop for the last few days.

For this piece I wanted to explore something I don't think I've touched on with regards to my ongoing worldbuilding in my spacescapes: how planets are actually scouted for colonization. I've shown several colonies, and I often imply that there's a lot of procedures and regulations in place, but I've never talked much about those in favor of talking about the actual planets in question. Seen here are two autonomous droneships moving towards a recently discovered planet. They're equipped with a number of sensors and a highly advanced AI capable of rapidly analyzing planetary survey data without human input. The droneships themselves are not capable of faster than light travel and were probably part of a compliment of such vessels carried on board a ship, in this case a Magellan-class exploration ship from the United Earth Federation. The UEF has a special military branch--the Exploration Corps--dedicated entirely to exploring new frontiers and seeking out potential sites for colonization and resource exploitation. The Magellan-class is the workhorse of the Exocorps, as they are colloquially known, and is capable sustaining a crew compliment of 135 operating in deep space far from any port for up to seven years at a time. The Magellan-class is only eclipsed by the Armstrong-class ship which carries a crew compliment of 2000 and is fully self-sufficient. An Armstrong-class exploration ship can operate efficiently without resupply for up to twenty years and is the foundation for the Gagarin-class ship currently in development, which, with the addition of a fully functional manufacturing bay capable of processing raw resources into construction materials, could theoretically function indefinitely without requiring returning to a port for maintenance and resupply.

While an Armstrong-class ship is typically used for exploring distant and uncharted stars a Magellan-class ship is used for exploring regions closer to home. Exocorps orbital observation relays are strategically placed along the borders of the UEF and survey nearby stars and the planets orbiting them from a comfortable distance. They are cataloged and prioritized, and Magellan-class ships are dispatched to begin an initial survey. When they come across a planet of interest, such as the one displayed above, they dispatch droneships to do a more in depth analysis while they move on to the next star system. Smaller exploration ships designed to operate solely only the UEF border such as the Zheng He, Cook, and Sacagawea-class ships are then sent in to do a full survey of the system. The droneships pictured above are usually reserved for potentially colonizable planets or celestial bodies exhibiting possibly useful resource or anomalies. They have different protocols for different possibilities regarding the type of celestial body (planet, asteroid, moon, etc) and intention (colonization, resource exploitation, scientific research, etc).

This planet has been marked as a potential colony site. The droneships function in pairs, and in this case one will survey the northern hemisphere while the other surveys the southern. At first they will focus on gathering atmospheric and oceanic data from orbit for a period of a year to extrapolate weather patterns and gather climate data while simultaneously creating a detailed map of the entire planetary surface. They'll use these to determine fertile areas and use that data to search for pre-industrial native civilizations (an industrial civilization would have a distinct atmospheric signature which would be picked up by the orbital observation relays prior to a ship ever entering the system, which would be marked as off limits to prevent any possibly hostile first contact or accidental interference with a non space-faring species). They will scan for heat signatures produced by large urban areas first, and if they find no evidence of large cities they will systematically search the planet's surface from orbit, starting with the most fertile regions, for evidence of artificial structures indicating agricultural settlements or activity by pastoral nomads. They will do this for a period of ten years and if they find no evidence of intelligent life by that point they will move on to the second survey phase by dispatching aerial drones onto the surface of the planet.

The aerial drones are not unlike larger versions of quadracopter drones one can get today, though these are much more advanced and loaded with all manner of sensors. These drones will be accompanied by small dirigibles acting as an aerial carrier of sorts, which also acts as a server for the swarm intelligence inspired AI network the drones utilize and as a relay station for the data they gather to the AI in the droneships still in orbit, which have more advanced AI and more processing power available to them. This phase will continue for twenty years, during which time more detailed environmental data will be gathered and a final sweep for any neolithic, paleolithic, or otherwise nomadic intelligent natives will be made. If no sign of intelligent life is found then after sufficient data has been gathered the droneships will send a signal back to the nearest orbital observation relay giving the green light for the final phase of the survey: boots on the ground. One of the smaller classes of exploration ship will be dispatched to do more specialized research, scout out sites for potential colonies, map mineral deposits, and find other natural resources to exploit. This will go on for about five years before the planet can be officially registered with the government, which can then stake a claim and open the planet for either general colonization or allow bidding by private special interest groups for exclusive colonization rights.

The droneships are repurposed stock from here: