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[Saede Riordan]

"We're actually a predominately export economy. Origin is a fresh new system. Most of our ISK comes from harvesting raw resources off the planets or from space and selling them on the markets in New Eden. We're fairly self sufficient, but the quality of life would go down if we were to lose our Known Space access. A lot of the imports tend to be luxury items, specialties from one area or another." She shrugs. "It works out. As long as we have Juno, we should take advantage of it, as long as we don't become dependent on Known Space, I see no reason not to trade with them."

Descending from the starport's hilltop, the distant city vanishes from view behind the forest. The path curves back and forth, sloping down into a long narrow valley. The valley floor is a large open meadow, through which a small stream cuts. This is the Megalith Meadow.

The Meadow gets its name from the distinctive structures of massive fossilized bones. The huge bones soar overhead, forming strange arching structures sometimes up to two or three stories tall. The fossilized remains of the long extinct megaliths, a victim of the end of this worlds last ice age.

From the valley floor, the skyline of Foundation is invisible, making the place seem pristine and wild, despite being at the core of a growing metropolis.

[Utari Onzo]

Utari nods at Saede's explanation. He looks as if he could comment or question more, perhaps for hours, but his face instantly switches out to one of surprise and awe as he notices the fossiles.

He pauses a moment in his walk, letting his eyes run from the bottom, to the top, following the arch of the bones.

"What.. Are those?"

[Aria Jenneth]

Aria, having a tendency to scurry right over to whatever catches her eye, is already standing at the base of the nearest, looking up, and up.

"Endoskeletons? ... Megafauna? Are there any descendants still around?"

[Saede Riordan]

Saede folds her arms in front of her chest and slows to a halt as Utari and Aria wander off to look at the Megaliths. "They're endoskeletons yes, though there are also some large fossilized remains of exoskeletons as well in other parts of the world."

Saede pulls up her sleeve and opens the compartment in her forearm which contains a packet of cigarettes. She puts the cigarette between her lips and taps on it with her fingertip. The heating elements in her finger ignite it, and she takes a long drag before explaining.

"Renaissance has only 80% standard gravity, not sure if you've noticed that spring in your step, but its there. Because of that, trees and animals are able to grow larger without being crushed by their own weight. Fossil records indicate that for the most part, the lifeforms on Renaissance have been very large, averaging the size of a city bus or a small train." She pats one of the bones. "But not anymore. There was an ice age about seven thousand years ago on the surface of Renaissance. Glaciers grew down out of the icecaps and out of the mountains. This area was scoured barren by the advancing and retreating glaciers. The ice age set on slowly, probably taking a hundred thousand years to get to the massive ice sheets that were present. Then, it all melted in a thousand years. Most of the megafauna couldn't evolve fast enough to keep up with the warming climate and went extinct."

Saede takes another drag of her cigarette. "The largest land animal on Renaissance today is only about twice the size of a person. The only surviving megafauna are the Leviathans, which are aquatic." she chuckles, "And yes, we totally stole their name from the mythical caldari creature."

[Aria Jenneth]

"... hm. A few ... thousand years. These must be from well-before that, though? They appear to be fossilized, and that takes ... well ... virtually forever...."

[Saede Riordan]

Saede nods. "Good catch, these fossils in particular are about 127 million years old. They were exposed when the retreating glaciers carved this valley with their meltwaters. There are structures like this scattered all across the valley floor, but these are some of the best examples.

"They survived well for 127 million years." The brown skinned Sebiestor chuckles. "I wonder what will be here in another 127 million years? Will there still be something we think of as people? What will I be doing?" she shakes her head. "The time scales of the universe really puts our own mayfly lives in perspective."

The girl runs her fingers over the old bones. She goes quiet as her fingers trace over the rocks that were once part of an ancient creature. Her cigarette hangs forgotten in her other hand, smoke curling up around her arm.

[Utari Onzo]

Keeping with the rest of the group, Utari drinks in every detail, the drone catching any he might miss as it floats between the giant bones.

"Fascinating, that these creatures once walked here. I assume the topography would have been a little more like plains, or forest, for them to have enough room to move and graze, or hunt. Weight is one thing, size has requirements all of its own."

"As for the future, and that far, I'll have to leave that to others to dream of. But atleast I'm enjoying the present."

[Saede Riordan]

Saede eventually removes her hand from the bones and takes another drag of the cigarette and continues down the path.

"I'm not sure what was here that long ago. Maybe these were sea creatures? They were decapedal, but the vast majority of the animals on Origin through history appear to have been decapedal, so it doesn't say much. I can ask a local paleontologist if you'd like?"
The valley becomes slowly narrower and gradually turns into a ravine as the stream cuts through the rough hillside. The path changes again, this time to raised wooden platforms, with one branch going further down the stream, and one going up the side of the valley. Saede turns and takes the path going upwards. This path bridges the stream then becomes a stairwell, allowing easier access up the steep hillside.

"So, there's nine planets in Origin, there's more to see here then you have time to commit. We could expend this week without leaving the surface of Renaissance, or even Foundation City for that matter. So is there anything you're particularly interested in to give some sort of focus to this little adventure?" She chuckles and takes another drag of her cigarette. "I watched this place grow up out of nothing, so I could endlessly list things I find interesting here, but what are you two interested in?"

[Utari Onzo]

Utari nods enthusiastically to the offer of the paleontologist. "Please. I'd also be interested in any geological surveys and soil sample studies if you have them. I'm a geologist by education myself, so I find dead bones and old rocks like this pretty fascinating."

He considers a moment the next request. "Hmm, I think I'd like to focus more on the Government and Civil services you might have here. I'm hoping to see what lessons I can apply to Providence that have worked here. How about you Aria?"

[Aria Jenneth]

"Living places. ... Markets, tenements ... the places of day to day. Ideally, I'd like to be able to go off on my own for a little bit if that would be okay. It's hard to really see a place like that if ... you're in company. Even very nice company." She re-links herself to Utari's arm (for at least five seconds until a sample of local flora catches her eye).

[Saede Riordan]

Saede nods to each of them in turn, continuing the hike as they talk. The path climbs the side of the hill, then the stairs level out and then converts back into gravel. The trees around them grow larger and thicker as they head into a darkened grove.

"I can show you some of the government buildings, go over some of how we do things." She says to Utari as the path swerves around a ten meter tall glacial erratic, the massive boulder half sunk into the stone. "And I'll see about introducing you to one of our planetologists as well."

Massive trees, easily two or three metres wide apiece, climb up to nearly a hundred meters from the ground as the heart of the grove looms up ahead of them. Old tattered matari prayer flags and paper lanterns are strung along the path.

"Aria, I'd be happy to hand you a brochure and point you off in the direction of the downtown markets if you're so inclined. I was actually going to suggest that if you two were comfortable being without a tour guide for some time. The currency is ISK so you'll have no problem buying things, though they might cost a bit more then you're used to when you pay in converted local currencies." Saede shrugs. "One thing about that though, is that Origin has a lot of, ah, how to describe it."

She scratches her head for a moment, pausing in her steps. By now the path has led deep in the heart of the grove, where there stands a tree older and more massive than the others around it. A meditation and prayer space encircle the this elder tree. Paper lanterns and prayer flags trail from high in the branches downwards in vast arcs, soaring overhead and creating the cool sacred feeling of the inside of a church.

"We have a lot of small cultural enclaves. Groups that wanted a quiet place to see if their particular experiment into sociology and economics will work when actually applied. Hive City on the east coast of the continent is like that, so is Castle Rock to the west. And that's just on Renaissance, the cultural attitudes among people on the various other worlds tend to deviate from the baseline that Renaissance represents. People on Terminus tend to be more libertarian and independently minded then on Renaissance, for example. Foundation City should give you an okay snapshot, but you might also want to hit some of the larger enclaves if you want to get a comprehensive look at things."

Candles, gifts, and offerings from some of the settlers to the local spirits surround the base of the tree, to ask for the protection of their new home. Ribbons are tied around it and all manner of trinkets, jewelry, and other small offerings drape over the gnarled roots as they rise into the massive trunk.

[Aria Jenneth]

"There's ... always more than can be seen. In the ... end, though, Ms. Riordan, I'm more interested in the project's heart than in what's occupying the petri dishes.

"Were there any experiments that you turned down for Origin, though? Anything ... too extreme or troublesome?"

She looks around at the ceremonial tree, and her focus instantly and visibly shifts.

"... hm. Is the local religion animistic? A combination of ... faiths, maybe?"

[Saede Riordan]

"Anything we turned down? Anything that involved any form of forced servitude or extreme isolationism. We require that everyone be a participating member of the system, which tends to precludes the xenophobic, the racist, the isolationist, and the like. While the majority of our population is Matari, the predominant cultural attitude is a Gallente one."

Saede pauses as Aria derails herself mid conversation. "Well, most of the settlers are Matari, and brought their spirituality with them, but we also have a lot of Caldari and Gallenteans here, so its all sort of a hodge podge yeah." Saede stuffs her hands into her pockets. "Its still beautiful though, in its way."

[Aria Jenneth]

"It is. I'm ... um, I'm sorry if this is rude to say, but ... a little impressed that you can see that. People who've ... analogized us to gods usually don't have a lot of respect for the ones people actually worship."

[Saede Riordan]

Saede shrugs. "You know, I never actually jumped on the 'capsuleers are literal gods' bandwagon. What I've said, is that in way, we're gods by virtue of our own definitions. And, I don't mean capsuleers, I mean humans. All of us."

She wanders over to the tree and runs her fingers along the ancient bark. "Dr. Saariet Uomoto said that 'we are gods with anuses,' we have the ability to ponder the infinite, we’re seemingly capable of anything. We can mainline all of time and space through the optic nerve with our astronomy and with our space telescopes; yet we’re housed in these heart pumping, breath gasping, decaying bodies.”

Pats the surface of the old tree. "Of course, neither I nor Saariet Uomoto believe in physical, literal gods, in the religious sense. Describing us as gods is and always has been a metaphor in my eyes."

She steps back from the elder tree. "I'm not religious in the traditional sense. I don't believe in organised faith for the most part, because I think it does a lot of harm. But I can appreciate the beauty and love that goes into the creation of places like this. Who am I to say that such a place has not been touched by something greater then us? I've seen things in the universe I can scarcely believe, and cannot begin to explain. Maybe some day, some matari researcher will invent a spirit detector. Or maybe an Amarrian engineer will create a machine that can speak with god. Or maybe Gods and spirits don't exist, and neither of those things will happen." She shrugs. "I just want to get to the truth of things, whatever truth that might be."