The colony

Threshold Institute · Site record

Name

The colony

In the game

The abandoned colony, a raid site on the planet

The agency kept a colony on the planet from year 39 (T-043). Its reports to the agency said that it was thriving, and it had asked for more ammunition on every flight for a year. Skitters and spitters came to the domes at night, and the fences did not hold them (T-044). Its survey team went out in a rover and filmed what it could not catch: a burrower in the crater fields, which took a surveyor who fired at it (T-045), and a drifter over the colony's yard at night, after which the colony slept indoors (T-046).

On the east ridge the survey team found a crater with a dark mass at its centre, half buried and warm to the touch, and took a sample (the colony survey log, a journal find). The ground round the crater went grey, and those who had carried the sample fell ill. The team's leader, Ines Varro, shut the case in the lab dome's sealed room and wrote on it: do not open, do not send (the medic's note, a journal find). The colony's last line to the agency was sent on Year 43, month 2, day 16 (T-046).

The relief flight reached it five months later and found the airlocks of the domes standing open (T-047). Kerstin Holm took the case from the lab dome under the Institute's order and carried it home (T-047). The source of the pollution still lay on the planet, where the colony's people turned first (T-047).

Found here

The files that name this place in their line on where the threshold was found:

File	Found	Where found
T-045 Burrower	Year 42, month 7, day 2	On the planet, in the crater fields beyond the colony; known from the colony’s survey film
T-046 Drifter	Year 43, month 1, day 9	On the planet, over the crystal flats and the colony’s yard; known from the colony’s survey film

Also named in

The last column says where in each file.

Part III: Going through (the objects)

File	Found	Where named
T-038 Tomorrow Radio	Year 36, month 10, day 5	Addendum T-038-A

Part IV: The planet and the pollution

File	Found	Where named
T-043 Alien skitter	Year 41, month 3, day 14	Discovery, What followed
T-044 Alien spitter	Year 41, month 3, day 20	Addendum T-044-1, Addendum T-044-2
T-047 The pollution	Year 43, month 9, day 4	Discovery, Addendum T-047-1, What followed
T-048 Infected	Year 44, month 2, day 11	Addendum T-048-2
T-051 Mutant brute	Year 46, month 4, day 3	What followed

In the journal

These 3 finds lie here, in full. Reading any one of them writes the step Where it was found into your journal.

Terminal · The colony

Survey log, east ridge

Survey team two back from the east ridge. They found a crater with a dark mass at its centre, half buried and warm to the touch.

The ground around it is grey for a hundred metres in every direction. Nothing grows there, not even the lichen.

Sample taken and sealed for the return flight. Team two to the infirmary for checks as a precaution.

Note · The colony

Medic's note

Team two have the cough now, and so do the two who carried the sample case. The filters in the lab dome are grey.

The thing on the ridge is not dead. The grey ring around it is wider every morning, and it has reached the outer fence.

We told them not to send the sample home. Varro has shut the case in the lab dome's sealed room and written on it: do not open, do not send.

Recording · The colony

Last colony recording

[Coughing. A hiss of air through a seal.] This is the colony. If anyone hears this, do not land.

Some of us went out to the ridge at night and did not come back as themselves. They stand at the fence now and watch the domes.

We are sealing ourselves in the last dome. It came from the ridge. Whatever it is, it is still out there.

The journal also names this place in:

• Flight log, last return, a terminal at the launch site