07:00 IST, Fifth day, Fourth month, 3079 PV | Hyperspace to Unnamed system / Deliverer Galactic Freighter / Admiral’s Quarters

  It's been a couple days since we gave our big speech.

  But, things haven't changed all that much. Sure, we are even more popular and well known now. We are now in some way political forces rather than just entertainers.

  But, we are still the same.

  After all, we are still lazing about in bed when we definitely have other things to do.

  But what's new? Lemme explain.

  Ever since our speech, the applications to become colonists for our factions have been pouring in. By the millions.

  Around fifty million colonists underwent the training program. But for this trial, each faction will choose about five million. So the competition is quite fierce. Also it's to note, while we got the lion's share of the support, both of the other factions also got decent turnout.

  Guess not everyone can be fans of the Moonlight Duo. Which I find extremely offensive. Like, how can you not support the most beautiful (and super cute) girl in the universe? That's just absurd.

  Especially when that girl is my girlfriend. Like, I should go give them a piece of my mind. I think it would be the manly thing to do.

  Anyways, over the past two days we have been meeting with various organizations that have interests. They wanna set up corporate branches, yadda yadda, business politics stuff. We did make a few agreements, and even approached a few organizations by ourselves.

  We have also been using the Order, and our other sponsor’s resources to survey the galaxy. After all, we can select basically any planet in the entire galaxy. They have been quite free with our selection.

  We are currently en-route to one such planet. A fairly young planet that is Earthlike but without much tectonic activity. Lots of flat space available for rapid development and extraction.

  Naturally, for our first planet we won't be following the typical colonization procedures. Which would entail finding a planet, then stripping it of any usable metal or other resource. Then repairing the ecology or otherwise sculpting it to habitability standards. Then settling it rapidly with massive quantities of resources and personnel. Usually this process will take only two or three centuries.

  We haven't been given anywhere near enough time nor resources to perform such an operation. Nor do we have industry setup that could store and utilize such massive quantities of resources.

  Unfortunately, this severely limits our potential locations. As we must find a planet that is near perfect habitability without any sculpting. Which is fine, since this is more of a test colony. To teach us how to manage a city as well as for humanity to get some hands-on experience with such large scale colonization.

  The solar system had some good testing grounds, but this level of project is nothing compared to that. After all, many of the colonies in the solar system are still barely functional. Only Mars and Luna have any real development.

  Plus, we have to contend with things like the local biosphere and any flora and fauna that are local. Which makes the process all the more complicated.

  It turns out that sapient life is extraordinarily rare. Which is saying something, since life itself is insanely rare in general. In fact, intelligent life is so rare that, based upon the IEC’s projections, less than a tenth of galaxies will develop intelligent lifeforms in the next ten billion years. Of course, they have identified many developing species that could turn intelligent. Thus marking those galaxies as protected spaces. I also hear that there is also one civilization that is in its early stone age.

  Multiple intelligent lifeforms in one galaxy is unheard of so far. Though, I think I heard Initae mention once that it has happened in the past but they never reached each other. But that past is billions of years old, so that gives you an idea of how rare it is.

  Speaking of Initae, she is still missing. Probably off galavanting across the universe. We do have Emil and Rigar though that are helping to manage the crew and other matters. We would be severely overworked without them.

  We definitely wouldn't be able to casually laze about in bed.

  I lay on my side and stare at Ray’s super cute sleeping face. One of the many perks of waking up before her. Though, I do prefer her awake, I shall let her rest for a while longer. In the meantime, I get a quite beautiful view.

  Several hours later, she awakens from her super cute slumber.

  “Good morning, darling Ray. Did you dream of wonderful vistas?”

  “Mornin’ darling. I had the most wonderful dream! We got sent on an intergalactic journey by some aliens. We met lots of cool people too!”

  “Hmm, I don't think that was a dream, silly.”

  “Oh, then I must've dreamed of us both getting proper jobs and moving in together on the Moon.”

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “Yeah, that was definitely a dream. Like, c'mon. Me getting a job? What klackery.”

  “I should've identified that inconsistency immediately. My apologies for not noticing such a key character flaw of yours.”

  “Wait, I have flaws? I thought I was some perfect genius worthless piece of trash NEET.”

  “Well of course you have flaws. For one, you don't give anywhere near enough headrubs to your cute girlfriend.”

  “Hmm, I guess I should address that character flaw more often.”

  We then proceed to spend a decent amount of time engaging in some high-action headrub time.

  Several hours later, we were interrupted. How unfortunate.

  Vel:”Attention passengers, hyperspace deceleration in fifteen seconds. Please prepare for an expedition to personally survey the target planet. *cough* it would be appreciated if our esteemed leaders were to come to the bridge to manage the expedition.”

  It sounded like that last sentence was laced with something. I'm not sure what. Goodie for us, we got an AI with a bit of sass. Well, good thing I'm already very experienced with difficult personalities.

  Speaking of one such (cute) difficult personality. “Ko, I don't wanna go. Can't we just stay in here while they figure it all out?”

  “I mean, we could. I would love to do that. But, we are kinda the ones that should be seeing this the most.”

  “Ugh, such a realist. Fine, five more minutes then you can carry me there.”

  We proceed to laze about for five more minutes.

  Then, I carry Ray (who is super duper cute) all the way to the bridge. Naturally, she refuses to leave my lap. I'm pretty sure this is against at least ten safety protocols, but no one challenges us.

  We approach the planet, designated C2 (candidate 2). From orbit we can see it is exactly as described. Basically just a flat grassland with some forests here and there.

  By the way, the first planet we visited was a very jungly planet. We thought it might be good, but the local fauna and flora were a bit too hostile for our liking. So we ruled it out quite quickly.

  Vel:”Deploying scouting drones to get some closer visuals."

  Several hundred drones are deployed to scout the planet further. Long range-surveying tech can only do so much after all. Trying to discern the exact makeup of a planet from quadrillions of kilometers away only works so well. Plus its limited by the speed of light, so all descriptions are of its past.

  Making it important to check the planet in person, because it could have had a mass extinction event since the time that can be observed. Also we don't know exactly how the flora and fauna will be from such a distance. For our first colony, we don't want to deal with a very hostile ecology. Normally it wouldn't be an issue, since the ecology can be sculpted. But as mentioned before, we don't have the time nor resources to do such.

  On the displays appears a very strange animal. As is typical with alien stuff. Though, is it really alien if we are the ones invading the planet? Aren't we aliens in this case?

  “Woah, look at that. It's a gigantic elephant?!”

  “Hmm, I'd say it looks more like a giraffe with a fat body.”

  “I wonder, do we get to name it?”

  Vel:”According to Intergalactic identification treaty C1130, you are only allowed to name creatures or flora if you actually own the planet. So you can't unless you choose to settle this one.”

  “Aww shucks. Well, let's see what else its’ got.”

  We are shown various images from around the planet. It appears to actually have a few pretty cool mountains that weren't captured in the long range scan. Also, it is quite biodiverse.

  The drones log around four million distinct species. Which is quite high for such a young planet. We receive a report that they don't seem to be too hostile. Well within margins for humans to settle the place. Which is good news.

  Though, we still have three other candidates to survey. I won't give detailed explanations for them all, since we do end up choosing this one. But I'll give a brief overview.

  C3 Was a fairly mountainous planet with lots of earthquakes and tsunamis. It also didn't have as many rare metals and such that are ideal for first colonies.

  C4 was pretty good. A competitor for 2, but it didn't have nearly as much biodiversity and rich resources. Which are essential for our grand plan, as you will soon see.

  C5 looked pretty good on the long range survey. But it turns out that it recently was hit by a sizable meteorite and had a mass extinction event. Which rendered most of it not very habitable. So we couldn't go with it.

  12:00 IST, Fourteenth day, Fourth month, 3079 PV | C2’s System / Deliverer Galactic Freighter / Command Room

  “Alright folks. So we've decided to go with C2 as our planet to colonize for our trial.” Ray (super cutely) says to the gathered command staff, which includes Emil, Rigar and several others that are critical to our ever growing faction.

  Turns out, running a city ain't that easy.

  You've got so many things to manage.

  Food, water, sanitation, consumer goods, industry, commercial aspects, other entertainment, law & order, court systems, infrastructure, public relations, trade, ecological matters. The list goes on, so naturally we have selected some talented people from the order, but mostly the most promising human applicants.

  Thankfully, we can delegate most of these annoying tasks away to others.

  The joys of ruling, isn't it? All the benefits, but with so little of the tedious work.

  Now, that's not to say this won't be easy. We just won't have to plan out every piece of infrastructure or deal with any law breakers personally. We've still gotta deal with things like overall direction, politics, military matters and things in a larger theatre.

  For instance, we will eventually want to set up more colonies and stations. Expand out into this system. But first, we've got one important task.

  Ko:”So, about the name of this City. We've come to a decision.”

  Ray:”That we have. Hmm, who gets to do the honors?”

  “Darling I think it should be you.”

  “But, darling, you're the one that came up with the name. Shouldn't you announce it?”

  “But you're so much more charming than I am. If you say it, then even if everyone hates it, they'll go along with it happily.”

  “Well, cutie, when you put it that way. I guess it should be me, huh.

  Well then, the name we have decided upon is City Stelarum.”

  End of Chapter 59

  Next: Chapter 60 | Anchoring