"So, have you found any evidence that they used bronze or iron tools? Did they possess the ans to slt tals?" a Senior Scientist asked. This was a critical inquiry into the technological developnt of the indigenous civilization.
Slting bronze was a relatively low hurdle, requiring a minimum temperature of around 800 degrees Celsius and only a basic charcoal fire. It was entirely possible for these reptilian natives to achieve this. In fact, small quantities of copper alloys could even be found naturally in so exposed ore deposits.
Slting iron, however, was far more difficult. It required temperatures above 1,100 degrees Celsius and necessitated specialized blast furnaces and ventilation systems. Therefore, it was mostly a casual question, and the scientists didn’t hold out much hope.
Of course, the absolute prerequisite for slting tals was mastering fire! Without fire, everything else was pointless; you couldn’t exactly forge ore using raw volcanic magma, could you?
According to the foundational theories of xeno-sociology, the primitive technology tree included: spoken language, written text, fire-starting, pottery, animal husbandry, agriculture, archery, copper slting, and irrigation. These milestones generally followed a sequential order, and it was unclear exactly how many of them the lizardn had actually unlocked.
Sergeant Will was montarily stunned by the question.
As the debriefing dragged on, the scientists’ questions beca increasingly granular and hyper-focused. The Marines hadn’t exactly been paying attention to anthropological details while trying to survive an alien cavern, so how could they possibly answer?
The question stumped the eight Marines, forcing them to huddle together and quickly compare their mories.
"...Those spears were definitely carved from so kind of fibrous plant, not tal! And the spear tips didn’t seem to have any copper plating either, did they?"
"Yeah, there was no tal..."
When they had fallen into the ambush trap, the spikes at the bottom weren’t tal either; they were sharpened wooden stakes! Furthermore, during the brief scuffle between Private Leo and the natives, there was no sharp clanging of tal striking armor. If there had been, the fireteam would definitely rember it.
Sergeant Will looked around at his n, and even Leo shook his head. He had been jabbed several tis by their spears, and judging by the sound against his ceramic plating, it definitely wasn’t tal.
So, the lizardn likely hadn’t invented copper slting and couldn’t forge copper tools.
Before Sergeant Will could finalize his answer, another young Marine’s eyes lit up. "Wait, there was tal!"
"I took a close look while they were butchering that giant sandworm. The worm’s flesh was incredibly dense, and its hide was covered in thick chitin. Even our plasma-saws encounter resistance against that stuff. So, I was really curious about how they were cutting it apart..."
"And then... we noticed they were using a strange, perfectly round piece of tal!"
"It was a perfect circular disc with no handle, and the edges were serrated like a saw. It looked incredibly sharp!" The Marine looked up, suddenly seeming a bit nervous under the intense scrutiny of the room.
"That’s impossible!"
As soon as he finished speaking, a Senior Scientist imdiately retorted with heavy skepticism. "Even if they could slt copper and forge blades, they wouldn’t cast them as perfect circles, would they?"
"Are you sure there was no handle? A perfectly round blade is completely impractical to grip without slicing your own hands; it doesn’t make any sense!"
"Furthermore... manufacturing a serrated circular saw blade would require an understanding of geotry and tooling far beyond the Bronze Age! Think carefully, are you absolutely sure you’re rembering this correctly?" The scientist fired off a barrage of questions, pointing out the glaring logical inconsistencies in the Marine’s recollection.
In reality, human mory is notoriously fallible. Under high stress, the brain often fills in missing details with imagined logic. Because of this high margin of error, many of the scientists were deeply skeptical of the Marine’s claim. The truth would require formal subterranean exploration to confirm.
The young Marine’s face flushed red; even he found it a bit unbelievable now. The circular cutting tool he rembered looked exactly like a modern rotary saw blade, and it really didn’t have a handle...
Could he have rembered it wrong? But after thinking hard about it, he was certain that was exactly what he saw. He had even double-checked out of sheer curiosity at the ti... Yes, he was sure of it!
"Wait... I rember sothing too!" Private Leo suddenly shouted. "That lizardman... the chieftain! He had sothing hanging around his neck. It was jingling when he moved, and it sounded exactly like tal clinking together... I swear it was tal!"
He finally recalled the detail and blurted it out in a rush. However, his mory was still a bit hazy, and he couldn’t be one hundred percent certain.
Fortunately, this debate could be settled by reviewing the footage. After all, the helt-cam had captured the chieftain quite clearly during the encounter.
Everyone stared wide-eyed at the monitors as a technician rewound the video, fast-forwarding the playback at 8x speed.
Although everyone present had scrutinized the footage multiple tis, they had all subconsciously ignored the chieftain’s necklace. They had naturally assud it was just a crude string of bone ornants—nothing out of the ordinary.
But tal? Could it actually be tal?
The video was recorded under low-light night vision, rendering the environnt in monochromatic shades. This made it virtually impossible to discern the true colors or textures of specific objects... It was entirely normal to have overlooked it.
"Stop! Play it from here!" Captain Jason ordered loudly, and the video playback dropped back to normal speed.
In the footage, the lizardman chieftain was strutting around, looking incredibly proud and excited. He took a massive chunk of raw worm at from one of his subordinates, sniffed it carefully, and then triumphantly pressed it against his chest...
This was clearly a tribal tradition: the pri cuts of at were offered to the strongest warrior! A sandworm that massive weighed at least three or four tons, providing enough food to feed the entire village for weeks. Everyone was going to get a share. Most importantly, none of the native hunters had died, which was what pleased the chieftain the most. Thanks to these strange, powerful tal giants—could they truly be ssengers of the Gods?
And that was where the clear shot of the chieftain ended. Nothing else useful was captured because the ornants around his neck were imdiately obscured by the massive slab of at.
"Rewind it a few seconds!" Before Jason could give the order, Security Director Austin had already shouted urgently from the orbital hologram feed.
The video played backward fra by fra, showing the chieftain taking the at, the at returning to the subordinate’s hands, and finally, a bright, tallic glint bouncing against the chieftain’s chest!
In an instant, everyone’s heart leaped into their throats!
Everyone could see it clearly. It was... a hexagonal nut?
No, not just one. There were three of them!
"Magnify that image!" Jason ordered, his voice laced with disbelief.
How could that be?! How could modern steel machine nuts appear around the neck of a Stone Age tribal leader? It was completely incongruous, like finding a digital watch buried alongside dinosaur fossils!
Perhaps it was just a piece of carved bone that coincidentally resembled a machine nut? That had to be the logical explanation!
Following the command, a technician digitally zood in on the fra. The Federation’s military helt-cams boasted incredibly high resolution. Even magnified several tis, the image only blurred slightly, remaining easily decipherable.
Those three circular pendants really did look exactly like steel nuts, strung together and worn proudly as a necklace!
"Magnify it by ten!" Jason ordered. His heart was pounding against his ribs, a bizarre, uncanny feeling washing over him. This was inexplicable. Could it be that a Federation engineering drone had dropped so hardware months ago, and the natives had simply picked it up?
A few seconds later, the final rendering completed. Due to the extre digital zoom, the pixels beca slightly grainy, resembling static snow.
However, the distinct geotric shape of the hexagonal nuts beca undeniable. They could even see the precise, machined threading on the inside of the tal rings!
This... was absolutely a set of modern, machine-forged tal nuts! Roughly the size of a human pinky finger!
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