Expansive Plains

Terrain

There is a general description of the Expansive Plains in the Location Descriptions sticky in the Mystery Planet section of the forum. Visible to the south and east, there is a swath of vibrant green foliage. There are metallic structures in the lowlands to the east of the plains (aka the Swamplands).

The hills visible to the north of the plains have the same dull grey-green foliage near their bases, but the flora becomes red as it gets higher up the slopes.

Very, very far to the west is the glint of an ocean.

Skystrike arrived in a small pond near enough to where Hook landed that she was able to spot his and Dead End's trail towards the road.

Dead End has identified several potential roads going through the plains. The closest one to the Decepticons' arrival point is thirty-three miles to the north-east. It works towards the structures to the east and stretches on to the west. There is a branch road extending off of it that runs north into the hills.

Fleetwind later mentioned crossing several more roads on his way down to the service station.

The road going past the service station is made up of a black, radar-reflective metal alloy, and is designed for maglevs to run on.

Fifty miles to the east of where Dead End and Hook intercepted the road, water has undermined the road and washed it out. There is a deep gullied stream here running to the southwest. The gully at the point Dead End found it was roughly 7.5 meters deep; the water runs only a meter deep at the time Dead End finds the stream, and he cites it as being the dry season.

OOC Note: The Transformers arrive on the Expansive Plains in the early spring. It's still winter in the mountains, and the snowmelt has yet to enter the stream here.

A few miles past the gully is a service station.

Service Station:

"The architecture is alien, not like Earth or Cybertron. Two long, round-ended buildings with external supports ridging the sides stood at right angles to one another. Both were set back from the main roadway across an expanse of the same black metal paving. In front of the buildings, in the middle of the expanse of paving, was a rack of... something. Cables, perhaps."

The service station has two main buildings and two smaller out-buildings behind the main ones. One of those out-buildings is a restroom. All of the doors are equipped with a small keypad and an electrical lock that can be easily disabled by Transformers.

The fuel-delivery system here is designed to quickly recharge electrically-powered vehicles. The cables have flat paddles on their ends.

One of the main buildings is a vehicle-bay/repair shop with vehicles in it. "It's the same long, low, rounded construction the other one is--rather like a large quonset hut with external support ribs and rounded ends. He circles the building; there are no buildings in back of this one, but there are eight large, vehicle-sized doors along the 'front', and a smaller, "local-sized" door on each end, and one in back. Both have similar lock-plates to the one on the restroom."

The other is a convenience store. Mounted on the roof is a mesh parabolic dish built for receiving beamed power from an orbiting satellite.

Plant Life

Primarily tall, pampas-like grasses of a dull grey-green color. Most of them are not in bloom at the time that the Transformers arrive on the planet, though there is a patch near the gully that displays the feathery plumes of its flowers. The grass comes up to the upper thigh of the average car-mode Autobot or Seeker.

There is a patch of trees within a reasonable distance of the gully mentioned above.

Animal Life

- Insects. Many of them buzz. Ones that have been sighted include rather large centipedes, a meter-wide column of army ant-like creatures, and flies.

- White avians have been seen, and avians have been heard to cry out.

- The meter-wide, empty elliptical shells of something that failed to cross the black road were spotted.

- Hook's Antelope: "A small hexaped burst from the grass and darted across the road in front of him, bleating in terror. Hook catalogued his impressions quickly: lithe, oddly-shaped hooves, feathery fur raised in a crest down its spine, dull brown-grey in color, small obsidian horns shaped like the stalks of Egyptian papyrus.

Very fast, he noted and pulled to a stop."

- Some sort of land-based predator that was smart enough to go around behind Hook.

- Something squishy that seems to think jet exhausts are a good place to crawl up.

Continuing along the road to the east of the Service Station leads to the Swamplands.

Back to the Gillanan III Data.