The German shepherd happily splashed in the water near the beach, rolling around in the water in an attempt to simulate swimming without actually having to enter the scary sea. The dog ran back to his master, and then back to the sea in a strange zig-zag pattern when viewed from above. The man was walking his dog at the beach, far away from the Naukan settlement, together with another colonist. It may have been too far, considering the fact that the dangers of the island they were on as well as the New World as a whole were not well understood, but many of the Crusade’s citizens that had been dropped off on the island to build the supply port that the main fleet desperately needed did not waste the chance to explore the beautiful island. It was almost a true paradise, with pristine blue seas and shores that were not tainted by the foul pollution that had devastated the original birthplace of the humans that had settled on the island. The two men looked around. It had not gone unnoticed by them and the Naukan scientists that both the flora and fauna were larger on this island than they were at home, possibly due to the phenomenon of island gigantism where animals that settled somewhere would evolve to be bigger. 

The dog stopped. It started barking, at something a few hundred meters away that looked like rocks. The two men stood still, neither of them had any weapons. Slowly, almost unseen by the two men, but not by the dog who could both hear and smell the creature, the rocks moved and revealed a massive red crab, several meters in size, a lot larger than its counterpart on Earth. The crab started scuttling towards them slowly, soon picking up a frantic pace. The men and dog started running away, but the crab was faster, and before they knew it the crab had caught up with them, and used its giant claw to pick up one of the men and nearly cut him in half, killing him instantly, before retreating back to its nest where it came from. The other man continued running as fast as he could, with his dog in tow. As soon as he reached the settlement he ran towards the building that had been constructed where the colony’s leader managed the settlement, and told everything about the crabs to her. Soon, the order was given to all colonists to not go away too far from the colony until these Titan Crabs, as they came to be known by the settlers, could be exterminated. 

Udo sighed when he saw what he was assigned to. He had been ordered to escort a group of scientists into the rainforest together with a few other soldiers. He didn’t really like it, but orders were orders. He’d much rather hunt the Carcinus Titania that had been plaguing the beaches around the port colony, especially since they were delicious when cooked, but he had been assigned to something else. There wasn’t much to do except protecting the workers and other colonists from the native wildlife or hunting animals anyway. He walked to the small barracks near the port. It was only a small building because the local Naukan colony didn’t have that much soldiers in it, as most of the Crusade’s military was still on the Vanguard. He gathered his equipment and weaponry and walked towards the only recon vehicle that they had. He entered and sat in the passenger seat and soon some of his comrades also entered the vehicle, including the driver. Other soldiers entered the jeeps that were standing next to the barracks instead, and soon a small convoy drove towards the meeting point from where they would escort the scientists deeper into the island. The convoy continued as soon as the vehicles containing the scientists had joined them, and they drove from the beach towards the jungle. It took some time, because much of the tropical forest had been cut down already, to make space for homes, farms and other buildings. A byproduct of this was the wood which would be used to build the buildings. When they were at the edge of the rainforest the men and women got out off the vehicles and walked into the forest. 

Angela Szarka, wildlife biologist of the Naukan Crusade Scientific Division, was having a field day. She really enjoyed the field research part of her job, where she observed animals and plants in their natural habitat and this was even better, as she could see completely new species and forms of life that were very different from the animals on Earth. She could probably write several different scientific papers about them, but this was neither the time or the place to do so, as she had to determine if all of the different animals and plants would be dangerous or helpful to the survival of the growing colony and its inhabitants. She shivered when she thought about one of the less friendly denizens of the island, the Titan Crab, scientifically named Carcinus Titania. It had first been discovered when several Naukan colonists had decided to explore some of the beaches of the island, thinking they would be safe from the dangers of the rainforest. They were wrong, as several of them were killed and dragged off. When a small military force later came to investigate, they killed several of the beasts and found human, amongst animal bones, in their lair. These crabs possessed a limited intelligence, able to hide behind rocks to wait for the right moment to strike, and were very territorial creatures. Soon after their discovery, autopsies and scientific studies had been done on them, which determined the only helpful way that these Titan Crabs would be helpful was as a food source, and so hunters and soldiers were given the orders to hunt for them. Luckily for the colony’s citizens, the Carcinus Titania were not able to best the rifles and machineguns of the soldiers, and the meat was a good source of protein.

After several minutes of walking, the group of soldiers and researchers came across a clearing in the rainforest, where they found a herd of herbivores resembling giant rhinos peacefully grazing. The scientists took samples of them, and determined that these giant rhinos could be useful as beasts of burden, strong enough to carry and drag things which could be helpful in logging and construction. Due to their size these animals were very hard to move, until Angela suggested that they tried luring the rhinos with some of the native plants that had been discovered earlier. This particular plant was the Oryza purpura, a plant that looked like purple rice and several test fields on farms had been made for them. After some research it was found that these plants were not toxic and were edible, but they would probably never replace the grain crops that the colonists had brought with them due to their size and difficulty of processing. The giant rhinos were able to eat the purple rice unprocessed though, and some of them were lured back to the colony to be domesticated or trained. The explorers also brought back with them seeds of a potato-like plant that was determined to be safe for consumption, as well as the corpse of a carnivore that was able to camouflage itself from the people in the forest because it had leaves on its wings. It was only found when some of the scientists tried to use thermal imaging equipment and found out there was a large bird-shaped blob of higher temperatures against the background lower temperatures of the leaves. They immediately asked a soldier to shoot it a few times with his assault rifle, and soon the animal was dead on the ground. Overall, Angela thought, it was a very successful trip.

Walter looked over the colony from one of the watchtowers that had been build near its edges. He could see the farmhouses made out of wood next to the fields full of wheat, corn, etc. After the Naukan fleet had landed on the island to build a supply port, a portion of the seeds in the seed-bank were left there to grow into crops to provide food for the colonists. Also, some of the animals that were on the Ark had been left on the island, to provide a source of protein that they would know would be safe for consumption. The animals also provided manure which would fertilize the farms and fulfilled some key roles like pollination. The farms were in a spot where there originally was only jungle, but the giant trees had to be cleared to make space for agriculture. These giant trees that were taller than many on earth also provided a very good source for wood that would be used to construct many of the buildings Walter could see from the watchtower, and the leaves and bark of these trees, together with many of the waste products of the sawmill had been used to make even more biofuel which would be used for the generation of electricity. They had recently constructed a barracks for the military, a makeshift hospital, and a school. The only buildings that weren’t really made out of wood were the large naval port that the Naukan fleet would use to resupply when they would eventually make their way back to the Gate to go pick up more people, as well as several factories that were built to provide the materials for this supply port and budding settlement, most notably of which was a large steel mill that had been built after sources of coal and iron had been found in the mountains that were located more to the inside of the island. There were also a concrete factory and resource refinery much like the one aboard the main Naukan flagship, as well as several other factories responsible for the production of building materials and other goods. 

After several days of sailing, the Naukan Crusade fleet had finally arrived where they were planning to build the main settlement of the Naukan Crusade, and Temir Zima gave the order to land there. They had chosen a location to the northwest of their island colony, protected from invaders by the mountains to the east. The climate was a lot more temperate there, so it was more comfortable for many of the Naukan settlers. The same pattern that happened when the island colony first started was repeated here. The location was made safe, a port was built, local resources were exploited, and farms, factories and housing were all constructed with several major differences: The population of the main settlement numbered in several thousands compared to the several hundred people that lived in Azure Port, so the work happened quicker. The Vanguard was gone more often as it had to check back on Azure Port every now and then since radio communications were not set up yet. The flagship became a more permanent addition to the settlement, as it was intended to be. The nuclear reactor that had been sitting in the Flagship’s cargo hold was finally used to build a powerplant. The Ark was sitting around mostly empty until the Naukan citizens could gather enough materials to build another ship that was capable of protecting the new settlements, which would still take a long time. The main settlement of the Naukan Crusade was named Temir’s Landing.