We arrived at the destination planet, designated E3, in the Ember system on standard date 14.76.254. We had made careful study of previous probe missions and utilized long range scans to update any information we could. (Please refer to scan records 17.14.255 to 13.76.254 for the resulting data.)

We focused much of our efforts on the apparent dominant species, informally referred to as Emberians. While neither the most powerful nor most numerous, they clearly make the most use of tools and made significant alterations to their environment.

I can confirm something that earlier missions had hinted at. The species organizes itself into groups based either on superficial characteristics or randomly. The latter is unsatisfying as an explanation, but the former seems implausible. I recommend the data we collected be studied further to look for patterns that may have been missed.

I led three landing excursions to the planet while we stayed in orbit. The first two went as planned. (The data we collected, together with samples, is summarized in Reports 19b-d and related appendices.) The third mission did not go as smoothly.

Unfortunately, we directly encountered the Emberians. They are just as unusual in appearance as our various scans have suggested. They walk on two legs, use two arms for much of their interaction, and they are generally hairless except for the tops of their heads.

We suffered no casualties from the interaction, and none of the Emberians were harmed. However, until we better understand them, and how best to interact, additional caution needs to be taken during future expeditions. We do not want to incite violence or panic as that serves no purpose.

We await analysis of data collected and further instructions on how to proceed. Until then, we have moved out of orbit of E3 and will restrict our studies to remote scans.