Gamma Lunae Coloniam – Google Docs
Gamma Lunae Coloniam
Well, that’s what’s inscribed on the buildings and mosaics. Not that anybody’s found Gamma Lunea Coloniam: it’s nestled in a lunar pit in the Mare Ingenii, which is located on the dark side of the moon. So it may be a while before anybody goes to look at it.
When they do, they’re going to find a Roman city, circa BC 80 or so, and generally looking like it grew out of a permanent legionary camp. The buildings are made out of local rock, and there’s very little if any organic matter around; but the physical buildings themselves are in excellent shape and show signs of wear and occupation. The tube is absolutely not sealed off, which means that the entire site is in vacuum. There’s also no water to be found on-site at all, even in places where water might have survived in ice form.
Hypothetical explorers will discover that Gamma Lunae Coloniam was definitely occupied for some time; later buildings show adaptations of the architecture to the moon’s lesser gravity. There are shops, barracks, houses, stables, offices, fountains, market squares, crafters, guard posts — everything that you’d expect to find in a Roman colonia. Just without the people. And there are no real records, either: all the inscriptions and whatnot appear to have been carved at the city’s founding. What happened to the colonists is a mystery.
Then again, so is how the Romans ended up on the moon in the first place. And why there’s absolutely no record of this in Earthly Roman records And then there’s the fact that this is Gamma Lunae Coloniam. That kind of implies that there’s an Alpha and Beta colony, right?