This was a vibrant, life-filled planet, and it had already developed a fairly advanced civilization.
When I flew toward the planet from space, I noticed it immediately: there were many small and medium-sized artificial structures in orbit, seemingly space stations or large satellites. Their designs were highly uniform, mostly roughly spherical polyhedrons ranging from several dozen to several hundred meters in size. Regardless of size, they all had similar shapes. Occasionally, I saw composite structures formed by several polyhedral spheres clustered together, but the connecting beams between them had obvious movable mechanisms. Clearly, such combinations were temporary and could be dismantled at any time. These polyhedral space stations were mainly gray-white, with sky-blue or light-green paintwork decorating their hulls. Some of the facilities even bore writing I did not recognize. One or two sets of long, thin "metal needles" sometimes extended from their edges, presumably antennas or something similar. Aside from that, these space facilities possessed relatively primitive electromagnetic shields to defend against high-energy particles and all sorts of miscellaneous radiation in space.
All the space facilities used electrical energy. Part of it came from solar panels, but I could also sense fusion-reactor-like devices within them. The latter were perhaps their main power source.
I had encountered quite a few civilizations over the years. Based on the energy sources these orbital facilities used and the way they changed their trajectories, it was easy to determine that their builders were more advanced than Earth, at least in space technology and energy technology.
"This thing's pretty nice-looking." I approached the nearest small space station and inspected the space facility, which was still quite primitive compared to Imperial technology, while remaining invisible. I muttered to myself as I searched for some sort of entrance, but after circling it once, I found none. There