The Real Monstrous Matters: Microbial contamination or killer space ooze?

Fortunately for humanity...and unfortunately for those of us just wasting time until the day we make contact...it's probably just microbial contamination.

A paper came out on November 13 detailing the examination of rock samples brought back from the asteroid Ryugu during the Hayabusa2 mission of Japan's space agency JAXA...

Photo of Ryugu's surface; from the mission website

They got some rocks from the asteroid's surface?  COOL!

They succeeded in a number of microscopic analyses of these samples?  VERY COOL!

There appear to be bacteria there?!?  HELLA COOL!!

The bugs on the asteroid; from the paper

Oh.  The reasonable conclusion is that it's just contamination?  BOOOOOOOO!!

Yeah, so despite being processed at pretty much the abso-tippy-top level of contamination protocol stringency, one of the samples ended up with some microbes growing on it.  The authors suspect Bacillus, but who knows.  Unfortunately, they were unable to look at the bug's genome to see what it was (and it has since been polished off of the rock and hasn't regrown).  Considering that Bacillus includes bacteria that can cause anthrax, food poisoning, and probably a host of other maladies, it's at least cool to imagine that it might have been some killer space bug that came close to unleashing a Michael Crichton-style pandemic upon humanity.

Probably for the better that it didn't, though.

(You can find a nice summary of the paper at Phys.org.)

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Now, what's cooler than a killer space bug?  A killer space ooze!  Can I get some cheers from the Blob Mob?!

Space Ooze

Image from Pixabay

Scale: --

Handling Difficulty: -- (uncontrollable)

25 HP, 9 Defense

Strength 5

Dexterity 1

Knowledge --

Presence 1

Skills: Detect (chemical) +3

Attacks: Pseudopod (+4, 1d6 bludgeoning damage + 1d6 acid damage)

The space ooze can move 10 feet per round, including up surfaces.  It is capable of moving through openings with a diameter of less than 1/10 of an inch, although its speed is slowed by as much as 99% while doing so.  The space ooze is capable of dissolving metal at a rate of up to 1 inch per round; this is often performed to overcome obstacles but will also impact any metal weapons used on it.

When reduced to 0 HP, the space ooze simply spends 1 round regrouping, then continues with the same task that was interrupted when it was "destroyed."