Nauvis was not an ordinary planet, there were many reasons for that, for one there isn't really a standard for “normal” planets, they could range from desolate rocks where nothing ever happened, to massive storms raining liquid metal and still be considered normal.

So it wasn't a geographical feature that made Nauvis unique, nor was it the presence of life, a statistical anomaly it may be for a planet to develop complex life, no, what made Nauvis special was that Nauvis could want, a planet, a rock orbiting a ball of plasma, could want.

What Nauvis wanted was a more complicated question than what made Nauvis special, but in the simplest form Nauvis wanted life, complex, evolving, and powerful life, and so Nauvis created environments for life to thrive, first to its oceans then to the rest of itself.

Nauvis inherently knew the Ideal conditions for life to spring forth, a warm nutrient filled water sheltered from any harmful conditions, and so it filled the caves lining its ocean floor with volcanic vents, to provide the building components for simple life, and after millions of years Nauvis had its first lifeform, a weak pitiful thing yes, not anything near what Nauvis desired, but it was a start, and so Nauvis fanned this little ember of life till it filled the world's oceans.

Evolution is a slow process, even for a thing as enduring as a planet, but Nauvis watched as the cells changed and diverged, developing thicker walls, stronger acids, faster movement, and many other adaptations for them to better live in its waters, And any life that was doing exceptionally well got Nauvis's personal attention, growing at an accelerated rate with enhanced traits.

It continued like this for millions of years till the ocean was filled with complex life, monsters one and all, each suited for new and unique ways to kill one another and constantly fighting for the planets attention, and constantly growing stronger with the planets encouragement, behemoths stretching thousands of feet were torn to shreds by small schools of razor sharp fish, flaying them alive, before the blood would attract more creatures to the feast, massive leviathans fought in the depths against each other and the smaller fish, parasites would worm under scale and shell to devour their hosts from within, schools of fish would wage wars with millions of combatants only to be all be swallowed whole by another.

This all pleased Nauvis but its lands were still barren, no life from the oceans had left for the shores, and so Nauvis directed some of its creatures more suited for land to live on its barren shores, first spreading plants, then smaller insects that would serve no other purpose than to be food, before finally letting its true creatures free on the land.

It was a bloodbath lasting millennia, the oceans had only allowed the fiercest life to survive and no creature that crawled from its depths could be considered weak, even if only the creatures from the shallows could survive on land, but eventually a victor began to become apparent, a non assuming species of colony insects, who's only unique characteristics were superior coordination and a fluid biology, allowing quicker than normal adaptation.

This along with the truly prodigious rate all creatures of Nauvis reproduced meant that in a few short years the creatures would be well suited to surviving or conquering any threat they faced, no creature of the land could match them for long, and any new arrivals from the ocean were soon countered, no matter what new weapons or horrors they brought.

This of course drew Nauvis's attention, and when a creature draws Nauvis's attention they get all of their traits enhanced, for a planet's attention is a heavy thing, the adaptations that had previously taken years to occur now happened in months, the enhanced spawning rate only accelerated how quickly the creatures conquered the land.

Nauvis did not coddle its creations, and while it loved all of them the planet did not despair when one died out, so at first the bugs domination of Nauvis's surface only pleased the planet, it did not care that the bugs were soon becoming the only surviving creatures on land, this lasted a few years, the most advanced life Nauvis had ever created, capable of matching and exceeding all its other creatures continued to grow stronger, but then the last of the other creatures on the surface died out, and the bugs began to grow weaker.

Without a threat the bugs had no need to maintain costly and inefficient forms and soon began to recede in both numbers and strength, both things Nauvis prized.

Nauvis decided to do something about it, and began forcing more and more creatures from the oceans, in unheard of numbers.

This worked, the tides of horrors forced the bugs to rapidly evolve, and to even greater heights than before, and massive swarms of bugs began to fight the new arrivals on every front, and so Nauvis thinking it had solved the issue stopped forcing its aquatic horrors from its depths, and for a few decades all was well, the bugs stayed strong and fought their new neighbors, but the invaders were dwindling in numbers.

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As the last of the creatures died the bugs once again began to recess themselves. Returning to a state of minimal strength.

While Nauvis can in fact think, it can not be said that Nauvis is smart, and the previous solution HAD in fact worked, it just hadn't been permanent, so one could forgive the planet for trying it again, assuming this try would stick.

It didn't, the bugs grew in strength and number before fighting off the new arrivals, it took longer as the aquatic life was only getting tougher, almost one hundred years in fact, but the bugs still drove every other creature to extinction.

So Nauvis tried again, and again, and again, for hundreds of thousands of years, each wave surviving against the bugs even longer, Convincing Navius that eventually a wave of the creatures would survive indefinitely.

This cycle continued until Nauvis felt a new source of life near its star, Nauvis had never felt life in the void surrounding it before, and so this drew its attention, its gaze fell upon an odd creature, seemingly flying through the void, this creature of shining scale was rapidly moving through the system and would soon leave, where Nauvis would not be able to see it anymore.

Nauvis had never seen anything like this creature though, and did not want it to leave, the desires of a planet are a physical thing, forcing life to evolve and change, life on Nauvis was used to this, having been bathed in a planets attention before they even crawled from the slime, the creature from the star wasn't, and under a planet's gaze the creature broke, beginning to careen off its course.

This did not actually mean the creature was heading towards Nauvis, in fact it was heading towards the system's star, But Nauvis wanted this creature and so it was that the creature instead began to head towards Nauvis.

Navius is not a smart planet, it did not think about how a creature that was meant to live in the void might not do so well on a planet, nor did it know that it wasn't really a creature at all, but rather a ship, the life Navius had felt wasn't from the ship itself though, but rather a much smaller creature growing inside of it, an engineered creation designed to colonize worlds.

It was as the “creature” entered Nauvis atmosphere and caught fire that the planet realized it may have made a mistake, thankful though the creatures shiny shell did not seem to burn, and the creature, while damaged, was still capable of moving and began to slow its own fall, not enough to prevent a crash, but enough to prevent its sole occupant from dying.

Nauvis realized its error once the wreckage had cooled, the large shiny thing wasn't a creature, it was a shell!

Nauvis new what life needed, and when looking at this creature Nauvis saw that it needed minerals, so like in its early days Nauvis created an environment for life to flourish, bringing metals to the surface of the world so this new creature would have easy access to it, Nauvis could see into all of its creatures, and Nauvis considered the thing in the shell its, afterall it wasn't even born yet! Anything born on Nauvis was Nauvis's, and so Nauvis could see into this creature.

In this creatures minds Navius saw wonders, science, machines, tools, weapons, creativity, imagination, and most importantly Nauvis saw potential, this small creature could adapt, much like the bugs, It was a community creature, much like the bugs, it had driven its competition to extinction, much like the bugs.

In this creature Nauvis saw one thing it wanted, competition for the bugs, something that would grow and match the bugs indefinitely, but this creature still had years before it was ready, and with its shell broken the creature did not have years, so Nauvis put its gaze on the creature and it grew faster, having all it unique traits enhanced.

This though seemed to be the final straw for the creatures shell, which let out a whine and plume of smoke before ejecting the creature, which thankfully began to twitch and breath, deciding that was the best it was getting Nauvis left the creature alone for a bit, quickly ensuring there were no bugs nearby to kill the creature before it could establish itself.

The next day the creature woke, and quickly began exploring its surroundings, seemingly finding a suitable spot near one of the raised patches of metal, the creature began constructing its nest, in a few short days the creature was established, and Nauvis stopped holding back the bugs.

The bugs sensing that a new intruder was in their territory soon sent a group to investigate, and when that group was destroyed the bugs began to grow.

This continued, with the new thing and the bugs both growing stronger, building or growing more and more complex weapons. Then the new thing created another new thing, something to control its weapons, not truly alive, but something Nauvis had once again never seen.

And this creation was born on Nauvis, under its sky, meaning that when the gaze of a planet fell on this new creation it survived, and was enhanced.

As the new creature began making more of these other new things the rate at which it grew accelerated, its defense grew more potent and it began launching more of its own attacks, and when the bugs adapted to it, the creature adapted in turn, even modifying its own body to stop the damage it was taking from its environment, just like the bugs did.

Both these forces grew ever stronger, and in more interesting ways, and Nauvis was happy, there was only one real problem, the Planet only had one of these creatures, and they needed a partner to reproduce, so once this one was gone it would have no more, still it would enjoy this while it lasted, Nauvis couldn't wait to see the new heights its creatures would reach.