i don't remember much of this one - the memory of it came back later in the day, too...

i was on an alien planet. the impression i had was of great antiquity and decay - both geologically and archeologically. there were a lot of arid dead areas, dust, ruins, worn down mountains, etc.

i couldn't tell you if the people there were even human. they used to be spacefaring but i dunno if they still were; perhaps the civilization was too decayed. they were, however, space-aware. i was a visitor - maybe there as either a diplomat or an observer. there was some threat from above - not certain if it was a rival civilization that was still spacefaring or some entity from another planet.

the city was in the mountain, and there was a dry dusty plain to the east and north. then another mountain, with a humongous ruined terraced tower facing back over the plain.

we went in the plain. the ruler was a short darkhaired lady. we took some weapon that was supposed to fire on the threat in orbit above. it hadn't been used in some time. decades? centuries? the knowledge was lost. almost. the ruler had learned enough to fire it.

the tower across the plain, slowly came off the mountain, lurched to the right (from our point of view) and collapsed in a spectacular ponderous roar.

after that the scene cuts to either underground or in the mountain. my memory is spotty in this part. I was with a small party of either searchers or scouts. I don't recall if we were in the city or exploring the ruins in the mountain behind the collapsed tower. but there are definitely enemies around. we are looking for them. it's not obvious what we will do if we find them. it's not obvious what they are like.

the rock the tunnels go through is normal deserty sandstone. everything is adequately lit - we can see just fine but it's not totally bright. kind of it everything was lit with 60 watt incandescent bulbs.

we come to pockets where obviously a higher technology had been in use in the past. there is cabling hanging from the ceiling. the outer sheaths are transparent. the inner wires are red, or blue. or some other color. orange?

it turns out the orange cables can talk. they come to help us, separated out into lik 18-30" lengths. they warn us about the red and blue ones. they are at war.

we come to a wider opening - a room almost, with a door. there are many red and blue cables in the ceilings. they detach and we confront them. a closer look shows that the red and blue parts aren't wires after all. they are some sort of nearly gelatinous substance that is organic. the red and blue stuff sticks out about a centimeter from the top of the outer sheath and that is the end we would treat as the head in creatures we are used to.

the red and blue cables tell us they will give us an opportunity to prove we are worthy of being considered equals. blah blah. standard science fiction fare. I don't know where the orange cables had gone at this point. all of this was very clear in the dream, but has faded now. I personally was kind of awkward because although I did have a stake in the sense that I had to worry about my own survival, I did not have a stake in what now looked like a three-way war, between these cable-creatures (who were obviously the threat from above) and the indigent population of this ancient planet.

that's all I remember...