WOW, thank you so much for the kind words! Given the quality of work I've seen on display during this jam, I would have been satisfied to even have been told this is good enough to be IN the jam, haha :)
If you do run this please do let me know how it goes! As far as motivations for players to stay are concerned, I completely agree -- there were some late-ish cuts that might have given motivation (initially I had the planet attempting to communicate, initially through some kind of Contact-esque prime number communication, and through Braille after swallowing the library) but the space limitations made me streamline that out (not to mention I couldn't get past ripping off a Jodie Foster movie from 1997, haha). Only little vestigial parts remain, like the library itself, and the sophontologist NPC.
I think when I run it, I'm going to do something similar and make it a 2+ session game with some shore leave/downtime scenes to explore and establish the space, and depending on how the players survive the scenario, a post-"filled" scenario where they have to survive at Hydro or Dig B.
Thanks again for your thoughtful comments, I'm (very) slowly working my way thru the submissions and hope to get to yours soon!