My interpretation so far.

by Ragashingo , Official DBO Cryptarch, Friday, February 15, 2013, 10:32 (4302 days ago) @ Postmortem
edited by Ragashingo, Friday, February 15, 2013, 10:36

One face is blistered, the other plunged into
a brutal chill. Is this how it's always been?

You remember hot oceans, nourishing
atmosphere. But something transpired,
kicked what was wet and fertile into space,
stealing away everything of value. Or
perhaps what thrived here for a day or for
ten million years decided to leave, peeling
its wet organics off the bones.

A name offers itself, and another, and a
thousand more.

The answer feels like the iron heart of a
collapsed star, and you realize the union
between the past and the future is now.

It remembers visiting this solar system in the past, when Mercury was a lush and habitable planet. This tells us something about the age of this entity and the sort of perspective it has on the cosmos. However, it's unsure if the species that lived here did so for a day or for ten million years. To me this implies that when it was last in the solar system, it wasn't here for long, making it unsure upon its return, more than ten million years later, how long those creatures had thrived. A thousand possibilities for the reason behind their extinction present themselves, but the truth it discovers weighs heavy on its mind. Something that it influenced in the past has reached its culmination in the planned future. And that future is now.

Extinction OR they left on their own. Fleeing something perhaps?

Also Venus' image and text has now been revealed:

You see history hidden between the
barren rocks and within the high acid
clouds. You see ruin emerging from
where it has always been, ready to claim
its birthright.

Sunlight is starved. The fierceness is
chilled and thinned, made sweet again. A
new ocean emerges, thick and salty and
hot, from springs and geysers that drench
the dead ground.

You wonder: will this world's second birth
be its finest? You draw deep inside,
seeking direction, turth…

But all you have are the riddles of your
own intentions.

So yet another hard to terraform world being remade. Apparently there was something on Venus before. Something not of the Traveler's making? One important thing was revealed here. We, us, the Traveler, whatever, doesn't remember why it did things in the past. I suppose it is returning and recognizing its work but unsure why it did what it did.