Microstory 731: Credos, Convention Six: Communication, Chapter One

< > Table of Contents

The sixth canister showed the wandering child a small village in the middle of nowhere. This world had developed independent of all others, and in fact, they did not know people could come from the stars. They were technologically unadvanced, though there people had lived there for centuries. Technology is only invented to solve some problem, and since they lived in relative harmony as they were, it did not strike them as necessary to improve upon their lives. They hunted in the nearby woods, they fished in the nearby stream, and their resources were never exhausted. One day, an exploration ship came upon their lonely planet, finding it to be beautiful and welcoming. They did notice several sparse populations on its surface, but chose to ignore them. They sold the coordinates to a group of travelers seeking to put down roots, and these travelers came to the new world hopeful and excited. Their landing shuttles were large, and made of materials the villages had never seen before, and so they still could not. Though the vessels were ferrying passengers from the sky, the villages literally could not see them. This would disrupt their worldview so much, that their brains could not process the information properly, leading them to be quite nearly blind to what was happening all around them.

The villagers could feel vibrations, hear rushing wind, and feel a warmth, but still, they could not actually see anything. They believed the gods to be trying to send them some kind of message, but could not interpret its meaning, so they argued. Some believed the gods to be angry with them. Out of those, some thought a human sacrifice must be made to appease them, while many believed gods to be nonviolent, and required sacrifices of food and comfort. Still, others thought the gods were simply trying to reach out to them. Not only were the gods not angry, but they were pleased with how the village had prospered, and were inviting them to a grand introduction. These contradictory theories caused much strife in the village, ultimately leading to days of infighting. Having finished transporting the migrants from their orbiting ship, the shuttles stopped landing on the surface, leading the villagers to believe that this was a second message. They had failed in understanding the divine words, and would be met with much hardship for their insolence. Though they were ashamed of their failure, the internal conflict continued, for every faction blamed every other, rather than themselves. The population dwindled as the weeks passed. They holed themselves up in separate caves, and other strongholds, though. Not wanting to diminish their numbers too greatly, eventually the fighting ceased, only because the battles no longer felt safe. Their instinct to preserve their species held firm, despite their hatred. This gave them time to open negotiations between the warring factions; to find some common ground, and quickly remember that they were once one peoples, with mutual goals. And so they came back together. The short war was over.