Microstory 1616: Animal Intelligence

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Some laws of physics pervade every universe in the bulkverse. They don’t allow impossible things like moons that orbit past the Roche limit, or gravity that repels objects. They don’t create cuboid stars, or flat planets. There’s no such thing as an animal species with wheels in place of feet, or whales that evolve in space. There are just some things that don’t exist, no matter where you go. Some universes, however, do have their own specific physical laws that would contradict each other, but which don’t interfere with multiversal constants. Magic is the number one example of this, but I don’t want to talk too much about that. Those universes can be paradoxically persistent, but unstable at the same time. There aren’t any rules that hold them together, but they’re extremely popular, which keeps them from collapsing in on themselves. They’re hard for me to see, because in order to avoid the collapse, aspects of such worlds don’t exist while people aren’t actively thinking about them. No, even ignoring the lawlessness of magic, there are still universes that would be considered bizarre, or even completely insane, to an outsider. Bladopodoverse is one example of this, but it’s not the only one. This next brane doesn’t have a name, like most others, but it has a little quirk that I don’t really understand. For the most part, humans are the dominant species on any planet, even if it’s not a version of Earth. The reason for this is God. God is human, God’s godlings are humans. The godlings’ respective godlings are also human. It just keeps going down the line, and if you ever meet an evolved creature that is decidedly not human, it’s just because it’s somehow related to humans, and spiritually speaking, is still human enough. There’s only one true alien species that I know of, and even that’s pretty complicated. This world is different. It contains multiple intelligent animals, with no apparent origin. I couldn’t tell you why the animals are smarter, and I definitely couldn’t give you any details about their neurology. I can see that a lot of them like to help the humans around, because they seem so hopeless, and that there don’t seem to be a whole lot of evil animals, which I find interesting. Not all are like this, or at least they can even hide their intelligence from me. Some animals appear to be normal, or at least how you or I would use the word. The intelligent animals don’t use technology, or form human-like societies. They pretty much behave about as they would without their advanced intelligence, but sometimes exhibit traits far beyond what they should have. They communicate with each other on a higher level, and occasionally include humans in their dealings. Other than this oddity, this version of Earth is about the same as any other. It has an underworld, which only a few people are aware of, so if you traveled there, you probably wouldn’t notice a difference.