Microstory 2334: Earth, January 22, 2179

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google ImageFX text-to-image AI software, powered by Imagen 3

Dear Corinthia,

I beamed your contact card to dad, and he said that he’s going to write to you as soon as possible. Take that with a grain of salt, because his definition of possible might be different than yours. I would say, give it a couple of weeks, and then maybe just give up. I could talk to him again, if you wanted, but he’s really nervous. He doesn’t know if you forgive him, or hate him, or what. I have not told him anything about you. I told him that you and I were in contact now, and demanded he explain his involvement in our separation thirty-six years ago. I didn’t say anything about your job, or what your life is like on Vacuus. I did divulge that his wife, your mother, was dead. I felt like he had a right to know that, regardless of how at fault he is. Anyway, I hope that whatever happens between the two of you, it doesn’t negatively impact our relationship. I think he may be partially worried about that too. I want you to know that I won’t let him ruin our new sibling connection, and I would hope that you don’t let whatever he does or says—or doesn’t do or say—stop you from wanting to converse with me. Okay, I think I’m done with all this negativity now. You inspired me today. I actually don’t have much idea of how the platform can move from one part of the ocean to another. You’re right, it’s pretty big, so it can’t be easy. I’ve started taking some courses on it, not necessarily so I can tell you, but because I would like to understand it myself. I’m so old, I doubt that I’ll ever become an engineer, or a mechanic, or a sailor, but it doesn’t hurt to learn more stuff.

Until next time,

Condor

Microstory 1682: Starcatcher

< > Table of Contents

After the wars began—precipitated by a debate about what to do with the people on this version of Earth who were already infected with the sterility virus—a group of scientists figured that there was no way out of this. Now that the virus existed on their planet, there was probably nothing stopping it from getting out eventually. They could bomb the quarantined nation, and they could send people to bunkers, but their fate would eventually catch up to them. They decided that the only way to save the human race was to take it off world. But they weren’t trying to save themselves. They did not have the resources or technology necessary to send a significant enough population to the stars. They would only be able to send frozen embryos, and one individual young adult in stasis. There was also no guarantee that revival from stasis would work, because even though they had tested the technology in the short-term, they didn’t know if it would be able to last for what was potentially thousands of years. There were no sufficiently habitable planets within a reasonable distance from Earth. Neighboring worlds were always too hot, or too massive, or not massive enough. A human outpost could probably survive on these worlds, but again, this was a long-term project, and the people who would grow up in the colony were not liable to be able to advance fast enough in a harsh environment. Thanks to a boost from the solar sails, the ship was capable of traveling at about ten percent the speed of light. It would slow down over time as it hunted for the right world to settle on. Since they didn’t know exactly where the ship would be going, they called it Starcatcher. It was designed to use solar power to jump from the current star to the next, and just keep doing that until the right orbiting body presented itself.

There was no way to know whether their plan would work, let alone how long it might take. They just had to send off the embryos, and hope that Starcatcher found a new home eventually. As aforementioned, this could take thousands of years. They could program the AI to gather the requisite data for every planet they encountered, synthesize it well, and extrapolate a survivability factor, but so many things could go wrong. Again, the scientists would never know how the mission turned out. Even if Starcatcher did manage to find a world just next door, the trip was still going to take decades, and none of them was young enough to still be around. This was all about faith. They were right to have it. Fifty-six thousand years later, Starcatcher found a decent planet that was about 5500 light years away. It had a nitrogen-rich environment with healthy levels of oxygen, 85% water on the surface, and fairly reliable climate patterns. Things went pretty smoothly, but not perfectly. The Governess, as she was called, woke up from stasis, obviously still alive, but she wasn’t intact. She had trouble remembering who she was, and what she was meant to do. Fortunately, she didn’t try to mess with any of the embryos until her mind was better. It just took some time for her to acclimate to the future, and remember her purpose here. You may be wondering how it’s possible for a single woman to raise the 147 babies needed for the initial population. She didn’t start with that number. Experts had developed a complicated development plan for her, which involved starting out slowly, having the older children help raise the younger ones, and patiently doing this over the course of three decades. Humanity was able to restart here, and they never had to worry about the Ochivari again.

Microstory 1569: Killer Katz

< > Table of Contents

Prompt

Ever since all of the cats started deliberately killing the humans, I’ve been saving up for a boat, since cats hate water.

Botner

And I finally got one, so I’m very happy and I want to sail. I have a rule that if any other person should read this, they will have a legitimate claim for sole ownership of my blog; as I cannot control other people. The guest, however, claims that they found this post, and they were so amused and amused they decided to check to make sure the ID was legit. If so, I’d like to give a heartfelt thanks. A big red heart to go with it. It’s very warming. I’m amused. This post reminded me a lot of something that happened to my sisters and me when we were very young. We got a kitten when we were maybe two or three. We were out with our family for my grandmother’s birthday. This was before we could actually read, but we were very good at mimicry and my aunt, my dad’s sister, was babysitting us and brought the kitten into the living room for us to see. My sisters and I climbed onto her lap, and when we saw the kitten, we all said “Oh, kitty, kitty, kitty.” She understood what we were saying, and she said “Kitty is a boy cat,” which was very funny to us, since we had thought kitties were a girl cat. We didn't quite grasp that we were actually saying that kitties were also...

Conclusion

...a genderless species. We didn’t understand back then, about gender, and sex, and sexuality, and identity. We had to learn these things as we grew older, which takes time, and time is something we no longer have. I’ve sailed my boat into the middle of the ocean. I don’t want to find an island that’s too close to the mainland, because the cats could continue to evolve. They could develop opposable thumbs, and then they could sail as well. My family wanted me to fight, but I won’t do it. The cats are going to win, because they now literally have nine lives, and they’ve been watching us for thousands of years. We’ve been completely ignorant about their intelligence, and they’ve used that to their advantage. They weren’t just learning our behaviors and weaknesses either. They were around when we were punching in our safe codes, and hiding our keys under the planter. They’re gonna win, and I’m gonna be far from all the destruction. If they ever do find me, it won’t be for a very long time, and hopefully they won’t worry about what I’m doing, because they will have totally taken over the world by then. I anchor my boat, and paddle to the shore of the island. There’s no sign that this has ever been inhabited. It’s small, but it will have plenty to sustain me alone. I smile as I’m breathing in the fresh air. I didn’t abandon my family. They refused to come with. If anything, they abandoned me. I have no guilt about doing what I must to survive. I walk up the beach, and head for the treeline, but I stop when I see something out of the corner of my eye. It’s a panther, or something. We stare at each other for over a minute, and then I swear to God, it grins. More panthers, and other large cats, come out of the jungle.