Roughly two-thousand years ago, the majority of the people of
Earth had forgotten about reaching the
stars and concentrated on more
Earthly matters. The dwindling
space programs rapidly lost
funding and their
ardent participants could not continue efficiently without
equipment. Thus man had never again poked his head out into the cold, black
vacuum.
Things on
Earth were wonderful, though; 4024 A.D. and the world was a pretty
spiffy place.
World peace under a global
government.
Utopia! It was the true
Golden Age of humanity.
Until, using antiquated observation equipment, the
astronomer (there was only one left, all the others having died out from
starvation) discovered a
rogue planet roughly the size of
the Moon, on a collision course with the
Earth. The focal point of
impact would be somewhere around
Green River, Utah, but that didn't matter. It would shatter the entire
planet, forming a new
asteroid belt from any pieces that didn't fly off at
escape velocity, leaving
Sol's grasp forever to become stony
funeral barges, forever roaming the depths of
space.
Space programs were rapidly rehabilitated.
Unfortunately, it was way to late to consider any sort of
exodus. Though
technology had made amazing leaps and bounds, any sort of
interstellar drive had not been researched for over two-thousand years, nor had methods of keeping humans alive through years of
space travel, and there wasn't enough time to start now.
There was one
hope for survival of
the human race.
Genetic manipulation had come a
long way, and, agencies, in the event the
earth should become wildly
underpopulated due to
nuclear war or some other circumstances, had created a tree which produced
human embryos and
incubated them until their birth, allowing for a wild amount of genetic
variation to ensure that
future generations would not be obscenely
inbred. It could even, in the absence of other humans to support it, create a few with extremely rapid growth, so they were born as
adults, full of instinctive
memories and able to care for the other children of the tree who came out as helpless babies..
If they could make a robotic spacecraft that would keep the seeds safely stored until it found a suitable
planet, then, perhaps, the human
species would survive
somewhere. It would find a good place (
Soil wasn't really necessary, the
seeds were designed to survive and take root in almost any mineral, converting it to
sustenance, not to mention a variety of
environmental conditions which it could sense and adapt it's offspring to.) and then deploy the seeds of hundreds of these
versatile plants.
Scientists,
Engineers,
Biologists,
Botanists,
Anthropoligists, and various other 'ists from all over the world banded together to produce humanity's last hope, surviving the
catalclysmic
riots and
anarchistic destruction brought on by
hysteric masses in their
hidden facilities. They perfected the
scheme just in time and watched the
craft launch by the light of the bright new
star that would soon bring their end.
A
very long time later, the spacecraft finally found a new home for humankind. It streaked through the atmosphere in a fiery
ball and smashed through a
forest of glowing,bulbous,
blue things. The little robot climbed out of the landing craft and made it's way to the edge of the smoking crater. It
beeped and
whirred and
clicked. A small creature, attracted by the
commotion, investigated it. The robot found a suitable, open area and opened, extending its tray of seeds, and beginning to profer a message in every language known to
man, including
pictographs, should the aliens, by some chance, not understand
Dutch or
Japanese. These messages had been prepared should
sentient life forms be there to
greet it.
The
creature, however, was much more interested in the
seeds. They smelled
good. It plucked them out one by one with its excuse for a
tongue and
swallowed them whole, until
every last one was gone.
"Gork!" it said and ran off to investigate the crater, hoping there was more
good food from the sky in the area.
The
robot continued it's
automated task. Humming and clicking, and whirring, picking at the tray and planting
nothing.