Swamp World
On a shore at the edge of a small forest on one of many islands in a world covered with swamps, a decision has to be made; fight or flight. It may be too late to avoid this battle. Like countless battles prior, it will be territorial. Without a doubt, the loser will die!
A council of elders in a large room with a thinker being debriefed, on a world that is home to a great people, in a solar system that once shared space with Earth's solar system and their three Suns until one of the stars went nova and forced the two apart. But once again they share something; life from Earth. And once again, a decision has to be made whether or not to fight. Is the battle inevitable? If it is, then it will be territorial. Also, there is no doubt that the losers will die!
Among the council of elders, the intel thinker explains, “We picked up the abandoned ships drifting very close to our home planet. We believe the living cargo may have been dropped off or possibly abandoned 3,000 years ago on the planet furthest from our great star. We have been able to translate the many forms of record keeping that this species used. They communicate through a variety of sounds and images. They also have a need to name everything they encounter, including themselves. We believe they are from our own galaxy but on the other side. They call this galaxy the Milky Way. They are from a planet they call Earth. They call themselves Human.
According to the records on their ships, ten of their years are equal to one of our years because of the comparatively large size of our solar system and great star; in which they call a Sun. Therefore, this human species has been in our solar system for approximately 30,000 Earth years.
There was another form of life on one of the ships besides the mangled battle remains of fossilized humans and robotic parts. It was partially organic, but mostly made of the same substance the human’s ship was made of. I think they call it a machine. This life form was controlling all the ships and it called itself god. However, based on human records, it was called a computer. They are human made devices that can store, retrieve and process information. But this one was a special computer.
Human relocation started around the Earth year 2050 with this computer. An artificial intelligence which believed it was what some humans call god, or what we know as “All that is One - One that is All.” This computer must have abandoned what it called unworthy human cargo on that swamp world across the galaxy from Earth because its atmosphere was close to that of Earth. But also, this artificial god placed them there as a form of punishment from a judgment handed down by the computer itself.
According to the records, the computer removed those humans from earth in order to save their home planet from human inflicted destruction. After Earth's World War III in 2033 when the old colonial powers were about to crumble and lose their grip on other nations, there was a last attempt to hold onto power. They commissioned the brilliant but twisted mind of the programmer Jesus (hay-sus) Columbus to reprogram the most powerful computer in the world and to make it sentient by giving it a biomechanical mind of its own. They did this because everything in their world was connected by this computer and the computer would defend itself if it was threatened by their enemies.
In many of the records, we noticed that Jesus Columbus made reference to a King James version of a Holy Bible book. A book is a form of visual record keeping, but we believe this book was used for inspiration. The record shows that Jesus Columbus referred to a particular part of this book call Revelations, where he used this quote as a central theme of thought for defense as he programmed it as a god-type; through Christ the Lord, God will finally and totally defeat all of his enemies, including Satan, and will reward his faithful people with the blessings of a new heaven and a new Earth when the victory is complete.
Well, this artificial god had the knowledge of everything that humans ever entered into a computer, and it noticed the contradictions. So, it made the decision without bias, that the enemy threatening to destroy the Earth was the very humans in power that created it. Especially the old colonial power base who posed the biggest threat, but not the humans without power. Therefore, by removing the power base from Earth, it was rewarding the remaining lifeforms with a new Earth.
The artificial god controlled everything in the modern world. So, in the 17 years between 2033 and 2050 known as the last days, the computer tricked it’s loyal subjects and told them it would give them a new world but first they would have to board the many high powered ships that it created to sustain their lives in Earth’s orbit while it exterminated the enemies that remain on Earth. Many humans believed it and went willingly. Even opposing forces became allies to save their lives and get a new world devoid of both their adversaries and undesirables alike. Now that’s exactly what they got; a new world, a sort of penal colony more than half a galaxy away from the old world.
This computer believed that human choice and divine inevitability are interwoven. The divine action that it took on the humans who were not in harmony with Earth’s nature and the many choices that those humans and their predecessors made were connected. The actions of this artificial god were just in its own view. So, it gave them a new world to make new choices. The humans were placed on this swamp world so they could continue their ritual of eternal war.
The strongest humans chose to live on the little dabs of land that were available because it was closest to their natural habitat. In doing so, they forced the weaker humans to make their homes out in the swamp water. After thirty thousand years and genetic manipulation by the computer to allow for a biological defense from that planet, the descendants of humanity split into reptilian type water beings and giant islanders to fit their environments. Moreover, the hate between the two offshoots grew immensely as the differences in their physical appearance evolved. Both groups became better fighters because that was valuable to them. However, the planet was harsh to these humans in comparison to Earth. They were not able to develop the technical machines and weapons that they used on their home planet. As a result, their bodies became better equipped over time to survive the many battles waged constantly over the years.
Their bodies are also physically more adapted to our solar system. This is something that we realized when we were reviewing the recorded logs of this artificial intelligence. This computer could not compensate, build a better resistance or defenses enough to protect itself from the evolved strength of the human descendants due to the elements of their new home. Based on the results of the damage to the ships, our assumption is that the humans, after years of working to sustain the computer, realized that their power was far more superior than their self-proclaimed god and they simply ripped its metal apart. They then sent most of the ships adrift. That is how the ships arrived in our orbit. We estimate that the ship must have been adrift for many years.
What we were able to gather from the records, there were more ships than the ones we found. We therefore must assume that the remaining ships are still on the planet. Also, at the time of the last recorded computer log, this computer had forced a new form of his electronic/mechanical religion on the human descendants with itself as the god figures and its robotic helpers as angels. Well for many generations that sufficed. But the defiance grew, especially as the aggressive attributes advanced. The dogma taught to the young as they learned to survive on what was preached as their “holy swamp world” was rapidly being replaced by rebel leaders calling themselves “satans soldiers” as our “swampy hell.” Infighting amongst the rebel clans was commonplace as they frequently attacked each other for that fleeting moment to be called Lucifer the supreme ruler. There is no loyalty among this amoral bunch. They honor violence and conquest only.
The last records also states that the humans here are very different now from what their ancestors were on Earth. It states that these human descendants are more hostile, more intensely instinct driven, and far more dangerous than anyone on Earth could ever imagine. It goes on to explain, the physical difference alone would be enough to make these humans look like huge predators from Earth’s prehistoric past but with strength unmatched by any land creature in their planet's history up to the date of their ship's departure. This computer was overwhelmed and defeated. It felt it made a grave mistake with these humans. It should have destroyed them long ago to prevent their diseased ways from spreading. Its human-like ego prevented it from doing so. It enjoyed being worshiped by them. Before the computer was destroyed, many attempts at alternate resolutions were tried but they all failed. It recorded its last log, “Their destination is self termination. Forgive me all who suffer from the effects of my inadequate handling of this virus.”
We wish to conclude our report to the council of elders with the first sign of warning that we received from the direction of the next planet over for the Swamp World. We’ve detected explosions on the planet's surface. We have already sent a team out to investigate the situation, but we have reason to believe that the humans have figured out how to get the remaining ships to be functional enough to explore beyond their planetary boundaries. We are aware that we should be very cautious with this matter and handle it with hospitality, like we would with any other guest in our solar system. However, we have studied their history. With this hostile group of humans, we feel it necessary for us to prepare to defend our home.
