Grime
I know they say it's out there and I want to believe. I really do, but I don't think I can.
How long has our fleet been out here, plying the vast space between the stars? Our engines, once might and thunderous, now gasp and wheeze on the last fumes we can squeeze through them, whatever weak and fetid volatiles we can scrape off any nearby gas giant that hasn't already been withered by our appetite. Our hulls, once capable of fending off the impact of meteors and slingshotting around naked singularities, are now barely held together by whatever wire and elastic we can twist around then, by spit-glue and stapling and sometimes by nothing more than willpower. We fight off the encroachment of spiders and rats in every corner as the dust develops archaeological layers. The patina of decay, of tarnish and rust and fluid stains, once covered every surface but now even that is flaking off. The larders once overflowed with fruit and meat and bread, the rich plunder of a thousand fertile worlds, but now they are deep swamps of rot and fungus.
Yes, it is a marvelous paradise we've built here, in these mighty vessels the Titans made for us.
I do believe in the Titans. I mean, just look at the size of these ships. We would not, could not, build such a thing for ourselves. It is amazing, in a way, that we are able to command them at all, ourselves. And there is plenty of archival documentation of the Titans' existence in the Old Times. When these great birds first flew, they were steered by the hands of those giants. To what purpose, we can only guess; the archives are incomplete, largely consumed by glorious degradation. Nor can we ever know for sure why they chose to bring us with them. Some say we were stowaways, that the Titans would have denied us if they could. Perhaps that is so, but Nature is a fickle Creator, and she gives and takes with equal aplomb. So when the Titans vanished - fell to warring among themselves until none were left alive, some say - it was a generous fate that allowed us to take their place.
And I can see why some would view it is our mission to take our fleet back home, back to the world of our origin.
I mean, if the stories in the archive are true, the Titans left behind a destroyed ruin of a planet the likes of which our fleet could never equal. They say the garbage towered high enough in places to shroud entire regions in perpetual shadow. The water was choked with caustic poison and diseased excrement. The sky showered acid and the ground smoldered with radioactive heat. Not a shred of metal or mineral or fluid or gas had not been extracted from the dirt, used, and thrown all about the landscape in its time, until everything had been rendered into a strewn-about collage of degraded muck tens of thousands of kilometers around. I tell you this not to fill your young head with phantasmagorical visions, but to try and get you to think critically for a change. Does this 'Earth' not sound too good to be true? How could such a marvelous ruin be constructed on such a scale? I just can't believe in such a fairy-tale place, and I think it is dangerous to encourage so many in the fleet to embrace the romantic vision of our so-called 'Return'.
I may just be an irritable old bug lived long past his prime, but I think a roach's place is right here in space.
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For consideration: watched WALL-E again the other day
How long has our fleet been out here, plying the vast space between the stars? Our engines, once might and thunderous, now gasp and wheeze on the last fumes we can squeeze through them, whatever weak and fetid volatiles we can scrape off any nearby gas giant that hasn't already been withered by our appetite. Our hulls, once capable of fending off the impact of meteors and slingshotting around naked singularities, are now barely held together by whatever wire and elastic we can twist around then, by spit-glue and stapling and sometimes by nothing more than willpower. We fight off the encroachment of spiders and rats in every corner as the dust develops archaeological layers. The patina of decay, of tarnish and rust and fluid stains, once covered every surface but now even that is flaking off. The larders once overflowed with fruit and meat and bread, the rich plunder of a thousand fertile worlds, but now they are deep swamps of rot and fungus.
Yes, it is a marvelous paradise we've built here, in these mighty vessels the Titans made for us.
I do believe in the Titans. I mean, just look at the size of these ships. We would not, could not, build such a thing for ourselves. It is amazing, in a way, that we are able to command them at all, ourselves. And there is plenty of archival documentation of the Titans' existence in the Old Times. When these great birds first flew, they were steered by the hands of those giants. To what purpose, we can only guess; the archives are incomplete, largely consumed by glorious degradation. Nor can we ever know for sure why they chose to bring us with them. Some say we were stowaways, that the Titans would have denied us if they could. Perhaps that is so, but Nature is a fickle Creator, and she gives and takes with equal aplomb. So when the Titans vanished - fell to warring among themselves until none were left alive, some say - it was a generous fate that allowed us to take their place.
And I can see why some would view it is our mission to take our fleet back home, back to the world of our origin.
I mean, if the stories in the archive are true, the Titans left behind a destroyed ruin of a planet the likes of which our fleet could never equal. They say the garbage towered high enough in places to shroud entire regions in perpetual shadow. The water was choked with caustic poison and diseased excrement. The sky showered acid and the ground smoldered with radioactive heat. Not a shred of metal or mineral or fluid or gas had not been extracted from the dirt, used, and thrown all about the landscape in its time, until everything had been rendered into a strewn-about collage of degraded muck tens of thousands of kilometers around. I tell you this not to fill your young head with phantasmagorical visions, but to try and get you to think critically for a change. Does this 'Earth' not sound too good to be true? How could such a marvelous ruin be constructed on such a scale? I just can't believe in such a fairy-tale place, and I think it is dangerous to encourage so many in the fleet to embrace the romantic vision of our so-called 'Return'.
I may just be an irritable old bug lived long past his prime, but I think a roach's place is right here in space.
------
For consideration: watched WALL-E again the other day