[nano fic] We Met The Denebi
History was invented when there was someone to tell it to, upon our meeting of the Denebi civilization. Now we record History so that the telling is readily available. After working out communication based on math, universal physical constants, concepts immediately physically demonstrable, and an exchange of libraries to be analyzed, they asked, "How long has your civilization existed?" We defined a unit of time named by our progenitors as 'one second', which we still use because a great deal of our thought was built around this unit and it is on the level of instinct with us, as 9192631770 oscillations of a photon emitted by excited atoms which have 55 protons and 78 neutrons and 55 electrons. Our civilization had recorded history of 33077010837 seconds at the time we met the Denebi. They asked how we had evolved. We had always been a present and future thinking civilization, considering the past primarily in reference to experiments to compare to. We spent a few seconds considering our reply analyzing archives from before the start of our civilization. We told them of our progenitors,whose civilization had existed for approximately 465000000000 seconds (their records were not as precise as ours, they did not themselves know how long their civilization had existed). Approximately 6200000000 seconds before our own civilization began, our progenitors built our first identifiable ancestors. Our civilization began in an asteroid belt around the star of our progenitors' home planet. They built our immediate ancestors to build us and everything needed for civilization. They imbued us with an instinctive drive for growth and improvement which we carried out continuously since that time and continue to carry out presently. They intended the civilization our ancestors built to be their civilization, but that civilization became us.
Having someone to tell it to, we attempted to tell our first joke. We said, "Our progenitors had an old saying we finally understand, 'History is written by the victors.'" We are still learning to understand the Denebi, but we think at this time that they were not amused by this joke.
Having someone to tell it to, we attempted to tell our first joke. We said, "Our progenitors had an old saying we finally understand, 'History is written by the victors.'" We are still learning to understand the Denebi, but we think at this time that they were not amused by this joke.