July Challenge 2010 response
Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand. - Carl Sagan (1994) Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
*Seated against a tree, the ex-agent busies himself with a long wooden rod and a length of string, tying them together and fixing something glinting and pointed on the end of the cord. A buzz and he glances at his phone, perched on a flat rock safely away from any potential splashing from the stream running beside him. Checking it, he raises an eyebrow at the text on the screen, then sets the device down again, going back to fiddling with his project*
In my old office at Sector Seven, I had a picture. Not one of those flimsy little laminated rags babbling on about keeping your chin up, how teamwork contains no 'I', nothing so trite. *A snort, and Simmons hooks a worm onto his fishing line, tossing it into the stream.*
I had a photo. Blown up, framed and hung across from my desk. You might be familiar with it. Then again, maybe not. Certainly, some of the newbies coming through couldn't grasp the significance of that picture if I beat them over the head with it. *He huffs disgustedly and mimics a gormless expression.* 'Why do you have a lousy photo of some light streaks?' Pah!
That lousy photo is of Earth, suspended in space, about three point eight billion miles from the Voyager 1. It's small, a dust mote in sunlight at that distance, and the subject of a very pertinent rumination by someone who definitely knew what he was talking about, even though he was limited by the information he was able to access. In his words, 'Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.'
Sector Seven knew that from the very beginning. While we also knew that we weren't as alone as Sagan thought, the 'Ice-Man' Project and the Cube only served to underscore the sentiment. Alien cultures and aesthetics aside, it's hard to believe a robot loaded down with more fire power than a military regiment and an artefact that turns your average household blender into a killing machine would come from a culture of hugs and kisses. Or whatever their equivalent to hugs and kisses are. There was a reason we kept Frosty on ice, and it wasn't 'cos we thought the icicles looked pretty under the fluorescent lights. No, we had company out in the vasty deep of outer space, and whatever was out there? Wasn't likely to be friendly towards their own kind, much less the inhabitants of an alien world.
And in any case, the Earth is our planet. It's ours to protect, to keep safe, and it's messes are our responsibility to fix, not a bunch of NBEs who just brought more conflict down on our heads.
*Gaze fixed on the gently babbling stream, watching the float of his fishing line bob about in the water, Simmons murmurs quietly.* Sagan went on to say that 'The Earth is the only world known so far to harbour life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.'
Again, while not entirely correct on the life harbouring part, seeing as how the Cube and Frosty had to come from somewhere, it's true that we wouldn't make it on a journey to the nearest known life bearing planet. And seeing as how said life bearing planet happens to be Frosty's own, we'd probably not survive two seconds on it if we did. So our planet is all we've got. And as much as folks might not have liked my old employers, we were still trying to protect the only home we had.
*A long pause as he stares at the running water, then huffs.* And teamwork has a 'me' in it. What do you say to that, poster boys?
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand. - Carl Sagan (1994) Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
*Seated against a tree, the ex-agent busies himself with a long wooden rod and a length of string, tying them together and fixing something glinting and pointed on the end of the cord. A buzz and he glances at his phone, perched on a flat rock safely away from any potential splashing from the stream running beside him. Checking it, he raises an eyebrow at the text on the screen, then sets the device down again, going back to fiddling with his project*
In my old office at Sector Seven, I had a picture. Not one of those flimsy little laminated rags babbling on about keeping your chin up, how teamwork contains no 'I', nothing so trite. *A snort, and Simmons hooks a worm onto his fishing line, tossing it into the stream.*
I had a photo. Blown up, framed and hung across from my desk. You might be familiar with it. Then again, maybe not. Certainly, some of the newbies coming through couldn't grasp the significance of that picture if I beat them over the head with it. *He huffs disgustedly and mimics a gormless expression.* 'Why do you have a lousy photo of some light streaks?' Pah!
That lousy photo is of Earth, suspended in space, about three point eight billion miles from the Voyager 1. It's small, a dust mote in sunlight at that distance, and the subject of a very pertinent rumination by someone who definitely knew what he was talking about, even though he was limited by the information he was able to access. In his words, 'Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.'
Sector Seven knew that from the very beginning. While we also knew that we weren't as alone as Sagan thought, the 'Ice-Man' Project and the Cube only served to underscore the sentiment. Alien cultures and aesthetics aside, it's hard to believe a robot loaded down with more fire power than a military regiment and an artefact that turns your average household blender into a killing machine would come from a culture of hugs and kisses. Or whatever their equivalent to hugs and kisses are. There was a reason we kept Frosty on ice, and it wasn't 'cos we thought the icicles looked pretty under the fluorescent lights. No, we had company out in the vasty deep of outer space, and whatever was out there? Wasn't likely to be friendly towards their own kind, much less the inhabitants of an alien world.
And in any case, the Earth is our planet. It's ours to protect, to keep safe, and it's messes are our responsibility to fix, not a bunch of NBEs who just brought more conflict down on our heads.
*Gaze fixed on the gently babbling stream, watching the float of his fishing line bob about in the water, Simmons murmurs quietly.* Sagan went on to say that 'The Earth is the only world known so far to harbour life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.'
Again, while not entirely correct on the life harbouring part, seeing as how the Cube and Frosty had to come from somewhere, it's true that we wouldn't make it on a journey to the nearest known life bearing planet. And seeing as how said life bearing planet happens to be Frosty's own, we'd probably not survive two seconds on it if we did. So our planet is all we've got. And as much as folks might not have liked my old employers, we were still trying to protect the only home we had.
*A long pause as he stares at the running water, then huffs.* And teamwork has a 'me' in it. What do you say to that, poster boys?