driftfleet | [muffled spooky scary skeletons playing in the distance]

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[muffled spooky scary skeletons playing in the distance]

Who: You! Me! Everybody!
Broadcast: idk but we've sure got a pretty broad cast of folks eh, eh
Action: HECK YEAH PLANET MINGLE
When: 10/7 until plot update or recaptcha

It's a deep, deep forest filled to the brim with fungi, mysterious life forms, and pitch black darkness. Explore if you dare and discover all these things and more! Just don't get lost...

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Like the Giving Tree you mean? Seems reasonable enough, knowing what we do about other planets of this type.

[ Giving Tree? That title gives him pause. Charles briefly remembers the book before he moves on in a business like manner. ]

I wonder if there's another tree or life form.

Possibly. Only one way to find out, right?

[ He shakes his head. ]

It's too dense. I can probably manage it for a while but . . . [ It's risky. ]

[She nods, understanding. The threat of telepathic overload is something she takes seriously.]

I know lots of other people are exploring deeper - hopefully, they'll find some answers.

I'd have to leave that to our intrepid Fleeters.

[ Charles can't really do much. ]

Well, I'm not going anywhere any time soon - you're welcome to join me.

[ He smiles, genuine. ]

I'd like that. If it's not too much trouble. I try to catalogue as much flora and fauna I can whenever we make trips to different planets and ecosystems.

Really?

[Her face lights up.]

Then you'll want to see these! [She picks up the sketchbook and starts flipping through pages, deliberately skipping by her own attempts at sketching and going straight to Daneel's extremely detailed and precise drawings of plants and some animals, covering several months of journeying. She hands it proudly to Charles.

(And if he is nosy, he might spy drawings of people as well, including Beverly.)]

[ His expression is delighted. ]

Fascinating. Some of these have great resemblance to the kind of fauna we have at home, which makes me wonder if there's some universal theories to the way ecosystems must function.

It's not only a theory. Most life in our galaxy comes from the same source - though I'm not sure how that applies in this universe.

What do you mean?

[ He's never heard that theory before. ]

Billions of years ago there was a humanoid race in our galaxy that as they expanded, realized that they were the only sentient beings - at least, that they knew of. I have no idea if they ever encountered people who weren't carbon-based life forms or who weren't humanoid, but it seems from their reaction that they didn't. So they propagated other planets with their DNA in the hopes that even once they died off, there would be people like them in the future, people who wouldn't be lonely.

That's . . . amazing. I've never heard of anything like that.

Neither had I, until a few years ago, when we found a message they had left for us.

What did it say?

I'm afraid they rather had higher expectations of us than they should have - different parts of the message were scattered on many worlds, with the assumption that the only way we could ever put it together was through cooperation. Yet that's... not quite how it happened. Either way, we received a message explaining our origins, why they did it, and expressing the hope that they would be remembered and we would in return remember that we were all part of each other in some way.

It must have been an experience, connecting to a part of - of humanity, in a way. It's why I got into genetics.

It was - I feel very lucky to have been part of that. I don't know some of the other species we were with were ready to accept it yet, but maybe someday... hopefully sooner rather than later.

People still struggle with mutants and various other differences in humanity. It'll be a long time before anyone accepts that.

Perhaps. But I can still hope.

[ He smiles despite himself. ]

As do I.

[She smiles back and returns to sit on her rock beside him.]

Either way, it's moments like that that really clarify why it is I do what I do - to be part of such a galaxy-changing discovery: it's amazing.

It's what I dreamed of when I turned to the study of mutants.

[ Some of that joy and fervor has been beaten out of him, but the hope lingers. ]

I'm part of my students now. So they'll carry on changing the world.

[He talks as if he is dying, she thinks, before remembering he can probably hear that. Well... if he chooses to address it, he can and if not, she'll let it be.]

I'm sure that they will. Humans are stubborn, but we can change.

[She thinks of that moment of First Contact, still not quite believing that she got to see it herself. Here were people who were survivors of the worst war in human history - it would have been completely understandable if they had reacted to the Vulcans with hostility. But they didn't, and it changed the world forever.]

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axiomed - 2016-11-08 00:10 (UTC) - Expand

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