Aleph welcomed the break from the labor of making flour. It made her hurt in ways she had never imagined. Even the way they harvested and processed their crops at home were not as demanding as this!
She was going to savor this cake like the absolute treasure it was!
"The topic of this lesson is: How did you get here? First let's calibrate. Ten to the power of one seconds ago, this class started. "
Elsie’s lesson was a massive rest and yet also an invigorating challenge for her mind after being dulled down by the grueling labor of threshing and winnowing and grinding wheat. The simple nature of the display was a delight!
A timeline appeared on the screen with a numerical marker on it, a silent video clip of Elsie speaking was traveling, lagging behind the real thing by exactly 10 seconds.
"Two Times Ten to the power of seven seconds ago, approximately, We departed Redweed. "
The line expanded leftwards, puting the video in one place at the very rightmost end. A stylized image of the city appeared at the new leftmost end.
"Any questions so far?"
Omega raised a hand.
“Is there a reason you are using scholars notation like that? I mean we have perfectly serviceable measures of time on the longer scale, like a year or month, why not just say we are two thirds of a year?”
Elsie gestured at the screen and it changed again. Showing the historical image of the very first of the visitor’s ships to Terra. It was a familiar one, Aleph had seen it more times then she could count in her studies.
“Years will be all but uselessly abstract in a few steps Miss Omega. Now to Continue: Between Ten to the Seventh and Ten to the Ninth seconds ago all three of you were born, the Terran alliance was founded and you began the process of integrating into the greater context of the Reef’s polity and economies actively”
The line started extending further and further until it marked Quarti’s face, haunted and shadowed, somehow aged beyond all reckoning and wracked by terror at the furthest left end now.
The first few images had compressed together into a single noisy glowing point at one end of the graph.
“Approximately Ten to the Twelth seconds ago your species was wiped from the face of Terra by Polivores and subsequent invasive spores, generally known as a eco-plague. Approximately ten to the tenth seconds later your species recolonized Terra by surrogate wombs within a vector species of void borne animals.”
Another image settled between the image of Quarti’s face and the mush that was dominated by the first Visitor’s ship. It looked like a kind of lumpy cow, but more bulbous and strangely textured. There was something sweetly nurturing and maternal about it to Aleph. She had never seen it before and yet she wanted to cuddle with it almost immediately.
[https://i.imgur.com/Jnvd6VO.png]
"Now at this scale, let's add a few points about where myself, our ship mistress, our ship, and Redweed were."
A new line was added above the first. Aleph was still trying to pay attention to something other than those adorable comforting strange cow beasts. They were just, so gentle and soft looking.
“First my own history, under that time frame I have been franchised forty-seven times. This would be something comparable both to your reincarnations and reproduction at the same time. There is much in me that remains the same, there is much that is completely different. There was significant change in myself here”
Several images of things both similar to Elsie and entirely different filled out the new graph. Finally drawing Aleph’s gaze away from the strange ‘mommy cows’ as she was imagining them.
There was not a progression, but rather a seemingly random assortments of different things. Some were much like Elsie was now, but several were living things that looked distinctly fleshy and much like things they had SEEN in redweed. Others were bizzare and abstract, maybe a tree? And then interspersed between were block shapes. One was just a near featureless flat wall with a few etched details.
One in particular that was mostly similar to the current version, although a different color, and much sharper cornered and symmetrical grew larger. But Aleph had spotted something strange.
Aleph raised a hand "Wait, some of your ancestors look like they were made of living flesh, that can't be right? I thought you said you were like, some kind of software machine right?"
"Of course, There are many different substrates on which to run my system. For example here observe."
One of the blocky cubes swung forward and a hatch opened along its side.
The smell hit Aleph like a club and left her dizzy. It was thick and deeply sour in a way that made the Omega and even Quarti retreat. She had never expected ANYTHING would make Quarti start gagging but she could hear a choked retching wheeze even over her own coughing fit. She stared with watering eyes at the source of the smell blinking hard to keep her vision clear.
Within the now open passage was a fleshy wrinkled mass suspended in a jelly like fluid coating.
The shape was different, there were distinct corners that showed it was meant to fill the cubic cavity and bits and pieces of tubes and wires intermeshed with strangely colored veins.
But it was a living brain. The thing even pulsed in little quivering trembles as if it was cold.
It smelled like what Aleph imagined the worst butchered animal crossed with the foulness of leather tanning pits and a rank midden heap!
Aleph’s eyes clouded over with more tears and she had to stop breathing or she was going to vomit. She missed the sight of the seal being closed back up. But the distinct click and hiss of closing was audible and sticky in a way that did not help her keep her lunch down.
Finally the smell cleared thanks to the wonder of Pylo’s magical filtering cloud cushions.
“Apologies, that was not meant to be quite so unpleasant for you. We can focus on morphology and processing standards later, there is indeed a great deal of material that will be needed for your own safety. I expect your species would have some appeal with poachers and less scrupulous types for quick substrate harvesting. There are certainly some very interesting applications in secure communications. But that is not the purpose of this lesson.”
Omega blinked and gave aleph a look, passing a semi-nonverbal ‘i-told-you-so’ over the choir network. Quarti was stoney faced and raptly paying attention. Honestly Aleph would let Omega tease, she was too busy trying not to throw up.
“As I was saying, this particular iteration of my franchise was where I came to Redweed and it was found necessary to perform a change in order to integrate into the Polity’s cultural framework”
The image returned to its place on the timeline, growing small to fit. About a quarter of the way between ‘present day’ and the fall of Terra’s last human civilization. Aleph blinked hard and breathed through her teeth hard, trying to clear the clingy ‘taste’ from the air.
“When I came to Redweed it was roughly half the size as it is now. The territories managed by the polity were limited to just the immediate stellar volume which we are now departing and it had several rivaling neighbors in other economically advantageous positions. The original nomadic core vehicles which had patrolled the reef surface was still visible in its structure instead of merely echoed in the architectural tendencies.”
An image on a new line was added showing a collection of hair thing wiring spun into something like the shape of wheels all woven through each other. This one settled in line with the image of Elsie’s ‘ancestor’.
Another image came up right next to when they had departed, showing what for all Aleph could see was a big heaping pile of black metal and red lights sparkling. She had no sense of scale but assumed it was Redweed.
“Urgh... uh... So... that’s what it looked like from the outside?”
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
Elsie turned on her and tilted their screen a bit to one side.
“Ah, I see, we should expedite solving that problem. But yes that is the exterior of Redweed as it was when we left. Moving on”
Another line appeared above the others.
“This record is less precise, partly because our hosts both ship and minder have proprietary details hidden for the privacy of their clients. But vague estimates can be made. Within the timeframe given Tunie and Pylo have completed between Twenty-Three and Fifty-Seven Transits above one of your light years, and a total of two-thousand total lightyears of shorter hops. In total their distance traveled in that time is between nine and seven thousand light years in total transit.”
This line however was... strangely stretched, sections of it seemed squished together, others stretched almost invisibly thin. Aleph had suspicions as to why.
“However Pylo and Tunie have at best experienced only Seven Times Ten to the Ninth seconds out of the full Ten To the Tenth Seconds represented by local Terran perspective”
All of the lines curled around one another, letting the squash and stretch of Pylo and Tunie’s line become a tight circle at the center while the others surrounded it at about the same distance, sometimes the line would briefly shoot up in a spike to meet with the outer-rim of time, other times it would stay close and tight. Making for a spiky almost eye like pattern to Aleph’s eyes.
The images had all turned into simple circled markers.
She swallowed hard, having finally gotten her stomach to stop wrenching. She seriously need to have a talk with Elsie about this later. You don’t just open up your surprisingly meaty organs up like that! Urgh!
“Has everyone comfortably grasped the scope we are now operating at?”
Omega had a look that suggested she was coming out of swapping her skillshare. But her eyes were glittering with a new clarity and she gave a sharp nod.
Quarti shrugged and made some kind of affirmative bird squawk.
Aleph looked at the chart that had become a ring amd exhaled heavily through her nose. Don’t think about rotten brains... Don’t think about rotten brains.
“Okay, Yeah I guess. But what are you getting at?”
The lines all folded together into a single one and wove tight together.
Then it all panned out a GREAT deal more.
“Ten to the Thirteenth Seconds ago Terra would have matured sufficiently to support large scale settlement and industry of your species. Most of its major symbiotic ecologies would have also matured by this time and be similar in composition to those you are familiar with. Excluding outliers and occasional disruptions.”
The line’s marked events jumped again in relevance, all of the historical points related to Pylo and Humans was miniscule and tiny. The single point practically next too the one that marked Terra’s point of maturity.
She could only blink rapidly as the next burst of words flowed over them.
"Ten to the Fourteenth Seconds ago the individual creature you know as Terra hatched from her egg. She did so at best records I have available here within a region one hundred light years away. Likely within a breeding creche of thousands upon thousands of others. At the next major port we should be able to find the exact one as such breeding migration events are extremely prominent and generally well recorded."
The Aleph and her fellow terrans were silent, there were images of eggs splitting and releasing creatures that somehow sang to Aleph. Something deep in her soul sang a song back and she could feel the chorus of the others around her.
Was it just a recreation? A recording from another event similar? Aleph was not sure but her heart gave out at the beauty of it and something deep told her not only how true this image was but that it was precious.
Worlds were being born before their eyes.
“Between Ten to the Fifteenth and Ten to the Sixteenth Seconds ago your species is presumed to have evolved into its symbiotic relationship with the Immanibelua sicuterrae.”
The scale jumped once again, showing just over three billion years by Aleph’s reckoning. Her head swam with the moments of a world’s birth. The ringing inside that it had inspired and echoed between her and Omega and even Quarti. The number was giving her a headache in how it echoed in the hollowness left behind by that sight.
“Between Ten to the Sixteenth and Ten to the Seventeenth Seconds ago is the earliest evidence and records of organizations that are directly comparable to modern Reef Polity and Empires. In particular evidenced by a Pan-Reef extinction event called the Sophogen Mass Extinction which occurred shortly before Ten to the Sixteenth seconds ago. This period will have to be the subject of its own lesson, as within Ten to the Fifteenth seconds the majority of significant historical events occurred, including the creation of the domains of Memetica, Drexleria, Cryptoentolia, and Michakarya.”
They were all silent, there were images of things, they looked kind of like bugs. Or machines, it was hard to say. There were images of ancient stones with markings on them. Strange objects jutting out of the reef below white cold looking stars. Honestly Aleph felt like she had been dropped off a cliff and left broken at the bottom after seeing the birth of worlds. And here they were just rushing past the moment that any Terran would have felt was the genesis of all things.
Like it was nothing.
“Ten to the Sixteenth-and-a-half seconds ago, Animalia and all other domains of multicellular complexity emerge. Prior to this point all material evidence of life is single cellular or inorganic Resonance phenomena based.”
The scale jumped again. Aleph honestly was just staring.
“There are inheritance markers of the first signs of Cantia symbiotic with DNA, and thus the first entirely matter-based life. Before this only Cantia and perhaps earlier resonance derived life exist going back to the edges of Ten to the Eighteenth Seconds ago. The reef is estimated to have reached more or less it's current physical size from the iron deposits dated to comparable timeframes”
It was absurd but the timeline jumped several times more. All other previous events shrank together into a single diffuse cloud and then a single point on the right. Aleph lost all context of how long ago this must represent.
“At Ten to the Twentieth seconds ago it has been estimated that the earliest known aggregations of matter were formed. In particular a two meter deposition of lithium shows a banding in the distribution of isotopes that has been linked to pre-symbiote star metabolisms, showing the layer of sediment in that chunk took Ten to the Eighteenth seconds to deposit.”
Quarti whistled shrilly through her teeth. Aleph honestly could just stare, and occasionally blink at the tiny little cluster of ‘events’ which contained everything that she had ever imagined had happened and more on the right. And then having extended an expanse unfathomable a line going to the left. Where a single white star burned in blackness, with sparse dots of light twinkling beyond it.
"After this point, there is no referent for strict physical time, but there is rich data in the cladistics of various cantia organisms. Thus from here on out, times must be based off gener-"
Omega’s hand shot up.
“Time for a break! I have to take a piss and my brain is going to explode! Bye!”
Aleph blinked as the image of the timeline vanished, leaving just blank empty ‘canvas’.
“Ah! I see! Yes that is fine, please rest and let this lesson settle. Thank you for your time”
Her head felt subtly burned from the whole overload.
Quarti’s hand at her shoulder made her jump.
“Ey lil-wossumlin! Let's go get ya settled fer a nap time eh?”
Honestly she could only just barely make herself nod. Her head felt like it was full of lead.
How could anything be as old as the Reef?!