Long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away. BIAD and I were involved in a collaborative writing story at TOS. It was a Space Opera, had several writers, and more twists, turns, and subplots than you could shake any three sticks at. One of the subplots involved a solar system owned by one of the protagonists called "Khalamzadar", and specifically the fourth planet in that system.
That planet was a hot, jungle covered mess. It was a little like Australia - everything there wanted to kill and eat you. Dotted across the landscape of the entire planet, beneath the jungle canopy with occasional towers emerging above the canopy, were thousands of mysteriously abandoned cities, or, more accurately, their ruins. There was no indication of what had become of the inhabitants, or what they had called their world.
This is their story, copied and pasted with appropriately updated changes from posts I made in that thread.
=============================================================
Rebo had once been a man. That was long ago, however, when men still walked the surface of Euzkala, and flew in her skies.
Some had even launched from her surface, and had sailed among the stars. Long ago, Rebo reflected. Long ago, and no more. Whatever he was now, whether still a man, something more, or something much, much less, he would never again sail the stars.
He was, as far as he had been able to determine in the last 40 years, the last of his kind. The last Man on Euzkala. Hell, for that matter, as far as he had been able to determine because of the effects of the planetary quarantine, he was the last man in the universe - if man he still was.
His nightmare had begun 40 years ago or so, with the deployment of an engineered bacterium. Man had warred with man since the dawn of time, but as time progressed, he got more efficient at eliminating himself. The miracle of modern science promised an efficiency at killing that boggled the mind. The point came where man didn't even have to leave the comfort of his living room to commit genocide.
Nearly 150 years before Rebo's time, science had discovered an interesting and intriguing fact - the genetic makeup of humans was not matched by any other life form on Euzkala. Man stood alone in the universe, it seemed, with no relatives which could be identified in the animal kingdom. It was a puzzlement and perplexity to evolutionary science, but a boon to religions. It seemed that man had appeared, fully formed and wholly modern on the planet, and had no evolutionary precursors. Religion took that as a confirmation of a creator god, and science scratched it's collective head, checked and rechecked the data, and redoubled it's efforts to find SOME precursor species, ANY precursor species in a frantic effort to refute the religious elements. The effort failed miserably. Religion took off like a shot, leaving science in the dust.
Even when man left the Euzkala incubator and spread out towards the stars, no one ever seriously considered a possibility which was in reality a fact - man had not originated on Euzkala, he had been transplanted there aeons ago. Religion, of course, never seriously considered that possibility because Euzkala was certainly the center of the Universe - confirmed by the uniqueness of man, and the obvious conclusion that a creator god had created him right there in place, sure evidence of Euzkala's favored status amongst all stars.
Science, on the other hand, never seriously considered that possibility because of the dearth of evidence for such a preposterous proposal. Man could be traced back roughly 30,000 years, and appeared suddenly, but in a supremely primitive state. Surely if he had come from elsewhere, there would have been evidence of an advanced civilization that he had brought with him in colonization. Put in layman's terms, man could not have come from elsewhere because there was no evidence whatsoever that he had the technological ability to transport himself there.
Euzkalians, religious and scientific alike, had never heard of the Seeders, the ancient race that had seeded mankind among several star systems in an effort to insure the survival of the species.
The discovery of the supposed uniqueness of man spurred religious development in unexpected ways. It started out with each continent attempting to lay claim to being the birthplace of The First Man. To that end, the religiously minded sought explanations to place their continent as the Genesis Continent, and over a very short period of time, the explanations dreamed up by man transformed into legend and mythologies purported to come from the creator god. Religious schisms developed along continental lines, each claiming to be "The One True Religion" as it went along.
It can't be stressed enough that each continent thought of itself as "The Genesis Continent", and believed itself to be in sole possession of "The One True Religion", even though they had all grown from the same root.
It wasn't long before each religion sought to IMPOSE it's primacy on all the others. After all, should not all men follow the One True Religion, and honor it's god? Wars broke out over the issue. Terrible, manically destructive wars. No one can kill with the efficiency of a True Believer, approved by god and sure of his place in the universe both Here and Hereafter.
A breakthrough in man's destruction of man occurred on the large southern continent of Euzkala. In a diabolical marriage of religion, science, and state, science provided a new and horrid weapon for the use of the State at the behest of the religion in control of it. A scientist in a genetics laboratory first made the connection that, since man had a unique genetic structure, it should be possible to engineer a microbe that would attack only man, leaving the rest of Euzkalian life unscathed, even with the potential to be used as vectors for the new bug. Was it not a sign from the creator god himself that this was the way to win wars? The evidence that this was so was right there in the unique genetics! They were obviously designed for just such a possibility by the creator - more evidence of his omniscience and foresight. he had known, in his infinite wisdom, that mankind would some day veer away fro The One True Religion and have to be brought back into the fold - by force, if necessary - and had given man the gift that would allow that to happen.
Of course, there were problems to be overcome in this approach. Since ALL men had the same genetics, the bug could not be engineered to select for one population or another. It would strike all with equal ferocity if left unchecked. It was engineered to not be able to survive outside a living human host for more than 72 hours. This would insure that the ground could not be poisoned for eternity by the microbe. After all, once the heretics were dealt with, the true believers would no doubt colonize, be fruitful and multiply, and establish The One True Religion over the entire planet. That had to be the creator god's will, since he had engineered it to be so a very long time ago. A 72 hour survival span would allow for a variety of vectors to distribute the virus into the enemy population, while at the same time insuring that it would not survive long enough to be "blown back" to the distributing population. whatever the distribution method - aerosols, dust, animal, or bomb, the virus could not survive long enough on it's own to be returned to the sender. The beauty of this approach was that none of the lives of friendly soldiers would even need to be risked in an invasion.
When enough of the Bug had been produced in secret, the plan was put into effect. All of Euzkala would soon belong to The One True Religion! The Bug was seeded by a variety of methods onto all the other continents, leaving only the large southern continent Bug-free.
It did not stay that way long.
In the early stages of The Bug War, it was not recognized just how virulent and deadly The Bug was. What WAS recognized was that a sudden epidemic had sprang up on every continent other than the big southern one. It was soon realized that there was some sort of biological attack afoot, and it didn't take long to surmise the source of it - the only place where it WASN'T happening. In an unprecedented show of cooperation and solidarity, the governments on ALL of the other continents formed pacts and alliances, intent on erasing the southern menace from the planet once and for all. Scientists were put to work on a fast track to find a cure for The Bug, but soldiers did what soldiers do - they invaded the offending continent in force, and at several points.
Many of those soldiers were already infected, and unaware of that fact. The Bug had bypassed the 72 hour survival span by the simple expedient of returning home via human vectors, in which it could survive indefinitely once they were infected, and before it eventually killed them.
It returned home by riding in the bloodstreams of not one or two men, but riding in soldiers by their millions. There was no possibility of containing it anywhere on the planet. it was on the loose, and on the rampage, and there was not a damned thing anyone could do about it but die from it.
(Continued...)
.
That planet was a hot, jungle covered mess. It was a little like Australia - everything there wanted to kill and eat you. Dotted across the landscape of the entire planet, beneath the jungle canopy with occasional towers emerging above the canopy, were thousands of mysteriously abandoned cities, or, more accurately, their ruins. There was no indication of what had become of the inhabitants, or what they had called their world.
This is their story, copied and pasted with appropriately updated changes from posts I made in that thread.
=============================================================
Rebo had once been a man. That was long ago, however, when men still walked the surface of Euzkala, and flew in her skies.
Some had even launched from her surface, and had sailed among the stars. Long ago, Rebo reflected. Long ago, and no more. Whatever he was now, whether still a man, something more, or something much, much less, he would never again sail the stars.
He was, as far as he had been able to determine in the last 40 years, the last of his kind. The last Man on Euzkala. Hell, for that matter, as far as he had been able to determine because of the effects of the planetary quarantine, he was the last man in the universe - if man he still was.
His nightmare had begun 40 years ago or so, with the deployment of an engineered bacterium. Man had warred with man since the dawn of time, but as time progressed, he got more efficient at eliminating himself. The miracle of modern science promised an efficiency at killing that boggled the mind. The point came where man didn't even have to leave the comfort of his living room to commit genocide.
Nearly 150 years before Rebo's time, science had discovered an interesting and intriguing fact - the genetic makeup of humans was not matched by any other life form on Euzkala. Man stood alone in the universe, it seemed, with no relatives which could be identified in the animal kingdom. It was a puzzlement and perplexity to evolutionary science, but a boon to religions. It seemed that man had appeared, fully formed and wholly modern on the planet, and had no evolutionary precursors. Religion took that as a confirmation of a creator god, and science scratched it's collective head, checked and rechecked the data, and redoubled it's efforts to find SOME precursor species, ANY precursor species in a frantic effort to refute the religious elements. The effort failed miserably. Religion took off like a shot, leaving science in the dust.
Even when man left the Euzkala incubator and spread out towards the stars, no one ever seriously considered a possibility which was in reality a fact - man had not originated on Euzkala, he had been transplanted there aeons ago. Religion, of course, never seriously considered that possibility because Euzkala was certainly the center of the Universe - confirmed by the uniqueness of man, and the obvious conclusion that a creator god had created him right there in place, sure evidence of Euzkala's favored status amongst all stars.
Science, on the other hand, never seriously considered that possibility because of the dearth of evidence for such a preposterous proposal. Man could be traced back roughly 30,000 years, and appeared suddenly, but in a supremely primitive state. Surely if he had come from elsewhere, there would have been evidence of an advanced civilization that he had brought with him in colonization. Put in layman's terms, man could not have come from elsewhere because there was no evidence whatsoever that he had the technological ability to transport himself there.
Euzkalians, religious and scientific alike, had never heard of the Seeders, the ancient race that had seeded mankind among several star systems in an effort to insure the survival of the species.
The discovery of the supposed uniqueness of man spurred religious development in unexpected ways. It started out with each continent attempting to lay claim to being the birthplace of The First Man. To that end, the religiously minded sought explanations to place their continent as the Genesis Continent, and over a very short period of time, the explanations dreamed up by man transformed into legend and mythologies purported to come from the creator god. Religious schisms developed along continental lines, each claiming to be "The One True Religion" as it went along.
It can't be stressed enough that each continent thought of itself as "The Genesis Continent", and believed itself to be in sole possession of "The One True Religion", even though they had all grown from the same root.
It wasn't long before each religion sought to IMPOSE it's primacy on all the others. After all, should not all men follow the One True Religion, and honor it's god? Wars broke out over the issue. Terrible, manically destructive wars. No one can kill with the efficiency of a True Believer, approved by god and sure of his place in the universe both Here and Hereafter.
A breakthrough in man's destruction of man occurred on the large southern continent of Euzkala. In a diabolical marriage of religion, science, and state, science provided a new and horrid weapon for the use of the State at the behest of the religion in control of it. A scientist in a genetics laboratory first made the connection that, since man had a unique genetic structure, it should be possible to engineer a microbe that would attack only man, leaving the rest of Euzkalian life unscathed, even with the potential to be used as vectors for the new bug. Was it not a sign from the creator god himself that this was the way to win wars? The evidence that this was so was right there in the unique genetics! They were obviously designed for just such a possibility by the creator - more evidence of his omniscience and foresight. he had known, in his infinite wisdom, that mankind would some day veer away fro The One True Religion and have to be brought back into the fold - by force, if necessary - and had given man the gift that would allow that to happen.
Of course, there were problems to be overcome in this approach. Since ALL men had the same genetics, the bug could not be engineered to select for one population or another. It would strike all with equal ferocity if left unchecked. It was engineered to not be able to survive outside a living human host for more than 72 hours. This would insure that the ground could not be poisoned for eternity by the microbe. After all, once the heretics were dealt with, the true believers would no doubt colonize, be fruitful and multiply, and establish The One True Religion over the entire planet. That had to be the creator god's will, since he had engineered it to be so a very long time ago. A 72 hour survival span would allow for a variety of vectors to distribute the virus into the enemy population, while at the same time insuring that it would not survive long enough to be "blown back" to the distributing population. whatever the distribution method - aerosols, dust, animal, or bomb, the virus could not survive long enough on it's own to be returned to the sender. The beauty of this approach was that none of the lives of friendly soldiers would even need to be risked in an invasion.
When enough of the Bug had been produced in secret, the plan was put into effect. All of Euzkala would soon belong to The One True Religion! The Bug was seeded by a variety of methods onto all the other continents, leaving only the large southern continent Bug-free.
It did not stay that way long.
In the early stages of The Bug War, it was not recognized just how virulent and deadly The Bug was. What WAS recognized was that a sudden epidemic had sprang up on every continent other than the big southern one. It was soon realized that there was some sort of biological attack afoot, and it didn't take long to surmise the source of it - the only place where it WASN'T happening. In an unprecedented show of cooperation and solidarity, the governments on ALL of the other continents formed pacts and alliances, intent on erasing the southern menace from the planet once and for all. Scientists were put to work on a fast track to find a cure for The Bug, but soldiers did what soldiers do - they invaded the offending continent in force, and at several points.
Many of those soldiers were already infected, and unaware of that fact. The Bug had bypassed the 72 hour survival span by the simple expedient of returning home via human vectors, in which it could survive indefinitely once they were infected, and before it eventually killed them.
It returned home by riding in the bloodstreams of not one or two men, but riding in soldiers by their millions. There was no possibility of containing it anywhere on the planet. it was on the loose, and on the rampage, and there was not a damned thing anyone could do about it but die from it.
(Continued...)
.
Diogenes was eating bread and lentils for supper. He was seen by the philosopher Aristippus, who lived comfortably by flattering the king.
Said Aristippus, ‘If you would learn to be subservient to the king you would not have to live on lentils.’ Said Diogenes, ‘Learn to live on lentils and you will not have to be subservient to the king.’
Said Aristippus, ‘If you would learn to be subservient to the king you would not have to live on lentils.’ Said Diogenes, ‘Learn to live on lentils and you will not have to be subservient to the king.’