Prologue: Fuse
In this part of the Galaxy, nothing interesting ever happened. Floating in the outskirts of the Perseus Arm, there was a dead and cold solar system. Its size, microscopic; its presence, unrecognizable. In this system, there were only two rocky planets orbiting a dim brown dwarf. In fact, calling it a solar system would be an insult to the other stars in the Galaxy.
However, there was something quite peculiar that was about to happen in one of those rocky planets. In one of the liquid water ponds of this planet, near a geothermal vent, thousands of complex molecules floated about, occasionally colliding with each other, forming even longer chains, until one day... One day, they were complete. Life emerged.
1 BILLION YEARS LATER
At this point in time, Man had already touched stars different then his own. Initially driven out of the home world by necessity, now the human race expanded their empire thanks to the Curiosity, the hunger for knowledge, which made them overcome their differences and strive for something greater. The technology developed by Man because of this not only allowed him to visit other stars, or, other galaxies, but could create stars.
In their quest for knowledge, the human race also attempted to find intelligent life. But while the Galaxy was brimming with life, Man found the intelligent variety only twice. Unfortunately, those civilizations had successfully achieved planetary suicide. Planets ravaged by nuclear war and runaway greenhouse effects. All that was left were their corpses.
Unsatisfied with this, a group of scientists built the fastest and most advanced ship in history. Powered by cutting edge black hole technology, this ship could reach the Andromeda Galaxy in 200 years using its Alcubierre drive. They left to find intelligence in Andromeda, after all, 1 trillion stars equals a lot of possibilities. They never returned.
The ones that stayed decided to help developing life to become intelligent. Even though the human civilization was comprised of 5 quintillion individuals, being alone in the Galaxy was unnerving. Man then jumped from solar system to solar system, using his advanced technology to create perfect conditions for life to evolve towards intelligence.
__*__
Many eons passed, but they were still alone. You might be thinking that Humanity failed this mission. But you’d be wrong. In fact, they had succeeded many times.
Intelligent life had a problem, however. It had the tendency to self-destruct. Not long after it emerged, the individuals of many different species on many different planets battled long and terrible wars, for an enormous variety of reasons. Resources, technology, and surprisingly, fertile mates.
Whenever Man tried to intervene, things got worse. If he gave them technology, the wars ended up faster than usual and sometimes doomed the entire planet and the other inhabitants. If he gave them resources, they progressively lost their intelligence, because there was no need for it.
What was lacking in all those civilizations was Curiosity. The curiosity that made Humanity put their differences aside to unveil the secrets of the unknown. But it wasn’t as simple as editing the DNA of the sapient species Man created. Doing it too soon and their curiosity got them killed. It happened to the cat. Waiting too long, and they would use the knowledge obtained from this impulse for discovery to destroy each other. But there was no way to know when to insert curiosity in the hearts and minds of these young civilizations.
The scientists decided to let Nature take its course. And to repeat this mission over and over again, until it worked. All they had to do was to wait for the probabilities to exhaust themselves.
In time, mankind grew tired and started to lose faith. A large amount of the population decided to leave the Milky Way and visit other galaxies before they were too far away for them to reach. Many of Man’s constructions were abandoned, some of them drifting out into space, destined to float forever in a sea of emptiness.
But one day…
One day a large human vessel, on its way to exit the Galaxy, stumbled across a small brown dwarf at the edge of the Perseus Arm. The Captain resolved to land on one of the planets orbiting the failed star. He had visited all the stars in the galaxy, so why he didn’t remember this system?
What he found surprised him greatly: microbial life, thriving in a harsh environment, struggling to evolve into macroscopic beings. Looking in the sky, he saw a moon. A feeling of nostalgia enveloped him. He remembered. He remembered Earth, its beautiful sky with the Moon, and beneath it, life prospering and the civilization growing. He knew it. He knew this could be true again. Right here, on this planet. He was the last human living in his original, biological body, or as his colleagues kindly called it, meat bag. The technology allowed his body to live indefinitely, and he was thankful for it. He didn’t want to lose the sensation of being alive. To breathe, to touch, to feel. And after years living in space, landing in this planetoid made him realize that he could feel again.
Wasting no time, the Captain left a small beacon device on the planet and then returned to his ship, and from it launched a small package containing billions of nanobots towards the failed star. They collided. The nanites, surviving the impact, started to self-replicate at an astonishing speed, quickly covering the entire brown dwarf. Then, the star slowly started to shrink and to glow. Its temperature rising steadily, until it suddenly engulfed the nanites and started to burst material from its surface. It moved, alive. It was no longer a failed star.
The Captain left, and promised to himself to one day return.
__*__
2 BILLION YEARS LATER
THE DAWN OF PONIES
In this part of the Galaxy, nothing interesting ever happened. Except, of course, the little rocky planet orbiting an also unusually little star. Down there on the surface, there was life everywhere, all kinds of it. And that included predators and preys.
On the surface of the planet there was a group of small herbivore creatures near a lake, in search for food. Luckily, a fructiferous tree resided next to the lake. Unfortunately, the fruits themselves were out of the reach of most of them because of the size of the tree. And also, a group of carnivorous, ironically made out of wood wolf-like animals was lurking in the thin forest.
These herbivores could be divided in three races: the ones with small wings that allowed them to fly short distances, the ones with horn-like protrusions coming out of their heads, and the ones without these extra appendages but with stronger muscles. The winged ones could grasp the fruits from the tallest trees, and could easily dodge most predators. The ones with horns could use it to reach fruits that were in places higher than they could jump, and most importantly, use it to defend themselves from predators. The ones with muscles could use them to kick trees, causing a few fruits to fall, or jump higher to get them with their mouths. And a powerful kick in the right place could stun a predator, maybe even making it unconscious.
The group of small creatures was aware of the danger, and the winged ones were the first ones to get the fruits they needed to last a few days and leave. The muscular creatures gave powerful kicks at the base of the tree, to no avail. In fact, the situation got worse, now the “Timberwolves” knew where they were. The muscular herbivores quickly jumped on one another until one of them, for a brief period of time, was high enough to knock down a few fruits. Then they ran away with the small amount of apple-like fruits that fell from the tree, leaving two horned creatures behind.
The creatures began to panic, because they couldn’t reach the fruits and they could feel the earth shaking with the steps of the wolves coming for them. If they left now, they could escape, but would starve to death a few days later. If they stayed there and kept trying to do the same things the others did to obtain the fruits, they would die in the mouths of the timberwolves. After all, repeating the same process over and over again hoping things will change is insane.
One of the creatures remembered that, not too long ago, it had found a strange glowing object in the forest. Out of curiosity, the creature touched the object and felt a strange sensation, the feeling of some sort of energy flowing inside its limb towards its head and body. And in this present moment, the creature could feel it again. With a grunt of effort, the small herbivore focused all of this energy into its head. The action felt… natural. Her stomach rumbled, and she looked at the top of the tree. The apple-like fruits weren’t there anymore. They were on the ground.
This startling realization provoked an epiphany, and the creature, that was the most sapient of all the creatures of this planet, perceived the potential it had in its head. Repeating the action, the pony-like animal focused on a tree stick that was resting on the ground and successfully levitated it. Putting a little more energy in its horn, and the stick was set ablaze. The other creature jumped away, almost having a heart attack.
Suddenly, the wolves appeared, accidentally destroying a few bushes after jumping in the direction of the creatures. They started circling the herbivores, almost tasting their flesh just from seeing them. Easy kill.
In a rapid motion, the female pony-like animal focused all of her energy in her horn-like protrusion and all of the timberwolves burst into flames. There was so much energy involved that it created a shockwave. The wolves died so fast that their screams never left their throats.
Stunned by her own power, the female creature sat on the ground to get her bearings, while the male was picking up the fruits.
__*__
By nightfall, the two creatures had found a place to sleep. Today’s events increased the courage of the creatures enough for them to risk sleeping in a cave. The power she had allowed them to obtain and stock enough food for the entire winter. After making a bed from leaves and branches, the creatures laid down and mated.
__*__
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I can tell.
Sorry to be a dick, but it just isn't much good. Keep working at it.
Very good keep it up
3659815
Thanks for your sincerity, but what can I do to improve it?
When I first started, the narrator felt like an old grandpa telling a story to his grandchildren before bedtime. But I wanted something more serious, and it started to sound like Discovery Channel documentary...
The idea is interesting but the intro is very slow and little more than an infodump.
I suggest making it more story-like.
This story is interesting, but you really need to fix up your grammar skills. Anyway, I'll be watching.
slow intro isnt necessarily bad... though you might cut it back a fair bit. You might say something for the fanfic summary like "humans expanding into the universe got bored and tried seeding life. Most planet experiments failed miserably, but one seemed to thrive." or something like that, and cut back on most of the info dump.
You probably want "Powered by cutting edge black hole technology"... what you wrote makes it sound like somebody took a black hole and stuffed it in a ship.
If you want generic help, or feedback before actually publishing anything, pop in the IRC chat channel for fimfiction.
I will reserve my up/down vote until there is 10k words or so. Until then its going in my favourites so I can keep track.
3661058
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole_starship
Thanks for your comment, I'll edit right away!
3659837
Thanks!
3659989
Is it really that slow? And I thought it was too fast.
But this first chapter is really just an infodump, the story itself comes next.
3661008
English is not my first language, so yeah...
But if you know a good editor, it would help a lot.
I found this story to be rather interesting. Sure it sounds a bit off but the premise and the way the story is written reminds me a lot of a bedtime story. I can't help but find the style nostalgic... Is that odd at all?
Anyway the story seems well thought out and I really like the 2001 esk feel of it. A few mechanical problems but nothing that broke the flow of the story.
You did good, keep it up!
Humans in this story make me think of forerunners in halo...
I like it so far. The premise seems pretty nice, but I do agree that it is a tad slow...
, so I hope it won't get too dark/edgy/whatever (the tags in general are often pretty ambiguous I feel anyways).
.
Actually, now that I think on it, it's more that nothing of interest really happens, you would probably be better off passing this chapter as a prolouge or something, since it does not have much story in it, and it feels like most of it won't be of much significance later on...
Another, more personal thing, is the Dark tag for me, I like stories that are a bit more light-hearted, but decided to give this a chance
Anyways, keep it up, and don't let the neighsayers get you down, you can only improve by doing, even if at first it might not be the best
3662321
Thanks! That is the kind of constructive criticism I asked :)
3666354
Thanks!
Originally, the story was just that, and I'd let the readers imagine what comes next, but the idea grew in my head and I decided to make an actual story. I know it feels that this prologue doesn't have many important things, but I guarantee that most of it will be mentioned or explained later.
And don't worry about it being too dark, at least for now, I don't have anything scary planned.
Is exactly that ambiguity that makes it hard to find actual dark stories, the top rated "dark" stories are anything but dark. Since it is a gray area, I decided it would be a good idea to add the tag...
3666354
About the slow feel of things. This is the bit that really reminded me of the first ten minutes of 2001. (BTW if you haven't seen 2001 I highly recommend it.) The slow opening that builds to the very first sentient thought of a species is a pretty powerful image and this first chapter gets that exactly right. I'm actually really curious to see if the next chapter will open with a giant space station. XD
It is certainly.....Interesting and thought provoking. I must say that I like it a fair bit. It makes a few points that makes one think.
3669062
That's not a bad idea...
But I don't like copying others. Too much
3669082
Exactly my good reader! Precisely my intentions.
3665777 And they are capable of ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL!!!
3665777
One of my inspirations, but I didn't imagine the humans being the Forerunners...
3667138
.
3669062
That slow intro thing is the exact reason why I would like to see this labeled as a prolouge or intro though. I don't have anything against it, but when I see "chapter" (or, I guess, anything that does not allude to background story/build-up) I want to have things happen
3669197
.
It's not copying, it's a repectful nod
EDIT: Ok, now I feel stupid and or non-perceptive..
It says Prolouge right there in the chapter name...
Did you change it since my read through earlier perchance?
3672040
Hehehe of course it is...
And by the way, look again. I've labeled as a prologue.
3672051
damn some people are fast on this site
and yeah, I edited after I saw that
3672040
I changed it when I read your first comment.
3673312 Well I see two thingk happening to our speces after we become truly space faring. 1 we discover life and and that we are part of a bigger family or 2 we are truely alone and must ensure that this isn't the case anymore. Becoming progenitor species basically.
Fuse isn't really auitable for this kind of story.
Should have been for some futuristic observation of a space station/whatever.