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Post by IDEK on Sept 15, 2021 23:13:22 GMT
"Oh, I had help.
After that first planet... it was fun, But I had made a environment that wasn't suited to intelligent life. I wanted to keep creating, but I couldn't keep building onto the same place, so I had to find a new one." Vaol explained. "It wasn't hard. There's a lot of rocks for me to fertilize, but..." Vaol tilted his head, peering down at the buttons on the table before looking at his chair and pressing a button on the armrest there instead.
A single image appeared in front of Dorcalla, a world that looked to have once been covered in bustling cities, surrounded by spaceships and satellites, all kinds... now it was a ruin.
Vaol paid that no mind, however, instead pressing a 'reverse' button until all of the damage was undone and a megalopolis of a planet was being projected between the both of them. "I toned it down a bit this time, and started to reproduce." Vaol explained, tilting his head towards Sparta, the guard standing next to him. "My children would help me create more planets, more creatures, more life on a bigger scale than I was able to on my own."
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Post by Master Psychic on Sept 16, 2021 6:14:25 GMT
Dorcalla folded his arms.
"Are you absolutely certain your planets won't meet the same fate as mine did?" Dorcalla asked.
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Post by IDEK on Sept 16, 2021 11:06:02 GMT
"No." Vaol admitted, very easily.
"Or rather, they won't reach the *same* fate. There have been some that haven't lasted as long as others, even already. There have been planets that I made too close to their suns, some too far away for the life we were trying to propagate."
At his side, Sparta's mandibles twitched, tightly gripping their weapon as they looked down at the lab below them.
"But, didn't Morsaga make it so that every on a individual level would die? Isn't it a natural expansion of that for her to claim even planets? Every planet that dies and every creature that goes extinct on it carries a lesson to be learned. Why didn't it survive? What happened to cause this species to die out? By determining the answer, we can determine how to make stronger, sturdier life." Vaol continued.
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Post by Master Psychic on Sept 16, 2021 11:46:54 GMT
"Right now the only answer I want is how I can restore my planet back to the way it was, anything else matters little to me." Dorcalla said.
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Post by IDEK on Sept 16, 2021 12:40:41 GMT
"..." Vaol paused, pressing a button and turning all the holograms off.
He tilted his head. "I cannot help you with that and you will not convince Morsaga either. That is a question with no answer."
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Post by Master Psychic on Sept 16, 2021 12:45:58 GMT
"I doubt only my planet suffered from this catastrophe, the same thing must be happening to the others and their planets or will happen eventually. Gateway was the only one not to build worlds of his own so he clearly knew something like this was about to happen." Dorcalla said with absolute certainty.
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Post by IDEK on Sept 16, 2021 12:50:15 GMT
"Then would you rather talk with him?" Vaol asked. His tone exactly the same as it usually was.
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Post by Master Psychic on Sept 16, 2021 12:51:40 GMT
"Not till I see the fate of those other planets first, to make sure that whatever this is isn't happening just to me specifically." Dorcalla decided.
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Post by IDEK on Sept 16, 2021 13:08:35 GMT
"... Hey, perhaps this will help."
Vaol pulled the hologram of the megalopolis planet up again, fast-forwarding it to present day, where it was a ruin again. "This is what the planet my children were made on looks like now, as we speak." He said, a bit of slime dropping onto the floor from his mandibles.
Sparta bent down to scoop it up, almost on reflex. "Must you remind us of this?" They asked.
Vaol ignored Sparta, instead looking to Dorcalla's reaction. Tilting his head like a inquisitive child.
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Post by Master Psychic on Sept 16, 2021 13:17:48 GMT
Dorcalla got closer to to the monitor, squinting at the image of the ruined planet.
"How did it end up like this?" Dorcalla asked.
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Post by IDEK on Sept 16, 2021 13:24:55 GMT
"Well, to begin with that, I'll have to start from the beginning.
You remember everything I told you so far. Of how the first planet I made wasn't suitable for intelligent life? How I made a second, and made all of my friends here to help me make life on a bigger scale?" Vaol asked.
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Post by Master Psychic on Sept 16, 2021 13:27:10 GMT
Dorcalla gave him a simple nod to all of his questions.
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Post by IDEK on Sept 16, 2021 14:03:50 GMT
"That world is fun. It's a lot of fun, I love all of the creatures that inhabit it with all my heart, but they're too wild for a society to form anywhere near them. Any attempts would be met with eradication.
So, like I said, I toned it down for the next planet. Only gentle animals that ate grass or plankton. So that there... not just one city, but many could be made."
As Vaol explained, it cut to the past, to that pristine megalopolis planet, inhabited by the insects that Vaol spawned to help him create.
Some children could be seen running along a street, it panned to a pristine bedroom where one was sleeping, a room filled with slime, all being warmed by the bright and warm lights affixed to the ceiling. It panned out, cutting to laboratories much like the one below the gods at this point in time, to a large landing pad where a spaceship with empty vials was landing. A team of the insects made their way over to the vials and began pouring slime from the containers they wore on their backs into the containers on the ship itself.
Now refilled, the ship made its return trip back to space.
"They aren't as effective as I am on my own, but they're numbers were more than enough. They had to invent to be able to form societies, to create ships that would allow them to travel the stars and reach the planets they would help create. Containers pure enough to store samples and fertilizer that would help make live, laboratories like the one below us now weren't necessary when it was just me, but despite the fact that they couldn't do what I can naturally, they were still able to discover a way to do so.
This ingenuity, it will impress me until the end of time."
It followed a particular ship, before cutting to a single insectoid, one with slightly lighter exoskeleton than most with grey sclera, one a darker shade than the other and a slightly bent antenna wearing a sleeveless robe standing on a grassy hill, watching a large sparkling fish-like creature swim around in the ocean in front of it.
"Something I've discovered, is every lifeform, even those born from the same dna will be different. The world it lives in and the things it sees alone will change what it becomes, but even that isn't enough to guarantee anything. Two different lives can see the same thing and feel differently for it."
It cut to the same insect, walking onto a beach and watching from a distance as a team of her kin crowded around the corpse of the same giant fish, now washed up on the beach and rotting. Stabbing syringes between its scales and taking notes amongst each other.
"I made sure to tell them all of you, and of their purpose. Death is to be learned from. We are here to create, to learn from our failures and continue to create..." Vaol narrated, as the slightly lighter insect stepped towards the group.
"Wait!" She cried out, "What are you doing!?"
The crowd turned to face her, this wasn't a race blessed with facial expressions, but even among them, they looked expressionless.
"Harvesting DNA." One of the insects said, pulling their now full syringe out from the corpse. "This race of fish cannibalized themselves. So large, they ate everything else in the ocean all that was left was each other. This was the last one. According to Vaol, this world is still inhabitable, but we will need to try again if we wish to populate it, so we're taking what we can."
"Why are you confused? You're the same as us. You should know this already." Another said.
"It's just... it's dead, now. Shouldn't you leave the body alone so it can rest?" She suggested. "It's already dead, you don't need to bother it anymore. Just let it lie here, peacefully. If you torment it's body, surely you will only torment its spirit too."
"Her name was Memphis, as it happens." Vaol said, like it was a fun fact. "She was a odd one, but I liked her. Morsaga likes her too. She cared so much for that fish that she came up with all this interesting philosophy about caring for the corpses of the deceased. It wasn't just that fish either, it was everything. Even those of her kind who passed, even trees.
Every life lost, to her, was a tragedy. But one to be respected, not one to be feared.
Others, similar to her, but different, started appearing here and there. Those who had their own strange, but fascinating ideas."
It cut to a different place entirely, in front of a laboratory , where some insects had set up some kind of makeshift church in the middle of a street, one in particular, with one black eye and another white, a wreath of lillies on her head and green robes more grandiose than Vaols had both arms outstretched, reaching for the crowd that had formed in front of her.
"Don't you see? Too much ambition, too much sin will only lead you to a path of evil! We must never forget to have passion and empathy for those we create! Dorcalla has given us a challenge, and whether we succeed or fail, it is Morsaga who is the judge! We should live our lives so that the gods of death smile upon us rather than frown! If we are too prideful, if we want more than we can achieve, they will surely curse us! So each day should be a blessing! Each success should be earned! We are no more important than anyone else around us and we all have our roles to fulfil, so may we fulfil them with honour and with love!"
"I had told them about you all of course, and all of these groups began to form worshipping you, in a way. I suppose it is to be expected. If one hears of the afterlife they're going to head to, they're going to form their life so that they can avoid heading to a bad one." Vaol said, to Dorcalla in the present.
and in the flashback, Vaol was watching this congression from a large window, in the biggest building of them all. He was accompanied by two guards here, one was clearly Sparta but the other, with pure white eyes was new. Or rather, nowhere to be seen in the present day..
"Vaol!" A insect wearing a scholars robes, with purple sclera called out as they burst into the room he resided in. "Vaol, if you will, I was hoping to talk with you."
"Sure. What is it?"
"I... My name is Uruk. I'm a biologist. I was the one who submitted the vampire squid for review."
"Ah, the vampire squid. I loved that one!" Vaol exclaimed. "So wonderful."
"I wanted to talk with you, I have... questions, about us." Uruk said, gesturing towards himself. "And about, everything we're doing."
"Others cared less, of course. They had other things on their mind... such as, the reason for their existence. The reason for *my* existence, even."
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Post by Master Psychic on Sept 16, 2021 14:20:08 GMT
"Of course they would have questions, it's not like they were born with knowledge planted in their heads like our creators did with us." Dorcalla reasoned.
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Post by IDEK on Sept 16, 2021 14:43:38 GMT
Vaol bristled at that. "...Indeed."
Back in the flashback, some time had passed as Vaol answered the questions Uruk had and Uruk asked some more.
Eventually, he would leave. But as he did, Uruk's mandibles chittered irritably.
It would cut to him later, with many other insects in a laboratory, observing a lone squid in a tank. One pressed a button, opening up a pipe and allowing several smaller fish into the tank as well. The squid paused to observe the fish and in turn, was observed by the scientists. Uruk turned his head to the side, instead watching his fellows.
"It seemed my answers didn't satisfy him."
Uruk was next seen among 9 others, varying robes, eye colours and other features between all of them. Seated around a table in a dark, crowded storeroom filled with all manner of lab equipment. Pieces of concept art and old computer hardware scattered all over the floor.
The only thing there of relevance to all of them was a chalkboard propped up against the wall, which the other 9 were all looking at as Uruk drew on it. Some twitching their antennae with scepticism and others leaning forwards, fully enraptured.
"By Vaol's very own admittance, life is supposed to change. We have the god Litorius to thank for that after all! Yet here we are, and here he is, still having us exist solely for his own goals!
He created us so we could help him create life and that is all we do!" Uruk explained. "Why can't we simply live in the ocean, live on the land like the things he forces us to make!? Why do we have to toil and labour for our father!? We live, isn't that enough for him? Can't he let us decide what he become!?"
The sun set, the moon rose, the sun set again, this group continued to have meetings in the same location, sometimes losing members, sometimes gaining them, even the white eyed guard- the one that was conspicuously absent from Vaol's entourage in the present was among them, until one day...
"I've discovered something very interesting. They call it betrayal." Vaol said. "They convinced themselves that I was no longer fit to lead them, that I cared not for them and they planned a attack.
Or rather, they planned a scene."
Another day, Vaol was walking through a lab with the same two guards, staring up at the screens on the walls showcasing various worlds and creatures as he discussed something with one of his spawn. The same one that had run off with the deer's DNA.
Uruk entered the scene, calling out "Vaol! This ends now!"
Everyone, the scientists busy at work, the other insects doing their own business, Vaol and the two at his side all turned to face him.
"In truth, the decision to have two of my kind at my side at all times was more of a instinctual one. I know the reasoning behind it. It's the truth of safety in numbers. But I never actually thought someone would try to attack me. I never imagined any of them would have any of the ideas they did.
It's impressive, isn't it? Fascinating, how life works."
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