The Prophets (Abridged)

The Prophets

The bane of mankind is curiosity, for every splitting of the atom, and antimatter reactions are many curious human beings who died desperately clawing their way towards knowledge and the betterment of mankind, all in the name of science.

ACT.I

Somewhere on the moon, a path is revealed by the clearing of dust, and glimmering through in magnificent pulses of light, a golden obelisk set in a valley jealousy enclosed in the bosom of a crater.

Thoughts race through the astronauts’ minds, thoughts of all the speculation that humanity has made of its own existence, and the sureness to which less knowledgeable people attribute to their own brand of truth to be taken with a base alloy of presupposition of religion, and polite disregard for one’s own personal truths based in science.

We were so sure? Weren’t we? Weren’t we happier when we all knew a lot less? Wasn’t it easier not to know? Then why do this? Why put ourselves through something that we know will only hurt us in the end? Naturally rational thoughts from a steady shoreline of ignorant bliss, only to be flooded by a cold tidal wave of curiosity that leads to the obelisk from another world showing images of beings using technology to send the obelisk into space.

***

On the bridge of the ship, the leaders of the Longbow, an interplanetary capable cruiser, assemble to discuss the most life-altering decisions of their careers.

“The moon relic changes everything.”, Marcy says. “If we follow orders, then we need to get back to Earth and give them a full debrief of the Obelisk, which might take months, and then they will classify everything and-”, Richard says, Marcy interrupts, “Terminate our clearance, I’ve seen it before with other relics and non-terrestrial objects, the first thing that goes is our clearance, then we never get into a spaceship again.”

“We can use this to motivate folks planet side to support our next mission, and perhaps we can get special clearance for a better assignment?”, Astra says in her Swedish accent.

“I say if we play this to win, then the winning move is to follow the coordinates on the obelisk, and tell mission command afterward, that way they-”, Hans says, being cut off. “Can’t stop us!”, Marcy says with a light in her eyes like fire from the sun, “I deserve a place in the history books for this, and so does everyone else who is with me, NOW, Who’s with ME!”. Everyone cheers on Marcy as she makes her meteoric rise from ship commander to deity in the eyes of her crew.

***

Now that that the Longbow has become the first spaceship to use star-teleportation technology to warp to the star containing the planet which, according to the ‘obelisk’, originated the ancient extraterrestrial artifact, they do not hesitate to send drones every planet in the solar system to observe any signs of life.

While on the surface of the Earth-like planet, the ship sits in the sky as the largest structure on the planet including most of the landscape features since the ship is as big as a small hill, or the top of a mountain. “The drones have recovered images of artificial structures, this most likely is the planet that could have originated the obelisk.”, Hans says enthusiastically.

“The artifacts we found so far have either been destroyed, or are in a state of decay, it seems whatever civilization that used to reside here has fought some kind of intercontinental planetary war.”, Hans says with a forlorn voice.

Astra looks over the images of broken artifacts on the viewing screen with concern, “The war is over, there has to be survivors out there somewhere.”, Astra says now consumed with the thought that they risked losing their space privileges permanently over a planet full of nothing, “Let’s just keep looking, remember the mission-”

Isn't everything, it’s the only thing, the crew says in unison as they bloom with renewed vigor.

***

Later, a drone passes by overhead, that is, over the heads of the Morlocks, the last surviving race born on this planet, they see it, they understand it since they had spaceships of their own once.

Inside the deep labyrinthian catacombs that sustain the Morlocks with heat from the planet's core, drawings of the drones are presented and builders build in the community workshops.

At the center of the catacombs with walls painted in ancient hieroglyphics, digitally captured video of the spaceship Longbow is shown to the elders of their people, who are counseled by the experts of the various fields of knowledge in this world.

***

Back in the observation room full of screens and monitors fed by roaming planetary drones capturing images of relics and traces of wildlife.

“What if they are starving to death and we could save them? You’re telling me we should just s “What if the government doesn’t exist anymore, doesn’t that mean we vote for the new ship commander?”, Hans asks pointently.

“I’ve heard of people whose countries change their laws mid mission, the crew is responsible for itself, and there must be a majority vote of confidence in leadership.”, Astra says.

***

Days later, the crew is back in the observation room with the addition of the below deck crewmates who have been compelled by Marcy to see the results of their massive risk to their futures in space.

When the people of the ship see relics of their own ship that imitate their own ship, the Longbow with sounds and lights from materials born from this world.

In the coming days, the crew intensively scoured the planet looking to piece together the story left behind by the destroyed relics of this one great world the crew has nicknamed Ozzymandeus, since the works were mighty once, but now only vast wastelands stand in the place of great planet spanning civilizations.

“Looks like it was definity war.”, Hans says.

“Were you expecting an act of God?”, Marcy says, evoking a comical smirk from Hans.

“I still believe in God.”, Astra quips.

“Did you think they worship a deity too?”Hans asks.

“Maybe we’ll find out that they destroyed themselves over religious wars, then you’ll both be right, for now the only way to know is to meet them, we’re taking this mission from observation to exploration”, Marcy says.

“Planetside?”, Astra asks.

“That’s right, we’re going terrestrial, and we’ll use the geothermals out here to recharge the ships power cells.”

***

Now with the Longbow hovering over a volcano absorbing geothermal energy, crewmembers from the ship build expansive bridge networks that allow specialist vehicles to aid in base building, including monitoring towers to look out for signs of life.

Over the next couple of days of building bridges over the volcano into the lower hull of the Longbow, crew members notice that their equipment is faulty and nonfunctional having been stripped of materials, where missing materials have now become a new pandemic at the worksite.

Inside the Observation room, Marcy and the leadership from the bridge are assembled while videos from the observation towers reveal the Morlocks using tools to disassemble the crew’s equipment and steal off into the dead of night.

“If they don’t want to say hi to us, we’re going to walk up to their front door and introduce ourselves and see what they’re doing with our equipment.”, Marcy says.

Marcy leads her well armed crew behind two scanner drones that precede the squadron of twenty-five crewmembers. They wander through canyons sparsely littered with leftover food and waste products, then they follow the drones farthing down into reinforced entrances that the drone deciphers and opens electronically.

“This is it, get ready to meet our new neighbors.”, Marcy says, holding her rifle with its light pointing inside a great machine-made tunnel.

Inside the tunnel, the crew discovers camps of the indigenous life forms called the Morlock, they use A.I. to decipher the language of the domestics, who are a peaceful and curious race of beings who make no effort to avoid the glare of their weapons.

“We finally did it, we found the makers of the Obelisk.”, Marcy says while studying the hieroglyphics on the walls next to repurposed equipment from the Longbow.

***

ACT.II

Days later back in the observation room, Marcy and the other specialist crew members observe satellite imagery showing radioactive uninhabitable zones.

“According to the data, the planet’ surface was greatly altered due to the use of atomic weapons; large segments of land are still soaked in radiation, leaving only fifteen percent of the planet's surface habitable in the nuclear winter.”, Hans says as he observes the satellite data.

“I’m changing the mission, we need to get some of these beings off this world and bring them to earth as refugees.”, Marcy says.

“That sounds like the opposite of the so-called laws you were enforcing before we found these people? What brought this about?”, Manuel retorts.

“These people have a right to continue their existence, even if it’s in refugee zones back on Earth.”, Marcy says.

“How is living in a prison camp worth the trip to Earth?”, Astra says.

“Because they don’t have to live in a radiation soaked hell hole like this, they can start over again and rebuild themselves enough to take back their planet.”, Marcy says.

In the coming weeks, settlements are created near the tunnels leading to the encampments of the Morlocks, who now have a mutual trade with the crew of the Longbow with the permission of Marcy who employs ministers of settlement to mine artifacts for metal and create tools to trade the domestic inhabitants for their time talking to a digital representation of one of themselves, and they have much to speak of about the past while in the observation room.

Later in the observation room, Marcy, Hans, and Astra go over the audio and video of interviews with the Morlocks.

“It’s pronounced More-Lock, as in Morlocks, they used to be a slave race to a master race that descended from the stars, and after thousands of years of oppression, they revolted and the Master race, the so-called Valgothen set their machines to destroy the world, but the Morlocks turned their machines against them and the entire world was left in ruins.”, Hans explains.

Marcy is not surprised, “Aren’t you glad it wasn’t an act of God, maybe their gods still love them.”

“You’re awfully cynical for someone who has made the greatest discovery on Earth!”, Astra reproaches.

“What I found, is no matter how far away we get from earth we’re always going to run into people like us, people who never were just allowed to be free and benevolent, there’s always something out there with superior force imposing its will on something weaker, just like us.”

“You said we can give these people a chance, do you still mean it or what”, Hans exclaims.

“yes”

“Then let’s cheat their fate just like they were cheated out of peace, and let’s all dedicate ourselves to the mission to take them back and let them rebuild and come back stronger.”

***

In the wake of the new settlements among the Morlocks, troubles began to sprout in the form of disturbances amongst the Morlocks that routinely put the crew of the Longbow in danger and at odds with the Morlocks whose resident thugs became the loudest and most problematic.

And in the wake of these disturbances, the crew begins new mission parameters which include fortification of the Longbow with autonomous gun turrets that are ‘last resort’ weapons.

***

Days later, Marcy negotiates a parley with the violent thugs who call themselves the leaders of the Morlocks, really they are tyrants who use their authority given to them by the elders to control the Morlocks on the surface and barter better deals with the crew of the Longbow.

“Tell them either we all come armed, or they don’t get what they want, no negotiations today, tell them!”, Marcy says aiming her rifle at one of the worst thugs in the group.

After a brief back and forth with the others, the thuggish Morlocks give Marcy and her crew the clearance to proceed down to the ancient catacombs with her crew armed and ready.

The way is long and tense as the armed crew of the Longbow, led by Marcy, travels the distance of a skyscraper down into the surface where members of her crew are being held hostage for negotiations to come.

At the bottom of their descent, they arrive at the sacred catacombs, where they find none of their crew, but instead their tracking devices.

“What is the meaning of this, translate!”, Marcy yells.

A Morlock elder explains that he received the tracking devices through a trade, and after Marcy radios to the surface and confirms missing crew members are accounted for, she listens to the elder tell her of the origins of the Obelisks.

He tells her that long ago their race of people destroyed a master race in a planetary revolt, and before they had completed annihilated the master race, the master race constructed a planetary core detonation device that would destroy the entirety of the planet in five hundred years if the master race was not restored from annihilation, needless to say, they failed to heed their warning, and now, five hundred years later, the people from space, that have been called the prophets now have given then a way off the planet and a new home, earth.

Just when the elder finishes telling the history of the world, the planet cracks and rumbles, endangering everyone underground, and forcing every life form, human and otherwise to flee to the surface, including Marcy and her crew how use their rifles liberally to escape the crowded catacombs as everyone on the planet is now doomed.

***

From inside the observation room Hans and Astra are viewing video feeds from the armed and ready observation towers which record images of the Morlocks and their elders taking crew members of the Longbow hostage and demanding entry aboard the ship.

“This is a rescue mission now.”, Hans says with a heavy forlorn voice.

“I guess we wore out our welcome.”, Astra says.

“Hans, get ready to activate the defensive towers!”, Marcy says over the radio.

“They have some of our crew as hostages, if we activate them now, they will kill some of our own shipmates.”, Hans says back.

“We’re coming up through a wave of hostels, when we get clear, activate the autonomous defenses, Do YOU COPY!”, Marcy says with great intensity.

Hans is shocked by this, and Astra pushes the coms button to answer for him, “We got it.”

***

ACT.III

With the turmoil on the surface involving the Morlocks taking crewmembers hostage and the new knowledge that the planet is doomed, The chain of command has broken down and most everyone is panicked and scared, the crew breaks up into tiny alliances leaving those left out scornful of those that chose sides. 

In the end it is practically a free for all with panicked crew members leaving others for dead, and even worse was the sabotaging of other crew members by others for a better chance of survival, in the end there turned out to be little difference from the humans called mankind and the creatures they called inferior.

***

The mission changes to evacuation as the crew are overwhelmed by the indigenous creatures and their schemes, also a doomsday prophecy which is bound to occur any day. 

Crew members fight off the indigenous species who are making a desperate flee to the ship as crew members likewise exodus in mass to the ship, auto guns and defensive weaponry guns down terrestrial and extra-terrestrial alike in their struggle to survive as they entangle with each other time and again in effort to find cover from the weapons and to gain ground to the ship.

 survivors are made to run through a hail of gunfire amidst bright lights rendering the source of the shots invisible to the terrified survivors who may have been gunned down for the unfortunate luck of being near and extraterrestrial if not but momentarily.

Those that were lucky to survive the gantlet of automated and human gunfire, terrestrial and extra-terrestrial alike swarmed into the ships interior, orders were given to halt the launch of the ship as to let as many survivors on board as possible, in the end the ships entrances shut and the ship launches into orbit as it retraces it’s steps back to earth. 

The leadership of the crew notice the results of the doomsday prophecy, which was the formation of a black hole that imploded the planet and leaving behind super dense core of highly magnetic material glowing in the rays of the nearby star, a massive unidentified space ship is seen seemingly absorbing material from the core, the observing ship commander Marcy remarked “that must be the other guys”, of which she assumed were watching the entire time.

***

Epilogue

There is a war to take over the entire ship by the humans, who have learned the extraterrestrials are actively hunting humans and using them for food.

The human race overtakes the remainder of the ship and feeds the extra-terrestrial race with a high-protein diet. During this time the extra-terrestrial race managed to escape its hold with the aid of a sympathetic human. 

The extra-terrestrial tried to free his compatriots and murdered a hand full of human crew members, but ultimately he was captured in an armed struggle to free his comrades, the remainder of them were kept in stasis until the reach Earth.

***

In the End, the surviving crew members and extraterrestrials appear in the mass media after they make it back to earth, it is revealed that other expeditions are common by now, and sentient life is commonplace amongst space travel, leading to the theory of seeded civilization.