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Godlike


Edric O

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GODLIKE

Motto: "In hoc signo vinces"

I wanted to put my imagination to work and also make a detailed story about one of my dark visions for the future. ;) This is not Dune-related.

Warning: Highly "politically incorrect" and controversial. Contains heavy sarcasm. Don't complain if you don't like it.

It was one of the most beautiful sunsets he had ever seen. The small red circle of light descended behind the glimmering icy peaks of Krakot Glacier. Epicurus began to feel to cold chill of night, but he didn't move. It wasn't everyday you got to see a red giant set behind the horizon of a distant iceworld. After the last ray of red light dissapeared, he knew he must get back to the base. Even his suit couldn't protect him for long from the frigid nights of Acaelus III. Still, as dead as this world war, it might have been home to simple lifeforms sometime in the past, when the atmosphere was thicker. Even now there might be survivors underground... But as he got nearer to the base he was again amazed by how insane he must have been when he took this assignment. He, Epicurus Dixon, the most famous archaeologist of the Empire, on the trail of primitive alien legends! This was what those foolish religionists of the past must have feeled like... if they were intelligent enough to realize how stupid they were.

"And still are", he thought, thinking of the few tens of thousands of Christians and Budhists still tarnishing the beautiful Human Space Empire. It was too bad that they hadn't been wiped out by the Religion Wars of the 21st century, like the Muslims had been. A few hundred million casualties meant nothing when it came to the evolution of the human race.

Epicurus had a degree in the "Rise and fall of human myths and legends".

He had reached the base. The grey metal door had the symbol of the Empire engraved on it: a DNA helix at the center of a "solar system" with 4 planets orbiting around it, each of them "impaled" by a sword. The symbol of human superiority. As he went in he was greeted by his 5 fellow scientists. None of them had found anything, although Natasha, the biologist, thought she managed to discover some new bacteria. Soon the Eloran slaves brought dinner. Epicurus's slave, 11785, stumbled and fell, spreading the delicious traqar pie all over the floor. Epicurus set his slave-trainer on level 5 and kept it on for a few minutes. 11785 rolled on the floor in pain.

"Epi, why don't you just give him level 6 and buy a new Eloran? This one's useless, you'll never train it!"

"Good point Qin! It's old anyway..."

As he received the fatal shock, the slave opened both his mouths as if trying to scream and his 2 large eyes gave Epicurus a blank stare. Soon the others cleaned the pie off the floor and threw it away in the recyclotron, along with 11785's body.

"I hope you'll let me borrow your Eloran, Carwaya. Yours is the strongest, I'm sure he can serve both of us until we get back to Acaelus II so I can buy a new one." said Epicurus

"Sure, no sweat. Hey, this reminds me, wanna come to my cabin for some sex after dinner?"

"Carwaya, I asked you an hour ago and you promised you'd do it with me after dinner." said Qin

"Oh, both of you can come! And maybe I'll get Natasha to spice things up a bit, too."

Ever since the late 21st century, (when the nearly tribal institution of marriage was abolished) sex was no longer considered some personal secret. People were free to express their desires and ask others to join them for sex without all those elaborate primitive rituals. Also, nobody was uneducated enough to believe in fairy tales like love or romance any more. And the myth of two-parent families had also been shattered.

Epicurus loved living in the year 2317. His vast knowledge of history told him that this last century had been a true golden age for mankind.

-TO BE CONTINUED-

Note: As you can see Gob, I didn't actually give any... inappropriate descriptions. But I had to include that last part because I want to give a full picture of their society before the... oops, almost wrote a spoiler. ;)

In case you're wondering, Epicurus is the main villain. And I didn't choose his name at random (see greek philosophy).

Final note: This is NOT an argument thread. If you want to voice your opinion about the subject of the story you can argue with me in the other forums. The Religion thread in General would be appropiate, for example.

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Sure it's okay, jacob! Here comes part 2:

The next morning (if you could call it that - it was still night due to the slow rotation of the planet), Epicurus received a message with "unknown origin". Intrigued by it, he had it displayed on the wall-screen. As he read it, a faint smile of satisfaction could be seen on his face. After all this time, they still needed him. Epicurus promptly deleted the message after reading it carefully. He pressed his fingers on certain points on the floor next to his bed and a small secret compartment opened. In it he found several devices that could be assembled to create an EM scanner... or an EM desintegrator, the cleanest weapon in the Empire. No traces, no evidence, nothing but a fine dust left of the target. He resisted the urge to practice with it and assembled the scanner. Besides, he wouldn't be fighting anyone.

Everyone noticed that Epi was particularly happy that morning. They assumed Carwaya must have tried some new technique last night. A little before "noon", the red disk of Alpha Acaelus rose above the white horizon. Epicurus immediately left the lab and said he was going out for yet another search. This was supposed to be very boring work. Actually, none of the other 5 scientists knew what they were looking for. They were analyzing layers of ice and native bacteria in hope of finding a trace of the great civilization from Acaelian legends. A stupid task if there ever was one... but they were well paid for it. Epicurus, on the other hand, had everything cleared out for him by that message. As he went out, he headed for a specific area and turned on the EM scanner. Soon he found what he had been looking for. Infrared radiation... off the scale, on a planet like this! He used the quickly assembled desintegrator to dig towards the source of the radiation. Besides the ice, he also had to cut through some rock. But after a few minutes he could go down through the hole, descending into his new discovery...

It was an underground cave. And not just any cave: It had a stream of hot volcanic water running through it. And the walls had writing on them. Epicurus knew very well what this meant. He quickly took recordings of every square inch, from different angles. And then he noticed the unusual rock in the middle of the cave. That was no ordinary rock, just made to look like one. It was a small shrine with even more writing, on all sides. After recording it all, Epicurus realized that this must have been some kind of a temple. And he remembered his... "secondary objective". The desintegrator could be set to self-destruct, vaporising everything in a 10 meter radius. A very expensive and rather small "explosion", but it left no traces. After Epicurus was safely out, the whole temple was reduced to atomic particles. Satisfied that everything went along perfectly, Epicurus headed back to base. He knew that the superiors would find some excuse to end the expedition and send all 6 scientists home very soon, weeks ahead of schedule. Well, not all 6 of them. Epicurus had a time consuming job to do. And it started right on the next-door planet, Acaelus II.

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Epicurus didn't have to wait for long. After 2 days the excuse had been found and they were all on their way only a day later. Now he could see Acaelus II from the window of his cabin in the transit shuttle. A huge blue-and-green sphere. A living world, bigger than most Earth-class planets. 1.2 g at sea level... a bit nasty. And water covered only 57% of this world. Too bad it had such primitive natives. The Acaelians were good for nothing. They made lousy slaves, they weren't physically strong enough for industrial work and they couldn't even be used as food.

Using a sentient species as food might seem a waste, but actually it was quite efficient. Sentients could endure much worse conditions than common animals. A prime example (and the only one, actually) were the Mudorins. Before humans arrived, these sentient herbivores only occupied a small fraction of their homeworld. They had an effective birth control system, which was in place to conserve their planet's worthless native species. Humans exterminated all the weeds and pests and replaced them with beautiful terran life. The Mudorins used to have a moderately advanced civilization which placed great emphasis on arts. Science was ignored while they built monuments and made sophisticated decorations. These artistic achievements had no value. They had been destroyed, as they were a waste of space. The Mudorins were moved from their luxurious estates to productive farms where they were bread for their highly nutritious (and tasty) meat. Forced breeding ensured a continuous flow of Mudorin meat to match the ever-increasing demand.

Epicurus's thoughts were going in odd directions. He pulled them together and thought of the Acaelians again. Truly the scourge of the galaxy. They all had just a single Religion. A planetary belief system in their single God. If these sentient pests were easier to kill they would have probably been exterminated by now...

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