wisdom of the ages

A brilliant and devoted scientist by the name of Dr. Ignatius Obelus develops the project that searches the skies for sentient life on other worlds. In 2076 he invents an advanced telescope that is placed at the edge of our solar system for optimal viewing. This telescope is so powerful that it can detect artificial light on other planets.

By the year 2077 a small star that is located in the outer rim of the Andromeda Galaxy is discovered to have a planet orbiting in the star system’s habitable zone. Dr. Obelus is the first one to lay eyes on the vast city lights that illuminate its dark side when it passes in front of its sun. By the year 2080, he invents a telescopic lens capable of seeing more details of the planet’s surface. By 2083 it is verified that this civilization is quite innovative. Further observation reveals that this stellar community has the ability to harness the power of a star. Ignatius is praised across all of the Earth for his discoveries and unites the planet in celebration!

After a long week of interacting with all of humanity, I retire to my vacation home deep in the mountains of the Himalayas. I have a nice meal, then retire to bed early to beckon what tomorrow might have in store for me. 

Lying in bed, my mind races and I think about what will come next for humanity after this momentous discovery. We are not alone and it is proven. There are still questions left unanswered and more hints left to be analyzed, and the expertise to discover more about these aliens. 

As I begin to drift off, I hear a soft, peculiar sound outside. I look from bed and gaze out the window, but only snow covered mountains and a few swaying trees are seen on this peaceful night. I climb back into bed again and this time I fall asleep quite quickly. 

Feeling incredibly well rested with what felt like only 10 minutes of sleep, I awaken to realize the room is illuminating a blinding white haze. I roll over and notice that I’m floating, and my bed is nowhere to be seen. There is the slightest hum in the background. The hum starts to get louder. The light begins to get impossibly brighter, and the humming is now deafening. And just to the point of sensory overload, everything turns silent and the blinding light fades darker than dark can get.

A soft, surrounding female voice speaks to your humble narrator, Doctor Obelus. She calls out in gibberish, almost the combination of different languages all at once, making me uneasy and overwhelmed. The voice eventually becomes comprehensible and tells me that I had just passed through time. After a short while of absorbing this in the darkness, I come to grips with my situation and demand to be set free of this imprisonment. She explains that I am not being held against my will, but rather I’m here for the sake of humanity. Before I can even fathom a response, an opening is revealed in what used to be darkness. I soon see stars and galaxies all around me, saturating my new surroundings. 

I appear to be in a bubble attached to the arm of a gigantic spaceship. The bubble slowly retracts back towards the ship. I spin around weightlessly to admire and absorb the breathtaking imagery. Behind me, I see what looks to be a star that is completely black with little intensity and fire. In front of me I move closer towards the ship as I anxiously await meeting the female who was guiding me through this incredible event.

The bubble docks with the ship and the door opens. A human female unlike any I’ve ever seen stands there with a smile that could melt an entire planet of men. She reaches out to hold my hand and guides me through the tremendous corridors of the ship. As I walk alongside her, I remain speechless and stop to look out the window.  The ship slowly travels away from the Black Star into the infinite vastness of space. 

She grabs my hand and we start walking further into the belly of the ship. I am escorted to a conference room where more humans greet me. I sit down with an overwhelming sense of awe towards this unimaginable situation as the debriefing commences.

After hours of talking, I sum everything up. Half-a-million years have passed and humanity has evolved exponentially.  Everyone I’ve seen on the ship remarkably has many of the same characteristics. They explained that this is because the human genome had evolved to the point of perfection, making the human race exceptionally gifted with only subtle differences between individuals. 

They also developed the means to harvest the energy of stars, making space travel as easy as riding a bike across a city block. Given their knowledge of harvesting and taming a star’s energy, they recently discovered that a Black Star had a specific time/phase differential. This allows the fabric of space time to bend and contort producing a portal. These “new humans,” or Progens as they call themselves, used precise calculations to bring me through time from 2083 to when and where I am right now. They also proclaimed that a Black Star is extremely rare in the known universe. Once a time jump is complete, it can never happen again because the Black Star is fully drained of all its remaining energy.  Why did they choose me?

But wouldn’t they have, or didn’t they cause a change in the timeline by taking me from my time? It turned out that when I was going to bed that night, the noise I heard was that of an impending avalanche that supposedly killed me in my sleep. The Progens took me out of that time knowing that according to the history books I had died that day. They went as far as cloning a dead replica of me to be left in that time period to preserve the timeline.

The Progens also explained to me that soon after my death an alien race had invaded the Earth pillaging and destroying all technology and rendering the world helpless. Humanity henceforth fell into a dark age that lasted many centuries due to global disorder and chaos. There was no record of alien invasion throughout these hundreds of years, but the threat loomed in the minds of many. Humanity began to stir and technology did advance, but in secret. As time passed they felt humanity would be safer spreading across the stars in case there were more alien conflicts.

Enter the Progens who in half a million years charted and navigated through 12 galaxies, keeping in constant contact with each other during the exploration. This curiosity to explore grew as the threat of alien conflict diminished. In fact no intelligent form of any alien beings existed.  Some alien discoveries helped the Progens become who they are in this time; especially their ability to harvest the energy of a star. Ruins were discovered throughout the galaxies that told of an alien race located in the Andromeda Galaxy. The glyphs in the ruins revealed the worship of a mythical alien race. Known as the Elders, their wisdom was apparently unmatched in the universe.

The Progen’s task now was not to avoid any aliens, but to find them. Did they move on to another galaxy in search of the Elders? That’s why I was brought to the future. Because I had been the only human to study and view a thriving alien civilization. The civilization that I saw through my telescope in 2083 could be the missing piece in explaining why there are no sentient beings present in the charted galaxies. But my telescope was seized by aliens after I left my original time, leaving no record to the whereabouts of the Andromeda civilization. 

For me it was only a year ago that I had pinpointed its location among the stars. Now that I am up to speed on everything, the Progens plot my coordinates to the system using their futuristic instruments. The system, in this time period, is located on the far side of the Andromeda Galaxy, which calculates to 2 million light years away from our current position. The Progens estimate this trip to take several thousand years. I then faint to the floor.

I awaken in the Progens medical bay wishing all of this was a dream. The female that greeted me earlier explains that because I am not of this time, I am immune to its effects and my age will always remain the same. Not only was the Black Star unique, but so was I. The Progens are accustomed to long treks through the cosmos and have evolved their lifespans to be 300 years on average. 

All Progen ships spread throughout the 12 galaxies are hailed to rendezvous in the Andromeda Galaxy at the set coordinates. Foreseeing that this will be quite the pilgrimage, the Progens educate me during the journey with vast amounts of information they have assimilated throughout half a million years. I acquire so much knowledge that I begin to feel more like them. I see them come and go from generation to generation as our voyage brings us closer to our destination. 

I stand at the front of the Progen command ship realizing that in only a few more decades, we will arrive at our coordinates.  Most of the Progens that were spread across the other galaxies were now cruising along side of us. In these several millennia, I have become the perfect representation of my former self; unlocking two-thirds of my brain’s potential, and becoming physically fit with superhuman attributes. As we move closer to the planet, we realize there would be no signs of life. No lights like the ones I had seen through my telescope in the past. Why would this galaxy be any different from the rest in the universe?

With the journey almost to an end, and all the other Progens united with us in their respective ships, we plan a landing party to see what had transpired on this planet. We conclude that some huge force decimated the entire surface of the planet. Cities fallen to ashes lay in dust across this desolate world. Why did this force destroy such a once thriving society? We scan the planet’s crust only to find underground ruins toward the northern pole resembling a temple. We determine that aliens of many races came here to consult the Elders. The other Progens and I agree that the ruins on this planet need to be studied carefully to define their significance.

 Our archaeological excavations discover that the ruins speak of a super energy source called a Diamond Star. The legend says that this kind of star is so unique that only one exists in the universe. With great thanks to my progressing intellect, I deduce that this type of star is miraculously formed when its core burns through the heavier elements, leading to carbon, and if the conditions are just right, to diamond. More analysis maintains that this is the system that harbors the Diamond Star. Maybe this ominous force was searching for it, not realizing that a great power was nigh. 

Other ruins near the southern continent tell of a place at the edge of the universe that possesses the Gateway to Salvation. This information excites our curiosity and we decide that our only mission now is to find this Gateway, in hopes to solve the universal disappearance of sentient alien life. We soon cultivate the Diamond Star’s infinite energy for our Progen fleet, allowing us to scale the vast cosmos towards the edge of our universe.

We travel faster than ever before, harnessing a great power and energy. It’s as if the solar wind of the Diamond Star is at our sails. The edge of the universe equates to 50 billion years from our location but the journey takes a mere 1 million years. The speed of light is inconceivable but the Progen’s technology, and the super energy powering our ships, helps us to reach a speed close to light. 

This journey is so great that the Progens evolve more so towards perfection. I become ageless and more perfect as well, with near infinite brain capacity.  As the Progens procreate over and over again, my sense of time starts to change immensely. One hundred years feels like ten minutes. Through this journey the Progens also make me their leader. They respect my decisions and trust me completely; and when I tell them to stay the course, they do not hesitate.

As we reach the edge of the universe, the cosmos slowly darkens. The stars that were behind us are now so far away that we can no longer use them to determine our location. All readouts aboard our ships are working at peak efficiency as complete nothingness gradually surrounds us. Only the light of our ships is visible. And from the darkness a tiny spec of light is unveiled. 

I use the telescope located in front of the command ship to get a closer view. What I discover is a small yellow star propelling an infinitely enormous plume. As we speed nearer, the plume is actually a super massive black hole feeding off the star; like a beacon of light captured for eternity by the grasp of the black hole. The gravity of this strange stellar phenomenon is resilient but our ship’s energy allows us to keep a safe distance. Never has anything this big ever been viewed, and we had hoped to meet aliens here, but was their fate decided by their own curiosity? 

Maybe if we travel around it there might be something on the other side. With anxiety gripping the fleet, we try circumnavigating this quasi-stellar phenomenon. For thousands of years we attempt to find the edge but we fail at each instance only to realize that our search is never ending. Perhaps this is the very edge of the universe. One of the other Progens asks me where a Gateway to Salvation might be in this vacuum of space. Maybe this is what the Elders referred to in their ruins as being the Gateway.

I decree to the Progens that we travel through the black hole instead of around it.  We prepare the fleet for the journey into this giant abyss. As we enter the event horizon, time begins to distort and stand still for a moment. All of my being and reality for what seems to have been an eternity flashes before my eyes. And for a moment I see faint stars on the other side of the black hole.

As the time distortion begins to wear off, I order the whole fleet to scan the stars ahead for signs of life. All ships report back to me stating the scans to be positive. We coast completely through the Gateway as the stars brighten. Behind us the black hole’s gravity endeavors to suck our ships back whence we came, but our energy reserves keep us in this new realm. But are the life signs that we scanned sentient? After mere minutes, one of the Progens detect another ship far in the distance. Could this be the moment our humanity has been waiting for all this time?

As the alien ship closes in on our fleet, it suddenly halts to wait for us. Our numerous scans tell us that we are in a new universe that is teeming with life signs. The Gateway has led us to another reality, but is it safe? The rendezvous appears to be a friendly one when we discover that their weapons are not activated. Before I get a chance to hail them, a peculiar voice over our ships speakers proclaiming them to be the Elders of the Diamond System and reassure us that they come in peace. The command ship I am on eventually docks inside their ship so the Progens and I can establish first contact.

As I disembark from my ship I see an alien for the first time ever. They look exactly like the imagery from the 20th and 21st centuries: tall skinny bodies, big head, bold, black eyes. The Elders guide me and the Progen Commanders to a meeting area to get acquainted and discuss important business. The Elders reveal that their alien race pillaged and destroyed our technology to purposefully throw humanity into a dark age. The Progens look surprised at the Elder’s declaration and turn to me with a disappointing frown.  

The Elders reassure us that their reasoning was justifiable. They speak of an evil that lurks in the darkest depths of the universe. These malevolent beings, known as the Ancients, thrive on technology as if it is an interstellar delicacy. They will decimate any beings in their path to assimilate technology for the betterment of their race. They have conquered enough civilizations to uncover the existence of the Diamond star, and the energy that it possesses. The Ancients make this their primary mission towards potential universal domination. 

The Elders devastated our technology to protect us from the Ancients. They did this to my people of the 21st century to make sure the Ancients would not detect us as we evolved. The scare that the Elders instilled in us then made humanity’s decision clear to not spread out across the stars until our technology was fully rebuilt. And that is how humanity unknowingly remained undetected from the Ancients through the ensuing millennia.

Furthermore, the Elders always knew of the Gateway to Salvation because their ancestors discovered this soon after the creation of the universe. A select group of advanced Elders formed the Wielders of the Cosmos to protect the interests of everything. The Minder’s main purpose was, and still is, to protect and preserve this timeline. And they state that I am the key element in that purpose. I must persist and live for as long as it is willed upon me. 

With their cosmic wisdom, the Wielders inform the Progens and I that we are the newest and youngest inhabitants of the universe from which we came. It is also the destiny of all our races to colonize this new universe, and the Progens are the last ones to arrive. But if we do not destroy the quasar, the Ancients will poison the new universe with their malevolence. It is now our mission to go back and take the Diamond of the Elder system and use it to detonate and collapse the Gateway to Salvation. 

One of the many alien species that dwell in this new universe offers us their colossal star-mining ship to extract the Diamond. Along with myself, a select group of elite Progens, and aliens from thousands of other races (from the old universe and the new universe), we head back through the Gateway and towards the Diamond system. The majority of the Progens stay in the new universe to perpetuate our race into infinity. However, our elite group may not make it out of this mission alive. We aspire to detonate the Diamond in tow as we travel through the Gateway, forever sealing the old universe.

The Wielders inform us that the Ancients are slow to travel, but they will detect the Diamond’s energy once it is free from the shell of the white dwarf that cradles it. And since they had detected our gathering there eons ago, we expect to cross paths sooner rather than later.

Another extensive journey carries our group back to the Diamond Star. We extract the Diamond with little trouble as the Planet of the Elders slowly drifts out of its orbit and floats aimlessly into the hollowness of space. As I gaze hypnotically into the perpetual beauty of the Diamond, I wonder why there has yet to be any sign of the Ancients. 

Our fleet adapts the energy of the Diamond that we are hauling to make our journey speedier. Still apprehensive as to the whereabouts of the Ancients, our trek to the Gateway takes only several years using the Diamond’s infinite energy to propel our whole fleet thousands of times faster than the speed of light. 

The Gateway appear in our sights. It is amazing that we are literally in route for salvation and deliverance when off in the darkness of this abyss, we spot a massive, spherical object that has the surface of millions of tiny ships, squirming and writhing with anticipation. Easily able to dwarf the largest star in the universe, this prehistoric giant super organism sets a course straight for us. The Ancients have been waiting for us, and we were prepared! Fortunately I had devised a plan where we would all win, except for me. I had a hunch that our ships could not stand up to their superiority, and I felt that detonating the Diamond when they moved close would kill them and foil their plans for universal conquest.

I tell the fleet to move through the Gateway while my ship tows the Diamond to its drop point. There was no way to detonate the Diamond from the other side of the Gateway, and I realized I was the best candidate for martyrdom. I did not belong in this time, and although I was ageless, I was not immortal. As the last of the fleet leaves this universe, I endure in my ship prepared to meet my maker alone.

The Ancients come nearer as I keep my ship some distance from the Diamond. I hear through the walls of my ship the voices coming from the sphere that is them. In the vastness of the void they belch and buckle bewildering sounds that haunt me. 

The Diamond’s nucleus is what gives off the energy source, and it is still quite unstable.  There are no physical mines or explosives attached to the nucleus, but there is a catalytic imbalancer that will cause the nucleus to collapse on itself and thus cause the detonation. I knew that such an inconspicuous device would not be detectable by the Ancients.

An opening peels back in the sphere as if to envelop and feed on the Diamond. I imagine how this probably resembles the Ancients prior conquests; surrounding a planet with advanced technology and reducing it to the likes of a decrepit and lifeless space rock. Waiting anxiously until the Diamond is barely visible and the gap of the sphere slowly shutting, I realize it is time. All my life comes down to this one moment. I then flip the switch that will implode the Diamond. 

I wait a few seconds, but the sphere is still there. A minute passes and then I see something magnificent. The sphere bursts outward with a ferocious bang of infinite luminosity and cacophony. The quasar is affected by the shockwave of the bang, causing the Gateway to instantly shut down. Now I knew completely that this was a one way trip. As the light of the blast begins to dim, I realize there is no sign of the Ancients, but only debris from what was. As the dust dissipates, I spot a tiny rift in space that must have been caused by the Diamond’s infinite energy collapsing in on the nucleus. I move my ship closer to inspect it when I realize that I created a wormhole. 

I try and use the scanners on my ship but they are fried from the explosion. I look back towards the wormhole and discover that it is getting smaller leaving me little time to formulate a decision.  There is no life left in this universe, but maybe by a long shot I could be reunited with the Progens, Elders, and Wielders in the new universe. I therefore make a leap of faith to pass through the fissure with no knowledge of what awaits me on the other side.

I make it through the wormhole but where am I? No one is here to greet me. Most of the instruments on my ship remain inoperative, including my scanners. My reserves of Diamond energy give me a steady means of propulsion through this unknown realm. As the millennia drag on, I float through space in this new universe, never drifting too close to galaxies because I am nervous that I might meet a hostile species. Maybe I could find another energy source or wormhole to get back to my people. Although I do not belong in this space/time continuum, I am compelled to live on with the spirit of the Wielders to guide me. But was I still the key element in the Minder’s multi-universal mission, or was I instead an after effect of a great victory for many alien species in the old, and the new universe.

As I drift through this foreign cosmos, I see something familiar. A galaxy that seems to resemble the Milky Way floats directly above my ship. I change course to get a closer look. I head towards where the Sun would be if this were hypothetically my home galaxy. As the ship gets closer, I know that there is no way this is my Solar System because the third planet is a volcanic inferno with no life whatsoever. It was an inconsequential expectation to think that Earth was here in this universe.

I see a fourth planet that is larger than the Earth would have been in my old universe. It is extremely beautiful with vast oceans and forests of green and purplish hues. Some of the mountains of the planet remind me of the Grand Canyon, and I land the ship on top of one of these elevated, red surface formations. I test the air conditions to be breathable and open the doors to my ship. I decide that this will be my home for as long as eternity allows it. 

Eons pass and no life evolve on this planet. Instead it begins to deforest and turn more dessert-like, diminishing my seemingly pointless existence.  Why am I still persisting through time on this deteriorating world? What is my destiny, if that word means anything anymore? And as if fate has its way with me, a giant asteroid barrels through the atmosphere, splitting the planet into two fragments. My existence as a human being ends at this point. 

The fractured remains of the fourth planet that I had been living on hurls through inner space towards the third planet in the system. When the chaos of the collision settles, the newly formed third and fourth planets bear a resemblance to a recognizable orbit. And the huge fractured half of the fourth planet that struck with the third planet produces another planetoid, at best a satellite. 

As the centuries and epochs pass, my essence is passed on into the tiny new bacteria that multiply across this new third planet. And evolution begins again to ultimately reveal new forms of life with purpose and vigor. Humanity’s seed blossoms once again through time. History is retold in a similar manner as before. And as intelligence, information, industry, and technology progress through eons of human existence, I open my eyes to the Sun as it flickers its rays through a small opening on my snow covered window.