Punk Wars... When two or more sci-fi "Punk" worlds collide!
The Mothership returns for a third outing to the furthest reaches of space, where one world bleeds into the next!
PUNK WARS 3.
But you have colonized most of your landmass, and your elders live for centuries, and I have been explaining the emergency procedures for flying a damaged starship to you since most of you were pinecones and acorns. Some days I think that you Earth trees don't remember a single thing I've said.
"I call them trees," Hrungnar the biologist told Bleknark proudly. A frisson of excitement cut into his voice. "They're ingenious. The soil's just getting to the stage where it can support their natural processes, and it'll only get better with time, so the Galactic Hegemony won't notice a thing."
Bleknark shot the younger Jek a glare: The Hegemony were not kind to those who broke the doctrines and meddled with non-uplifted races.
"Eventually, after a few extinction events, some supple-fingered little survivors will undoubtedly swing down from them," continued Hrungnar. "I estimate a million years or so of bashing each other's brains in will let some of that primitive rage out. Eventually, one bright spark'll scratch a warning into a tree's skin. Self-preservation. That's my piece de resistance."
"How so? You're putting an entire civilization on the back of one dumb pre-sentient?"
"Yes! That's the beauty of it! Warnings lead to writing, to law and language. Then, exponential growth! Temples. The wheel. The combustion engine! And from there, they'll discover space travel!"
Bleknark laughed. The sound was remarkably similar to the twang of a flexing aluminium sheet. "Yeah, just before they burn their planet to a crisp."
Hrungnar rolled his eyes, curling his stumpy grey fingers into his palms and back out again in the universal Jek gesture of exasperation.
"All sentients flirt with disaster, Bleknark. If they don't make it through, they weren't worth uplifting anyway: if they do, we'll take them under our wing."
"Sounds familiar, Hrungnar..."
Hrungnar grinned. The teeth beneath his wrinkled lips looked like picket fences, which would not decorate the planet below them for another four hundred million of its years.
"Where'd you think all our creation myths come from? The cradle-canopies, the Guiding Ones?"
Realisation dawned on the other Jek's face like dynamite cracking a boulder. "Great Ypslarr! You mean..."
