Ragnarok

Chapter 47 - Ancient History

"The first thing you should understand," Mr Ibis started, "is that various groups throughout history have known a different truth than the one most people have been taught. The world at large believes that while the enormous scale of the universe makes extraterrestrial life a near inevitability, we have, until now, never experienced contact with an alien species. This is, of course, a colossal falsehood."

Mia simply nodded; she knew the theories had been around for almost two hundred years, but for an equally long amount of time, there had been various misinformation programs. "Just curious ... this 'Roswell' incident they talk about all the time in 20th century media. Alien spacecraft?"

"Of a sort. It was unmanned, a drone or a probe. It has remained non-functional since it landed, but various attempts to reverse-engineer its layers have led to many of the technological leaps of the past two centuries. We went from steam engines and the telegraph to space elevators and a moon colony in that time, after all." Ibis paused to stare out the window at the space station they were approaching, and at the other end of the tether far below it, the clouded sphere of the Earth. "Though, to give mankind credit, there were just as many leaps forward that were made without the help of alien technology. You lot are a creative bunch."

Mia blinked, cocking her head slightly as she peered at him, trying to figure out if he was really there. Ibis looked back impassively. "Yes, I am a VI, but no, I'm not just an illusion in your cortex," he said smoothly. "I can only do so much in a simulated body, you know. My current form was made in a similar matter to the ill-fated clones that we sent off to Ragnarok, though I'm not required to be nearly as durable.

"Anyway, as I was saying... the Roswell incident was indeed an alien probe, most likely a probe for the same rogue planet that's caused all this trouble. The probe clued those in power in to the fact that someone from the stars was interested in you, but not what their intentions were or even what kind of creature was watching from the other end. A number of governmental groups were established, for the purpose of investigating both present incidents and those that had confounded analysis for thousands of years."

"Stuff like the pyramids, Stonehenge, all those other ancient sites that people think were build by aliens?" Mia interjected, trying to follow along but getting distracted by the view.

Their shuttle was getting close to the crowded elevator hub, and when she switched to AR a list of destinations popped up, most of them as far away from Earth as they could get. The lion's share of them seemed to be headed to Mars, which was currently on the other side of the solar system as far as Ragnarok's flight path was concerned. Such an exodus would just be delaying the inevitable, however. If Ragnarok destroyed Earth, it would break the spine of the Solar System, and while Mars would die fighting, there was little doubt it would follow its fellow planets into oblivion in the end.

So far as she could tell, they were the only shuttle with passengers actually wanting to descend down into ground zero. And Mia wasn't entirely confident that she was doing anything more than ensuring she would be on the front lines when the Twilight of the Gods truly came for humanity.

Ibis had paused in his explanation as well, perhaps reading the evidence from Mia's expression that she was too distracted to be listening. Finally, he politely cleared his throat, to bring her attention back to the issue at hand. "To answer your question, yes, it was discovered that several of the ancient sites showed evidence of advanced technology, though the majority of what was found had long ceased functioning or served such arcane purposes that we could not decipher their use. In addition to the scraps of alien technology, there were a great number of mysterious writings, some of them complete with incredibly precise measurements and diagrams."

"Instructions, in other words," Mia put in, warming to the conversation again. "But instructions for what?"

"That tended to vary from site to site, and some of the writings we still have yet to fully understand." Ibis peered at her over her beaklike nose, seeming to come to an important point. "One of the most important ones that they found, though, was the design for a neural net, the predecessors of the Virtual Intelligence avatars. So the first A.I.s were built using alien technology, and ever since then, the Overminds have kept watch over this secret. I'm sure you can understand why ... there are enough humans that distrust us even if we are either own creation, let alone if they found out that our brains were designed by some kind of alien diagram."

"And apparently, one of these same alien diagrams tells you that I'm the key to saving the Earth. Alright, I'm willing to buy all of this so far. So what in the name of all the Gods do you have planned for me?"

Mr Ibis smiled slightly. "Funny you should say it that way ..."