Final Countdown

Chapter 3

Planet by planet, we spread across the universe in search of the perfect planet. Our colonies were left in our wake as we headed toward the interior of the universe from our original system at the universe's outer edge. Each planet presented new challenges, new possibilities. Those of us who remained evolved to compensate for each planet's unique atmosphere. The rest of us continued on.

The main bodies of travelers slowly dissipated as we continued inward until we reached the system where the planet later called Earth lay. Here, we stopped our caravan temporarily to help set up the colonies that would later become myth, legend, and "holy" cities.

At that time, there was but one land mass separated by seven rivers. Or what seemed to be rivers. This mass would later break apart and drift until there would be seven masses all on a collision course with one another in the planet's future. But that is for another time and discussion.

Aegir. Vanriem. Mithgri, Jothem, Muesvel. Panthiem, Praetias. and many other cities renamed as the colonists slowly de-evolved from their higher forms into a lower form of life that would little resemble the rest of us mentally. Or physically. For all intents and purposes, the colonists would give birth to what could only be named mankind: a creature so distant from what the original colonists had been that psionic and telekinetic powers were no longer present and only 15% of their brain would be used, the other 85% would be wasted space waiting to be discovered. But that was still millions of years off.

For millions of years, the colonists remained untouched by the atmosphere of Earth. Well, at least from the physical point of view. They also retained their mental abilities, remaining invisible to the natural inhabitants-the natives, if you will-through the numerous environmental changes that would change and evolve even those creatures into creatures that would become food sources once immortality and the asexuality was lost.

But Earth was not the only planetoid body colonized. Every planet and "moon" was endowed with at least 100 colonies that dotted them. All were intended to see which planets or planetoids would best support our kind without altering us. Each would fail us miserably.

Ah, but I am getting ahead of myself with talk of Earth and her sister planets. I should return to out flight from our home. Or shortly thereafter.

As I have tried to state from the very beginning, each system offered different obstacles. Each planet and planetoid contained different alien elements that would alter the genetics of those who would be born to those colonists. Many would lose their abilities to reproduce asexually. Some would create a malevolence so cold within the offspring that they would slaughter the original colonists and become twisted, dark shadows of what their predecessors had been. Others would transcend what we had been and become souls without bodies. The malevolent would become the templates for man's "demons" while those of us changed into pure energy would become his template for "angels" and gods.

Other colonies evolved into creatures so unrecognizable that we would cease contact for fear that we would also suffer their fates. And still others would slowly die off, their ability to reproduce in any manner gone with their ability to reason and think. This extinction would sadly be the fate of many colonies, since many planets and planetoids lacked vital elements to sustain much of any life force and the radiation that bombarded the planets/ planetoids tended to degrade anything that it hit.

Those colonies that found new technologies to counter such radiation survived in the worst of cosmic environments, while those that were unable to do the same soon vanished from memory. Those caught in the middle, those that would survive, would be twisted according to each planet and planetoid's will. Not one colony would be left untouched. None but those who made it to the center of the universe.

While the Council would remain for a short time on each planet, helping the colonies get established, but moved on with the main body once the colonies were established. I would return to each and every colony to see how they were progressing, the Council returning to Earth and her sister colonies with me to help instruct them in anything they needed help with.

Slowly, the light that had been our people slowly flickered and went out along the fringes of the universe. By the time Earth and her sisters reached their zenith, the fringe colonies had either died out of had fallen into the darkness of evil and the war between demons and angels had begun.

But that would take millennia and the change would be so indiscernible, even over time, that when it was apparent, the effects would be irreversible. Even worse, the changes would bring out the darkest traits in our nature and twist our forms to match them. The Council would not suffer such a fate, though a third of those who had colonized along the way would. Even those on Earth would fall, but not as far as the rest.

By the end of the colonial processes, one third would die out, one third would fall, and the last third would rise into ascension. Earth's colonies would give rise to man, or one of three species of man—the species that we had been before our enlightenment. There would be three other species to vie for footing as "the race": the lizardine, the Cro-Magnon, and the Neanderthal or "ape-man". None of the three would be any less intelligent than the colonials and their progeny.

Still, the three would breed, intermingle, and become something completely different from the original species. Then, they would mingle with the progeny of the colonials to create the human race that resulted and the four species would cease to be separate bloodlines. Mankind, as he would be in future generations, would emerge from the mingling of four species and grow to become far worse than our kind had ever been.

The hallmarks of his rise would be an ever-increasing greed that would be accompanied by hate, ignorance, abusiveness toward his fellow humans and the world around him, and a desire to deny the truth, no matter what it could offer. He would wage wars, oppress those who weren't like him, and seek fame and fortune no matter what it cost him. for all his intelligence, he would remain ignorant of what true peace was and would seek his own destruction in destroying those around him.

History would become myth and myth would become fact in his mind. The truth would be seen as a lie and lies as truth. He would see himself as the only being in the universe, except a "God" that had never existed but as a misinterpretation of a single ancient word that meant teacher, not deity.

The Way would be rejected for a twisted physical concept known as religion that discarded the spirit of changing what lay within rather than what one saw around them. Hate would replace love. Greed would replace the spirit of giving, and callousness would replace mercy. Man would find a way to destroy all that their predecessors had worked so hard to build.

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