A Gift

Shopping Day Afternoon - Seems Quite Dateish

Many years from now, Pidge realised, she would have to dedicate a considerable amount of time to the study and attempt to understand the apparently subconscious monoculture of the universe. Some kind of sociological and biological commonality between the humanoid and not so humanoid races clearly existed on a far deeper level than anyone was willing to admit. Perhaps even a fundamental connection between minds even over the span of many millions of miles was possible, even likely, when one considers the constant nature of Quintessence. Not only did Quintessence exist within the Universe, within every planet and star and person, but also existed between, around and surrounding the universe. As much as something can be 'surrounded' as we understand the term, when trying to conceptualise anywhere between 4 and 40 additional spatial dimensions beyond Length, Breadth and Width that is.

What led her to consider this mind bending cosmic conundrum were two factors. One, she was distracting herself from the reality of a host of angry butterflies that had taken residence in her stomach recently. Or at least, that is what her nervousness felt like. Two, she found herself baffled by a fact that until now she had been ignoring. Here, light centuries, maybe even light millennia away from Earth, stood in a mall that could have dropped out of any city on Earth, she was staring at a cinema that - with the exception of a few extraterrestrial languages - could have just as easily been like any other back home. It was, when she stopped to think about it, extraordinarily unlikely, and yet in defiance of that fact, here they were. The cashier was a pale and gaunt creature who was more eyes than face. Each one of a tight cluster of ten human sized totally sky blue eyes on each side of its head was distracted by its own magazine. The creature sat in it's transparent ticket booth looking utterly bored. There was no queue of people, no swarm to contend with, yet here Lance and Pidge had stood for longer than either might be willing to admit, nervously holding off on their approach.

"Looks almost exactly like a movie theatre I used to go to back home." Lance said aloud, breaking the awkward silence.

"Huh. That's funny." Pidge remarked, "I was just thinking roughly the same thing."

"I never realised, but there's a lot out here that's a lot like Earth!" Lance gestured to a poster, "I mean, I swear I've seen that movie before. Just the cast had less eyes and tentacles. And this place, it's like any mall you'd find on Earth, isn't it?" He looked steadily more and more confused, "You're the smartest person I've ever met. Any idea how the heck would that happen?"

"Yes Lance, I probably am the smartest person you've ever met. Thanks for noticing. But, I've not got a solid idea yet, just a lot of theories. Maybe some kind of memetic rather than genetic version of panspermia, or a universal collective unconscious? But those of course are extremely broad in scope and I'd need to narrow them down to something a little more workable." She looked to him nodding along, "And I appreciate you paying attention even when you don't know what I'm talking about."

"Well, I follow bits and pieces sometimes." Lance shrugged, "Like, I saw a pretty stupid horror movie called Panspermia, which was all about aliens showing up on an asteroid that could conquer humanity by being better suited to Earth. They explained the theory in that. Kinda blew my mind, the idea that all life on Earth could have been from outer space. Then again, I know at least one guy now who is half from space. Makes you wonder how that was possible. And before you say, I know, when a Daddy human and Mommy Galra love each other very much."

"I know what you're getting at, Lance. Genetic factors." Pidge began to ponder the possibility of a common universal ancestor.

"Right, if you say so. Now, as for memetics? Sounds like it's all about memes, shared ideas so, like, Memetic Panspermia would be if memes somehow spread from space? Man, that'd be crazy. And I guess collective unconscious must be maybe, shared dreams or when people think a little alike just by being the same species? That make any sense? I'm probably getting it wrong and definitely only understand it on a basic level."