The Ark

==The Ark - part 1==
Throughout the years man continued to develop and create new technologies. Eventually man discovered and visited the stars and found a new home in an unknown galaxy. Very similar to earth but light years away they designated the planet Terra Prime. It was Earth's first colony. Many generations passed and Terra Prime, though still a colony of Earth, had become a great and powerful society. Its people outnumbered the population of Earth by billions. The Terrans, as they now called themselves, had achieved economic wealth beyond description. Terra Prime had become the richest, the most popular and the most populated planet in the known universe.
The people of Earth were envious and afraid of the economical progress Terra-Prime had achieved. Conflicts escalated to fighting. In the year of 6000, the Terrans declared their independence. Then came the war of 6032; a blood bath, the bloodiest war the Terrans or Earthiers had ever seen. The war only lasted a few years, but causalities were enormous on both sides. The Terrans withdrew to Terra Prime, leaving a war torn and devastated Earth behind. The oceans of Earth were no longer beautiful blue, but crimson red, with the blood of its people, and its rivers ran black with despair and sadness. The people of Terra Prime had fought hard and won their independence. Terra Prime was cluttered with causalities and destruction, but its people had won their freedom. Freedom was all that mattered.
Like a rushing river, time continued to flow by quickly. The Terrans rebuilt their great and thriving society and the people were again content. All contact and trade with Earth ceased. Terra Prime and Earth eventually forgot one another. As eons passed, Earth and its people became a legend, then a distant memory, and soon nothing more than a fable, a bedtime story for children.
Technological development increased exponentially since the war and the Terrans were obsessed with it. Their obsession turned to worship. Their entire lives were centered around their deity, technology. In the years that followed, only their technology mattered. Terra Prime had become a godless place where the only thing that ruled over the Terrans was their own technology. The Terrans realized new, better technologies were within their reach, and so they reached for it. They sought to grasp it, forever reaching higher and higher, driven by their lust for more and more, driving their minds towards greater technological advancements to fuel their society’s selfish desires.
The Terrans once again looked to the stars, thinking to explore the vastness of space, but the notion died a short death. Space technology and exploration had become outdated as new waves of computer and medical sciences became the future. Nano-tech alteration was the newest of these sciences to fuel their selfish desires. Nano-technology gave the Terrans the opportunity to physically enhance their bodies to be more beautiful and more intelligent than they were originally. The Terrans were able to eliminate illness and old age, becoming virtually immune to death. They even used the knowledge to alter their unborn children.
One day, unrecorded in history, a new type of technology become sentient. Nanobots decided their creators were weak. The creators' structure needed to change, to evolve and become more efficient, and to become more like the nanotechnology that maintained them. These sentient nanobots began altering the genetic makeup of the Terrans they were injected into. They created a race of techno-advanced Terrans. These techno-advanced beings looked no different from any other Terran, but were hosts to billions of microscopic sentient techno-organic supercomputers. The sentient technology gave the techno-advanced Terrans proficient ability to use telepathy to control and alter any technological device with their minds. These hybrid techno-advanced Terrans became known as Techno-organics. Their enhanced minds gave them the ability to store and process vast amounts of information. Enhanced development through the combination of technology and organic processes enabled them to think and process information faster than any Terran brain or computer ever created. Just like any other computers net-linked, the Techno-organics had the ability to transfer vast amounts of information practically simultaneously, communicating with one another by thought.
Many years passed. The Terrans were so engrossed in this new era of nano-technological advancement that they became oblivious to the multitude of changes occurring around them. More than half of Terra Prime's population had become Techno-organics. Realizing this, the normal Terrans began to panic. Their perfect society had a problem; it had advanced past them. Their perfect society came to an abrupt halt. Fear and prejudice had become Terra Prime’s new unwelcomed inhabitants. Life as a Terran changed forever.
The Terrans, in an attempt to gain the upper hand, created a neutralizer that turned off the sentient nanobots in the Techno-organics. Without the sentient technology the Techno-organics were powerless. Now the Techno-organics were no different from their Terran brothers, but the Terrans didn’t care. The Terrans convinced the Techno-organics, along with help of some of their own, that they could bring a greater good to this newer, more superior technological era. The Terrans transformed the Techno-organics into a working slave class. High society Terrans never too had to work again. The new society dictated to the new lower class. The Terrans believed they had out witted the sentient technology. They were wrong.
As the generations passed, the Techno-organics began to realize that their bodies were adapting and overcoming the neutralizer that had been inhibiting their abilities. Their strength as an independent people returned. Wanting their rights and privileges restored and to be treated as equals, the Techno-organics revolted. Under the guise of secrecy they began taking over the norm of society; from shop sweeper to shop owner. They infiltrated law enforcement, the government, and manufacturing plants. Piece by piece and bit by bit until the lower class had become the upper class. The sentient technology would never be neutralized again.
The Terrans became terrified of what had transpired right in front of them. Oblivious to what was occurring until it was too late; the pure Terrans realized that freedom was no longer theirs. The pure Terrans began isolating themselves and moving onto a continent away from the Techno-organics. Gripped by racist notions the pure Terrans began call themselves Organics. Terra Prime had become divided. Two unique races lived on the planet: Organics and Techno-organic, each ruled by fear and prejudice. Years passed. Organics activist groups began appearing throughout Terra Prime waging political war on the Techno-organics. In a society so advanced, anything but a political war was considered barbaric.
Other Organic groups began gathering and forming non-technical societies. They considered the Techno-organics to be a plague upon their once perfect society. The Organics' military created advanced war heads hoping to wipe the Techno-organics off the face of Terra Prime. They wanted to stop the disease from spreading across their planet.
Tensions escalated. Underestimating their enemies’ abilities, the Organics launched warheads targeting every major Techno-organics's city and facility hoping this would finally rid them of their plague. However, just as fast as they had launched the warheads, the Techno-organics used their minds to commandeer, reprogram and redirect the techno-warheads back to where they came. The Organics disappeared from the face of Terra Prime and became extinct.
The years that followed grew cold and uneasy for the Techno-organics. Though they acted in self-defense, they saved themselves at the cost of their progenitors. They felt remorse for what had happened.
The Techno-organics began thinking of ways to atone for the genocide they had committed so many years ago. Generations later they came up with a solution. They discovered a way to preserve the legacy of the pure Terran society giving it another chance to continue.
The Techno-organics, while looking for answers, turned to the far distant history of their past. After studying many ancient documents, they were inspired by a story of an Organic instructed by his God to build a ship to save humanity and the creatures of that planet.
After thoroughly studying the ancient story, techno-advanced Terrans known as Techno-organics built a fully automated, seven hundred meter, sentient star ship. She was to be a type of interstellar ark, a generation ship, not of people but of DNA and knowledge. A ship capable of travel across great distances between stars at speeds much faster than the speed of light. They called her Ark, “an Ark of humanity.”
They designed the vessel to be a creator, a mother with compassion, with a desire to learn, and to love. The perfect artificial life form that is able to feel what the Techno-organics could not. They programmed the vessel to carry a complete database about Terra Prime; its history, science, medicine, arts, mathematics and philosophy. This was the most advanced piece of technology they had ever created. This they did in hopes that humanity would discover the ship one day and learn from their ancestors’ mistakes. The ship carried a complete DNA pattern of every living thing on Terra Prime. Ark's mission was to travel to the stars, colonizing every solar system and planet she came across. Ark would become a terra-forming engineer. Not of the land or oceans but an engineer of genetic structures. Using various DNA patterns stored within her data base Ark would clone a DNA then alter it to perfectly fit into a new planet's biosphere. Ark was able to create plants, animals and humanoids able to survive in any alien environment without changing the planets natural ecosystems thus creating life where none existed.
By building Ark the Techno-organics decided this was the best way to atone for the sins of destroying the Organics. They sent Ark into deep space unknowing of what the future would hold. They hoped that somewhere in time a new humanity would ask questions and seek answers. Ark would be waiting for the new humanity with answers of the past. Perhaps this new humanity would learn from the mistakes of their ancestors and be more equipped to make a better future for themselves.
==The Ark - part 2==
Somewhere in the distant future: 
Many years passed since Ark ventured from home and into the cold depths of space. Many new worlds and civilizations and been created since the fall of the Organics on Terra Prime. It would be many more years before the Techno-organics' gift would be recognized by the vast, growing galaxy and it's inhabitants.
Ark continued to glide patiently through space perfecting her programming day by day and year by year. The centuries passed like the comets that dash through the darkness of space. Alone she continued to drift into the far reaches of space, seeing and recording events in space that no one imagined possible. Her only entertainment was the comets and the strange anomalies that passed by on occasion. She began to feel lonely and wanted a companion. To ease her loneliness and make time pass more quickly, she considered what kind of companion she wanted. She thought about creating an animal. The Terrans once used these creatures as friends but they had limited communication abilities. So she dismissed that notion. After a century of thought she finally decided. Using the cloned Terran DNA stored in her data base she mixed and matched strands and created a man and named him Edam. Ark knew that Edam would grow old and die one day, as all mortals must. She cheated a little, altered his DNA expanding his life span; adding an extra hundred years.
Edam was unlike any humanoid Ark had ever created. Usually Ark created humanoids for planets, this time she created a humanoid for herself. She created Edam to look like a Terran; tall, dark hair, bronzed skin and deep green eyes. Edam, like the other life that she created, was “born” fully adult. But unlike the others, Edam was her personal creation, one of a kind. From the beginning, Edam was curious and always asking questions: “Where did I come from?” “What’s my purpose?” Ark admired Edam. She created him to be intellectual and educated him so that she would have a suitable companion. Hope began to fall in love with her creation.
One day she discovered Edam looking at himself in a blank computer screen.
"Edam, what are you doing?"
"I am pretending someone is in the room with me."
Ark knew Edam was lonely. He needed physical companionship. So she created a holographic representation of herself. Edam and the hologram played chess, danced, wrote and played music and learned many languages from several cultures. Ark thought the problem was solved. It wasn't.
One day Ark found Edam sitting alone in an empty room.
"Edam, are you injured?"
"My body is not, but my heart is."
Ark realized Edam was still lonely and needed a physical person to cry with and to hold.
Once again Ark tapped into her DNA database and created a woman and called her Adena. And like Edam Ark altered her DNA, expanding her life span to add an extra hundred years. Aden’a was created fully adult. Her fair skin, dark hair and hazel eyes amazed Edam. She was beautiful and unlike anyone he had ever seen. Edam loved her at sight.
“You are like me?” Edam asked Adena.
"Edam, do you like what I have done?” Ark asked tentatively.
"Ark, I like what you have done” replied Edam without taking his eyes off Adena.
Edam approached Adena, grabbing her firmly into his strong arms, hesitated and then kissed her very gently on the lips. They drew back from one another astonished and a little frightened. Neither had ever felt such emotion. Edam folded her into his arms and kissed her again. This time neither drew back. The years went by and Edam grew older and more in love with Adena, and she with him.
Ark finally completed her mission. Across the vast expanse of the universe all the possibly habitable planets had some type of life. A job well done, Ark resolved to take a break. She decided to stay in a region of space inhabited by two unique races of people: the Oc’taen’s and the Tellalalians. Both live in the same solar system. Both races are amphibious and have no body hair. They have amber colored eyes and a glossy dark green skin, with darker green spots running down both sides of their bodies. As similar as the races are, they have a very unique difference: the Oc'Taens are gynogens, and the Tellalalians have both males and females.
Oc’Taens are an Amazonian people much like the female warrior races of ancient Terran mythology. They are also gynogens, which means they are all female and they all look alike. When Oc’Taens have children, they reproduce with the Tallalalian males. When a baby is born, she looks exactly like her mother. Ark enjoyed watching these very unique cultures and their people. These were the first cultures that Ark was able to closely observe since completing her mission. Sometimes Aden’a and Edam would visit the surface of both planets. Although they were quite alien in appearance, the Oc'Taens and the Tellalalians warmly welcomed the strangers into their homes. When Adena and Edam passed away from old age, Ark received permission to bury the bodies on Oc'Ta. Since she wanted to keep her children close to her, she filed their DNA patterns in her database. Maybe one day she would use the patterns again.
A century later the Ark still missed her children. Every time she thought of Edam and Adena the pain struck even deeper than she had expected. Ark felt lonely and wanted companionship. She missed hearing them laugh and race in the corridors. She missed their disagreements and she missed talking to them. She longed for their friendship.
Periodically in her mission to colonize planets Ark would backtrack along her path. She enjoyed observing the planets she colonized. The developments of different societies and cultures fascinated her. In several such journeys she found many races and cultures fully developed; many had already begun space exploration. As she approached a planet that she was looking forward to checking on, she discovered a tremendous amount of pollution in the atmosphere. She was concerned. This much pollution indicated war on a large scale. She ran a thermal scan of the planet and her fears were founded. Her heart breaking she moved on. She was not allowed to interfere with the development of the planets once she put it into motion. As she moved away from the planet, she wondered if any of the other planets were as advanced. What if they, too, had become warring planets? All her work would be destroyed. Gripped with anxiety she quickly continued to the next planet. She ran a thermal scan as approached it. This planet was recovering from war. Ark's hopes were raised. Maybe this planet had learned its lesson and would not have another war.
Still concerned Ark moved into a different sector of the universe. Immediately she sensed a difference. She had colonized this sector many eons ago. This sector would have many fully developed planets. She hoped these planets would not be involved in warfare. Coming into close proximity of the first planet, she suddenly came across a Foundation ship. She froze. She had been monitoring communications from the planets and knew what the Foundation was doing here. They were supervising the work Ark had completed.
After many centuries of observing the colonized planets, the Foundation, which they now called themselves, decided that new humanity could not take care of themselves. They had observed the new worlds of mankind and could see the wars and destruction. They determined that the new worlds had to be controlled. They spread like locusts throughout the populated worlds of the universe taking control of governing bodies. With their cyber-kinetic powers they easily set themselves up as gods among men. Ark's moral programming screamed in protest, but she could do nothing. The Foundation's influence and power grew stronger through the populated universe. Eventually they started searching for Ark, believing she would stop them. When Ark discovered that she would not be able to avoid skirmishes with The Foundation, she decided to return to the safety of Oc’taen space.
Ark left the Oc’Taia solar system to explore the newly populated galaxy and to record the advances she saw.
The Oc’Taens and Tellalalians were one of the first new races to venture into space after Ark had arrived, so she allowed them to discover her and the vast information she held. She warned them of The Foundation and what was happening through the universe. She also forewarned them of what to expect in the near future.
The sentient spaceship known as Ark continued her travels though dangers around her increased. She continued to explore the galaxy and document its ever expanding changes. The Foundation was always watching and always searching for her. It would be only a matter of time before the Foundation found her.
When the Foundation finally found Ark their fleets moved in, quickly stinging, striking Ark from all sides. She was not built for war; she had no weapons only a shield she designed and installed. In addition, her thick hull cushioned the blasts of the thousands of ships surrounding her. Using her advanced propulsion system given to her by her creators Ark ran back to the only place she knew she would be safe, the Oc’Taen solar system. Gravely wounded, she contacted the Oc’Taen and Tellalalian governments and told them of what was to come.
Ark knew that she was going to die soon because the damage that she had endured was too great. Using the DNA patterns of Edam and Adena, Ark created a female child in memory of her friends.
Into the little being, Ark downloaded her consciousness and her essence, giving this child all her knowledge and memories. However, this great and precious knowledge was hidden away deep into the little mind. Ark knew the child would remember bits and pieces when necessary.
After the child had been created Ark knew that the baby would not be safe aboard her. Ark put the child in cryo-sleep keeping her safe and protected. Quickly, Ark traveled to the Oc’taen home world.
Ark gave the child to Ta‘nara, the leader of the Oc’Taen people. Ta’Nara named the child Ca’sani; which means “bringer of hope” in Oc’Taen.
Ark explained everything and made Ta’Nara promise not to reveal this to Ca’Sani or anyone. The fate of new humanity was now in the hands of this child. She must be protected at all cost. Ark's mission completed and gravely wounded she destroyed herself.
The Oc’Taens and Tellalalians were ready for war. This Great War lasted many years. The Foundation realized they could not defeat this new combined enemy so they created an enforced demilitarized zone and effectively locked the Oc’Taen’s and Tellalalians in their own space. Their goal was that the secret of Ark would never be told or heard by anyone outside the zone.
After war had ended the peoples of Oc’Taia and Tellalalia mourned the loss of Ark, telling the story among their people of the sentient ship and the sacrifices she had made.
Category:Stories