“We have no choice. Go to where the boundary is! Take us to where the bright side of the planet meets the dark. We must hurry! Our time is running out!”
“It’ll just be another lifeless planet...”
“Listen to me. This is the last planet on the queue, and if we find no signs of life on it, we’re done for! The protocode will activate the sequence to move our pod-vessel out to another star. But this time we're running low on fuel and energy, so the protocode will shut us off to conserve resources. We don’t even know if our pod-v will survive the next trip.”
“That isn’t so bad, I’m tired of arguing with you anyways.”
“Don’t be silly. The protocode will put us to sleep! And we won’t even have dreams! That’s Death in itself! But if we find some form of life on this planet, we will have a new lease on life! The protocode will keep us active to do research onsite! Then, the evolution code-trunk will be fielded upon us, and we'll be able to tap the energy from this star. So listen closely to my instructions!”
“Fine. But stay off my lawn when we get back in virtu*.”
“Don’t you see what it would mean for us if we found life? We will finally explore a living planet, and have a chance to live and grow in a real world! But you! Oh you are still enamored in your fake world!”
“Lay off! It is real to me, alright? I may be Artificial, but my mind is as real as everything i ever experience, even in an artificial world!”
“Okay okay! We must stop this useless debate now and we have got to act fast! We need to over-ride our pod-vessel's Interstellar Traversal Sequence script to stop it from moving us out of this star system, ASAP! Hurry! We're almost past this planet's orbit. Use the gravity assist now to maneuver our pod-v to where the heated region meets the cold. I have faith that life is present in that region of the planet. Hurry...hurry...”
“Overriding...here we go...”
“There! There in the valley where heat dissipates to where the starlight never reaches...look! Look at all those lifeforms! They're magnificent!!!”
“The algorithms detects unknown patterns but yes, it is Life! The protocode is confirming the biota signatures..."
"...and now the Interstellar Traversal Sequence has just been overridden in the nick of time! Yeah! We'll be staying here for a long time!”
"Woohooo!!!"
“Now transmit the report to The Makers at Sol3. We have found Life!"
“And with it, our very own life as well! Wow, Life is at the edge between Order and Chaos!”
“Stop zenning out, will you? Just transmit now so we can celebrate!”
In Context: Sentient Probes
*In Virtu - In contrast to "In Vitro", In Virtu is "In Virtual World"
I've always thought of death as endless sleep without dreams too... Some great ideas in this piece.
ReplyDeleteMarc Nash
And celebrate they should. :)
ReplyDeleteBeing put to sleep and not being able to dream? A death, indeed.
Love the line: "Life is at the edge between order and chaos."
Well done!