4th Episode
We hovered above this world. We traversed above its once-gleaming cities. This is our report:
The race of Ah-Dam or otherwise known as “mankind” has devolved into a non-sentient state.
A simple burst of its star destroyed much of the Ah-Dam’s technology, following which these creatures underwent a destructive spiral of disease, want and warfare. That’s was what we know since the last time we visited them.
We remember the Ah-Dam’s in their formative years. We the El-oh-him assisted them in their evolution; we channelled inspiration into their primal minds but sometimes this was twisted into many of their follies.
Oh squandered vitality, the young race, it appeared, couldn’t reconcile individual and collective
We gave them time and visited them during key moments.
But our creed didn’t allow for direct intervention. Frustrating, how our inspirations were continuously being corrupted overtime.
But we admit that Ah-Dam’s later feats were impressive. It was in the process of completing a perfect artificial mind but this too became corrupted and poisoned Ah-Dam’s other great achievement – the internet – a rudimentary information network that we thought could be the building blocks of a collective consciousness we El-oh-him developed eons ago.
The Ah-Dam, however, was prone to misfortune after misfortune. Our current investigations revealed resurgence after their fall. The race developed even more sophisticated technologies but became even more petty and tribal. The clues point to an exponential growth and a planet-wide war that laid waste to the planet.
We understand that simple carbon-based lifeforms take time to progress, but the Ah-Dam showed promise with their tenacious minds and robust physical form.
We also would like to note how the management of material resources contributed to the downfall of Ah-Dam. This primitive give-or-take system was made needlessly complicated by the race’s various idiosyncrasies. We the El-oh-him are still puzzled how the Ah-Dam, with its many gifts, managed to base its reality on scarcities and limit interactions with its many parts to juvenile binaries.
Perplexed but learning from our errors, we the El-oh-him, leave humanity to its fate.
Farewell dear brothers from the other side of the cosmic ocean.
The grak squatted at the edge of the algae covered lake and squinted its red pupils at the black cluster floating in the sky.
Its body bears generations of genetic splicing; its ancestors were bred for inter-continental warfare – same cannot be said of its brain, which has the same level of intelligence of a German Shepherd.
The grak dove into the tepid waters; tonight it was fishing.
This lake was once a pool in a multi-trillion dollar resort around 10,000 years ago. Today it’s teeming with little stink-fish and parasitic fly larvae.
Seeing a cluster of fish it opened wide and swallowed a mouthful.
It surfaced and crawled back to the edge of the lake.
The creature looked up again.
The black cluster warbled in air; bending all light into it.
With a blind flash – it was gone.
The grak turned around and hopped back into the bushes.
