For many years, humanity had been in desperate need of some inspiration. Everything was becoming a little too obvious. The cars all knew where they were going and were happy to drive themselves; All the films on show were sequels; And once again an ott T.V. programme had enabled a retail store manager to get a Christmas number one with an unspectacular and unseasonal rendition of ‘Summertime’.
The governments of the world were bored, and would go to war with each other over minor diplomatic disputes. in 2111, for example, the prime minister of India called the entire U.S. government ‘nincompoops of historic proportions’ for landing airforce one in the West Indies when they were meant to be at a trade summit in Delhi entitled ‘The West and India: Building Bridges’. No-one took to the streets to protest the sudden outbreak of war that followed, or any other wars for that matter, because no blood was spilt. Just a lot of engine oil. Troops had been replaced by robot armies that would bash the circuit boards out of each other, and the U.N. would get some much needed funding by doing all the clean up work at the end and selling on the scrap metal.
One tired morning in this not-very-brave, not-very-new kind of world, the newscreens sent goosebumps across the arms of the newscreen-readers. There, held in people’s hands, was the image of a fuzzy blue-green dot. But it was ore than that. It was a planet, a planet almost exactly like ours, with an atmosphere, oceans, greenery and definitely, certainly, almost absolutely probably, life. Maybe even, possibly, advanced life, some said. For the first time that century, commuters all over the cityscapes looked up from their mobiles, up into the clear blue sky, looking for that pinprick of intelligence. Even more mobile-related injuries than usual occured that week, as people gawped upwards and walked into each other. But they were happy injuries. Strangers looked each other in the eye and said ‘That’s exactly what I was doing! Isn’t it wonderful? Life! We’ve found it!’
Yes, life. That rare and fragile phenomenon which Earth was full of, but no-one was really overly interested in. People were bored of it. Even all the new life that kept popping up and being found, in hospitals, at the bottom of the sea, in people’s breadbins, failed to inspire. You see, all these babies and transparent glowing fish and funky dusty fungi fell into the rather dull category of ‘Earth-life’. Weren’t they living in the 22nd century? Weren’t they meant to be hobnobbing with more sophisticated civilisations by then?
Of course, there were a great number of species who disagreed with this downward view on Earth-life, and simply couldn’t get enough of it. The remaining third of the frogs of the world, for example, wanted to live so badly that one day they marched into the centre of their nearest capital city and angrily jumped up and down in protest, trying to get some attention. Unfortunately, the almost certain discovery that same day of the existence of extra-terrestrial life took all possible attention from the bizzarre antics of the strange little green creatures with patterned eyes, and they dejectedly hopped back in the general direction of their forest. Had they made it, they would have discovered an embattled zoologist passionately explaining to a bulldozer that he didn’t understand it either, but he was sure they would be coming back and they would need their forest when they did. Sadly, they didn’t, as they were squashed to extinction under the feet of people who stepped out of their offices and looked up at the sky and thought ‘Wouldn’t it be funny if the aliens really are all green just like in that movie I saw yesterday’.
Within two weeks of the news, the U.S.A and India recalled their robot troops (who had sustained several dents), stuck some magnetic medals on them, and then melted them all down to start working internationally on the most ambitious spaceship ever to be built – a spaceship that could catapult itself to a quarter of the speed of light by flinging itself around stars like a swing ball. Within twenty years it was complete, and the spaceship ‘Arc of Light’, as it was named, was counted down and launched amongst fire and smoke before an audience of ten billion dazzled minds. Its destination: the fuzzy blue-green planet that had been dubbed ‘Zo’.
The humans were, once again, feeling heroic. A fairly upbeat song called ‘That’s Life’ was climbing the charts, and thousands of new alien characters were made for alien type movies in the hope that one would get it right, and therefore be in line for a host of sequels and awards once the ‘Arc of Light’ returned. One film that particularly got to audiences was called ‘Space Hoppers’. Critics slated it, as it was all very stereotypical. The aliens were green and skeletal, with wide almond eyes, and they moved across their rocky terrain with the use of their gangly legs. A few weeks after its release it was further slated, as a group of entymologists revealed to the general public and the critics that this ‘alien’ was actually an animated version of an insect called the Praying Mantis, which happened to already live on the same planet. The production company said this was a remarkable coincidence, and then went on to bring out another that was also a big hit with audiences, and people were very surprised when it was also revealed to be based on an extinct species of earth life that everyone called the ‘Frog’. Why hadn’t anyone heard of these ‘Frogs’? Whatever had happened to them?
Frogs and Praying Mantis’s were just the first victims of a new level of human complacency towards species that were either going or gone. The rhinos were already erased, the elephants had been forgotten, and kangaroos had gone under the radar and disappeared. A whole movement of people really stuck their necks out for the giraffes, but their numbers collapsed too. All the parrots that ever were, were one day no more. They simply ceased to be.
In the midst of this sad situation, this pitiful period of disappearing diversity, millions of pounds were being spent building a museum near the launchpad of the ‘Arc of Light’. It was a magnificent construction, consisting of two towers that spiralled twistingly around each other into the sky, with bridges joining the two buildings all the way up. It was called the Museum of Life, and every floor was simulated with a chapter of the several billion years of evolution on Earth. Downstairs, the entrance hall was dedicated to Zo. There were climate graphs and elemental pie-charts and a big picture of the fuzzy blue dot. The rest of the wall space was taken up with artistic impressions of what life might look like there; many-toothed monsters, fluffy little birds, planty-looking animals, animally-looking plants. Most of these were stills from a multitude of Zo-inspired films. In the centre of the room, a large glass casing enclosed a bright white floor that had a big black question mark painted on it. A notice on the glass read ‘awaiting life samples from the planet Zo’.
A hundred and twenty two years after the ‘Arc of Light’ departed, a message was picked up by the crater-sized satellite that searched the skies from the Museum of Life. The message was from Zac, one of the third generation of astronauts on the Arc, and this is what he said: ‘Had a bit of trouble getting here, but now on Zo. I think we might be a bit early, but can’t see the point in hanging round. Quite slimy here, don’t have the right shoes. See you in a hundred years or so.’
And that was it. The staff of the communication room cast anxious glances around, and talked in low voices, until an operations manager walked in and announced that this poor astronaut who was born in the depths of space was suffering from a maladjusted sense of reality. Or the message had got scrambled. Or something. So they sent the uninspired message over to a screenwright to add a bit of pizzaz and boost it up for the global media, and several hours later, the following was sent back: ‘The crew of the Arc of Light have travelled across several generations, and feel as if we have arrived at the dawn of time. From darkness we have travelled into blue skies, from an endless emptiness we have found life, and from the loneliness of space, we have discovered that we are not alone. Planet Earth, we are coming back home’.
It was upbeat, it was snappy, it was unspecific, and it said everything that everyone in the communications room wanted to hear. They jumped out of their chairs and applauded for a good 5 minutes. The quotation was distributed, and within half a day the human population was more inspired than ever. Rapt in teary celebration, they missed the sad news that the very last of our closest ancestors, a chimpanzee called Greg, had developed a nut allergy, and died.
One hundred years after that message was received, the Arc of Light returned. By this point, pretty much all other lifeforms besides humans and those that made up human food were lost, their memory surviving only through zebra stripped upholstery and fluffy polar bear toys. There was a general feeling that what the planet needed was a splash of genetic diversity to brighten up the place. People pinned their hopes on the contents of the returning spaceship. They were quite mistaken. spaceship, and when its mysterious and long awaited doors opened, people were beside themeslves in anticipation. What was revealed, however, turned out to be a bit of a damp squib.
Well, it was a squib. At least, it looked as much like a squib as anything anyone had ever seen before. It wasn’t damp though. No. It would have been damp if it were alive, but the little featureless slimy ball of a creature had died within the first few days of leaving Zo. What was left was the equivalent of a dried up, kind of rubbery ball of phlegm.
The spaceship descended through the clouds one drizzly morning with moderate visibility. It landed as it had left, in smoke, fire and steam. As its mysterious and long awaited doors opened, people were beside themeslves in anticipation. The first astronaut emerged to face the massive crowd that sprawled around the airstrip. They cheered wildly. He stood there and didn’t wave. If you could see really close, you could see he held in his hand a plastic zip-lock bag. This he suddenly lifted in the air dramatically and looked around with an expression that said he wasn’t too impressed by the whole fiasco. A few seconds later, the cameras zoomed in and did a close up of the lifeorm within. It turned out it was a bit of a damp squib.
Well, it was a squib at least. That is to say, it looked as much like a squib as anything anyone had ever seen before. It wasn’t damp though. No. It would have been damp if it were alive, but the little featureless slimy ball of a creature had died within the first few days of leaving Zo. What was left was the equivalent of a dried up, kind of rubbery ball of phlegm.
A microphone was thrust before the hero. ‘This’ he said ‘is something my grandad picked up on Zo. Slimy place, he used to say. Slimy and boring and full of slugs’. The crowd went quiet. Somebody shouted ‘is that it?’. Somebody else shouted, ‘that’s life’, which eased the tension a fraction. The staff of the communication room put their heads in their hands and wished they had sent out a more inspired crew in the first place, and then looked at the close-up of the dry slug, and just wished they had made the damn spaceship crash into the sea.
Still, that was life, and that was what was found on Zo. The dry squibs were presented on their own pedestal in the Museum of Life, backed up by ridiculously dramatic, atmospheric music. No-one paid them much attention. There was an abundance of conspiracy theories that cropped up, suggesting that the whole thing was a CIA cover up, that giants and griffins and talking horses and other mythical beasts had been discovered on Zo. Unfortunately, the truth was more dull than people were willing to admit.
Well, mostly. There is one little anomaly that made it to the newscreens for a day, before fading from the collective memory of the population. A month after the Arc of Light returned, a small population of frogs which were thought to have been extinct for 200 years – the golden toad – were found in a protected forest in South America, hopping along, croaking occasionaly, and thinking to themselves ‘I don’t know if its me or the gravity, but either way I can’t jump half as far as I used to’.
