‘A dark pathway always leads to a blissful, shiny meadow’. Such statements are only to be found in motivational quotes or numerous religious scriptures here on Earth. But this path, upon which Huth Myers was treading, extended too long to keep those hopes alive. He walked across numerous halls lined with various mildly-lit machines on the sides. A prestigious task, it seemed, was allotted to him as his heart rate began to rise when he finally approached a huge metallic door at the end of that tunnel.
“Be careful of what you see now”, a deep manly voice instructed Huth from behind the door. Gradually, the gate opened. But it didn’t reveal anything bright but dark as before.
“I have been waiting for you”, Joshua Achebe, the chief scientist of the laboratory, revealed himself as the owner of that deep manly voice. “I expect you have gone through the manual which was handed over to you. You must be well aware of the responsibilities that will be entrusted with you in our laboratory”
“Thanks Prof. Achebe! manual was of great help. When do I begin?” Prof. Achebe had been working on a special project in his laboratory for last 5 years. Huth was recruited to assist him look after the progress of his latest creation-a miniature universe, a vast network of tiny bright dots floating in the darkness of a small section of that dark room, forming a thread-like web of these numerous luminous dots. Joshua began his experiment with the idea of creating a new world wherein, he could develop new forms of life. Thus, he created a tiny universe and waited for simulations to produce desired results. A unique feature of this universe was that a single second of Joshua’s wrist-watch equalled approximately 1 year within his creation. In order to keep track of the progress, Prof. Achebe’s lab had a facility to zoom into each planet of this universe . Also he had created a invisible boundary of this miniature creation which was equivalent to our boundary of observable universe; beyond which, it was impossible for any of the life-forms of this universe to travel or even see. Recently, he was able to sprout life on a few dozens of planets in that miniature universe. But never did he interfere in the destiny of his creation and its inhabitants.
“Not too hasty Huth”, prompted Prof. Achebe, “You spend your first day working with me. You can take control of the lab beginning from tomorrow. I will be leaving for a seminar soon; so pay heed to every detail.”
Huth spent rest of his day noting each of the niceties of Joshua’s experiment; ranging from maintenance of darkness all the time, keeping track of all the 42 life supporting planets, paying extra importance and time to 5 of the most advanced life forms out of those 42. And detailing all the actions of one particular species named-‘coleonix macrotee’, which had easily outraced various life-forms of its planet as well as of other planets. Their physiological structure was highly unlike homo sapiens- having three pair of limbs and heavy bodies to combat high gravitational pull of the planet, wide eyeballs to see in the rather dim parent star, small skulls and shorter height compared to other organisms of their planet. In spite of being a primitive species, they had developed techniques to utilize resources of their planet. They even started developing structured colonies thus changing the geography of the planet. All of this happening at a lightning pace. With each passing second, a great movement changed the lives of macrotees. Population fluctuated sometimes but on the whole it rose meteorically in the last few months. The idea of monitoring the growth of such primitive species always fascinated Huth and the same was one of the reasons he opted to join the lab. Finally, the day had arrived when Huth was left solely in-charge of the lab after Prof. Achebe left a day before. A great excitement accompanied the intense sense of realization of responsibilities. Although monitoring the database of so many planets was not an easy task, but he crafted his way through this complexity easily. As instructed by Prof. Achebe, he never interfered with any of the actions of macrotees. He sat there beside the marvel; noting down their actions, discoveries and achievements one after the other. He was astonished by a rather quick progress that they had been making since morning. Earlier in the morning, Huth noticed a few of the great migrations on the planet due to changing weather conditions. Numerous dormant hours followed the migration. But then a sudden rise in population alerted Huth.
Upon researching deeply, he found massive farmlands which ensured food security to support large populations. Such trends started evolving on different parts of the planet; varying slightly in their perspective but on the whole marching progressively towards a better future. All of the achievements were following the expected trends as laid by Prof. Achebe earlier. All the predictions were turning true one after the other. Even a few minor changes like changing physiology, like increasing skull size and height were observed. Huth was rather amazed to notice such transitions which none of the macrotees ever knew about. Suddenly he realised that there were other 41 planets as well to look after. He switched over to one of the other primitive lives but a desire to keep an eye on macrotees attracted him continuously.
About four hours had passed since he last looked at macrotees and it seemed as if origin of life on other planets was catching up the pace as well. Finally, he returned back to macrotees and was left aghast by their progress. Their population had risen meteorically, their societies looked much organised which numerous new customs which made no sense even to him. The case of macrotees had grown extremely interesting. Exploring those advancements took another hour, but by the time Huth understood all that, equal number of new customs emerged. The job became intense but fascinating as well. Every technology, every action fell under an explanation except one. A particular kind of rule-book resided in every part of the planet which served as a reference to a lot of customs. But the problem was that, those were neither legal rules nor moral. Some of the rules laid down in those scriptures made no sense, some even defied the science upon which their universe was created.
Numerous stories and fables, still not a story compilation; thousand ways to lead lives, still not a moral guide entirely; never ending predictions, none of which reliable; confident claims of origin of everything, but hardly matching the truth.
Huth tried to figure out a meaning out of such a confusion but all the ways led to a dead end. Those scriptures had fascinating explanations to the issues which even Prof. Achebe had been struggling with. But a sense of supremacy stopped Huth from believing any of those reasons. He knew exactly-what was the history of this race, who created them, when and how. But still macrotees all over the planet followed these few pages so faithfully that no reason could stir their beliefs. Meanwhile, Huth also noticed simultaneous scientific outburst in the society. Tools began to transform into machines, survival began to transform into dominance and usage began to transform into exploitation.
In spite of all these scientific achievements, macrotees still treated those books with high regard. The ultimate respect for a few written words perplexed Huth immensely. In order to find answer, he explored a few other manuals kept in one of the dark corner of the laboratory. Having spent a few minutes discarding irrelevant topics, he finally found something mentioning about the sociological behaviour of primitive life-forms. A quick glance, and there it was; a corollary derived from the history of homo sapiens itself. A similar custom of written rules used to guide the actions of human societies all over the world many thousand years ago. But with the passing time, those beliefs turned into disbeliefs. Scientific achievements began to answer things which were long held as unanswerable. Homo sapiens had seen numerous revolutions in their lifetime but the biggest one was the theological revolution which debunked all the myths and motivated people to achieve answers to numerous unexplained queries that still prevailed.
Huth found intense similarity between humans’ religion and that of macrotees. Consequently, he got even more interested to observe the course of their theological development. He returned back to notice the further changes in their society.
“What the heck”, exclaimed Huth in astonishment, “where have they gone?” Upon researching the history of past few minutes, he found that an a great explosion occurred on the planet so a majority of their population fled and settled on one of the other 5 advanced life-supporting planets. They conquered their lands, destroyed the culture of alien neighbors and ultimately killed the survivors. They had found a new home where they could inherit all the customs which they followed back at their home. But one particular trait, which Huth was looking for, seemed missing. There were no religious books now. Only thick journals based on science, law and morality which served as the reference for new way of living.
“Is it… a theological revolution for macrotees?”, thought Huth distraughtly, “If it were so, then at this pace they can match our level of understanding within 3-4 hours if they also follow the same path like us.”
Worried by the thought of this possibility, Huth observed carefully every action of macrotees. Within an hour, they achieved answers to numerous questions, discovered numerous technologies and began conducting regular inter-galactic missions. Although Huth had always dreamt of seeing a society evolve in front of his own eyes, but this rampant growth of power and ownership of the universe perturbed him. Although being highly troubled by the progress of a mere experiment, he was bound by instructions to never interfere with the evolution of organisms.
Another few minutes passed by, and he noticed a great accumulation of macrotees scientists standing at the base of something which resembled a kind of spaceship meant to cover vast distances. He began to decode the talks that were being held there. An old scientist announced to the public that the spaceship would sail through the fabric of known universe using their recently developed technology which would enable them to cover large distances within a very short time. He claimed that they would also aim to go beyond the limit of observed universe thus trying to explain the creation of universe. A term that immediately ‘terrified’ Huth.
“Trying to explain creation of universe? That means stepping out of the realm of the experiment. With their pace of evolution, I fear even humans can be in danger. They play in nanoseconds. Should I finally interfere and stop their mission? Should I disobey the instructions or let them explore the secrets which they shouldn’t?”, Huth had no clue how to tackle the approaching threat. “Soon the shuttle will take off, and it will be too late to do anything.”, pondered Huth repeatedly as to what should be done. The countdown for the launch was about to begin but Huth was still unsure whether to interrup or not.
“I read it somewhere that an experiment falters when the test subject begins to pose a threat to experimenter.”, though Huth and finally got reassured to interfere with the mission.
He set a massive asteroid on a collision course with their planet. Having no prior information about this threat, none of the macrotees were prepared to tackle the situation or even flee. Finally, the asteroid collided into the planet perishing all the race of coleonix macrotee. Huth stood there silently noticing the aftermaths of the disaster in the dark room. The brightness of a tiny dot grew minutely and then everything went back to normal.
© Nerd Magazine, IIT Kanpur,2017. All rights reserved.
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