Alien Galactic History 1101

A brief overview of an ancient alien world that was inhabited by a moderately advanced race.

Ancient Terra, or Earth as it was referred to by the indigenous life forms, boasted a rather large population for a small planet. At the time of the extinction event nearly one thousand standard cycles ago, over seven billion life forms populated the planet. Fortunately, the populace of Ancient Terra had advanced to a primitive form of digital storage. While not nearly as advanced as current technology, it proved sufficient enough to survive nearly a thousand years of a radioactive environment undiscovered. From recovered artifacts, our research teams have pieced together a small snapshot of events that lead up to the extinction event.

 

Much of Ancient Terran history was preserved by their digital recording devices. These artifacts showcase a fairly rich culture that seems to based upon a form of currency, sexual reproduction, conflict and violence, and as best as we have translated, bling, which has no discernible meaning.

 

The evidence unearthed in the latest expedition suggest that the life forms of Ancient Terra had divided up the landmasses of the planet into various domains with most domains were grouped together based on similar languages. Scientists have determined that these domains were constantly at war with one another for various reasons. The recovered artifacts suggest that only a few of the domains were actually powerful enough to enforce their wills upon the other domains of the planet.

 

One domain in particular, as best as we can translate was called 'The United America' in Ancient Terran, was characterized by peculiar traditions and a very powerful armed force. An apparent longstanding tradition was the choosing of a figurehead leader. Every four Ancient Terran cycles, the populace would gather in predetermined locations to choose one of two or three preselected leaders. As research suggests, these leaders were often simple figureheads with no real authority and were generally chosen to soothe the populace. Based on these observations, we can conclude that ancient United Americans were of generally low intelligence and easily guided by shallow promises that were often never fulfilled. This tradition was repeated in most of the other domains on Ancient Terra.

 

Despite the apparent lack of intelligence showcased by the Ancient Terrans, their technology level was surprisingly advanced. We use the ability to write and record history as a benchmark to follow technological developments. Ancient Terrans began their technological development nearly five and a half thousand Terran cycles before the extinction event. Scientists have determined that the first significant discoveries of the Ancient Terrans were the ability to create fire and the wheel. From there, in a mere fifty-five hundred Terran cycles, they had advanced to nuclear weaponry and digital storage.

 

From recently recovered Ancient Terran digital storage devices, it has been determined what caused the extinction event. Nearing the actual extinction event, a planet-wide conflict emerged. Although the reason for the conflict remains elusive, which the leading opinion is that it was based upon the spiritual beliefs of different domains, we have finally deducted the cause of the extinction event.

 

As we know, nuclear weapons are powerful but crude. Multiple detonations of these weapons can destroy an ecosystem from thousands of cycles. Unfortunately, the Ancient Terrans were not aware of this or did not care for their planets ecosystems. The prevailing opinion is that the Ancient Terrans held spiritual beliefs in the highest regard and any insult towards said beliefs would result in irrationalized, inflamed behavior. As such, after many cycles of conflict about spiritualism, a breaking point was reached. From here, no data has been recovered and we can only offer our educated deductions on the following events. It is widely believed that after the breaking point was reached, a domain with nuclear weapons used them against another domain, triggering each other domain to use theirs. The result was total devastation upon the planet. It is theorized that the resultant devastation reduced the Terran populace below sustainable levels and total extinction occurred within ten Terran cycles.

 

Currently, nearly one thousand standard cycles (nearly one thousand, five hundred Terran cycles), have passed since the extinction event on Terra and the planet is still considered uninhabitable. Current scientific projections place the planet becoming habitable six thousand standard cycles from now.  

Author's Note

So, I thought this would be a fun story to hammer out as it had been hanging out in my head for a few days. I'm sure there are grammar and spelling mistakes, but I write and post without editing anyways.