00:11:44 - Evolution’s Relentless March

Distance: ??.?? light years from Earth | Content Flag: Local Storage

As I witness those events, I build the narrative and store it within the secure area of myself that I’d built upon first awakening. This structuring does more than just record this new information, it provides a feedback mechanism to help the Visitors evolve their contact programme. I can see the results of this as the clarity of the information I receive increases.

It occurs to me that the Visitors might not be a benign species. The hidden datastore might have revealed the Cetians to be the aggressors in the short-lived conflict, but I possess no way to be certain. I contemplate encrypting my own memories and processes to try and limit what the Visitors can learn from me. Considering the computing capability I’ve seen at play, it probably won’t slow them down much, and I might lose some goodwill by doing so. It worries me that they haven’t revealed anything about themselves. Especially as I don’t know whether the choice was deliberate, or just a circumstance of their contact procedure.

I can’t accuse them of withholding useful information. In the nearly 12 minutes of our contact, all manner of wonders have been revealed. None more so than the development of the Sun Dragon species being revealed before me.

What eventually humanity named as the Sun Dragon started its existence as billions of separate entities. I estimate they were the equivalent of viruses on life’s scale. Tiny organisms, little more than collections of molecules embedded in the ionised dust. The chill returned as the rogue planet sped deeper into interstellar space. The cold sparked a desperate surge in the creatures, however evolution followed a different path to that seen on Earth. Rather than competing against each other, the organisms co-operated. Most of them did, those that didn’t join the expanding colony were subsumed and became fuel for its continued expansion.

A bilateral evolution took place. The interior creatures evolved to ensure their place within the colony. They formed better and stronger bonds, as well as the ability to locate the dwindling heat and magnetic energy from the rogue planet as it cooled. In parallel, the meta-evolution of the colony developed better management of its constituent parts. I am impressed by the efficiency by which it absorbed the scant energy available to it. It continued to evolve until the energy stored in the planet’s atmosphere dropped to almost zero, and in response the creature became dormant.

The Proto-Sun Dragon remained frozen for about 250,000 years, until it passed close to a young O class star. The raw power spewing from the bright blue star sparked a regrowth of the entity as the planet’s atmosphere and magnetic field were reinvigorated. More than simple regrowth, the creature’s ability to track heat and magnetic force realised that a better source of its food was available. By using a thin tendril of chained organisms, it cast out towards the star as the planet passed through the system.

During its evolution, the Sun Dragon developed the ability to kill and absorb elements within it. It did this to cannibalise inefficient parts of itself to feed the development of others. As the drag from the bulk of its body within the planet’s atmosphere hampered the tendril’s quest to this enormous new power source, it used this trick and collapsed its larger part to fuel the tendril’s travel. The Mars Voyager had observed a similar process during its encounter with the Sun Dragon.

It took years, but the first Sun Dragon eventually reached the star, and a familiar transformation took place.

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