Nanoprep 2015 Day 14: Keep Looking
By Robin de Voh on 2015-10-24
They say the world was destroyed when starships descended from the sky and landed on earth. Not like our starships used to land -- horizontally -- but vertically, standing up like thick, mile-high trees. And at first, nothing had happened. They simply stood there, being enormous. Some countries had patience and tried to contact the aliens, or they tried to analyze the starship materials and figure out how to open them. Other countries had little patience and tried shooting their tanks at them. One crazy country in Asia tried to nuke one.
None of it had any effect. There was no contact, no usable information about what the ships were made of and how to either get into them or break them. In the most modern age humanity will ever have known, they couldn't stop what was about to happen.
After a year, sirens could be heard. Everywhere. And the sound was coming from the starships. Armies were put on high alert, the starships were surrounded, people were told to stay indoors and keep the television or radio on, or simply follow the news on the internet. Everything was live streamed back then.
So by the most trustworthy estimate, 75% of all humanity was watching when the floodgates opened. Hatches in the starships, about halfway up their length, opened up and water flowed out in massive gushes. The waiting armies were ready for many things but not this, as they were all swept away by the resulting waves.
Nobody could stop it. The water pressure was too strong for any way into the ships through the hatches, and even if it wasn't, one probe managed to get far enough to see there was a metal grate. If it was of the same material as the ship itself, there would be no way in.
Within months the water level had risen far enough that most cities had to be abandoned. Only those who could get to higher altitudes managed to not drown.
It's a beautiful world now, but we've lost so much. Even the highest cities eventually found themselves in the water. By this time the starships had already completely disappeared under the water themselves, filling the oceans from below.
Some theorized that the starships had spent their first year here learning how to produce water and then did so. Some theorized that they had extracted hydroxide from the Ringwoodite Reservoir to form the water. Whatever their method actually was, it had left a blue ball in space, with small dots where humanity still held on to whatever life they managed to cobble together.
The Modern Age has passed. Most of the machinery from that time was either lost or inoperable by now. There would be no fuel for it, even if it was in working order. We live simple lives, but there is always good to be found in any situation.
You just have to look.
And I'm looking. And what I see is a small island with about a thousand people, working hard to live a useful and relatively happy life. I see a big, huge ocean with small boats bobbing up and down in it. I see fishermen, working to catch a good meal to be shared by everyone.
The ships left at some point. It all happened so long ago nobody really knows what's the truth anymore. One truth we never seemed to find out is why this had to happen. What the point of it was.
I might not have the luxuries we once had, and in many ways I'm sure that's a shame. But I believe that if we work hard and keep believing, we might actually get back to where we were once. Just in a different way.
So just keep looking. There's always something.