Prologue: Ancient Fascination

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Arthur C. Clarke

It has been millennia upon millennia since the base code of what became our world was “written.” It started in the ancient past. Some claim the era that gave birth to our own began in the 17th century. Others claim it to be the 18th or 19th. The more stringent amongst us put the date at a much further 29th or 32nd century. Regardless, the archives and the Archivists agree that our time began due to a few chance inventions. First, the discovery of industry allowed the fractured civilizations around Earth to begin the slow march forward. After this, the transistor allowed for more advanced technology that increased human progress manyfold in a single lifetime. However, these were a mere splash in the bucket compared to the actual revolutionary forces to come. First, the invention of the World Wide Web, or the Internet as the ancients eventually came to call it, destroyed previous social and political systems by the end of the 21st century. Second, the discovery of non-generalized artificial intelligence shot humanity forward at the proverbial speed of light.

An interconnected humanity harnessing the power of an artificial mind unconstrained by human worry figuratively lept forward into time. The archivists speak of this age as if it were a great myth. And myth it may as well be, with our poorly kept records. We know as much about Socrates as we do about the men who invented the first cybernetic heart or the project that finally harnessed cold fusion energy. Sadly, many thousands of years of our history were lost. We do not know if it was from the wars of the 3rd millennium or due to simple data corruption over time - the ancient’s data storage was notorious for not lasting much beyond a mere handful of years. Alas, it is better than the scarps of papyrus or incomplete clay tablets from the previous ages.

We do not dwell on the past much as a species now - we experience too much life to care, and life moves far too fast for most to worry about such things. Few still live from the very last generations that saw death at the hands of time, but the majority of humanity now has known times free of such concerns. Indeed, we listen to the archivists' lectures and humor the Kukli priests for our cultural festivities. However, after your third century, one has so much past that they begin to disregard the pasts of others - too preoccupied with their own surplus. Or so they say. I would not know yet.

Instead, we concern ourselves with the mysteries amongst the stars or betwixt the smallest of subatomic particles. The arts and other human disciplines are all the rage in a post-Reformation world. It is an insane thought to think we had humans laboring to death doing the tasks it takes a machine a fraction of the time to complete. I imagine that, to our predecessors, our lives would seem like “heaven” or “nirvana”; any of their words describe the fabled paradise. To use, they seem mundane. Such is the human condition. I suppose much of what makes us carefree relies on the automation of our world. Between the AI that runs most mundane tasks or the technocrats like the Kukli who harmonize the greater systems, people like me have little to worry about concerning the greater world. Or so they say once more. I do not concern myself much in this regard, nor do many. Amid my youth, I am expected to explore and learn.

Often, I find myself in scenes like this. White sand beach beneath me while I watch the waves slowly roll in. Travel by trade, I suppose. It is odd as this “profession” is as old as time, yet it never seems to grow tiresome for us. It reminds me of when I went to a museum and saw an ancient piece of iconography. On it were the words, loosely translated, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” I find it a fitting piece of ancient knowledge to keep. One of their time would think we would have everything figured out now, but we have our mysteries just as they once did. I don’t know enough about our space exploration to comment, but I do know the mysteries of extraterrestrial existence continue to entice our foremost xenobiologists. We know simple life exists, even up to plant and simple animal analogs, but we haven’t explored enough space to conclude on alien intelligence.

As for us mere world dwellers, we have our own mysteries. Mainly revolving around ancient tech that proves to be far more advanced and strange than one can imagine. We can recognize most of the past’s weaponry, or so we believe, but some of the other artifacts elude us. Granted, that’s what happens when you have a nearly 1,500-year gap in the record beyond very basic data. Likely it was some last war that barely left humanity hanging on. Or perhaps we did have that fateful encounter with an alien race. It is quite literally anyone’s guess. What we do know is that the true beginning of our current era began some hundreds or more years after that proverbial “Second Dark Age”. Other than the now ancient Data Trees that remain uncrackable and the infinitesimally rare Prism that happens to wash ashore, there is not much to know about that era other than they were more advanced than anyone could have guessed.

My fascination with this began sometime after my travels, although I can’t tell when. Mother told me I should always log my thoughts, so here I am. Apparently, it will help me find my path later on in life when I can review them. Whatever, I guess. I don’t mind her guidance, but it seems rather silly just talking out loud to myself on some random beach on some random colony world. Well, I guess that’s a good place to leave it off. 

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