Written by Blackharvest
Within the confines of this vast universe, there lived a myriad of creatures that roamed their respective planets with grace and in balance. Countless ecosystems thrived all across galaxies, with their lifeful cries reverberating through the cosmos, at least for the primordials to hear. But the voice still felt vague and shallow. Despite the immense variety of life, almost none were sapient, albeit only sentient to some degree. There were thoughts and feelings, but no rationale or curiosity for a larger truth.
And thus, as the first universe developed, life slowly gained a level of sapience, but only sparsely. Only across a few planets did life attain complete sapience, with only two of them ever coming together to form a civilization. The rest were lonely wanderers, like dragons, each embarking on their own abstract journey of contemplation. Pondering and curiosity only fruited so much for two beings that they managed to unite under one race, to channel their minds for a larger purpose in life as a civilization.
One such race was humans, who were rather weaklings that managed to stick together well enough to compensate for their fragility. Humans were not isolated in the cosmos, as they were surrounded by a glamorous blanket of stars and galaxies, but this was not the case for the lonesome aliens that lived on the other side of the universe. Surrounded by a shroud of almost total darkness, this race lived in the depths of the Eridanus Supervoid, one place of the universe where creation was seemingly absent. Almost no galaxies and stars decorated the night skies, giving the residents a feeling of loneliness by default.
The so-called aliens inhabited one of the planets rotating around a blue main sequence star, where the powerful blue rays of the star razed the surface and penetrated through each and every living being. This, coupled with their overall unusual biology, gave them the opportunity to become very polymorphic, affecting their livelihood physically and also hierarchically.
The aliens had a skin covered with thallium-laced calcium carbonate scales that were smooth, giving the aliens a slight iridescence with a silvery finishing touch. Aside from their skin, their muscles were also unusual, being made of malleable polymer bundles. They also possessed crested ears, as well as a powerful vocal cord to accompany their sophisticated auditory system. Such unusual components gave rise to several features that stood out in some individuals more than others. With a genetic advantage over others, some were specialized in sonic attacks that deafened or shook their enemies from the core, while others had a more iridescent and refractory crystal structure on their scales to give them the ability of invisibility. The malleable polymer muscles also could allow some others to shape their muscles into brand new forms, altering their overall volume to a certain extent.
Some others, though, were blessed with further strength, allowing them to ascend in the hierarchy. Their metallic inlay could get overloaded with electromagnetic force, augmenting the aliens even further. This power did not scale the same with every genetically enhanced individual, of course. Some gained the ability to fly thanks to the electromagnetic propulsion they gained, meanwhile a smaller portion of individuals got their strength, durability and speed enhanced severely when being wreathed in the electromagnetic field.
Aliens of this planet were ruled by the hierarchy pertaining to their power status, as well as their prowess in technology, as their rulers were technocrats before anything. Though the alien race was nowhere near a highly advanced civilization in terms of technology, they were still fairly advanced in terms of their progressive culture striving for the acquaintance of knowledge. This race of fairly anthropomorphic reptilian creatures managed to come together for the singular cause of science and knowledge after resolving their countless conflicts for dominance over their own kin. As they came together, there ushered a new age of peace for these aliens, where many of their ailments were being eliminated thanks to their combined effort to live a better life overall. Despite living with the aim of prosperity and scientific progress, one thing seemed absent from all of their works: a greater purpose.
As they moved on with the accumulation of knowledge all across the fields of science, they also tried to delve deeper into more abstract questions, more about the question “Why?” and not as much as “How?”. For almost all of the aliens living on the planet, it seemed meaningless for them to have all of this technology to make them prosper, to have all of these starbound powers that bolster their corporeal presence to a whole new level, to have the knowledge to travel across planets. It was all for naught, or at least they thought for a while, where civil descent began to emerge within their civilization. The lack of ultimate design and purpose slowly drove them crazy and desperate, seeking unorthodox ways to end this seemingly perpetual cycle of mundane madness.
As the civilization slowly descended into chaos, a new idea among the politicians and technocrats emerged: to travel to the nearest star system. They knew that the cosmos surrounding them was much more than the supervoid that shrouded them in pitch black, and they knew that there could be planets where life as theirs could emerge. Maybe someone knew the answer to the question they craved to know about—about the truth behind the universe’s design and what it entails for these miserable creatures that were cursed with sapience and strength. For once more, the aliens came together and worked to create their finest spacecraft that could travel light years in days. In other words, they managed to achieve superluminal travel for the first time. They used to travel across their own planets in their respective star system, but this was a new era for them. They could finally get out of their system to travel far and far beyond, to potentially find someone to get answers from. And so, they traveled to the closest star system with potentially habitable planets.
And travel they did, for approximately 6.4 days, to a place where all of their investments as a civilization could pay off as an achievement of a lifetime, of a generation even. Their discovery fleet finally landed on the planet they targeted 14.6 light years away from their home planet, and it was all… empty. There were only some matching compounds from their own planet, but no signs of life, not even the most primitive kind of it. The expedition was a massive failure in the eyes of the aliens, and they were ready to go home with disappointment. There was no way of telling them about this disaster superluminally. Therefore, they needed to warp back to their home to do so. In the meantime, they wanted to discover other planets, so that they might desperately find some other form of life or some mark of it to at least feel better about their disastrous expedition. While they were investigating the system, one object stood out. It was a lonely rogue planet, wandering across the cosmos, that somehow had its orbit crossing through this star system. It was unusual, in the sense that it was not near absolute zero, nor was it devoid of an atmosphere. The planet was exceptionally warm, and there was enough of an atmosphere to prevent some of the starlight from permeating into the planet. But, the planet… also looked as if it were facing the sun… perpetually. It was physically impossible for such an object to exist, and yet it did. It was an embodiment of an existential paradox, as if it was made by someone to exist despite all of the governing laws of the universe. This perplexed the aliens, as much as it excited them. Maybe the expedition was not a disappointment at all.
The aliens landed on this planet after a short travel time, where they were met with a barren wasteland of dark gray, volcanic rocks and hills. It was nothing but dark gray and black minerals covering the planet. A very mundane view that was for the aliens, but they still searched the entire planet nevertheless, until they detected… movement. Amidst the boulders atop a rocky hill, there moved a white object fairly sluggishly but away from the alien expeditioners. They tracked the object, and they caught up with it, only to see a miraculous thing for their expedition: an alien being, living in the most improbable of all environments across the universe—one place devoid of almost all conditions that life could necessitate—but here it was. The white alien realized that there was no running from the expedition team, and it slowly turned towards them. It was a dwarf-sized alien creature with a frail bipedal body and a thin-looking pale white skin. It had an elongated head and a face adorned with a pair of large, black almond eyes. Its face was devoid of any perceivable emotion. It was only taking a glimpse across the aliens it faced. The team slowly approached the alien for further investigation, being fueled with excitement and also an unknown feeling. It was as if some supernatural aura surrounded this creature, some aura that deeply seeped into their spiritual essence. No one could ever understand what this emanating aura did to them, but they were not repulsed by it nevertheless. The aliens continued approaching the white creature, until they got close enough to slowly bring their hands towards it, to possibly touch it. One alien warned its team, saying that it is foolish to do so, but none listened.
It was not that this aura influenced them, alluring the aliens to interact with the creature, but they appreciated this abstract feeling whatsoever. It was something different from their lives that were purely governed by physical concepts, whether it was about their social life, their personal feelings, or their bodily presence. The aliens, though unsure, felt that this small and frail creature somehow had the answers for their grand question pertaining to their ultimate purpose in life. One alien was about to touch this creature, and it somehow made a fast enough movement to get his arm between itself and the alien, pushing his hand away from its body. Within the thin atmosphere of the planet, one loud voice reverberated:
“Get your hand away from me!”
It was loud enough to momentarily scare the aliens, and most importantly, it was in their native language somehow. Even though they have never known each other, the creature spoke in their language, even perfectly. The anxious excitement of aliens turned into an appalling joy. It was the moment for them to get the answer they were looking for. One from the team spoke, “You… know us?”. The frail creature replied, “I know not of your presence, but I know that there is nothing for your kind here.”
“How did you even come to existence, o creature?”
“Not in the way that you did, but that is none of your concern.”
“What do you mean by this? Do you know things that are… beyond us? Beyond our universe?”
“What is beyond you is what I once was, but now… there is nothing to know, aside from the fact that there is only us here… on this forsaken rock.”
After the creature spoke, it started to look into the thin clouds and the skies draped in a vague and perpetual noon, only a curtain of gloomy light. The aliens, on the other hand, were now excited as never before. The creature seemingly spoke words of wisdom to them, trying to hide a deeper meaning behind his mysterious words, each and every one of them hiding some ulterior meaning. The aliens were frozen in their place, oblivious of their surroundings and deep within thoughts, as this creature meant much more than they could have ever expected. It could have revealed more than what they came for—things beyond their ultimate purpose in this universe.
They slowly came to their senses, and looked at the creature that was still gazing deeply into the skies, with seemingly desperate looks on its face. Then, the aliens called it a name meaning “the wisened one” in their own language, which was “Darwizzy.”After uttering the name, Darwizzy quickly looked at the aliens very deeply and angrily. He seemingly got angry at this name, seeing the idolatrous intentions behind it. He slowly left the hill where the aliens and he were talking, towards a plateau nearby. The aliens did not chase after him, believing that it would disturb their “wisened one.”
And this was the moment where the aliens delved deep into a belief system that revolved around Darwizzy. From the reporting team, the belief spread like wildfire across the civilization, with a vast portion of the population falling into this fictitious belief into Darwizzy, seeing him as the chosen one that would one day regain his former glory and power after his pilgrimage, ultimately leading his believers into the absolute truth, creational essence, and paradise. The aliens, once a civilization striving for knowledge, got lulled into this belief, where the aliens would cease acquiring scientific data and live in complete stagnancy. The remaining aliens that did not participate in this faith waged war against the believers of Darwizzy, and they were forced to retreat from their home planet into other colonies within their home star system. Meanwhile, Darwizzy was faced with countless aliens doing pilgrimage into his once deserted planet, as if everything happening was intended for his ongoing penance. It was as if everything was to annoy him, forever and ever.
While the believers were stagnantly living their previous lives without any change whatsoever, with the fictitious fulfillment of ultimate purpose, the resisting aliens kept on their pursuit of knowledge in their colonies, conducting research as much as they could with their limited resources, while also trying to topple both the believers and the “wisened one.” From the era of peace, there emerged a new era of continuous conflict between zealots and renegades, with one desperate alien being stuck in between.
Spin characters involved: Darwizzy