The Beginning
RATING: G
SUMMARY: Gives a brief summary of what this is all about.
WARNINGS: None
DISCLAIMER: I NO OWN. NO MONEY. NO SUE.
Millennia ago, Earth had a single landmass. It was called Pangea, and was home to a strange collection of life.
Far dominant over all other life was one group, called ‘humans.’ At the stage where most humans were particularly bloodthirsty and savage one small group broke away from the others and made it’s way to a highly verdant area of the landmass, and settled in a single group.
These separate individuals developed agriculture long before another human ever thought to, and built primitive tools, clothing, and building quickly.
Then conflicts a rose within the single group. One sector wished to remain a hunting tribe. Another wished to move father north, where the climate was cooler, but fish were plentiful. The final group wanted to remain on the coast, as they had discovered pearls, and other, more primitive groups seemed eager to trade for them.
Bloodshed would have resulted had these people not clung to the values they’d devised when they’d first created their settlement. So they decided to move apart, to create 3seperate groups. However, time of unrest where deep within their planet’s core. Before the plan to separate could be put into action, a massive earthquake shook Pangea, and the continents broke apart.
The verdant area on which these people lived was cast adrift, separating them from all other humans. However, because they were honorable people, and had agreed on this plan the three groups separated.
Here, the accounts grow distorted. But it can easily be said that these humans advanced far beyond anything modern humans could hope to achieve.
We deal first with the pearl divers. To obtain the pearls, divers used a rope tied to a rock with which to drag themselves underwater, and carried a bag for holding the oysters in their other hand. To then obtain the oysters, which contained the pearls, they would seize them with their teeth.
However, this technique left some major disadvantages. The skin became quickly chilled in water. Human feet are ill-adapts for swimming. It was extremely difficult to clasp oysters with your teeth. A human nose filled with water, making it difficult to breathe once you got above water.
Slowly, almost without notice at first, nature began to repair these problems. Individuals were born with thicker, yet fluffier hair, webbed toes, and small flaps of skin near the nose. Most noticeable however, was the fact that the teeth stuck out more, and the jaw began to get longer.
The changes came more rapidly however. After only 200 years had passed, this group had much longer, webbed feet, hair that resembled down feathers, and what looked for all appearances like a beak. However, they still had teeth of an omnivore inside that beak, and the nose had been blended into the beak. The extended mouth now allowed for much easier access of the oysters they were required to obtain.
The changes for the other two groups were remarkably similar. The only difference was in the beaks. The first group had beaks that resembled water foul’s, those of a duck to be specific. The group that wished to remain hunters, however, grew beaks that resembled that of a predatory bird, such as a hawk or a falcon. There seemed no purpose for the beaks of the last group, but their beaks and heavier feather patterns resembled another bird, called the penguin.
After time these groups abandoned the pursuits that had prompted their physical changes, yet their genome did not recede. They devoted themselves to the pursuit of knowledge, and obtained peace between their kinds. Their technology advanced greatly until it reached the point that it was beyond even what humans have now.
Using this technology, they discovered that a rift had opened in the ocean, and a volcano was slowly gathering force to explode. They gave it about a year, and realized that the explosion would completey annihilate their island, which they had called ‘Atlantis’.
Their scientists worked desperately on a means fro escape. They had vessels capable of greater then light speeds, and they intended to escape the planet completely. On the question on where to escape to, however, the groups differed. They had uncovered 4 possible planets in the Alpha Centari system, though one was far to close to the sun to be suitable.
At last, they decided to each escape to a different planet. Just as the ships attempted to take off, the volcano erupted. The force of the explosion hurtled the vessels too fast into space, and off course, and into a black hole.
However, this seemed preferable. They ended up in another dimension entirely, and the falcons took the second planet in the system, the duck the third, and the penguins the fourth. They completely ignored the first.
Few adaptations have developed since, but those that have are especially note worthy. They skin and feathers of the falcons became darker to compensate for the greater amounts of sunlight they received. The ducks planet was colder than Atlantis, and so, to prevent frostbite, the ears receded until the only protective covering was a smallish flap of shin, the nose holes in the beak disappeared, and their sense of smell used the inside of their beaks as an olfactory organ, and the smallest finger on each hand, virtually useless, disappeared. The penguins remained essentially the same, though their feathers became heavier.
However, one marked difference took place among all three species. As they had been once human, they produced living young. However, the birds they had begun to resemble produced eggs, which hatched their young. It was not discovered until later, but these ‘birds’ began to carry and egg inside the female, which would ‘hatch’ just before the child was born. This system provided many advantages over both bird and human systems, as the egg was not exposed to the outside world and the child was protected not only by its mother’s body, but also by the egg.
Each species developed their own way of life, and each forgot about the other over time. They also forgot about the first planet in the Andromeda system. But that planet didn’t forget about them. IT was indeed inhabited, by a vicious race. They were called Saurians.
- From the ‘Puckworld Chronicles’, written in 500 A.D. by Drake Ducaine.
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