Alien Newsletter #11: The Greatest Apes Get Wooly
In which our alien considers the manifold means that humans use to reanimate the deceased, and wonders what sort of new life they are being born unto
Network Note: Apparently it is not merely life our extraterrestrial observer reports upon to his fellow lifeforms back home, but life after death as well. At least, that’s what seems to intrigue it at the moment, for its latest communique seizes upon the recent endeavors to revive the ancient wooly mammoth and wonders aloud about many other ways in which humans attempt to revive or otherwise preserve what they can’t help but destroy. Their own experiences with previously observed species as well as their own history, it turns out, proves quite instructive.
Given their exceedingly brief lifespans, it is hard to take seriously any Greatest Ape’s individual claims of mastery. At most, a supersimian can see little more than 100 solar rotations before they finally expire, and as is the case with many of them, much of what they have labored their entire lives to build is often lost long before then to the ravages of aging. Perhaps this is why they return, again and again, to the comforting possibilities of renewal, and apply much of this temporary mastery to the resurrection of what was — a prior golden age, a formerly extinct race or their own eventual revival into a future time and improved body. Several projects I have examined point to the perennial allure such projects hold for the Greatest Apes.
First, there is a profit-oriented organization called Colossal, which lists upon its digital communication card the term “De-Extinction” as its primary service. In particular, it has focused intently on reviving a massive and fur-covered entity called the Wooly Mammoth by the GAs. Countless millennia ago, these beasts roamed the formerly frigid upper terrains of Polar Mudcap Region Plate One. They would knock down trees, charge the not-so-Great Apes (the ancestors of the current GAs) and pose for artistic renderings (shown above) that the GAs now use to teach their progeny. This activity apparently did much to preserve the local terrain, keeping the ground compact and preventing the release of carbon, methane and deadly pathogens. With its rudimentary grasp of the biological code that determines the construction of each living creature on earth (or “DNA”), the GAs plan to splice portions of it into the living DNA of a distant animal relative. Presumably, said creature will give birth to several Wooly Mammoth-ish entities, which may, if all goes well, set to work on preserving the tundra in ways the current occupants simply can’t.
Endeavors such as these have taken on even greater urgency since the declaration of the Anthropocene. And the GAs have certainly seen success in this domain. For instance, the long-running Jurassic Park documentary series show that the GAs love creating velociraptors almost as much as the velociraptors love eating GAs. However, one million of the earth’s plant and animal species are estimated to be near extinction — close to an eighth of the entire planet’s diversity, with half of all of these lifeforms set to perish by 2050. This has set the GAs out on a mad dash to find, relocate and somehow preserve as many of these struggling stragglers as they can find into an ark owned by a GA called Noah. I presume this Ark is one of Colossal’s fiercest competitors, though for as massive a structure that it must be, I simply cannot find a trace of it anywhere.
And if the Ark and Colossal can’t succeed, there is always the digital realm, where the GAs can make almost anything happen. This ground is covered by the digital communication card MyHeritage, which animates the ancient visual depictions of any GA ancestor it is fed. And as it turns out, it is not merely limited to doing this for the GAs; it can be done for our own kind, too, as you can see below.
Of course, the GAs’ digital depictions are limited in what they can do in their own dimensions. For instance, they cannot momentarily take possession of the viewer’s body and create boils, lesions and outgrowths that can inflict specific ailments in order to convey the ravages of a disease. For now, they are limited by words and images.
Of course, the GAs have not lost the desire to bring themselves back to life as well. Consider the practice of “cryogenics,” where the body or brain of a deceased GA is frozen and stored for an unspecified moment in the future when these corpses could potentially be reanimated, perhaps by a future Colossal seeking to restore the planet to its Early Anthropocene glory with its former custodians. Whether the future creatures charged with this task will have the know-how or even the inclination to do so is more a matter of faith than anything else.
In this way, the Greatest Apes position themselves on the opposite pole from the qAtopul, who as you may recall lived in a state of forced forgetfulness, having the ability to recall only five seconds into the past. Of course, this meant that their lives were perhaps at most 15 minutes long, giving them short time to do anything except be born, mate and pass away. The benefit of this arrangement, of course, is that the qAtopul are not shackled to their past as thoroughly as the GAs are. However, the GAs seem more intent on and capable of projecting themselves as far into the future and the past as they can. However, their abilities to do this sort of traveling is fairly limited by the shortness of their lifespans and the limits of their technologies. Yet as Colossal recently told one of the GAs’ more well-respected megaphones, the alterations of genes necessary to create the next Wooly Mammoth could be extended to other species to help them survive increased climate hardships — and, though this is not said, to the Greatest Apes instead. There is no assurance this may happen in time to make a difference for most of earth’s population. But if all the GAs manage to save is themselves, at least there’s MyHeritage, and the menagerie of Noah’s Ark, to keep them company.
Dark Matters
Lo and behold, the Inspiration 4 crew, having returned from their brief sojourn, altered forever by their experience. Should we tell them precisely how, or let humanity discover for themselves…?
Before the GAs, a Lesser Ape gave its life to explore the cosmos (somewhat)
GAs on Northern Hemisphere Plate 2 prepare an office to make a report to determine a course of action to stop us from flying in “their” airspace. Translation: proceed as usual.