On the planet Seldauria
all of culture revolved around the Museum.
The Museum had started out
40,000 years ago as a single building storing artifacts from the
history of the planet. But when the Seldaurians began to explore
other stars, the scope and extent of the Museum expanded greatly. The
Museum became an institution storing everything that the Seldaurians
had been able to discover about the history and culture of other
planets. The Museum became a repository for all the treasures the
adventurous Seldaurians brought back from other star systems. After
doubling and tripling in size several times, the Museum eventually
became the size of a large city. The Museum now consisted of
thousands of buildings in the same city, and some of the buildings
were gigantic domes the size of mountains.
As there was no
institution so vast anywhere for hundreds of light years, the Museum
became a place of pilgrimage to many other races on other planets. On
many planets the highlight of someone's life would be to travel to
Seldauria and see the endless treasures of the Museum. Most who came
would spend at least a year exploring its exhibits. It was not
uncommon for visitors to report that they had spent the past ten or
twenty years visiting the Museum and its countless buildings. It was
commonly said that it was better to see the Museum at Seldauria than
to explore fifty planets.
On Seldauria none had
greater prestige than the uniformed priesthood known as the Curators.
The Curators performed many roles. One of their roles was to
negotiate with the captains of many starships that came to Seldauria.
For thousands of years the Seldaurians had been broadcasting radio
signals advertising that great treasure would be paid to any ship
that visited Seldauria with historical and cultural artifacts. So
every few years starships would arrive at Seldauria filled with items
that the Curators paid richly to acquire.
The Curators also designed
the buildings of the Museum, making sure that space was allocated
appropriately, and that the grandeur of the buildings was
proportional to the grandeur of the galactic history they recorded.
To store all the artifacts from the Dauryan Empire, the Curators
erected a dome that was a thousand meters tall, which was a fitting
scale to commemorate an empire that stood for 100,000 years. To
store all the treasures obtained from the Ventic League of Planets,
the Curators built a tower of 5,000 meters, with each meter
representing one of the planets or moons that made up this enormous
confederation.
Also having great prestige
on Seldauria were the brave adventurers known as the Gatherers. The
Gatherers were sworn to the mission of exploring other planets for
the sake of acquiring new artifacts for the Museum. The Gatherers
left Seldauria in gleaming starships that were almost empty. They
came back many years later with their ships crowded with artifacts
that would be handed over to the Curators, who would assign the
artifacts their proper place in the Museum.
Three of the Gatherers
were Yauri, Cyton, and Delnon. Aided by a large task force of robots,
they arrived one day at a life-bearing planet that had seen better
days.
“I've completed the
initial scan,” said Cyton. “I can see no sign of intelligent
life. But this planet once had a civilization, many centuries ago.”
“So let's go down and
try to get some things for the Museum,” said Yauri.
The three Gatherers and
their robots went about exploring the planet. They were quickly able
to find the shattered ruins of a city, which was buried under many
centuries of plant growth. The hand of Time had felled what few
buildings remained from the original catastrophe, and the ruins were
covered with moss and vines.
“Any idea of what caused
their downfall?” asked Yauri.
“I see trace readings of
a particular radioactive isotope,” said Cyton. “It's not
something you see naturally. My guess is that this is a remnant of a
Class Seven Extinction Event. They probably blew themselves up not
long after getting atomic weapons.”
"I've seen some evidence
of runaway nanobots,” said Delnon. “I've heard of this happening.
A civilization will introduce self-reproducing nanobots into the
environment, and be all excited about what progress it is making.
Then the nanobots start reproducing out of control, leading to
unimaginable global destruction.”
“Do you think that
happened before or after the nuclear war?” asked Cyton.
“Who cares?” said
Yauri. “We've got to find some decent artifacts for the Museum, or
we've come here for nothing. We need something in better shape than
all this mossy ruined junk we see around us.”
Using a small communication device, Yauri queried a computer
on his starship. The computer informed him of a promising lead. There
were indications that an underground repository had been discovered
outside of the ruined city. Yauri had some of his robots dig up the
ground to find the repository.
The robots came back with
a steel chest retrieved from thirty meters underground. After some
fiddling the three Gatherers were able to open the box.
“I think this may be one
of those preservation capsules,” said Cyton, “It may have been
buried with the idea that some future generation would dig it up to
find artifacts from an earlier age.”
Inside the steel box were
various small artifacts and some photographs. Yauri lifted up the
largest of the artifacts.
It was a rectangular piece
of fabric attached to a bronze-colored spear-like pole. The fabric
consisted mainly of alternating stripes of red and white. On the top
left corner of the fabric was a blue rectangle, and within that blue
rectangle were 50 white stars, neatly arranged in nine rows.
“What do you think this
is?” asked Yauri.
“My guess is that it's
some kind of weapon,” said Cyton. “This metallic pointy end is
presumably a spear.”
“At least we found
something in good shape,” said Yauri. “Now let's get off this
crummy little wreck of a planet.”
After the Gatherers
returned to Seldauria, these artifacts were eventually displayed in
the Museum. But the Curators deemed that the obscure insignificant
planet merited only a small place in the Museum. So only one small
room in the vast Museum was allocated to hold the artifacts from the
planet and its mysterious vanished civilization.
This tale was inspired by my recent visit to the Metropolitan Museum in New York City, where I saw some remnants from the vanished city of Nineveh.
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