Domination

[Aardvark]

Every species that had ever evolved to sentience, whether they be carbon or silicon based, land or sea dwellers, telekineticists or simple manual manipulators who had evolved a pair of opposable thumbs, at some point in their history, produced a common thought. Every species, without fail, would immediately discard this thought as nonsense, yet remember it every time they gazed at the stars. A simple thought, in many different languages, verbalised, harmonised or telepathised, that boiled down to a basic emotion that fell somewhere between curiosity and fear.

 

Are we alone?

 

As each species evolved, the scale of this thought expanded. Alone in this forest or cavern network? Alone in this landmass or this ocean? Alone on this planet or this asteroid belt?

 

Finally, all species would once more settle on a common thought.

 

Are we alone in this Galaxy?

 

Reactions to this thought varied. Individualist species would range from acceptance to ostracision. Collective cultures might mull the thought across the species or might simply turn on the thinker. Mentally enlightened would let the few ponder this for generations, while the rest got on with the business of evolution.

 

But the general impact of this thought was commonly considered low. Each species determined its own way of dealing with thoughts like these and few ever incorporated it into the general driving force of survival. For what would a pack of hunters or constructors need to fear from a threat that could only be theorised and that, in all likelihood, was located far enough away to reduce the threat considerably.

 

So each species continued its own individual evolution, taming their home world or particle cloud or asteroid field, giving little to no thought of there ever being an alien threat to their survival.

 

In this Galaxy, which went by many titles among the species who were capable of thinking on a grand enough scale to believe in such a thing, containing several hundred million stars, stellar systems, gas clouds, satellite galaxies and floating bodies of matter which seemed to randomly wander a path unknown, there were relatively few that had ever had the capability to support the formation of life in any form. Fewer still had actually formed life and even fewer still possessed life that had reached sentience. But still, fifteen individual sentient races inhabited the galaxy. Each evolving at it’s own pace, each unaware of the others.

 

Of these fifteen races, fourteen remained fully unaware of the possibility of sentience outside their own little corner of the cosmos, until the fifteenth made them aware.

 

The fifteenth. The only species with the evolutionary drive to push them to bridge the interstellar gaps. The only species to adapt to other worlds. The only species to seek out their neighbours. The only species capable of perceive a threat from the unknown.

 

As each of the fourteen races encountered the fifteenth, their initial reactions varied. Some tried to ignore or hide from the newcomers, opting for a live and let live approach. Others attempted communications with the newcomers, seeking a peaceful first contact. Yet others opted for the primitive approach of violence.

 

The same primitive approach that the fifteenth had opted on the moment they learned the negative answer to that simple, yet profound question.

 

Are we alone in this Universe?

 

Each of the fourteen was met with a species that had evolved further, faster and beyond what they had. A species that had broken away from it’s home, pressing through the galaxy at a frightening pace. Each race they met, they met with a singular desire. Eliminate a competitor. Clear out a threat now. Ensure the survival of one species.

 

As each species met the fifteenth, they quickly learned that violence was their only recourse. The more primitive races fell quickly to the technological superiority of the fifteenth. Mentally developed ones used their environments or tried to fight off the minds of their attackers. Yet the fifteenth was able to adapt to each attack and work a way around it. Space-traveling species tried to flee, but regardless of biological or technological adaptations, they were cut down by the fifteenth.

 

The soldiers of the fifteenth, aided by technology, invaded the various homes of the other fourteen. Their space vessels rained down destruction, obliterating planetary defenses, destroying asteroid homes, even igniting and burning gas clouds that supported some species survival in space itself.

 

As the soldiers passed through each region of the galaxy, scientists followed in their wake, pouring over the remains of alien civilisations, carving up the deceased, interrogating and investigating the survivors. They extracted all information they could out of the dying species, before putting the last of them to flame and destroying what little remained of their race.

 

Finally, all fourteen species had been wiped out, eliminated, purged from existence, leaving one race, one species, able to answer that one thought.

 

Are we alone?

 

Yes. Yes we are.