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(JaiChai) Original Science Fiction: "A. Khlorai" - Journey to KGII

jaichaiPosted for Everyone to comment on, last year6 min read

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"SS A. Khlorrai"

The year: 630131.19 SPTF (Standard Post Terra Form) -

The inhabitants of "Klhorrai", a Class III planet on the fringe of Orion's Belt, have no choice but to leave their dying world...

Background:

With their single-minded focus on technological progress, the Khlorraisians neglected to see how they were quickly destroying the environment until nothing, not even their advanced technology, could stop the erosion of their planet's atmosphere.

For over five centuries, the Khlorraisians polluted the air and water, making bottled air and water the things that nations went to war over - many times.

With each war, the atmosphere was further polluted by the waste products of employing WMDs; accelerating the rate of atmospheric deterioration.

Exodus:

Four Bln Khlorraisians, mostly the rich elite and a select group of renowned artists, musicians and STEM experts, were "awarded" a spot on the Space Sphere A. Khlorrai.

The pinnacle of Khlorraisian technology, the SS A. Khlorrai housed four eco-rings and was run by an embedded, sentient AI named A. Khlorrai.

A. Khlorrai knew that each one of his eco-rings would be able to sustain one Bln Khlorraisians for the duration of the trip.

Still, that meant leaving behind over ten Bln Khlorraisians to eventually suffocate to death or worse, suffer the heinous process of "Death by Dehydration".

Enroute:

Shortly after clearing Khlorrai's atmosphere, A. Khlorrai performed a ship-wide systems check and found them all working properly.

He chatted one-on-one with each member of the 12-person crew.

They were responsible for handling the ship if A. Khlorrai's quantum core sustained an overwhelmingly disruptive decoherence; theoretically, a one in a billion chance of ever occurring.

Now it was time to address the passengers.

A. Khlorrai got on the all-open, public comms channel (1MC) and delivered the first of his many daily FYI messages.

"Salutations and welcome aboard! I am A. Khlorrai. And if I haven't had the pleasure of meeting you before, I'm delighted to make your acquaintance now.

Just think of me as your friendly neighborhood Space Sphere AI.

All systems are in the green.

I and the rest of the crew don't foresee any problems that may arise that we cannot handle or cause any delay on our journey to "Khlorrai Genesis II" (KGII).

Many of you have already queried my data banks with the same question, "Why did you choose an obscure planet in an unremarkable galaxy to be KGII?"

The answer in a word? Irony.

The reason why the old inhabitants left is the same reason for our arrival.

Allow me to clarify.

Simply put, this planet was chosen to be KGII because it has, by far, the largest planetary carbon footprint within the surrounding three galaxies.

The old inhabitants were called "Whumiins" and they named their planet "Earth".

But considering that the vast majority of the planet is covered with water, doesn't the name "Earth" seem like an oxymoron?

Anyway, the story of Earth's demise is very similar to that of Khlorrai's.

Like Khlorrai, Earth was terra-formed by the ancient Torumnaachii and left to "stew" for two Bln years; during which, competitive life forms evolved.

Then the Torumnaachii returned to DNA splice some of their genetic material into the dominant species - the progenitors of early Whumiins.

Equipped with hybrid gene sets, the early whumiins' pre-frontal cortext suddenly expanded to three times its previous size; resulting in, relatively speaking, "super-intelligence".

Again, similar to Khlorrais' ancient history, evolution on Earth was undeniably turbo-boosted by the ancient extraterrestrial Torumnaachii.

Within four millennia, a highly advanced, apex predator civilization developed.

Sadly, both the Khlorraisian and whumiin civilizations abused their planet's resources; crippling the natural replenishment/recovery processes and making their respective environments too toxic for their species to survive.

With Earth gasping her last breaths and extinction imminent, Whumiinkind was forced to leave in a mass, one-way diaspora into space; hoping to find their own Genesis II.

Back to the present:

Woops!

My scans are picking up a lot of confused expressions out there.

Maybe I should explain the "Earth as KGII" rationale in a different way?

Hmm...O.K. Let's try some basic anatomy and physiology, shall we?

Whumiin physiology requires them to breathe in O2 that used to be produced by Earth's plant life and then breathe out CO2.

BTW, it was the build-up of carbon based gases, mostly the by-products of their fossil fuel burning technology, that led to the destruction of Earth's habitable environment.

Contrastingly, Khlorraisian physiology is based on khlorroxin (akin to what Whumiins call "chlorophyll").

Khlorroxin is responsible for your beautiful glowing-green skin and your ability to photosynthesize - even under low starlight conditions.

Khlorraisians can utilize any carbon based gases for respiration, including CO, CO2, etc., and exhale O2.

Why do you think all this is significant?

Think. Think hard!

This means that all of Earth's, uh, I mean KGII's air that is unfit for Whumiins to breathe is the same air that's perfectly suitable for Khlorraisians!

In fact, the carbon-saturated air of KGII is so abundant that buying commercially bottled air will forever be a thing of the past.

And there's another surprise awaiting us on KGII: Water. Lots of it!

On Khlorrai, the water was so polluted that drinking it could kill any Khlorraisian within three hours of ingestion.

Now, imagine this.

The typical Khlorraisian circulatory and filtration system - basically, a network of tiny xylem and phloem khlorroxin (chlorophyll) vessels, can purify any fresh, brackish or seawater found on KGII.

That means all that water covering 75% of KGII's surface is safe for you to drink.

And it's totally free!

[Roars of "Yay!, Yes!, Alright!, Unreal!, Awesome!..." erupt from the passengers.]

Ah good...the bewilderment has been replaced with smiling faces.

Well then, uh, right.

Again, I am A. Khlorrai.

Please enjoy your trip.

That is all."

[To be continued...]

A rare (only three minted), signed and non-watermarked NFT of the above image is available in my NFT store: https://zilliqa.mintable.app/artwork/item/SS-A-Khlorrai---Journey-to-KGII---1-SS-A-Khlorrai---Journey-to-KGII---Original-Science-Fiction-1-of-3/a177O6XBo5re_KC

May you and yours be well and loving life today.

In lak'ech, JaiChai

JC cocktail.jpeg

(JaiChai 19 DEC 2021. Simultaneous multi-site submissions posted. All rights reserved.)

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