HUMANITY’S FUTURE

Posted by Gary on Nov 22, 2008 in Books by Gary R. Moor, Mermaid Song | 1 comment

One of my characters in Mermaid Song says this, from a point of view ten centuries in our future, with regard to other sentient races in the Cosmos: “Humans nearly destroyed several on your own Earth. That many on one planet is a unique anomaly. Your planet was blessed. Technology is not sentience. The explorers of the Republic have trampled evidence for centuries. As you noticed, humans of the Republic used us for food. The other races avoid viral civilizations as you would a disease. Your sphere of influence was small, only fifteen hundred light years across. A tiny cyst. The electromagnetic radiation you could detect and understand has not reached this area yet and radiation from the ancient races has already passed you by. The radiation you could detect was beyond your ability to recognize. The cyst is remote, you’ve been around an extremely short period of time and the galaxy is very large.”

We are discovering more and more planets. We know of hundreds now. It is beginning to appear that planetary systems are the norm in our galaxy. Wickipedia states there are 200 to 400 billion stars in our galaxy. Our future lies out in the stars. One of our biggest rewards for becoming a viable species on this planet will be interstellar travel. The technology to travel even to the nearest star is far beyond us now, but, perhaps much sooner than we think, someone, somehow will look at things in a new way, create a whole new context for technology and we’ll be able to build our first star ship.

What do you think?