Post by redsycorax on Nov 20, 2021 0:16:35 GMT
In 1962, on many worlds where whales were still hunted for 'scientific' research or for products made from their bodies, over sixty six thousand perished at the hands of whalers. But for the ten months of 1962, Earth-109 recorded no whale hunts or deliberate fatalities whatsoever. This is why...
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APRIL 1962:
"And you say that there have been no whales hunted or taken for the whole of this year?" Black Siren asked, incredulous.
Tom Turbine shook his head: "That's exactly it. Somehow, I'm not sorry to hear that. They're beautiful, majestic animals."
"Yes, but traditional whaling communities dependent on that industry are being hard hit." Green Guardsman replied.
"Regardless of our views about the morality or immorality of the practice of whale hunting, there's a mystery here to solve. Where are they all?" Tom asked the others.
"Oh, if only Cassandra were still with us. We could have used her precognitive skills for this." Black Siren commented, still mourning for the Justice Guild's other female member, the late Cassandra Astriides, who had died a month ago taking a bullet for Black Siren. It wasn't until after her tragic death that the Guild had discovered that she was dying from an aneurysm that steadily worsened every time she used her hereditary precognitive ability.
The Streak had been the only one of the Guild to have believed one of her particularly controversial visions of the near future, after her death- that in only a matter of months, there would be a nuclear war and that Seaboard City would be amongst the targets of Soviet nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles. At his home, his family had their suitcases packed and ready for when the time came. Unfortunately, it was a sore point with Green Guardsman, a patriotic ex-US marine who had served in the Korean War. Unfortunately, there were limitations to his velocity- he could only travel as fast as the speed of sound, which meant that he couldn't detect any sonic communication amongst the missing whales. Nor was Green Guardsman's ring any better at detecting the creatures. Tom Turbine had monitored telephone conversations between environmental activists and groups at the request of the CIA, only to learn that the ecologist community was as mystified as the rest of the general public at the sudden turn of events. Whatever was happening, they weren't responsible. Catman had suggested that the organisation focus on more salient matters at hand, such as the Injustice Guild's latest ploy, an attempt to secure plans for new supersonic fighter planes for their own nefarious criminal purposes. After much deliberation, the Justice Guild made the choice to take up Catman's reminder of their priorities, which were crimefighting, disaster relief and national security. There was no concrete evidence that the whale mystery had anything to do with any of their organisational purposes. For them, as for the governments of Earth-109 until the events of October 1962 obliterated them all, the absence of Earth's cetaceans would forever remain unresolved.
INDIAN OCEAN: JANUARY- SEPTEMBER 1962:
One woman had known about events in the Indian Ocean, but she had made a solemn pact not to converse with any mortal agency about what she knew and Cassandra Astriides had taken that secret with her to her untimely grave when she died in March 1962. Not even her former colleagues knew about what occurred there. Perhaps they would not have believed what she had to say, in any case. Millennia ago, long before humans had evolved on Earth and when sea levels were somewhat lower than the modern datum, a lost continent retrospectively named Lemuria existed in the area of the Indian Ocean. A sapient species of reptiles had arisen during the Age of the Dinosaurs, only to face its own apparent apocalypse and extinction when a large asteroid had hit what would be known as the Gulf of Mexico and caused catastrophic global changes, seventy million years ago. But that was only apparent, because the species had mastered transdimensional physics and consequently, had escaped to an adjacent alternate Earth where the orbital momentum of that world had meant the asteroid missed the Earth altogether and impacted on Mercury several months later instead.
The reptilians had no way of knowing that older energy based beings shared the planet with them and were monitoring events there. In the earlier stages of the reptilian species development, the energy beings had assumed the form of that species, posing as its deities. After the fall of the Chicxulub asteroid and the obliteration of the world that the sapient reptiles had known, the energy sentiences noted that another mammalian species was evolving primordial tool making abilities and if it survived, it could be analysed and observed in its term. Eventually, that species became humanity. One of the energy sentiences inhabited the oceans and became known as a marine goddess. For the sake of this story, we shall name it Amphitrite, after Posiedon's consort. While her companions doted on the newly arisen human species, Amphitrite's loyalty belonged to another sapient species, cetaceans. When their transtemporal sensory abilities had detected the coalescence of the causal sequence that would lead to nuclear war in late October 1962, many of the energy sentiences realised that they could not survive the magnitude and severity of what would befall Earth in several months time. So concluding, they evacuated the Earth. But Amphitrite remained.
Using her abilities, she reactivated the Lemurian portal, although she changed the output end to a further alternate Earth, one where sapient life would never evolve on land and which had a compatible biosphere that would not present any threat to the prospective refugee cetacean population. Then, using her multilingual capabilities, Amphitrite spoke to her charges, telling them of the forthcoming turmoil that would follow the human nuclear holocaust and the deadly ecological damage that it would do to the planet's oceans. And, because they had observed the use of human nuclear weapon tests themselves, there was no argument. Using unaccustomed migration routes out of the usual hunting areas of whalers, Amphitrite guided the cetacean exodus to their new, human-free home through the newly submerged portal. Finally, on September 28, 1962, the last dolphin and its family swam through the portal and the cetacean exodus was over. Not a whale or dolphin was left on Earth-109. The portal then ceased operation. Some would have asked why Amphitrite decided to spare cetaceans instead of humans. She would argue that they had not constructed the doomsday weapons that would devastate not only humanity but kindred other species, ushering some into final extinction. However, her charge done, Amphitrite waited for the doom that would overtake Earth-109's oceans as much as it would scar and devastate its landmasses. And on October 28, 1962, she perished with untold millions of other marine lifeforms in a war that they had not wanted nor wished for. But on distant Cetacean Earth, her favoured children cavorted and prospered.
THE END
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APRIL 1962:
"And you say that there have been no whales hunted or taken for the whole of this year?" Black Siren asked, incredulous.
Tom Turbine shook his head: "That's exactly it. Somehow, I'm not sorry to hear that. They're beautiful, majestic animals."
"Yes, but traditional whaling communities dependent on that industry are being hard hit." Green Guardsman replied.
"Regardless of our views about the morality or immorality of the practice of whale hunting, there's a mystery here to solve. Where are they all?" Tom asked the others.
"Oh, if only Cassandra were still with us. We could have used her precognitive skills for this." Black Siren commented, still mourning for the Justice Guild's other female member, the late Cassandra Astriides, who had died a month ago taking a bullet for Black Siren. It wasn't until after her tragic death that the Guild had discovered that she was dying from an aneurysm that steadily worsened every time she used her hereditary precognitive ability.
The Streak had been the only one of the Guild to have believed one of her particularly controversial visions of the near future, after her death- that in only a matter of months, there would be a nuclear war and that Seaboard City would be amongst the targets of Soviet nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles. At his home, his family had their suitcases packed and ready for when the time came. Unfortunately, it was a sore point with Green Guardsman, a patriotic ex-US marine who had served in the Korean War. Unfortunately, there were limitations to his velocity- he could only travel as fast as the speed of sound, which meant that he couldn't detect any sonic communication amongst the missing whales. Nor was Green Guardsman's ring any better at detecting the creatures. Tom Turbine had monitored telephone conversations between environmental activists and groups at the request of the CIA, only to learn that the ecologist community was as mystified as the rest of the general public at the sudden turn of events. Whatever was happening, they weren't responsible. Catman had suggested that the organisation focus on more salient matters at hand, such as the Injustice Guild's latest ploy, an attempt to secure plans for new supersonic fighter planes for their own nefarious criminal purposes. After much deliberation, the Justice Guild made the choice to take up Catman's reminder of their priorities, which were crimefighting, disaster relief and national security. There was no concrete evidence that the whale mystery had anything to do with any of their organisational purposes. For them, as for the governments of Earth-109 until the events of October 1962 obliterated them all, the absence of Earth's cetaceans would forever remain unresolved.
INDIAN OCEAN: JANUARY- SEPTEMBER 1962:
One woman had known about events in the Indian Ocean, but she had made a solemn pact not to converse with any mortal agency about what she knew and Cassandra Astriides had taken that secret with her to her untimely grave when she died in March 1962. Not even her former colleagues knew about what occurred there. Perhaps they would not have believed what she had to say, in any case. Millennia ago, long before humans had evolved on Earth and when sea levels were somewhat lower than the modern datum, a lost continent retrospectively named Lemuria existed in the area of the Indian Ocean. A sapient species of reptiles had arisen during the Age of the Dinosaurs, only to face its own apparent apocalypse and extinction when a large asteroid had hit what would be known as the Gulf of Mexico and caused catastrophic global changes, seventy million years ago. But that was only apparent, because the species had mastered transdimensional physics and consequently, had escaped to an adjacent alternate Earth where the orbital momentum of that world had meant the asteroid missed the Earth altogether and impacted on Mercury several months later instead.
The reptilians had no way of knowing that older energy based beings shared the planet with them and were monitoring events there. In the earlier stages of the reptilian species development, the energy beings had assumed the form of that species, posing as its deities. After the fall of the Chicxulub asteroid and the obliteration of the world that the sapient reptiles had known, the energy sentiences noted that another mammalian species was evolving primordial tool making abilities and if it survived, it could be analysed and observed in its term. Eventually, that species became humanity. One of the energy sentiences inhabited the oceans and became known as a marine goddess. For the sake of this story, we shall name it Amphitrite, after Posiedon's consort. While her companions doted on the newly arisen human species, Amphitrite's loyalty belonged to another sapient species, cetaceans. When their transtemporal sensory abilities had detected the coalescence of the causal sequence that would lead to nuclear war in late October 1962, many of the energy sentiences realised that they could not survive the magnitude and severity of what would befall Earth in several months time. So concluding, they evacuated the Earth. But Amphitrite remained.
Using her abilities, she reactivated the Lemurian portal, although she changed the output end to a further alternate Earth, one where sapient life would never evolve on land and which had a compatible biosphere that would not present any threat to the prospective refugee cetacean population. Then, using her multilingual capabilities, Amphitrite spoke to her charges, telling them of the forthcoming turmoil that would follow the human nuclear holocaust and the deadly ecological damage that it would do to the planet's oceans. And, because they had observed the use of human nuclear weapon tests themselves, there was no argument. Using unaccustomed migration routes out of the usual hunting areas of whalers, Amphitrite guided the cetacean exodus to their new, human-free home through the newly submerged portal. Finally, on September 28, 1962, the last dolphin and its family swam through the portal and the cetacean exodus was over. Not a whale or dolphin was left on Earth-109. The portal then ceased operation. Some would have asked why Amphitrite decided to spare cetaceans instead of humans. She would argue that they had not constructed the doomsday weapons that would devastate not only humanity but kindred other species, ushering some into final extinction. However, her charge done, Amphitrite waited for the doom that would overtake Earth-109's oceans as much as it would scar and devastate its landmasses. And on October 28, 1962, she perished with untold millions of other marine lifeforms in a war that they had not wanted nor wished for. But on distant Cetacean Earth, her favoured children cavorted and prospered.
THE END
