WE ARE NOT ALONE AND NEVER HAVE BEEN

We are not alone and never have been

Even if you cannot see it, it may be there

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. Except, may be, the creature that is screaming, even then it is argued that in a vacuum there can be no transmission of sound waves from mouth to ears, that may be true for humans, but not all the inhabitants, of all the galaxies, are human. Space is vast, infinitely vast. It is so big that it is beyond human comprehension, but it is not empty. It is so close to being empty that it is OK to call it a vacuum. But strange forces live and operate in that near vacuum. Human scientists call this “dark matter and dark energy,” because they do not understand it, but then human science is very new and only just beginning to search for real understanding. The race of beings, the “Ocerons” were old before Gaia allowed humans to start their evolution. Compared to most species in the universe, the evolution from organic slime to science studying by humans, was very fast. This may be due to the short life spans of humans or it may be due to Gaia wishing to catch up with other living planets. The sentient planets communicate with each other, through the dark energy and Oceriton was a much older planet than Gaia and was always sending disparaging messages about how backward the puppet life forms raised by Gaia were, compared to her own. Gaia had always pretended she was not annoyed by this and had countered with boasts about the huge diversity of puppet life forms she had raised while Oceriton only had a single species to her credit.

Ocerons had also evolved from a super-heated stream of organic slime, but this was ten million years before Gaia had cooled enough to have organic slime. Because the origins of Ocerons occurred at such high temperatures, compared to Humans and with no competition, from other species, for existence; they had evolved into creatures totally different from anything on Gaia. They do not have an actual physical body. They are a translucent, very loose compilation of particles. They did not breath in a way any earth creature understands. They are mostly energy, dark energy, and they form individuals and groups simply by meshing one collection of particles with others. They do not reproduce The cloud of particles formed at the start of “life” is a constant, which means they cannot die. Because they started so long before humans, they were more advanced in some things but, the lack of competition for anything; meant that they lagged so far behind in other areas of existence. They have no resilience, no power to overcome adversity and no aggressive instincts. When they first set out to explore space, they encountered physical resistance from life forms, and this sent a collective shock through their collective whole. The first encounters, long before Gaia raised her puppets, caused the disintegration of the Ocerons involved. This disintegration is not the same as a human death, the particles are simply absorbed back into the collective whole. Which is how the collective whole gains knowledge of all that happened to individual groups of its particles. These encounters made them very cautious about contact with alien species, while they lack the aggressive resistance to attack, necessary to survive in a competitive situation, they were wise enough to develop avoidance skills. The chief avoidance skill is not letting an adversary know you exist.

Through the dark matter and the communication between the sentient planets, they knew of the evolution of humans, they visited earth and watched. While on Gaia they made themselves into, what to humans and all other creatures, were transparent collections of particles. They were surprised when in some conditions, some of the evolving creatures, could actually detect their presence. In this they should not have been surprised since Gaia would obviously take steps to ensure some of her puppets were aware of alien intrusion. They Ocerons do not understand self-preservation since they never need this, they just re-merge with the group whole, they do not die. By human understanding, this makes them fearless, but they have no concept of fear and so can never be called brave of fearless. In their invisibility mode the Ocerons followed the progress of evolution over the thousands of earth years, they saw the gradual change from simian to human, they witnessed the stone age and the iron age. They marvelled at the physical skill which drove on the industrial revolution. They struggled to comprehend why wars were started and became so destructive. They are still in awe at the speed at which technology advanced on Gaia. This ability to manipulate the physical world and make use of it, really shook them when they first observed it. They are able to control a force field and so control energy, but they cannot swing a hammer or build a house of stone. Not that they have any need for a house of stone, they do not feel hot or cold, they do not eat or sleep. By the time humans ventured into space, the Ocerons had been witnesses to all human advances, they had also came to understand that cats and dogs could sense their presence, without being able to physically see them. They also know that some humans could get glimpses of their outline and become aware of the force field they use on earth, ghostly apparitions being the human’s explanation for their close encounters with Ocerons.

Once Gaia’s human puppets started their exploration of the wider universe, Gaia and Oceriton judged it time to set aside their petty point scoring and start to work together against a common enemy. On the far side of the galactic spiral another sentient planet had developed a taste for power. The power to destroy and cause fear in others. This planet; “Elvitra” had already evolved its “puppets” into a single aggressive species. Elvitra had started with 3 separate species, one super strong physically, another hugely powerful at manipulating energy forcefields and the other with an ability to study all things to find weakness. Elvitra had then merged these into a single species called the ”Elvish” who are bipeds with wings, fully grown about two meters tall, they have both internal skeletons and external hard-shell protection. There are supremely adaptable to whatever environment they are placed in, they mate and give birth to live young in a way similar to humans but love, or even affection, have no place in their psychology. They mate when ordered to by a superior and the infant is placed into a growing process which does not involve the parents or any sort of emotional understanding. They live around a hundred earth years unless killed in battle. Any injured or below standard Elvish are killed by their superiors. They have a strict three levels of command and they do not have movement between these. They are born and die in their band of seniority. The master Elvish can communicate directly with Elvitra and they are the conduit by which Elvitra wields her power over other planets. The masters give orders to the Commander Elvish who control with absolute power over the rest of the Elvish population.

Even at the super- hypersonic speeds and bending the hyperspace to jump lightyears at a time using dark energy, it has taken a long time for the news of Elvitra to reach Gaia, the news was already out of date by the time it arrived, but that news was that Elvitra has already invaded and enslaved three other sentient planets who were unfortunate enough to be close to her. All life forms on these planets had been turned into food for the Elvish but before being devoured they had to work in the armament factories designed to supply Elvitra with the means to spread her evil conquests still further. It could only be an estimate, not an exact count, of how many other living planets have been subjugated. What is certain is that she needs to be stopped as soon as possible. Oceriton and Gaia reached out to as many other planets, as possible. While the sheer scale of the galaxy, just one of millions of other galaxies, means there are quite a number of planets, only a small percentage are living, that is sentient and capable of creating the puppets who can develop into creatures of usefulness. They assembled three other live planets , Liberton, Liverson and Duneton; to their cause and then set about trying to utilise all their most developed puppets into a force that could fight against the Elvish. The initial plan was to set up a united five planet, battle force, design engineers from planet Liberton, weapon systems and in-flight commanders, active service soldiers are from Gaia-- intelligence is the responsibility of the Ocerons. Medical care is from Liverson and space navigation from Duneton. Together they are a force designed to engage in the galaxy wide battle against Elvitra.

As a first move Gaia and Oceriton worked together to unite humans and the Ocerons, this was no easy task, getting humans to realise that ghosts and apparitions were not from their own past but actually living creatures from an alien planet, was only a start. Then they had to get the Ocerons to accept humans as equal partners in a vast project, they then had to engineer direct communication between them and remove the suspicion and doubt to ensure active cooperation. Since they could not offer direct physical evidence of the evil growing on the other side of the galaxy, thousands of light years away, they had to plant the ideas of the Elvish as being a threat that was much closer. A considerable amount of mind control and use of dark energy were involved in this. A group of humans working in Extra Sensory Perception were selected and led to believe they discovered the truth about the ghosts they searched for. The collective whole of Ocerons were persuaded that humanity had now evolved into a species they should join with in cooperative research. Once the shock had worn off, both sides embraced the new situation. It did not take long to develop a communication system which allowed the Ocerons to input to a computer that turned their input into Text on the screen. The humans then typed in a response which the computer translated into electromagnetic pulses the Ocerons could absorb and understand. So phase one of the war against Elvitra was complete.

Future chapters

The other three live planets, Liberton, Liverson and Duneton; have humanoid creatures as their leading evolved species, they are all slightly more advanced in space technology then we humans, from their advice we jumped a few hundred earth years in the development of fusion drive and hypersonic travel. We gave them much better weapons. Development of space ships for the physical species, the first skirmishes in the war, the battles, the ebb and flow of advance and retreat