Q: to an unknown genius

to an unknown genius
By Sean Nelson

A giant crab gorged itself on nuclear waste on planet earth.

Giant lizards flew dizzyingly high in the air. Occasionally, these
lizards dared to swoop down to the earth to pick up a rotting human or
animal and carry it up into the heavens. These dragons dared not linger
too closely to the earth where toxic chemicals lay in pools and flowed
in acid rivers to the sea. Nor was there any safe perch for these
tortured creatures. Never did they stop hovering above the wasteland
below. They glided while they ate, while they mated, and even while
they slept!

Also, far beneath the ground, gigantic roots managed to survive. They
drank of underground water, which meters of hard rock and dirt mostly
purified.

The whole world was a battle field. Warlike flags, which had lain
undisturbed for centuries, still flew proudly. But not one of a billion
skeletons around the flags cared to rise and salute them. The skeletons
were right to not do this. It was a conflict over which of these flags
was to fly over the earth which led to the destruction of man on
earth.

At this moment, at five places across this hellish earth, the earth
began to tremble. Gigantic explosions erupted, belching fire into the
sky and creating canyons that descended into the very bowels of the
earth. The evils of man had played themselves out on the surface of the
earth and left the bowels of the earth clean.

Out of the depths of the earth, five gigantic black rockets flew.
Programmed by humans long dead, these rockets were on a mission. On
each of these rockets, in mammoth script, was a simple inscription that
said: "To parry Ragnarok".

For the sake of simplicity, we will follow the journey of only one of
these rockets. For nearly a million years, it drifted in empty, dead
space. It was traveling to a far away star. After its voyage, it landed
on a planet that orbited this star. The exact landing point had long
ago been decided by an unknown genius. The rocket landed a quarter mile
from an ocean. The new planet was very similar to earth. The primary
differences were an overabundance of heat and a scarcity of air.

For another century, the rocket lay dormant, taking in data and
sending out various chemicals. As if by magic, this planet, which had
already been so like earth, became almost exactly like earth before
man, with the glaring exception that there was no life on the new
planet.

Then, one magical day, the door of the rocket opened and a thousand
human youths emerged. These humans were physically beautiful and of
many different races and physical types. Curiously, they gazed at the
vibrant world around them. They ran to the ocean and played on the
soft, sandy shores.

Soon, a very short, muscular African boy named Odin took charge. He
sent out some groups to search for suitable caves. He sent out others
to introduce various plants and animals to the new planet. And then he
put most of his followers to work planting seeds in a nearby
valley.

For millennium to come, Odin was to be the customary name of rulers of
this new society. And a great society formed. The accomplishments of
the people of this planet would far exceed the accomplishments of the
mother planet earth.

If the reader is perplexed as to how these humans were aboard the
rocket, then let me explain. There were only computers and human
embryos on the rocket when it left earth. But through a very
complicated process, the rocket had turned the human embryos into young
humans who were physically fit and highly educated.

The inscription on the rocket said: "to parry Ragnarok".

In Viking mythology, the gods were constantly at war with evil ice
giants who would someday defeat the gods. Ragnarok was the day when the
ice giants would kill the gods and destroy the Viking heaven,
Valhalla.