* Id: Fomalhaut * Revision: 1 * State: submitted * * Log: * Revision 1 2000/02/04 Corwyn Green * Initial submitted version. * * Checked-out 2000/02/04 Roel van der Meulen Return-path: Received: from pop.argonet.co.uk by localhost with POP3 (fetchmail-5.0.5) for mrs@localhost (single-drop); Fri, 04 Feb 2000 08:22:13 +0000 (GMT) Received: from (itsy.spiders.net) [206.24.0.5] by golden.argonet.co.uk with smtp (Exim 1.82 #3) id 12Gdvv-00028P-00; Fri, 4 Feb 2000 08:17:39 +0000 Received: (qmail 18327 invoked by uid 2590); 4 Feb 2000 08:18:14 -0000 Delivered-To: cleggp-megadodo-mark@megadodo.com Received: (qmail 18324 invoked by uid 2590); 4 Feb 2000 08:18:14 -0000 Delivered-To: cleggp-megadodo-submit@megadodo.com Received: (qmail 18318 invoked from network); 4 Feb 2000 08:18:12 -0000 Received: from pimout4-1.prodigy.net (HELO pimout4-int.prodigy.net) (207.115.58.238) by silk.spiders.net with SMTP; 4 Feb 2000 08:18:12 -0000 Received: from xxx (HRFRB103-19.splitrock.net [209.156.68.65]) by pimout4-int.prodigy.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id DAA74534 for ; Fri, 4 Feb 2000 03:17:25 -0500 Message-ID: <001b01bf6ee7$ddf22d40$41449cd1@xxx> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0018_01BF6EBD.F1363880" Subject: ^ From: "Corwyn Green" To: Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2000 03:14:26 -0500 X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2314.1300 Envelope-to: mseaborn@argonet.co.uk Delivery-date: Fri, 4 Feb 2000 08:17:41 +0000 Organization: Prodigy Internet %t Fomalhaut, Adapting to (unreal) *(Dedicated to Kilgore Trout, *The character in Kurt Vonnegut's books) %a Corwyn Green %d today %i Adapting to Fomalhaut %e 1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456 Around the star Fomalhaut there was a planet where life was so painful, unfair, futile, and just plain bad that not one, _every_ species of life on the planet was prone to suicide. Naturally, the forces of nature selected for those beings that survived and reproduced. Simply, those who didn't live and reproduce, died and vanished. But on this planet, the most important factor for survival was not strength or intelligence. On Fomalhaut's planet, the will to live needed to be developed. And so it was. First Nature tried optimism. But on the planet that orbited Fomalhaut, such an outlook on life could be held only so stupid and blind they were not smart enough to actually search for food or reproduction. For the sentient population, some other way had to be found for the sentient population. So Nature experimented with religion. No Fomalhautian believed for any length of time any religion that told it to feel good, because such a feeling could not be long sustained on Fomalhaut. But it was easy to believe anyone who said their planet was a place of punishment. One religion arose that taught their planet was a place of purification for sins done on another planet, which they described alternately as Alpha Centauri or the third planet of Sol. They came to believe that happiness - if it could be possible anywhere - could only be attained after death when they are reincarnated on another planet, because it certainly could not be attained on Fomalhaut without the use of deadly drugs. But happiness on another planet was only possible if they were sufficiently punished for past sins on Fomalhaut. So they punished themselves and each other by not taking baths, flogging themselves, imprisoning themselves within small lightless spaces where they drowned in their own excretions, and all the other things Christians had done in the middle ages. This did not work any better on Fomalhaut's planet than it had on Earth, and soon this religion died out. But the self-flagellations and the pleasures of tortures were not forgotten: they had discovered masochism. "If your life is pain, then become a masochist and enjoy it," became the cliche wisdom of the Fomalhautians. It was an improvement over suicide. Now they at least tried to prolong their lives, for masochistic reasons. It also created the first Fomalhautians who lived and died happy in the history of their planet - the real history, not the fairy tales they put in their textbooks for their children to read. They enjoyed themselves very much as they tortured themselves to death. But as the Earthlings say "nature is a mother", and she kept what worked, the Fomalhautian enjoyment of suffering, only she now made is so that they now enjoyed it in others, and not themselves. The Fomalhautians became sadists. This was better than masochism because they no longer contributed to their own destruction, merely each other's. Now they happily tortured _each other_ to death. It was then when nature carried through Her coup de grace: she made the Fomalhauts enjoy other's pain, but dislike causing. So they now smiled with pleasure at the sight of another Fomalhautians misfortune but did nothing to contribute to it directly. This is not to say they did not _indirectly_ contribute to other's pain. They called this practice of indirectly causing suffering "making fun". Small pains inflicted on one of them could keep a group happy for hours. In this way they "made fun" on a completely funless planet. They called such things "funny".The Fomalhautians had discovered a sense of humor. Now that they finally found delight in life they created art and science and improved their military technology. They had a good time. They paid to see strangely dressed Fomalhautians clobber each other with harmless objects and shout insults at each other. But soon their comedy grew more sophisticated and grew to include their entire world, including exploding rockets and their ever-improving military technology. For example, sometimes they would Fomalhaut-a-phone someone in a country they were bombing and make fun of them. But one group of them developed a great Bomb and buried in the core of their planet. They made jokes about it. "Boom!" one would say and everyone would laugh. Parents told their children to eat the healthy foods - which were all disgusting in keeping with the nature of the planet of Fomalhaut - or be Bombed. The owners of the Bomb demanded food and pretty stones and pretty pictures and performances by famous comedians. Then one day someone thought it would be funny to actually explode the Bomb. And funny it was. Many laughed as their fellows ran around trying to survive the preliminary Fomalhaut-quakes, trying to outrun the trickles of lava that chased them. Funny were all the futile things they did to prolong their life on an exploding planet, which no one liked anyway. Funny also were some of them did in their last moments, expressing themselves freely and being themselves for the first and last five minutes of their lives. Around the star Fomalhaut there was a planet where life was so painful, unfair, futile, and just plain bad that Nature had to select for the will to live. This planet orbits the star Fomalhaut no longer, and the universe is a better place for the lack of it.