Actual Dream: Why you should never eat the second cookie.
I was in another place far off into the future; on a planet with less than half the gravity of Earth. I was part of a seed colony sent to terraform and help populate the new world. It was a world of mostly water dotted with only a few tiny islands here and there. We carried genetic material for marine life in hopes of creating a compatible food source. When we set out we were numbered 50 males and 50 females split into 4 ships.
During entry into the planets atmosphere one of our ships carrying 37 females, 14 males and most of the genetic material and specialized equipment was destroyed. It was a near total loss. Only some of the genetic material was recovered but it had become completely mixed up and most of the artificial gestation equipment lost.
Now we were numbered 13 females and 36 males. Of the remaining survivors several geneticists got to work immediately trying to salvage the genetic material but were still unable to decipher one species from another so they decided to employ splicing techniques to create a viable life form from what they had. It was Frankenstein science as they had no idea what they were splicing.
There was no way they could have predicted that what they would create would become the biggest nightmare human beings had ever encountered.
It started out harmless enough; a few small embryos in test tubes. As they began to divide they were transferred into the remaining gestational chambers. A few days later they had outgrown them completely and it was thought that they wouldn’t survive so they were expelled from the chambers and dumped into the ocean. They blamed the unusual size of the fetuses on the planets low gravity coupled with the inadequate ability to identify what was being cross bred and decided to try again.
The second attempt proved to be much more successful. They created a new species of fish resembling a tuna that was hardy enough for the new ocean but could also be bred fairly quickly in storage tanks to supplement the colony’s food supply until the next supply ships arrived sometime in the next decade. Soon the first failed experiment was all but forgotten having been overshadowed by the success of the latter.
Over the course of the next few years the focus would return to replenishing the human population. Originally the plan had included 50 pairings in which the first children would have arrived within the first 18 months after initial colonization. But with so few females it was decided that only the most fertile males would be allowed to reproduce and the remaining few would undergo gene therapy to replace their male reproductive organs with that of a female’s.
This wasn’t the most popular idea among those chosen to become “female” and several more lives were lost in a failed mutiny. The rebellion did not last long as the chosen males decided it would be better to give up their sexual identity rather than be put to death.
Sometime during those first few years on the planet the balance of power shifted toward the minority female population and all leadership and breeding activity was controlled and monitored by the “true” women.
I had become one of the breeding males and was forced to provide my services whenever they wished. Those services didn’t always include reproductive tasks as the male population had become servants to the females. However, unlike my comrades, I was just looking for a way to escape and soon an opportunity to do so would present itself.
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Our colony had been initially established on one of the larger islands in the Southern Hemisphere of the planet. We never bothered naming the island itself but we referred to the first sight as GSC-364 Primary or the Primary Outpost.
It was during our 3rd year that we began construction of our Secondary Outpost. This was to be a giant mobile platform constructed over water for exploratory drilling and to monitor and document meteorological activity within the planets atmosphere; basically a research facility.
We implemented the use of large robots called Genesis Drones designed specifically for undertaking massive construction projects in harsh environments. These mechanoids had the ability to assemble massive structures in 1/8 the time a full crew of 500 human workers could complete a project. They were fully automated and only required preprogrammed schematics and a staff of five human technicians to operate at 100% efficiency.
I had been assigned to the Judicator’s staff as her personal assistant. This was my secondary function and served no real purpose other than to keep my genetic material safe from harm as “breeder” males weren’t allowed dangerous work details. There were 8 of us in total and we were kept under lock and key within the main compound at the primary outpost. By the end of the third year I had already fathered 11 offspring between 4 “true” females and 3 modified females.
We were well on our way to completion of the secondary outpost when the first attacks began.
Long before the seed ships were launched to this world several scouting drones had been sent ahead to investigate the feasibility of colonizing the planet. It was discovered that no lifeforms higher than bacteria inhabited this world and only light terraforming would be required to stabilize the atmosphere enough to sustain life brought from Earth.
The first attack came from directly below the platform. If it hadn’t been for the video monitoring via a Genesis Drone’s live feed it might have been mistaken for an industrial accident. But the footage had shown something very massive ascending from the ocean and completely destroying the northernmost support columns. The structure buckled and then broke off and we lost almost 1/3 of the entire platform in less than 60 seconds.
After an extensive investigation and much scrutiny over the video footage it was decided that we were not in fact alone on this world. They calculated the creatures length at over 800 feet with a mass of roughly 12,000 tons. It was truly the largest life form ever discovered and was called Leviathan by one of the research assistants. The name stuck. I personally saw the footage and I was terrified by the sheer scale.
It’s hard to describe what I saw. It had a smooth, dark grey carapace like that of a large sea mammal but it was sectioned off by what seemed to be giant scales. It had a rounded body like that of a whale but instead of flippers it had long arms with with giant clawed hands resembling that of prehistoric reptiles. The head of the beast was truly nightmarish. It had the look of something crossed between a crocodile, a whale and a shark. The one thing that stood out was the sheer size of the creature. It couldn’t even come close to comparison with the size of any other known life form.
Needless to say, construction was halted immediately and all Genesis Drones, human personal and construction materials were ordered back to the primary outpost until we could determine the next course of action.
A team of researchers was assembled which included genetic lab techs, weapons specialists and engineers. They would be tasked at devising a plan to hunt down and destroy this creatures so that construction of the secondary platform could be resumed. It was imperative to complete the structure (which would also serve as a landing platform) before the first supply vessels arrived in 5 years. Speed was of the utmost importance as the window for successful completion was rapidly closing.
At this point my bladder woke me up and that was that. I threw this together kinda fast before the memory of it faded completely. I may polish it up a bit, elaborate a bit more and perhaps think of a good ending. Maybe 3 cookies next time?
