Legends of Erde

By Bob Springett

As the Earth collapses under the impact of Climate Change in the 22nd Century, a desperation mission plants a seed population of four pairs of genetically-modified humans on a nearby exoplanet which is given the name 'Erde'. (The ship is from the European Union and German is their working language).Over

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pen Culture Solutions
• Release date: Jan 30, 2023
• ISBN: 9781638122616

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Legends of Erde

Finding your roots can be difficult

Copyright © 2022 by Bob Springett.

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-63812-260-9

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-63812-261-6

All rights reserved. No part in this book may be produced and transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Published by Pen Culture Solutions 12/21/2022

Pen Culture Solutions 1-888-727-7204 (USA)

1-800-950-458 (Australia) [e-mail]

Dedication

To Olaf Stapledon, ethicist and writer who imagined so much bigger than anyone before him.

And to Gaby Michaelis,

Who told me everything that was wrong about the first draft of this book. In the nicest possible way, of course!

Acknowledgements

Many ingredients in this trilogy have been appropriated from the work of others. All writers do this, adding their own insights. It is how a particular writing tradition or genre develops. I think of it as standing on the shoulders of giants.

I am deeply indebted to Robert Zubrin’s seminal article ‘Technological Requirements for Terraforming Mars’ (NASA Ames Research Center, c. 1993), even though the plot of this trilogy deviates from it in places.

But of particular influence in the philosophical underpinning of this series of novels is Ted Chiang’s novella ‘The Story of your Life’. It is a must-read.

I am aware that the title of this novel bears some resemblance to an excellent novel, ‘The Last Legends of Earth’ by A. A. Attanasio. That is where the resemblance ends.

Contents

In The Beginning

Chapter 1    On Alpha

Chapter 2    Zoe’s Land

Chapter 3    Zoe’s Land

Chapter 4    Zoe’s Land

Chapter 5    87 degrees west of Leilah’s Harbour

Chapter 6    93 degrees west of Leilah’s Harbour

Chapter 7    Eastern Province, Juno’s Land

Chapter 8    South of Juno’s Land

Chapter 9    Sofieburg, Juno’s Land

Chapter 10  Eastern Parvatia

Chapter 11  North-western Parvatia

Chapter 12  Big River, Parvatia

Chapter 13  Northland, Juno’s Land

Chapter 14  Juno’s Land

Chapter 15  Juno’s Land

Chapter 16  Sofieburg, Juno’s Land

Chapter 17  Forest Road, Midlands, Juno’s Land

Chapter 18  Sofieburg, Juno’s Land

Chapter 19  Leilah’s Harbour, Zoe’s Land

Chapter 20  Sofieburg, JunoLand

Chapter 21  Juno’s Land

Chapter 22  Sofieburg, JunoLand

Chapter 23  Sofieburg, JunoLand

Chapter 24  Sofieburg, JunoLand

Chapter 25  Sofieburg, JunoLand

Chapter 26  Antipodes Islands

Chapter 27  Sofieburg, JunoLand

Chapter 28  Sofieburg, JunoLand

Chapter 29  Sofieburg, JunoLand

In The Beginning

On board Argo,

in orbit around Alpha

Earth Year 2221

Magda was already scanning a sheet of paper at the table when I walked into the meeting room. She grimaced as she looked up.

Hi Anna. Have you heard the latest news from Earth? Not for the last week or so, I replied.

I’ve just been handed the latest report. She waved the sheet at me. It’s twenty years out-of-date, of course, thanks to the lightspeed delay, but it seems that the Collapse has finally happened. This last message was a very weak signal and said not to expect any more.

I had been expecting this for years. I’m amazed they’ve hung on this long. I was expecting the link to be broken twenty years ago. They must have stockpiled plenty of food and gathered plenty of soldiers to defend it. They never mentioned that, though.

But they wouldn’t, would they? Magda dropped her hands to the table. Her despair seeped out of her every pore. Signing up for this mission when I was only twenty two years old was the smartest thing I ever did. Even back then I knew that spending the rest of my life in a giant canister would be much better than the forced migrations of starving millions, or the slavery under local warlords and the prospect of a slit throat when I was no longer useful… She let her hands fall to the table again in despondency. That’s all beside the point, Magda. Everyone knew this was going to happen. That’s why this ship was built and sent out. So we need to pull ourselves together and do the job.

The news from the Solar System had been bleak and getting worse for years now. By the time the effects of climate change had become too obvious for even populist politicians to ignore and worse than ever expected, the damage had become irreversible. One last gasp of collective sanity resulted in a co-operative effort by the European Union and China to build a self-supporting Mars colony and then to build and outfit a Generation Ship each. America and the Russian Federation also built their own ships. All four promised to share information through Earth as a relay station.

I could remember the taxi lift-off for this mission, when we were ferried a dozen at a time from the European Union’s South America facility to the finally-completed Argo, built in orbit. Magda and I had been among the youngest in the crew, earning our places as junior officers on the basis of our talent. Our entire adult lives had been spent inside this slowly-rotating cylinder as we both progressed up our respective hierarchies of command. Knowing it’s going to happen is all in the head, Magda dismissed my comment with a backhand wave. Knowing it’s happened hits the gut. She half-threw the sheet away from her. They couldn’t pull the world back from the brink. Now Earth’s out of the picture as a relay station, so there’s no hope of communication with the other generation ships. Only Earth-based radio-telescopes had the sensitivity to receive from the ships and the power to re-transmit their news to the others. We’re now utterly on our own.

Carl entered the room. Magda, Ananya, sorry I’m late, he bowed his head slightly.

Just on time, I excused him. "Let’s get under way.’ I slapped at the button to bring the recording computer to life and composed myself to the formality of the meeting.

"Advisory Committee Meeting 3 July, 2221. Magdalena Karpinski, Ananya Subbarayan and Carl Schmitt present.

"Last meeting determined that we would do well to study these two planets more closely. Since then, it has been determined that Alpha is as close to ideal as we are ever likely to find. I am inclined to leave a seed population here, with appropriate genetic adjustments to suit local conditions.

One option, to plant a population of a hundred breeding pairs to ensure an adequate gene pool, is unwise from a sociological perspective. That could create a tendency towards tribalism, leading to exactly the same endemic warfare that has been a blight on Earth’s history. It is also questionable that we could produce so large a population, even with rapid expansion of our skilled staff and other resources. The alternative is to concentrate our efforts and resources to produce a smaller number of first pairs with wider separation, a strong libido, powerful parenting instincts and a long period of fertility. This could provide more social cohesion while permitting a rapid increase in total population. Wide separation will also protect against extinction because of a local disaster. Your comments, please?

I looked to Carl and Magda for a response. Magda seemed submerged in her own thoughts. Before promotion to First Officer Carl had been the Head of Earth Sciences, covering the biology of discovered planets. He spoke first.

There’s always the brute fact that each offspring would only inherit half of each parent’s heritage. Too small a first generation could be a bottleneck that could choke the whole project. There is also the risk of a small population being wiped out by a disaster. If by chance there is only one male or one female, and that individual dies, the whole colony dies.

Prudent observation, Carl.

Carl continued. "Against that, there is the observation that the planet is quite benign. There are no predators capable of harming a human, and the DNA base pairs for life on this planet are different from our own DNA base pairs, so the risk of humans being vulnerable to any local diseases is vanishingly small. There might be parasites, but we have no history of co- evolution so that is also only a remote possibility. We can locate them away from sites liable to natural disaster such as volcanic or seismic activity, and the ocean temperatures on this planet are too low for hurricane formation.

But that leaves the problem of the genetic bottleneck. No matter what, each child will have only half of each parent’s genetic variety."

I looked to Magda. She was still withdrawn. Carl was waiting for my response.

We can minimise that risk. We can transplant a gonad from another individual dropped for non-genetic reasons, which will give us twice the effective gene pool. We can screen to ensure as little genetic overlap as possible. We should also give the seed pairs high libido and a late menopause to make sure that first generation will be as large as possible. That way any genes missed in one child would have a greater chance of being passed to the siblings.

Carl nodded. That should ensure that virtually all of the genetic inheritance would be passed on. Later generations can settle back to a more sustainable birth rate. I looked to Magda again.

Although Magda was captain of the ship, her official powers were limited to ensuring the safe operation of the ship and its personnel. Command of the mission as such rested with me, but I would be foolish to act without looking for input from others outside my own circle of technical advisors. Why won’t she contribute? I needed independent critique. There was always the risk that my close advisors would say what they thought I wanted to hear, in hope of advancing their own careers.

At last Magda stirred. So how many pairs do you have in mind? There are three main continents on this planet. I’m thinking of perhaps two pairs on each, placed at opposite ends. That’s six pairs. Their descendants in each place should be able to develop into a reasonably complex society by the time they come into contact with each other, which should ensure that wars of extermination won’t occur.

Look over your shoulder before you say that, Magda replied.

Magda should know better than to engage in such unhelpful cracks about the fate of Earth. That news earlier today had really kicked the bucket out from under her.

Carl came to the rescue of his captain here.

"At first sight the idea of only six couples seems to be a risky option. More numbers is always a good survival strategy in case of mishap or local disaster. But in this case I think the conditions on the planet are in our favour.

"This target planet is a billion years younger than Earth and life hasn’t progressed so far. All the vertebrates observed so far are limbless and have a body mass less than five kilograms. The largest land carnivore is barely a kilogram, a lone hunter. Intelligence roughly that of an amphibian. And we should also be virtually immune to diseases and parasites.

There’s nothing on this planet that could harm a human. Which means losses in our populations should be negligible apart from mishap, and a long life reasonably assured.

And the other planet? I wanted Carl’s assessment on the formal record of the meeting.

"The other planet in this pair is not quite so suitable. The evidence suggests that the sea ice around those islands near the northern pole could accumulate year-on-year until it grows large enough for ocean currents to pull it free. This would be swept down to the tropical convergence in a matter of a few months. Thousands of square kilometres of arctic sea ice acting as a heat sink in the tropics would play havoc with the climate before it melts and the planet regains stability. That could destroy any society based on agriculture.

Also, the dominant life-forms on that second planet are very similar to swarming insects. We haven’t been observing long enough yet to be sure, but the expectation is that some herbivore species will regularly build up to plague proportions and sweep across continents, denuding most vegetation. This will promote plague numbers of larger insects that prey on them. Some of these larger insects are generalised feeders, likely to attack humans if they exhaust their preferred prey species. They could eat entire civilisations before their numbers collapse again. The collapse in the predator population will then allow the herbivores to recover their numbers and the cycle will start again. Carl shrugged. I wouldn’t be surprised if this cyclic pattern is an adaption to climate instability arising from the sea ice problem.

So not a good place for naked humans?

They couldn’t survive, Carl agreed. Not without going underground or into sealed habitats for a year or more whenever a plague is coming.

Then Alpha it is, I summarised.

For just a moment Carl had a far-away look in his eyes. Is there anything else, Carl?

I was just thinking what it would be like to be one of the first astronomers on this planet. A close, tidally-locked double-planet, in a binary star system. Just think! As you watch the moon through the night you would be able to see with the naked eye how it zig-zags compared to the fixed stars, all due to the orbit of your own planet around the companion planet creating that parallax. And the companion star only twenty billion kilometres away would shine in the night twenty times brighter than the full moon back on Earth. He sighed and brought himself back to the business at hand. Anyway, what’s the news bulletin today? Anything about the other missions?

Still no word from the Americans, Magda answered. Contact with that Generation Ship had been lost after only a year. Mir was still decelerating as it approached its third target. Everyone knew that Mir’s first two stellar systems had been found to be unsuitable so no time was wasted on them. That had been disheartening at the time. It had prompted the Argo to remain at the marginally acceptable Prima to make the best of what might be the only possibility they would find.

And Lollipop is still working on its second site. The Chinese ship’s official name was something that non-Mandarin speakers rarely got right, but it sounded close enough to that English word that it was quickly and universally referred to as ‘The Good Ship Lollipop’. They continue to report ‘optimism’ and ‘progress’ without going into details, but Chinese are always saying things like that for the sake of face.

Magda was visibly fighting back the tears. I wonder if it’s worth it. I really hope at least one of our projects takes root.

You’re too much a mother, Carl said gently, trying to strengthen her. We don’t have the luxury of being able to watch over them like Greek gods. All we can do is lay our eggs in the sand like turtles, then swim back out to sea. They have to be able to fend for themselves.

Perhaps so, Carl, but I just don’t have the heart for this anymore. I’ve got the ship this far, but now I’m empty. She turned to me and gave another deep sigh before adopting a more formal manner. Ma’am, I offer you my resignation. This system looks like it’s worth working on, and a new phase requires a new Captain. That should give Carl a chance to settle in.

+       +       +

I stared at Paula’s screen as it displayed what the proposed humanoids would look like.

A significant degree of sexual dimorphism, I complained. Unavoidable, ma’am. The result of hormonal balances required by developmental considerations.

Lots of things are unavoidable, if you don’t really want to avoid them. My mother migrated to the European Union from South India because her sister was burned alive in an honour killing. The local culture made that ‘unavoidable’ too. I want as little sexual differentiation as possible. You say that what I see here is unavoidable; I say it’s unacceptable.

Atrocities like that have nothing to do with biology, ma’am. They’re culturally based.

Then give me physiques that make such cultural norms less likely! And while you’re at it, you can also work at entrenching a culture that considers violence against females repulsive, just as a backup. I thumped my palms down on the table, stood and strode out. I wanted this to be seen as a command, not a request. These modern Europeans have had no experience of the brutality that comes with patriarchal cultures. They just don’t see the dangers!

Thirty days later the genetic engineers presented me with a revised plan. This was for a male standing almost a hundred and fifty centimetres tall and with a body mass of sixty kilograms. Females would be about one hundred and twenty centimetres tall and mass about thirty kilograms. Body weight mattered on this planet with higher surface gravity than on Earth. Puberty was expected to occur at about fourteen years in males, twelve years in females. That was Earth years of age. The year on this planet is 20% longer than on Earth, so that would mean twelve local years for males and ten years for females.

That’s as close as we can get them, ma’am, Paula explained. I don’t believe you.

Paula offered me an envelope. "Then you have my resignation, ma’am. I’ve left the effective date blank for you to fill in as soon as you find someone you can believe."

I looked at the envelope in her hand, but made no move to reach out for it.

Sit down, Paula, and explain to me why you can’t produce adults of both sexes having the same stature.

Oh, I can make males and females the same size if you really want that, ma’am. All it needs is an adjustment to their differing hormonal balances. The tradeoff for that is drastically increased rates of functional infertility.

I considered this briefly. OK, I get it. So what can be done to prevent abuses?

Cultural indoctrination, ma’am. Everything they see, hear, do or think will reinforce a pre-programmed culture. This culture will measure a man’s worth in terms of his willingness to make personal sacrifices. Any males who are self-centred will be shunned, which will reinforce this attitude in the others. We need to give the first few individuals the most socially cohesive behaviours possible. Paula smiled. Self-reinforcing cultures can be very stable, for good or for ill.

I still dreaded the scope for the hierarchical social structures that seemed inevitable wherever sexual differentiation was the normal state. But I can’t fight biochemistry! If that’s the best you can do. Get me an outline of this cultural paradigm and I’ll consider it.

Also, ma’am, we’ve taken steps to integrate the autonomic nervous system with the somatic nervous system, so any excess capacity in either could be fully utilised for more generalised secondary purposes. We’re also making their individual cells as small as possible, particularly the neurones, so a small body or organ can be made as complex and redundant as possible. This should allow the brain to be relatively complex despite being smaller, a big advantage in a higher-gravity environment. I want this race to be at least the intellectual equal of average humans.

I nodded. Every little bit will help. The sooner they develop a high technology, the less time there will be for cultural norms based on physical strength to supplant this initial altruistic ideal of masculinity. All right, then. Do it.

+       +       +

It had been fifteen years of constant focussed work, but I was well satisfied. Oh, to get these humanoids down onto the planet, so I can retire! Paula was giving the latest monthly report on progress as I inspected the facility again. The individuals were in their liquid-filled tanks, limbs held in the machinery that both exercised them and taught them via feedback electrodes such complex behaviours as walking and manipulating items. Yet more electrodes pin-pricked into their skulls. Visors and earphones were feeding them customary knowledge while other systems provided them with nourishment and removed waste. There were six females and seven males still in the project, forty four individuals having died or otherwise been culled so far.

I was already familiar with their physique. It had been decided very early on that hair was a waste of both metabolic capacity and genetic space that was needed for more valuable traits.

Thanks to the greater distance from their sun and the much thicker atmosphere on this planet, UV intensity at the surface was much less than on Earth. This allowed bulky melanocytes to be replaced with miniaturised chloroplasts to further reduce cell size. These gave their skin a green tinge. The males were all still pre-pubescent and the females only starting to develop the exaggerated hip width that would ensure minimal risk during childbirth. The females of this race would certainly have an easier time than their creators, but they would need that for them to produce that huge first generation as intended.

These humanoids seemed more robust than planned, even as pubescents. Considerable strength was built into the design for higher gravity but no doubt the somnolent training contributed an additional margin. I doubted that they would exercise as much in real life as in the programme they were being put through while unconscious in this laboratory. Even the females, who were visibly more gracile than the males, had good musculature.

How’s the education coming along?

Quicker than we had allowed for, Paula answered readily. The females are well ahead of schedule in medicinal herbology, crafting skills, language and more abstract thinking such as imagination and planning. As far as we can make a valid comparison, their intelligence is in the top decile of the normal human range. It’s harder to tell with the males. Their training programme deals more with spatial concepts rather than abstract thinking. The current debates are around the option of further narrowing the male programme of abstract thinking to fit in an even greater level of spatial awareness. The females could have a comparative monopoly on logic in this first generation to go with their abstract thinking skills. If we can’t eliminate dimorphism, then let’s at least tilt it the way we want. Let the situation develop from there in later generations.

Speaking of abstract thinking, how is their language training going? I hadn’t even thought of language until now, so absorbed had I been in biology and administration.

We want to make it as easy as possible for them to integrate if more than one line of descent survives. This is a European Union ship and everyone on board speaks German, so it made sense to teach these humanoids German to ensure any new team members could fit into the programme smoothly.

I nodded. German would be the most convenient. Then I considered the role-modelling specialisations proposed by Paula. Let the men do the labouring that their stronger physiques will be better suited for. If females are the managers, a higher-status role in any society, that should prevent any semblance of patriarchy emerging. But we have to be careful that we don’t make that a cause for resentment.

I agree with cutting back on male abstract thinking and going heavier on their spatial awareness, but not so much as to polarise the species. They should still have considerable overlap to ensure a high level of empathy. As you say, a more balanced division of skills will arise over time but a bit of specialisation at the start could be very beneficial.

Paula nodded. We have two more years of development and education scheduled so there’s no problem in a bit of re-arranging. Soon we’ll have to decide how many of these we want to keep and how we want to distribute them around the planet. Are we still planning on isolated pairs?

That still seems to be the best. We want the first steps towards forming a society to be as easy as possible and we can’t get much simpler than families. If and when the descendants of one pair meet the children of another pair, that will be a problem for them to solve as they come to it. That should be so far into the future that they’ll be able to solve it in a civilised way. I’d like to spread them around the planet so no single local disaster can wipe them all out.

Paula nodded again. We still don’t have your decision on the distribution of knowledge among the pairs. Do you want all pairs to start with the same knowledge? Or should there be a common core but with each pair having a different specialisation?

They’ll all need enough to get up to Neolithic farming level, perhaps even basic maths, literacy and metal-working. That should let them build reasonably complex societies within the first century or so. Supplement that core with as many different niche skills as possible, so when they meet each other they’ll have more reason to work co-operatively.

Yes, ma’am. That means at least one pair has to be given some blue-water ship-building skills. Also a serious interest in astronomy for navigation and a dose of wanderlust to make them go out looking.

That sounds right. Have the team leaders agree on a suitable division of expertise and submit it to me for consideration. That can be the last layer of knowledge to be put into them, once they all have the basics.

+       +       +

The time has come! Four of the females were excellent quality, well ahead of the other two. I have decided that I will go with only these, and not persist with the others as planned. This planet is safe enough that we don’t need to include second-rate individuals to protect against extinction. One continent for each pair, except that the largest continent could have a pair at each end. I told Paula to select the best four males as their consorts. The final issue was names for the couples who were being placed. This ship, the Argo, had been named after a mythical Greek vessel. It had been the first ship of its kind to venture out on a journey across perilous seas to far shores, to sail the vastness of the Deep. Carl, the Captain since Magda had resigned, was convinced that Greek names would be most appropriate. The first woman’s name in his own religious tradition means ‘Living’, so he urged that one be called ‘Zoe’, Greek for ‘Life’. Her partner could be called ‘Andreas’, derived from Greek for ‘Man’.

Others wanted to follow Classical or Norse traditions.

I recognised that this is a European vessel, but I also believed we should represent all humanity rather than being Euro-centric. My inclination was to call one pair Shiva and Parvati, names from my own Hindu tradition. Carl and I exercised our prerogatives for one pair each. Then the Command Group selected the ten pairs of names that seemed most fitting and held a ship-wide ballot to make the final decision. As a final act of self-assertion, every given name of every member on board will lodged with the induced memories of at least one of the females. Each member of the crew can hope that some future hero or heroine of this race will immortalise his or her own name.

The names for the First Parents have been chosen and we were preparing them for placement. The teams felt that strange combination of satisfaction and loss that comes with the completion of any major project. We were coming to terms with the knowledge that we would soon be leaving twenty years of work behind, to sink or swim by their own power. How would the fare? What would they be able to build in the years, the millennia, stretching out in front of them?

Then we received that signal that changed everything. But I’ll tell you about that later. First I should let you know what happened on the planet.

Chapter One

On Alpha

Falling!

As Zoe snapped awake she had heard a deep, throaty grunt under her own suppressed squeal of surprise. She lay still, staring into the dark and listening intently for any indication of danger as she lay on her back. She felt exposed but at least ready for any threat from any direction.

‘What’s out there?’ she wondered in her own mind. Carefully and quietly she groped both hands through the sandy ground beside her, feeling for a weapon. Even a rock might help in case she had to defend herself.

Is someone there? a male voice asked. Relief flooded through her body.

Yes. Where are we? she asked.

Good question. I can’t remember a thing. What can you tell me?

She realised then that her own memory was totally blank, too. There were lots of things she knew, but nothing about her own past personally. It was as though she had just been born fully formed a minute ago.

I don’t know anything. Who are you? Where are you from?

There was a pause in the darkness. Ah, I don’t know, came the reply eventually. I can remember all sorts of things in snatches but they all seem disconnected from me, as though I’m recalling a story I was told. There was a pause. What about you?

Just a moment. She could make out a faint line between total black and darkest grey above her in the direction of her feet. I think I can make out a faint outline, a shadow.

Where?

I don’t know which way you’re facing.

Yes, I see it, the male exclaimed. It was lightening rapidly, the line now clearly visible. She glanced across in the direction of his voice, but could see nothing yet.

I think it might be the edge of a rock overhang, and we’re under it, he commented.

Yes, but I would have expected to see some stars if the rest is sky. The light’s improving, he commented. Be patient, she interpreted those words. She looked over towards his voice again and thought she could make out a shadow. Then back to the outline overhead where there seemed to be some texture in the dark grey. She shivered, a chill creeping into her. ‘How had I not been cold when I first awoke,’ she wondered.

I see you, the man announced. What’s your name?

Call me Zoe, she answered, the name coming unbidden. She would never have guessed it until she said it. And yours?

Andreas, he answered immediately. After a slight pause he added Yes, that sounds right, as though he had to convince himself. Glad to meet you, Zoe.

My pleasure, Andreas, she smiled as she spoke. This sounded a bit formal, but it was good to start with a show of mutual respect. She could see him now, his eyes and smile a faint pale in the shadows. That reminded her that she knew nothing about herself. Not even her own age or history. It’s getting lighter outside and I’m cold in here. I want to find a sunny spot. Let’s see where we are,