'Twin Worlds' - excerpts from 'THE NEXT BIRTH'

What concerns us is not your speed,
it's when you might stop. (a Mandarin phrase)

Hundreds of Lemurian flying machines departed for the last time from their stations and turned toward distant landmasses. Most followed the convoys that had managed to reach the northern mountains, while others joined fleets sailing in the remaining three directions. They carried a precious cargo: ample supplies of food, tools, crucial materials, and vast volumes of recorded knowledge. Every person understood the immeasurable worth of their cargo, yet not a single soul among them would hesitate for a moment to trade it all for a new homeland.

The landscape overlooking the waterfront of Lake Toba waited patiently for the first rays of light before dawn. The surface of the lake rippled in the breeze, as though disturbed by the fading darkness. But on that morning, the light that bathed the deserted city on the lakeshore slopes did not come from the east or any other point along the horizon. It emerged from the depths of the lake, surging upward—an unstoppable stream of lava that vaporized megatons of water. The Lemurian peninsula trembled for the last time in its eonic life.

Within moments, volcanic fury erupted from the depths, unleashing a maelstrom of steam, ash, smoke, and molten lava that climbed into the sky. Entire slabs of rock, torn from their ancient moorings, were flung into the atmosphere, then broke apart and fell in a rain of fire.

A minute later, a colossal wave surged across the sea at breakneck speed—nearly 600 kilometers per hour—demolishing everything in its path. Fate, as ever unpredictable, showed mercy to some and indifference to others.

Passengers disembarked from vessels anchored behind the islands, their eyes wide with horror as they watched the sea recede until the seabed around the archipelago became visible. Several aircraft were spotted heading northwest, pursued by ominous clouds of ash and smoke.

Less than an hour later, the sun ascended above the shroud of dust and steam, its brilliance undiminished. But its rays could no longer penetrate the land below. Even if they could pierce the dense clouds of ash, they would no longer grace the Lemurian Peninsula. Where it once stood was now a turbulent, seething sea. Amid the deafening crashes of thunderstorms and waves, it seemed as though all life had been extinguished in the engulfing darkness.

Yet this was far from the truth: millions of bacteria, archaea, eukaryotes, and other life forms thrived in the warm depths, passing on their legacy through the long corridors of evolution. These resilient organisms would eventually encounter intelligence once more—thousands of years later. And who could have imagined that some of the humans born then had not been born for the first time?




Man created God in his own image.

Five Millennia Later

Many centuries rolled by. The ice sheets that had swollen in the aftermath of Lemuria—vast white shields creeping outward as if to smother the world—at last began to loosen their grip. They retreated, unveiling land and sea once more, and the empty riverbeds and lakes filled again with living water.

Under the returning warmth of the sun, plants surged over the naked earth, green banners reclaiming the ruins of frost. In their wake the scattered remnants of the animal kingdoms spread and multiplied, following the promise of leaf and blossom.

And among humankind, too, the world endured. Tribes of Homo sapiens, sheltered in the regions we now call China and India, carried through countless generations the old legends: tales of unknown beings who descended from the sky. They could not fathom why the Strangers had come, nor where they had gone, nor what they had sought; yet they remembered what mattered. The Strangers had brought wonders—new tools, strange arts, and useful means—and so the people watched the heavens and fashioned their rites, doing all they could to summon the Sky-born back to the world.

In the heart of former Lemuria, the tips of the highest mountains can still be seen: the island arc formed by a tectonic plate shift—the Mariana Islands—stretches along the deepest trench, more than 10,000 meters below the surface of the Pacific Ocean. Most of the islands in the surrounding area still exhibit seismic activity and, on occasion, volcanic eruptions. Nations that have recovered in the regions of China, Japan, and Australasia display cultural and anthropological characteristics, as well as technical artifacts, whose origins—and not rarely even their meaning—science still cannot explain sufficiently.

Further west, in the heart of the African continent, descendants of the Lemurians emerged, bringing tools and knowledge that sparked a momentous acceleration in the progress of the region’s tribes. Across the Atlantic, a group of spacecraft reached the highlands of the Andes, and their crews merged with the peoples of Central America and the surrounding regions.


Another wave of glacial ice came and retreated without succeeding in extinguishing life. Many tribes had already acquired skills in igniting and preserving a new source of heat—fire, the sacred tamer of the dark—even during the wildest storms. People had learned how to manufacture tools, and if along their hunting routes there were no caves or other shelters, they were able to raise artificial coverts where they could retreat, rest, and convey knowledge to their offspring. Visits by the Strangers continued over millennia in all parts of the world, unexplained, but always bringing help and advances to humankind.

People used differing names for the Strangers, but all myths agreed that these mysterious beings possessed exceptional capabilities and knowledge. Translations of their names from numerous languages can be distilled into one single word: Creators. Initially, this was associated with the notion of a large number of Creators. However, as the millennia passed, visits by the Creators became less frequent, and their numbers appeared to decrease. Eventually, most people came to believe that there was only one Creator. Different nations referred to this being with names such as God, Ra, Allah, Deus, Lord, Brahma, and Zeus, among others. For some reason, many people envisioned this being with a human appearance, deeply longing in their minds to believe that he was also one of them—a human.


Five Million Years Later

Interlocutor 1: Why did you abandon your attempts to help them?

Interlocutor 2: I did more for them than for so many others.

Interlocutor 1: True, but you couldn’t possibly have known which one would face ecological catastrophe.

Interlocutor 3: I still believe you should have continued monitoring both worlds. Both micro-planets are remarkably similar—almost identical.

Interlocutor 2: Perhaps they should have been given more information. But they had already developed techniques that surpassed those of many other civilizations.

Interlocutor 1: Are you suggesting they began evolving into a destructive threat?

Interlocutor 2: Both populations grew exponentially, outstripping their planet’s capacity to sustain them. Yet the oligarchy persisted in clinging to luxury and indulgence, even as their world withered.

Node 8: Not always can civilizations be saved. But we can always learn. What was it that repelled you?

Interlocutor 2: I failed to recognize the signs of decay early enough. We should have acted the moment the wealthy began withdrawing from the rest of the population. Their growing techno-arrogance led them to dismiss natural justice. From there, the pattern was inevitable: environmental collapse, widening social disparities, and the gradual erosion of moral values.

Interlocutor 1: Could this process be attributed to natural surviving of the fittest and the most adaptable ones? We have seen species that have diminished due to their sheer indolence or incapability—not as a consequence of being oppressed by others.

Interlocutor 2: It could. Yet the oppressed did not see it that way. Social unrest was simmering for years until conflicts started breaking out between entire countries. Finally, the global war burned across the continents, taking with it the whole ecosphere.

Interlocutor 3: But this decline took centuries... There were plenty of opportunities to intervene.

Interlocutor 2: That may be. Still, the oligarchy seized control of every lever of power and sought to accelerate the extinction of the ‘surplus’ population. They redirected whole industries toward arming themselves for war, instead of improving living conditions for everyone.

Interlocutor 1: You were still supporting both civilizations at that time?

Interlocutor 2: The same suggestions were offered to each of those two civilizations. The circles that seized control of events took all the benefits from my involvement. They were so successful in ruling their world as they pleased that they became hegemonic. Where would they stop?

Interlocutor 3: So, in the end, one world destroyed itself, while the other somehow survived.

Interlocutor 2: We just couldn't distinguish between them anymore. It became impossible to predict which one is capable of sustaining itself.

Interlocutor 3: You have abandoned them.

Interlocutor 2: We continued to scan select individuals. Some of the most captivating minds chose to stay, even at the brink of disaster.

Node 8: Let us conclude here. You are hereby suspended from searching for signs of intelligence for the time being. Return to the archives and review all records. Do you have any questions?

Interlocutor 2: Yes. Why did you initiate this review now? In terms of their measurements of time, millions of years have passed since I observed these two civilizations.

Node 8: Because, this time, they have contacted us.

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