(eng) Olaf Stapledon by Nebula Maker

Author:Nebula Maker [Maker, Nebula]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

9

THE FIRST COSMICAL WAR

A certain large group of nebulae had long attracted my attention by the unusual breadth and thoroughness of its mental development. Its culture was less exclusively aesthetic than was usual with the nebulae. Intellectual curiosity played an increasingly important part in the life of this group. One party, it is true, sought to concentrate all the interest of the group upon perfecting the physical dance measures of the group, but another was moved chiefly by the will to understand nebular nature and the nature of the universe.

These intellectualists were prone to sacrifice their duties of dance participation to their passion for exploration and experiment. All their experimentation had to be carried on by daring manipulation of their own tissues and was often very painful; but such was their enthusiasm that these nebular scientists were able to discover a good deal about their own biochemical constitution. In spite of much interference and even persecution by the dominant aesthetic party, they were able to construct out of their own tissues optical instruments for the study of the remoter regions of the cosmos, and they obtained in time a clear apprehension of its boundless finitude.

Here at last, I told myself, is the germ of an ampler and a more balanced nebular culture. From this unique group will emerge the idea of a pan-cosmical society of nebulae, a society in which the diversity of all will be a spiritual enrichment to each.

Peering into the dark spaces beyond the confines of their own group, these scientific nebulae discovered, by means of their new instruments, that the innumerable flecks of light observable in all directions were in fact creatures like themselves. Often they longed to go voyaging through these dark populous depths and to make contact with these remote beings. But they knew well that to reach even their nearest neighbours would demand an immense expenditure of power. For although voyaging in the ether is practically unaffected by friction, so that an initial push will propel the traveller for ever, yet only by the use of tremendous energy could he be given sufficient speed to cope with cosmical distances.

Now these nebular scientists learned in time how to unlock the treasury of subatomic energy contained in all matter. But since practically all matter was organized in the living tissues of nebulae, they could not make use of this discovery on a large scale save by sacrificing life. Such a course was repugnant to these highly civilized beings. The members of this group, no matter what their party, had by now conceived a violent dislike even of killing an enemy in battle. Their controversies were by now carried on by methods which the historian would call either more humane or more cowardly according to his taste.

It so happened that this highly cultured group drifted into the proximity of a purely martial group. When these warriors found themselves within striking distance of another community, they composed their own purely fictitious discords in order to unite for the prosecution of the dance measures of war upon a grander scale.

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