|
|
| world:� rare, for a world to survive this long.� usually just the nomads, who cast their lots with next to light year travel and the strength of numbers.� With so many sent to distant stars, at least one in a thousand would evolve into micro cultures that managed somehow not to self destruct.� But this homeworld lasted for three million years.� Here's how: they filled their sky and sides of buildings with an enormous chart, shaped like a tree.� The point of its branching was the present day, stemming from their planet's past.� The plaet employed huge numbers of futurians:statisticians, scientists, historians, and philosophers, to chart the planet's likely futures.� They would place their thousand shell-like ears to the ground and listen to the trends, the probabilities, the currents of thought and assertions of history that, if untended, would become inevitable.� As one future became more likely that path would grow brighter, stronger, and as the current unfolded everyone on this world had but to glance at the sky to see what choice had been made, and what lie ahead. | |