The Happening of Things

Chapter 1.5 - Various Explanations and Narrator's Ramblings

A number of questions are left unanswered in the previous chapter. Most notably, 'A science fiction story and no aliens? What sort of crap is this? Was this written by some pathetic amateur who didn't have half the imaginative spark to come up with so much as a species of deranged purplish goo with an uncanny knack for peeling oranges?' Yeah, pretty much. But like any good amateur I always blame my incapabilities on some remote thing that no one's ever heard of rather than actually go through the effort of doing a better job. In this case that remote thing that no one's ever heard of is the Fermi* Paradox.

The Fermi Paradox in a nutshell is if a species has had billions of years to evolve from a single-celled organism to an intelligent lifeform then all other habitable planets have had the same chance, and if all other habitable planets have had the same chance then why aren't signs of other intelligent lifeforms visible to an already developed species? The simple answer to this is that the criteria for developing such complex lifeforms are so utterly rare that it is easier to call humans a mutation in the growth of the universe (quite similar to a cancer) than it is to call humans a special case.

Despite this, the human race in its bid for novelty has bred and genetically modified plants and fruit, even going so far as the write the ENTIRITY of the genetic code of some plants, causing many to bear rather fantastical fruits. A full index of popular fruits can be bought at many corner stores under the name 'The Universal Berry Mix' by Flyng Styng. Flyng Styng has been theorised to actually be two children standing atop one another in a trench coat, a theory mainly backed up by the quality of his indexing.

Another remark that might arise from critic's mouths is 'Wow such a Douglas Adams copy. How uninventive can this guy get? Just stealing from popular works to get Wattpad reads. What an absolute moron'. All I can say to this is you must have some fourth sense because that is absolutely dead on. In fact, I read the Hitchhiker's Guide just before starting this story. 'Not to mention he split what could easily be one chapter into two smaller ones to stack up on those reads per chapter'. For this one I have an excuse, the subject matter in this chapter is a little too different from that of the previous chapter. However, I do acknowledge that many people may become irritated at this obvious read-farm so I have made this chapter 1.5. Now you can get your closure and I can get my reads without pissing too many people off. Glad we cleared that up.

Now enough about me and my shady tactics, let us return to the galaxy. The galaxy wherein the events of this story take place is none other than the Milky Way itself. The reason for the naming of the galaxy is unknown, as there is a very clear lack of milk amongst the stars. All people in the story are humans, for reasons previously explained, and all fauna is selectively bred from the first planet to support such life. Animals have been bred to be willingly space-going by a mixture of selective breeding and genetic modification tools, resulting in super-intelligent squirrels who have their very own space program. Those squirrels bring along a number of their stupid cousins when planets are colonised, and many other animals do the same. Each animal space program is responsible for their own kin arriving uncooked.

When humans first started out, they were so bad at space travel because of their lack of child-designed Antimatter Pulse Engines that they got lost incredibly quickly and just inhabited whatever habitable planet they next came across and waited like the lazy bastards they are. No one knew where they were because they were all lost themselves, so settlements were formed and over the generations they forgot a grand total of absolutely everything about where they had come from. These settlements were named 'The Lost Colonies' because they were colonies and they were hopelessly lost. More on the Lost Colonies in Things That Happen and Why They Do.

'Also what the hell are these appendix thi-' Ok really you can shut up now. So there's a bit of history and explanation and my evil plot to mechanise every taco in the galaxy. I should have mentioned from the beginning that it's optional to read this chapter but now that you have anyway good for you.

*No one quite knows who Fermi is. The general consensus is that he is some form of amphibian.