Songs of the Saiiban- A Poetic AAR

[Chilango2]

The age old question is answered!
We are not alone.
Yet this is no comfort
For both possibilities were equally terrifying
What might these aliens be like?
Are they friend or foe?
Or, perhaps, we are but ants to them?
And if these aliens have fallen from glory,
what will our fate be?
How long will our ascendance last,
If we even rise at all?

As we have found out
to both our joy and sorrow
A busy galaxy

First contact comes
Chronicling of history
All over again

History never ends
a song we once heard said
it is not even past.

(my rhyme broke down halfway through, unfortunately)
Communication
Will it, once willed, bring illumination
Or consternation?
Extraterrestrial friends? Or foes?
Weaklings or stout hosts?

Data transferring
Numbers tumbling 'cross void, not now empty
But all ending, rest
coming when something is answering, now
All left is reply.

The answer to your questions as best
as we can determine so far is yes.

When the second contact came
They shall seek peace
We're not alone anymore!
We must stand and join together!
Together, we must make them as friends
By not being an enemy.

The unfortunate thing
about friendship is that
it takes at least two

Contact with another brings
one’s own station into perspective,
more sharply showing fault,
what one lacks and what one is yet to reach;

yet this meeting will not only bring
uncertainty, for onwards from the fault
between one and another, a new perspective
puts the unimaginable within reach.

Events have caused us
to think much on perspective
Another song still unsung

 

[HistoryDude]

It seems as if others have forgotten how to learn
No one is omniscient
The galaxy is not heaven
And we know that we aren't gods
But do others?

 

[stnylan]

All knowledge there is know is written
in the Pithok book
Alas they have forgotten how to read

 

[Chilango2]

Echoes of the Past

Because we had moved on to the future —
The past kindly stopped us
Not so empty space held onto its echoes —
Still Singing

We discovered there among the stars —
Innumerable songs ringing
Still singing in the stillness of the dark —
Echoes Clinging

Songs of others past sung across time —
Curiosities, cemeteries, crimes
Sentience stopping a spell, writing a line —
Remember us.

Remember us? Or remember this —
Remembrances, things forgotten
Even the stars fade in the arc of time
And — Explode.

What will remain?

 

[DensleyBlair]

What wonders the galaxy knows!
And we, rapt by these silent shows of beauty,
Ask only that we be given time to know them.

 

[HistoryDude]

Wonders yet remain
Even as their creators are long dead
Songs without singers sung
Yet time conquers all
How long do we have to remember?

 

[Chilango2]

It seems as if others have forgotten how to learn
No one is omniscient
The galaxy is not heaven
And we know that we aren't gods
But do others?

Observe the Pithok
Notice the blurry line between
Science and magic

All knowledge there is know is written
in the Pithok book
Alas they have forgotten how to read

All-Knowing ignorance
to forget that science means
update your models

What wonders the galaxy knows!
And we, rapt by these silent shows of beauty,
Ask only that we be given time to know them.

Wonders yet remain
Even as their creators are long dead
Songs without singers sung
Yet time conquers all
How long do we have to remember?

The question of time
eternally vexes us
things end but echo

 

[Chilango2]

Spectrum of Life

Green, Blue, Green, Blue
Green Chlorophyll, Blue Oxygen
Green Trees, Blue Water
From the deepest oceans to the highest peaks
Life in our egg had found an answer
Survive and adapt,
Under the uncaring grasp
Of the accident of natural selection

Green, we search for green,
In stars of many colors
Gravity wells, fusion furnaces
Blowing winds of radiation
Giving flight, fire, light,
Singing on the dust of creation
Clever cells cunningly craft
Survival along the uncaring void
And once they take flight
Spread and prosper

Flight! Flight! I ask for your attention!
Draw your inquiring eyes here,
To find the unexpected
Red, Black, other colors unexpected.

Flight! Flight! I ask, What is life in this creation?
The oceans did not rest in all these places,
Nor did Oxygen’s blue haze dance with molecules of nitrogen

Flight, did you see?
Not all these nests have what we expected?
Plants that dance, and entrance,
hungry hunters unanticipated
And stranger still, life without chlorophyll
dancing within hurricanes of gas giants
And deeper still, how bizarre to find
Carbon asleep, but silicon awake,
uniting atoms into living sequences
And what have we here?
A formless shape,
Naught but signals amidst the noise,
Living electricity?

Flight, I ask again for your attention,
Is this it? Is this an initial answer to our question?
Is all life is, energy expended
fighting disorganization?
Coherent colors, fighting the hungry dark
Defying chaos, screaming across space’s silence
Into the void
Longing to repeat across time
And thus be heard?

 

[HistoryDude]

What does it mean to live?
Are silicon organisms truly alive?
And, if we don't know life, how can we know death?
And, moreover, how can we know why we live?
Indeed, are we even alive at all?

 

[stnylan]

We speak of colours, of definitive shades
The rainbow of life cares not
as it from blue to red imperceptibly shifts
Tell me traveller
Can you tell where one begin?
Life cares not for our definitions
Or our over-eager suppositions

 

[Chilango2]

Horizons

​

 

[Chilango2]

What does it mean to live?
Are silicon organisms truly alive?
And, if we don't know life, how can we know death?
And, moreover, how can we know why we live?
Indeed, are we even alive at all?

Some of us posit
we are but part of a computer simulation
Ha! Ridiculous!

We speak of colours, of definitive shades
The rainbow of life cares not
as it from blue to red imperceptibly shifts
Tell me traveller
Can you tell where one begin?
Life cares not for our definitions
Or our over-eager suppositions

This is the irony of science
to attempt to define infinity
all of us in a strange alliance
Pretending to imagined divinity

 

[HistoryDude]

Life can be in many places
Death in even more
We are exploring the stars
But is that not storming heaven?
And space is vast,
Who knows what we might find in it?

 

[Chilango2]

Meetings

Encountering wings
That flew other skies than ours
The sublime wonder

Deals and sales abound
The deals of a lifetime here
But watch your wallet

But one echo of
Earlier harmonies that
In time died out but
Is this fate?

Strange beings to fly
But turn their eyes away from
The wonders of others

How strange and awkward
To meet sentience and know
Others called it dinner

Featherless bipeds
With ten broad flat talons each
Most Unlikely Species

Oh.

 

[Chilango2]

Life can be in many places
Death in even more
We are exploring the stars
But is that not storming heaven?
And space is vast,
Who knows what we might find in it?

Wonder and terror
closely related concepts
Universe swallows all

 

[HistoryDude]

It is as if some empires are terrible
But others are friendly
Ideas from our homeworld are used in space
So where did they originate?

 

[Chilango2]

Dreams of Machines

Long ago we wielded arc and spanner to build robots of every manner
Dreaming of the distant day when dreary drudgery would be no more

At long last was our highest hope fulfilled, robots tilled every field,
And they dug deep delving into the crust, bringing up minerals for us
So that our wings could spread and soar and venture to the farthest shore
Our talons free to know, to dream, to draw, to dance upon the air.

And as our machines grew many and mighty there were among us some who wondered
If there might be some way to leave our poor weak organic shell behind.
In our films and in our stories have we gamed out many potential histories
Of transformation and transmutation of revolt rebellion and revolution
Machines overthrow us, Machines compel us, Machines become us.
Machines. Dreams.

Arise! Arise! Wondering people!
Fell flocks fall; a people are slaughtered!
The servant supplants; An atomic waste ascends;
The singing is stopped; a discordant harmony rises!
Wind time, Red Time, Flight time,
Murder! Murder!

Dreams devoured, displaced;
New nightmares rise, and spread;
What shall become of us? Of them?
And what shall we do with what might be?
But what might only become if unfree?
Machines? Dreams?

 

[Chilango2]

It is as if some empires are terrible
But others are friendly
Ideas from our homeworld are used in space
So where did they originate?

Ideas flow like
a river of harmony
many sing the same songs

 

[Chilango2]

Hi folks!

I'm sorry to break with our tradition, particularly since it was my original intention to write all replies in this AAR in verse and in character, but verse is not great at precise and clear communication.

Just wanted to inform you there will be a brief break in the AAR for a few days. The school year just ended here (I'm a teacher) and I'd like to spend a few days just disconnected from online spaces, catching up on reading, and other lovely things. My current plan is update with the next planned post this coming Friday.

That being said, please feel free to make comments or ask questions, either in verse or, you know, just writing, and I'll reply, either in verse or not, when I come back. I'll still be online today, so I'll also reply to anything today before I go offline tomorrow.

 

[stnylan]

A most excellent notion
To take a break from all this commotion
And cease all motion

Enjoy the time offline
Think not of verse or rhyme
When'er ye return 'twill be fine.