29 May 2024, @mariannewest's Freewrite Writing Prompt Day 2387: The Soil Lied, and They Died
This post was inspired by today's 5-minute writing prompt in the Freewriters Community - Lie In The Soil
Enjoy !
Image created by AI in NightCafe Studio
The two scientists pored over the soil samples the remote rovers had bought back to the orbital base-station. They were, by our definition, aliens. Not that they considered themselves so, they both came from the same species and homeworld. A world that was not this one.
"So, Academic Farghass, what do you make of the samples ? Do you know why these creatures tried to put a colony down on a planet where it was never going to succeed ?"
"Yes Academic Kralavv. As you know, it has an atmosphere these beings thought could be made breathable. But soil samples from the surface show no biome, no life of any kind, and a shortage of some of the key minerals needed to develop an ecology."
Farghass waved his hand-spectrometer in the air, as if that illustrated what he was saying.
"I believe the problem is all to do with the history of the planet. Below the surface level, there is a layer of soil samples that include the missing minerals. Although there is no active biome, it seems that the planet once developed advanced and intelligent life. It was destroyed by some external event millions of years ago; a nearby supernova, an irregularity in it's own sun, a hostile race attacking or even destroyed by their own folly. Who knows."
"The key point is that this short-lived life left it's signature in the ground, a layer which indicated life was possible. The settlers believed it, but it was just a lie in the soil. They wanted too much to believe it was true and that they could make a new world here."
My take on this classic short blog you just made is quite simple good friend, to me, it's fascinating how our hopes and beliefs can be shaped by what lies beneath the surface, whether it's soil or history. Sometimes what we want to see isn't always the reality, but it's still hard to let go of those dreams. You did excellent with the five minutes prompt bro💯💯💯
Thank you ! I've realised that people misleading themselves through comfortable (but wrong) assumptions is a theme I write about quite often..... it's definitely worth exploring further !
It is absolutely worth exploring good friend, you're doing something very good
Thought AI not allowed on Hive ?
The image was made by AI; the post was written by me, a human.
My understanding is that the use of AI depends on the community. Generally, I believe that AI images are fine (other than in, for example, communities dedicated to photography or human-made arts) provided that the site you use to generate them gives you the appropriate rights and you credit them.
AI generated text, on the other hand, appears to be generally unacceptable, which is a stance I totally agree with and I have never used AI generated text (anywhere, not just on Hive).
But if you have links to community rules posts that indicate otherwise, I'd be hugely grateful if you could share them.
Dunno. Peakd on Hive has AI built in. AI is used in coding a lot.
Isn't all software a kind of AI ?
Doomed to die before they started. !LUV
Great piece