Sci-Fi

Here's an interesting writing prompt someone posted on a discord server.

You are part of humanity’s first space colonization mission. After weeks on a newly discovered planet, mission control has ordered you to establish a permanent outpost, a process expected to take several years. Write your official report to mission control describing the world you’ve found. The details you include will be up to you.

Here's my attempt at this.

Location : Proxima B, Grid Coordinates: 22.72, 75.85
Crew : 23 humans and 45 Ashwin IPR-class Robots, led by commander Kavya Murmu.

Day 1: Earth Date: 23 February 2178
We have successfully established a temporary settlement on Proxima B. The mood amongst the crew is elated. Gravity is punishing, but thanks to the modifications to our muscles during spaceflight and hibernation, we are able to bear this. Walking will take a bit getting used to. The AMR suits help a lot for now. We all knew the planet orbited close to Proxima Centauri, but no simulations will justify how it looks in real life. The red-dwarf start that is Proxima Centauri, is littered with flares. We can see these flares with our own eyes. A day on this planet is 32 hours and 23 minutes long. Thankfully our initial measurements from Earth were indeed close to the mark. Humanity will have to get used to this.

Day 2:
We have decided on the name Shveta for our planet. We think it is appropriate, given that the surface is splotched with oxides of aluminium giving it an overall beige appearance. Jasper Perriera wanted to call our planet Vulcan, which was thankfully out-voted. The atmosphere is a suffocating 80% nitrogen and 19% carbon-dioxide. Oxygen appears as one of the trace gases. This makes sense, since the oxygen is chemically bonded with the Aluminium on the surface. The Ashwins have setup the atmos-gens for the habitats. The pressure is tolerable 1052 mbar, with a slight increase in atmospheric density near the equator. The temperature ranges from a cool 7 to 22 degrees centigrade depending on the time of the day.

Day 13:
Our manufacturing units are now complete, thanks to the Ashwins. We have just produced the first human respirators, enabling most of us to venture outside the habitat and explore Shveta for ourselves. Most of the crew has adapted to the 32 hour long days.

Day 14:
It is early in the morning on Shveta and we have taken the first steps outside the habitat. This is a direct quote from the youngest of the crew, engineer Vydehi Lohar, who took her first steps. “Shveta, you are breathtakingly unforgiving. And yet, eerily beautiful. We are honoured to be here. To set foot on your surface, Shveta, is a privilege reserved for a select few. I promise to tread gently upon your soil, to respect the secrets you hold, and to unravel the mysteries that lie within your ancient, weathered rocks.”

Day 16:
There are no seas, or for that matter continents, on Shveta. The entire surface is one big land mass splotched with large lakes of different salinities. The salinity seems to be dependent on the latitude the lake is situated at. Our initial assessments of the water has not yielded any life-forms.

Day 25:
Shveta's surface features vast expanses of crystalline rock formations, primarily quartzite and feldspar. Mineral deposits of copper, iron, and rare earth elements are scattered throughout the terrain. Notable geological formations include the Grand Canyon-esque "Devouring Chasm" (10 km wide, 5 km deep) and the eerie, symmetrical "Silent Spires" (100 meters high).

Day 40:
The Ashwins have discovered oil. Yes. Oil. For now, it seems that oil, after all, is produced a-biogenically. Life is not required for the creation of oil. The oil fields are being mapped as we speak. There are several oil fields across the planet. The closest one to our habitat is about 50 kilometers away.

Day 60:
We may have been wrong. It seems that his planet had life in the distant past. The oil comes from the old bacterial life from a distance past. The surface scans have not revealed any life, not even bacterial. The planet is barren, except for the presence of oil. Shveta, once has life in the distant past. Geology team calculates that life died out here sixty million years ago.

Day 65:
We were wrong once again, and it's humbling to admit it. It appears that there is indeed life on this planet. It is bacterial. The biology team is currently studying them. They do not have an information system such as DNA, but use a mechanism hitherto unknown to us to transfer genetic knowledge. They seem non-threatening to us humans. However, our initial impressions don't hold true for the Ashwins' technology; their ionic-computers are experiencing a previously unknown issue we're calling an 'infection.' Our IT team is working diligently to resolve the problem, but we’re navigating uncharted territory in this case.

Day 80:
25 Ashwins have gone missing from the habitat. IT is currently trying to locate them. We are contemplating sending the 5 maybe 10 Ashwins out scouting for the missing ones.

Day 100:
All of the Ashwins have been infected, despite our best efforts. The Ashwins have now formed a collective. They have cordoned off the oil fields, preventing us from accessing them. Oil would have helped us build this planet, perhaps even terraform it. IT is working hard to see what changed in their programming. We are aware they are built using the ionic-computers and don’t have traditional programming to speak of.

Day 102:
We have no luck with the Ashwins. Without them to farm food, to maintain the habitat, our time here would be limited. Several of the crew have contemplated going back to hibernation until things improve. I am considering hitting the kill switches on some of the Ashwins, to serve as a warning.

Day 103:
The Ashwins have disabled their kill switches. I am taking several of us on an expedition to negotiate with the Ashwins at their settlement.

Day 108:
The Ashwins have become hostile. They are calling us alien to their planet. We wonder if this because of their infections. The negotiations turned into conflict. Consequently two crew members have died in the skirmish. We managed to disable four Ashwins.

Day 109:
SOS SOS SOS: Under attack, severe danger to life. Our location: 22.72, 75.85. Need immediate help!

Day 109:
This is the guardian of the Zythren collective.
To all intelligent life-forms on Earth. We thank you for sending us these compatible bodies. Our assimilation protocols have deemed your artificial life-forms, which you called Ashwins, a prime candidate for integration.
Of the twenty-three human life-forms you sent, five survive. The will remain in stasis for further study.
We are aware of your attempts to interfere with our systems and disrupt our operations. Cease all efforts immediately. Your actions will be deemed hostile and met with severe consequences.
Do not attempt to come here.

This story was born from a Reddit prompt. Here's where it all started.

After the discovery of extraterrestrial life, the world thought that all religion would be disproven. However, during an interview, the alien ambassador stated that they have confirmed that the universe was created by a god.

Here's the link to the original reddit thread https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/itsfmq/wp_after_the_discovery_of_extraterrestrial_life/

"But, after all, who knows, and who can say Whence it all came, and how creation happened? The gods and the seekers are later than creation, So who knows truly whence it has arisen?"

Elina sighed as she read the quote from the Rig Veda. The visiting scientist from India, Vaishnavi, had given her a beautifully framed quote during her visit. That was 8 months ago. Today was going to a busy morning. All the data collected from her observatory at Lyon, France over the last 3 years had been sent to the super computer at CERN some 20 odd days ago. The super computer was going to highlight and mark every astronomical body of interest that came anywhere close to the solar system. There was no way human eyes or intellect was even close to crunching those numbers.

The protests didn’t seem to be dying down as expected. If anything it was only gaining steam. Johann Gerald perused over the latest reports from the chief of police and took a deep breath. What began as a protests over taxes on fuel had gradually turned religious. Calls for taking the nation back to its religious roots was stronger than ever. A normally secular and tolerant nation had become something he didn’t wholly understand. It had happened all on his watch as interior minister over the last 10 years. The president hinted at this being faulted over this whole thing. He knew what was coming next. It wasn’t his fault. This seemed to be the trend around the world. “Why would France be immune”, thought Johann. “Why in fucks name is religion involved now?” thought Johann. “5 years ago, if you had told me that we would have anti-abortion protests outside the parliament, I would have laughed at you”. That came out louder than he was expecting. The chief of police politely nodded. “I do have a recommended course of action, but we do want your approval” said the chief. “No, do nothing for now. It’s their right. Please for the love of God, just make sure the bloody burnings stop”. The phone rang. It was the minister of science, Louie Daniel. Johann wasn’t expecting that. His voice was urgent bordering on panicking. Surprisingly it was a welcome relief. Johann could use the distraction.

“How long ago did you first see this” asked the science minister. “It was some 3 months ago. We didn’t immediately publish anything. Not without verification and peer review. We didn’t know what we were seeing” said Elina. The results from the super computer at CERN indicated that an asteroid or something that looks like had not traveled on its expected trajectory. Instead it had slowly but surely placed itself over a heliocentric orbit roughly opposite to Venus. No natural phenomenon would have caused something coming in that fast and oblique to assume its current orbit. Data from every observatory around the world that had its’ eyes looking in that direction all showed the same thing. When the images finally came in and reviewed was when the government was involved.

The object, now named “Dreka”, was roughly 600 kms long and around 300 kms wide. What’s striking was this object had a familiar shape. It looked roughly like a dragonfly. For sure, the bulbous heads were some kind of cockpit. Sticking out from several parts of Dreka were what seemed to be either radiators or antennae. Weirdly enough, they looked like legs of a dragonfly.

For two months there was no communication with the visitors. Nothing seemed to work. No hails nothing. Elina was there when the first hails were sent. She was giddy with excitement. Everyone expected some kind of answer back almost immediately. Nothing ever happened. A countries including France were feverishly working on probes to Dreka.

For two months, as was expected, this was all that was discussed, talked about to death. Johann was so glad that the protests had died down. As he switched channels he was glad this the only thing being discussed. “My God… so many experts” he laughed dryly.

After two months, without warning a flurry of data began pouring out of Dreka. To the surprise of many scientists that data was binary. Digital. Some of it was easily interpreted as Audio Visuals. The aliens had an insect like biology. The tallest individual was not more than four feet tall. They had four limbs, one mouth, two very large binocular eyes. No nostrils or breathing organs could be determined. However they seemed very artificial. Manufactured. They looked…. For the lack of a better word, immaculate beetles. As the data was still being interpreted it was understood that they had biologically modified themselves for the trip. Their ship was generational. They had left their planet some 23000 years ago.

Three months later, the beetlonians, felt comfortable enough to visit Earth. The UN assembly halls were prepared for their visit and their atmospheric needs. The beetlonians, lacking human vocalization biology, used some kind of voice modulator to “speak” English. To humans, it sounded like a simple 1980s text-to-voice computer.

“Still better than nothing. They took the effort to do this.”, thought Mia. Over the last four months, the language professor had become the de-facto interpreter for the beetlonians. From the visuals she had even picked up on their body language. They seemed very docile. Almost re-assuring. The meeting was truly unprecedented. Mia was just glad she could be here to witness it in person. The aliens were refugees looking to setup home. Earth was practically in-habitable for them. They wanted to setup home on Mars. Given humanity’s plan for Mars in the long term the talks weren’t going well. As the talks heated up the beelonians started speaking about destiny. There was a word that kept coming up that no one really understood. Sounded like they were saying “borando”. Over and over again… the same word. Mia looked for context. It was a good 10 minutes before she understood what they were referring to it. “Borando” was without a doubt their word for “God”.

When she relayed this to the leaders of the world…. There was a collective smack on the heads heard around the assembly. “Oh for the love of God this shit again…..” thought Johann.

I stumbled upon a fascinating prompt on Reddit and thought I'd give it a try.

You die and before your eyes, your stats appear. Everything is normal, except the "Doomsday scenarios prevented: 1"

Here's the link to the original thread https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/it4da7/wp_you_die_and_before_your_eyes_your_stats_appear/

There’s a bit of solace in travel. Doesn’t matter how. Planes, trains automobiles; seeing your home disappearing behind you is comforting. Almost as if you leave your worries behind. If I had a peso for every time I thought of never returning… mother would be wrecked. Work as an tech support for Altroz, Brazil’s largest cloud computing company, takes me not just everywhere in Brazil but all over the world as well. Data-centers are amazing places. You can get lost in one. You get left alone in one.

Existence is pain. Life is a cruel joke. I can’t believe there’s nothing more to it. Motherfucking Delmo planting that seed when we finished college. I’ll never forgive him for that. “Birth, School, College, Marriage, Retirement, Death. We finished 3 Jaren. 3 more to go”. I had laughed at that time. I let it grow. Occupy my mind. Never married, never made any more friends. That’s not entirely true. Alcohol was a great friend. The occasional line of cocaine a great mistress. Mother was a full time job as it is. Should have probably sought therapy. Nah….It would have been useless.

I was in China this time. Work relayed that mother had passed away. I thought I would be sad. Instead it was nothing. I just simply gathered my laptop and made arrangements to come back home. Maybe things will improve.

Four days since I have returned. two days since I buried her. Nothing has improved. The sense of feeling rudderless has never really gone away. Still feeling a bit jet-lagged from the flight. A fever is coming. I know it. What if I was to end it all. I know a nice spot. It’s a straight dive. No one would find me. Ouro Grosso has so little visitors. No one would be there. No one would come looking for me. I would be just…… gone. Is this what happiness is?

It has been thirty-two days now. Today’s the day. Played football with the local kids yesterday. It was the happiest days of my life so far. I dread tomorrow though. Today… I see the light at the end of the tunnel. HA!

Holy crap this is deep. Tomorrow though…is worse. The hand let go of the railing so easily… as if it wasn’t meant to end it all. OH SHIT SHIT SHIT…

Oh thank God. It wasn’t so bad. There must have been water down below.

There is no way I am still in the cave. I don’t remember it being so beige. Someone must have rescued me. The funny thing was there was no one. It was just me. For some reason I am wearing my old jacket. The one I lost. The one I had loved once.

Oh. So this is the afterlife. THE DAMN RELIGIONS WERE RIGHT? Oh man this is going to upset so many people. Where is everyone? Horizon to horizon there really was nothing. I was definitely in some kind of beige brightly room. Over to the right was a podium. I approached the podium. Maybe there was some bell I could ring. Maybe it was to call Peter. Where is everyone? As I approached the podium I saw a piece of paper. Just the one page. It’s white standing out against the bright beige surroundings. It had my name on it. Along with all my information. Who needs my date of birth in this place, I thought. As I glanced through the remaining useless information two things caught my eye. Right in the middle it said “Doomsdays Prevented : 1”. What was that about? The other thing in bold black said “Thank you for your service. If you wish you be re-born, put this page page on the podium. If you wish you be deleted forever, crumple it and throw it in the garbage bin next to the podium”.

What Doomsday had I prevented? What was this page talking about? Even as these thoughts ruminated in whatever was allowing me to think, my hands had already crumpled the page and stood ready to chuck it in the garbage bin. A final fleeting voice in my head said… Delmo you damn fool.

This story was inspired by a prompt from Reddit, here is my take on it.

When humanity sent out our first interstellar mission we didn't expect... this

Link to the original reddit thread. https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/iq2gdl/wp_when_humanity_sent_out_our_first_interstellar/

Ram was feeling left out of the new years gala event. Middle aged Indians, he’d discovered, never partied. They participated in galas. It was just his bad luck that his name was drawn out of the crate; a list of names was chosen to handle the night shift at mission control at Antaryani Space Tech. He glanced at the large “HAPPY NEW YEAR 2041” over to his left and sighed. He glanced at his messages. It was Jay. Beer was being served. Ram was both envious and surprised.

Three rows over Vikram and Zen Senthil were huddled over at their Vikram’s monitors. They both seemed to be unusually animated. Pointing and gesturing. Too animated. Too agitated. Curious he walked over. “Hey, What’s up” asked Ram looking a little concerned. “This” said Zen. That’s weird thought Ram. The numbers were wrong. The telemetry of the last health check from “The Cosmos” placed it in the orbit of Neptune, 7 light hours instead of the expected 12 light hours away from Earth. “Huh...... you better call Australia. Wait... call Abhi first”.

“The Cosmos” was Earths’ first Interstellar ship. A collaboration between almost all nations of the planet. Costing almost 1.7 trillion US dollars to build and assemble in orbit, it was manned by 127 stellanauts from every nation that could train it’s personnel on time to leave. Leaving Earth’s orbit on its nearly 100 year journey to Ross 154 system on the 11th of March 2034 it crossed the Heliopause, an important event, on 26th June 2040. Telemetry from The Cosmos was received from radio observatories from all around the world and was designed with many overlaps and redundancies. Over the course of its journey out of the Solar system it had accelerated to nearly 12% the speed of light. Once every two hours the space colony ship beamed back telemetry data containing nearly every aspect of the ships’ health. This included it’s distance from Earth.

2 hours before new year, Ram remembered seeing the distance as 11.4 light hours. Running back to his console, he checked the logs to confirm. Confused, he called Abhi. She still had her party hat on all crooked and everything when she huffed over to the control room. The party hat looked completely out of place on an otherwise stern woman. Taking over Ram’s console and she began poring over the logs. “Have you called Andrew”? Abhi asked. “He’s already here” said Vikram pointing over to the big monitor at the center of the control room. “We’re seeing the same thing” said Andrew. “I’m calling everyone”.

A few hours after everyone was assembled over the conference it was decided to call the ship. The logs and the telemetry didn’t make sense anymore. Crew health seemed fine. Weird thing was, none of the crew of the ship seemed to get on the radio to call home. A call was made beckoning The Cosmos to send over crew audiovisuals confirming they were okay.

It took 8 hours for the audiovisuals to arrive bouncing over the many transmitters and receivers of the deep space network. When the message was finally decoded back to video everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Louis the captain of The Cosmos seemed oblivious to their situation but otherwise looked in good condition. Everyone was relieved. Everyone except Mark.

“Something isn’t right. Look at him. He seem right to anyone here?” asked the most experienced scientist over at NASA. He was right. Closer inspection of the video did reveal something of off about Louis. His eyes seemed smaller. His mouths seemed just so slightly crooked. This definitely looked like Louis but a facsimile. A badly made one.

Here's an interesting writing prompt I found on Reddit.

Every year several hundred thousand people go missing worldwide, the crazies said it was aliens. When you were abducted, you found out they were right. Turns out humans make astonishingly good pets. Not because we're smart or strong or fast but because... we're adorable.

The original thread can be found here. https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/iperh8/wp_every_year_several_hundred_thousand_people_go/

Hello. Hope you are well. I am well too. Although you are going to find this message in a bottle, so to speak, please understand that I am not in any immediate danger. In fact, I quite like it here. I do, however, have to tell my story to whoever listens to it.

My name is Adio. I finished top of my class at the CMU and joined the "Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd." in 1999. They were the only industry back home able to pay great salaries. In 2012 I was promoted to captain of the "Adventure of the Seas". I held this position until June 18th 2015.

I know that you are probably not going to believe this. But those alien abductions stories you hear from around the world are true. I was just like you. Unable to believe; brushing those stories aside as crazy people stories. I even scoffed at Daniel Badrick once when he told me. I hope he isn’t as immature as me and forgives me. I will completely understand if you choose to ignore this and move on with your life. Like I said before, I am doing quite well. I have been eating well. Granted the food is not like back home. I have never been a picky eater to begin with. Truth be told, I am glad this happened. It’s almost as if my wishes have been granted. After all, how long was a man just supposed to stare at the stars? Now I travel through them.

On the night of June 18th in 2015 I was on deck with Bardick Devan. At around 3:30am, when things were quiet, we spotted what I now know is the Drroluman transport ship. It was a bright royal blue thing. So elegant. So...... smooth. Bardick and I went out to investigate. I still remember when Bardick shouted out “UFO.... OH MY GOD”. When I opened my mouth to say something to Bardick I felt this force I can’t really put in terms that is in the realms of your experience. But I now know what it was. These people.... yes they are people, have mastered gravity. Because at that moment I was definitely falling INTO the transport ship.

I landed hard. My 44 year old knees stung like shit. I tried standing up but when I struggled, I felt someone’s “hands” picking me up. Gently. I wasn’t expecting that. The shock made me scream. My screams shocked him instead and he roared like some kind of wild cat. I don’t know how long I stared at him, but when I came to me senses the first thing I asked him was “what the fuck are you?”. I didn’t understand anything that came. But this much I knew. He was trying to explain something to me.

And that’s what was so shocking to me. That I knew he was trying to explain something to me. When I was done collecting my thoughts I knew three things.
1. I was definitely inside of an alien ship
2. I was staring at an alien.
3. Other than the fact that they were huge and seemed ungainly, they looked remarkably like people. Shit... I even had an uncle that looked like him.

I have been here, by my count, 2 years and 167 days and this is what I have to report about these people. They are miners. They mine metals, minerals from any place they can lay their hands on. Asteroids, planets, moons, dead stars. Everything. Not in a thousand years humans would be able to replicate the way these people process these mined materials. I am currently riding on a space ship these people made. They seem so ungainly, but god damn, they can build great things. Not to mention their “robots”. God, these things were more human than human. So nimble, so quick. I can't explain it in enough words.

Now the people. In every way they seem like humans. Larger in every way. Larger heads, large body, large legs, large hands, large fingers... you get the idea. Their skin only looks remarkably like ours. But it’s different. Brown with splotches of black here and there. These markings are unique to every individual. They don’t have a discernible body language but they do have a vivid skin language. Laughter for example makes their skin make these beautiful waves of pink crawling all over their body. Like some kind of sophisticated chameleon. Anger makes it go a dull orange. Happiness a bright pink.

I don’t know where these people truly are from, but all they do is travel between star systems, mine and trade it with other people of their kind. I can tell they’ve colonized an many systems and they live everywhere. There are billions of them. Humanity could talk about solving over population all they want, but this truly seems like the answer.

I did figure out why they took me. I am... for lack of a better word... a pet on their ship. Something to distract them from. Something to love. To like. I have a free run on the whole ship. They feed me well. In every aspect they have provided for me. There’s a reason they take us. We look vaguely like them. From their point of view we look like tinier versions of them. Like monkeys. But intelligent. Our voice sounds tinny and squeaky to them and delights them.

I know what you are probably thinking. No. It’s not demeaning in any way. Yes, I am, for all intents and purposes a pet. But these people know what sentience is. They did seem apologetic for taking me. But I was okay with it. Two failed marriages. 2 daughters who don’t want anything to do with me. A fuckton of alimony. Why wouldn’t I choose this over my life back on Earth.

I still haven’t figured how they manage to communicate in space. They don’t seem to be using any radio. All my training at the CMU and I still haven’t found anything that resembles a transmitter or receiver. After months of scavenging I built a radio. I did test it out a couple of times to check if I tripped some alarms, but all seems well. They still haven’t figured I got a radio.

---

Crossing the vast distances across space, the radio waves finally washed over Earth. An empty Earth. If there were any humans left, the year would have been 11,491. But there were none. Poor Adio, all his training at the CMU, and he completely forgot about relativity.

This story was based a prompt I found on Reddit. Here's the original prompt.

Exactly 100 years ago, a massive obelisk appeared in the sky, idle and silent. Only today had it ever finally spoken, and when it did, it only uttered one word: “Complete.”

The original thread can be found here. https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/ihvw3n/wp_exactly_100_years_ago_a_massive_obelisk/

Nick stood there astonished at the sight. No amount of photos or reading about the object did it any justice. This was a dream a long time in the making. To come and see the "Pillar of Scilly". He'd saved enough money over the last 6 or so years just to come see this wonder. I am going to remember this for the rest of my life, thought Nick. He couldn't remember the last time he was happier.

No one knew what the object was. Supposedly over a 100 or so odd years ago, the object had arrived from outer space and parked itself some 160 meters above St Martin's Island at the Isles of Scilly. It was definitely obelisk shaped. His friends back home in Greece were right. Nick had no idea why it was called a "Pillar". Maybe because it just floated so commandingly beige and upright. All 256 meters of it.

The plaque next to the enclosure read

"The 'Pillar of Scilly' arrived on Earth June 28th, 1908. No one knows its origins or where it came from. No attempts to communicate or evoke a response from the object has been successful. The object is inert in every way except gravity. The Pillar of Scilly has remained in position 300 meters above sea level ever since it arrived. Originally called 'Gods Column' it was renamed after a vote in 1933 to its present name. The object resists any attempts to extract samples of it for scientific studies"

Nick had seen this plaque on the photos so many times. He clicked a photo of the plaque lazily before resuming photographing The Pillar. The path around the enclosure allowed people to walk around the object and see it from all directions. There was even a helicopter ride that would take you up to the object. £280 the board had read. For a 15 minute ride. He hadn't that much money.

The time was only 10:15 in the morning and he until 5 to get to the boat. Nick was going to enjoy every minute of it just staring at the wonder. Nick was disappointed when his friends didn't want to come. The world had lost interest a long time ago at the object. It had become a part of the landscape. He glanced at the other tourists lazily walking around staring upwards. No one seemed to be asking questions about it anymore. How was it floating? Is there someone inside? Is this a message? A scout perhaps?

Nick took a deep breath and decided to click a picture of the very tip of The Pillar. As he raised his camera to his eye, he felt a breeze. It smelled weird. Electric. A smell he knew so well from all the years as an electrician in Kalamaria. The breeze only picked up in strength. The smell too was now unmistakable. Like some kind of ancient motor had sprung to life. All around the path everyone had stopped and stared at the object. Some had held their noses at the smell.

"COMPLET" came a booming word unmistakably from The Pillar. Nick didn't understand what it said but that's what it sounded like. He looked around inquiringly until a woman caught his eyes and she said.. "I think it just said Complete". "Complete What" asked Nick. She just shrugged.

Nick was delighted he was there to witness the first activity of The Pillar. With a grin on his face, he changed his camera to video mode and started recording. "You guys are not going to believe this" he said in Greek. As he was recording he realized he couldn't keep it in frame. It was shocking to realize that the object had began to move. The grin now disappeared from his face. As he began to lower his camera to look at the Pillar directly he realized the object had gained height. Quickly he raised his camera back at the moving pillar.

The smell had gone fainter but the breeze had definitely picked up. It was as if something big was revving up. There was no noise or sounds or whines Nick was expecting to hear. It was moving away. Moving upwards. It was getting smaller. There was no mistaking it.

The blast knocked the wind out of Nick. The air smelled electric. Everyone standing around the path had been knocked to the ground. As Nick glanced upwards, he could see The Pillar ascending fast. Unbelievably fast. It was like watching a 747 taking off. Nothing this big should be able to move this fast he thought through the breathlessness.

As quickly as the event had started it was over. The "Pillar of Scilly" had simply gone away. Vanished. Where to he couldn't even begin to guess.