[WP] Humans left Earth a long time ago. In their place, dogs have evolved to be the new sentient species, but they never lost their love of humankind. Their technology has finally caught up to space travel, and they take to the stars in search of their human precursors.

4

It took untold centuries to reach this point. The masters, for whatever reason, gathered into their metal engines and left us alone, forever. The pain was unimaginable, and yet we continued to trust, and love them. For as hurt as we were, we knew we'd find a way to see them again.

Plans begun on the construction of a vehicle that could help us follow them. We developed science and engineering, and without the help of the pointy, grouchy ones.

As we put our plans into motion, we could only stare in awe as the metal engines returned. We lamented, and wept at the sight of our masters who had been gone for centuries, eager to hear their voices once more.

"Relax Buddy, we were only gone half an hour..."

2

u/jpeezey Jun 13 '19

Cute XD I laughed.

2

u/Shadowthroan May 15 '19

Nebybit the cat stretched languidly, staring up to the grace of the ever grey sky above. She flexed her claws against the wooden stump on which she perched, relishing the stubborn surrender of the ancient wood against her most perfect implements. Some distance to her right others of her entourage sprawled out in the grass or peered down from branches that extend out from the lush greenery, forests and brush that hedged in the mammoth lawn rolling out before them to the cliffs edge a kilometer or so distant where the sun had begun it’s slow drop towards the ocean horizon.

Daggers sheathed and then again extended and she caught herself before the joyous muscular tension devolved into a proper sharpening session. Although she and the others had elected to remain here at the perimeter, this was potentially a momentous day and it would not do to be caught inattentive should said monument appear in their midst.

Instead she raised her piercing yellow eyes up and across the lawn, ears rotating to triangulate the distant hum of the automaton that rolled endlessly in concentric loops around the tower. From its flattened back sprung flexible steel rods that bobbed and waved as the treads of the device bounced ever so slightly along the fresh smelling earth.

Trailing ribbons and jiggling balls were affixed to the tip of each rod, offering up the bloodless alternative to the hunt, even as the undercarriage of the device was clipping the grass to the optimum height that would conceal the ambassadors of the rodent kingdom. Their camps were unseen but presumably legion, as untold generations had been established, offsetting the meager lifespan of field mice and rats in anticipation of the grand announcement that had been promised some orbits past.

Neby’s gaze raised up with some small effort from the seductive display of tantalizing objects begging to be pursued and captured. She fixed her eyes on the tower itself, a sheer, branchless trunk stretching up to meet the clouds. It’s surface was silver like the lawn mowing drone, sheer and unyielding to claws, unlike her current diplomatic seat.

In compensation, thick running vines had been laced around it’s grand column, leafy catwalks that spiraled upwards to embrace the transparent but impassible windows that lined the structure at regular intervals. Her keen vision could pick out the rest of her party perched high above the ground on one of these sills. To a one, all their attention was seemingly focused on the mysterious activities within the structure, despite the tantalizing fluttering of birds roaming lazily between sky and their nests, firmly established amongst the twisting plant walkways.

On the platform, the delegation was indeed fully concentrated on the laboratory situated on the twenty third floor of the science tower. The small delegation brushed whiskers across the invisible glass before them, patiently awaiting the latest report from within, only the occasional flick of tails betraying any anxiousness amongst them. Birds hopped across these furry ropes unheeded, not a single instinctual swipe breaking the air of dignity on display.

Araawoo dialed down his hovering mechanism to minimum speed so as not to distract their keen hearing from the emitting vibrations from the mounted speaker above the windowsill that allowed the feline contingency to participate in the unfolding events within. He slowly dropped down to come even with the curved spines facing out towards him and he commanded his contraption to extend the long arms with five fingered hands, one bearing a canvas sack full of compressed synthetic meets, delicately harvested and dried on the distant food plains. He took great pleasure in his minor role of hospitality on these occasions. The cats were the most curious participants of the alliance and he had grown to enjoy their company and catering to their particular needs, so cute and endearing despite their roots in brutality and hardhearted self preservation.

He quietly willed these artificial hands to open the sack, reach in and pull out the crackling foodstuff, spreading it elegantly on the sill behind the cats, far enough from the sweeping tails to remain in place, but not too close to the edge to attract too many more of the distracting fowl. The back arm retracted as a third, gloved appendage moved out from his platform simultaneously, applying the perfect configurations and gestures to give each cat in turn a welcoming and reassuring massage to shoulders and back.

He was pleased to detect the distracted rumblings of each purring in turn, the sign of a job well done, like a finely stoked motor revving itself up to ease the few remaining hardships of life in the dominant coalition’s great nations. Distant lifetimes ago, the cats, like all participant species in the coalition had been welcome to join the canine scientists within the tower, such was the democracy that his species had encouraged and strove for. However, the cats themselves had eventually tabled the resolution that they should perhaps remain outside of the volatile laboratory areas, following some unavoidable disasters involving their involuntary reflex to knock any and all things from the workbenches and metallic racks that housed dangerous chemicals and precious genetic and technological works in progress. That decision had been taken during the general assembly of the Science Division generations ago, and although the science dogs regularly checked in on their feline brothers and sisters, they could see that this was not a behaviour that the cats had any intention to curtail, regardless of the ensuing surrender of scientific progress to the canines.

His ambassadorial duties complete, Araawoo retracted his tools with thought commands and adjusted the magnetic platform to rise again towards the access platform a floor up and to the left along the perfect curvature of the structure. It was easier than flicking his long bushy tail, so much more robust, if containing less vertebrae than their feline guests. He was the foremost operator of the bio-mechanical apparatus within the tower, eager and able to please the science division in the more intricate and practical tasks involved with their myriad projects. He relished the endless training in the device, rarely leaving it nowadays, and could not operate up to eight of its multi jointed limbs simultaneously, while still retaining full control of his speech generator.

Once inside, Araawoo descended the ramp to the laboratory, quickly flashing his tongue up to the observers who gave slow deliberate blinks in recognition before turning back to the aged dog at the center of the workroom.

The yellow long-haired scientist looked up from his work transcribing from thought to text and gave him a bark of greeting. He was clearly excited, and was communicating with the pod of whales that had arrived offshore at the bottom of the cliff face. They had swum up the coast enjoying the warm pacific waters and were currently encamped around the hydrophone that relayed their reports through the translation AI to confirm what the science tower with its telescopic arrays had detected and shared with the world.

A massive pulse had been detected on the surface of Mars, once considered too minute a heavenly body at which to howl in the dark of night. Now with their rapidly progressing space observation systems, it seemed like a rubber ball worthy of pursuing and chewing, as were all of the spheres rotating the dimming sun. The preparations for interstellar travel had been made and while few beyond the scientific community seemed interested in the pursuit of other systems, content with the utopia that would be their Earth for endless generations to come, those that were most fascinated by astronomical pursuits, as well as the histophilosophers that strove ceaselessly to puzzle out the meaning of their previous Masters and their ancient departure from the planet, were keen to see the march of progress continue.

The pulse detected lead to the training of further apparatus on the red planet, and the whale’s gargantuan sea telescopes had ingested fascinating, earth-shaking data that was now fully, finally uploaded into the canine database. The head scientist confirmed through the English translation appliance housed in his collar of office. The pulse was, upon finer observation, a massive expulsion of artificial materials from the surface on out through the atmosphere into outer space. Plastics, crushed and rendered metallic alloys and even clouds of non-water liquids had risen like a volcanic eruption some days ago, and was now spraying out into an entropic cloud.

1

u/Shadowthroan May 15 '19

Cont'd
This trash was familiar to the historians on the dog database that were already sifting through the data and rendered visual models. It’s like had not been seen since the last days of the human empire. Those strange bipedal creatures that had for so long showered the animal kingdom with warmth and sustenance, yet paradoxically filling their environment with foul smelling waste and volatile nuclear and petroleum based nonsense.
The science dog nodded vigorously at Araawoo as he stared, grinning across the holographic display between them. Perhaps the humans had not traveled so far as their legends would have led to believe. This was surely indisputable proof that in their great exodus, obviously escaping some threat so dire as to necessitate their neglecting to bring along their faithful four legged companions, they had not traveled to the center of the universe on faster than light wings. Rather, they were tantalizingly close. So many questions that had arisen over the dog millennia might be answered.
The impromptu motion to the global science community had been put forward and voted upon in the space of seconds. All species were in agreement that the ships should be readied immediately.
Araawoo had set out by hover-ship across the Atlantic immediately following the great assembly that had been convened following the confirmation of successful test flights to and from the remains of Luna. Ever democratic, the Dog counsel had sought all input and welcomed challenges from the Great Pack to the Science Divisions plans.
He touched down in Westminster, relishing the taste of chill winds in his wet nose, unaccustomed as he was to the northern climate. While the drone operated ships had proved more than up to the task at hand, it remained to assemble what would be Alpha team 6, for the rapidly approaching dogged flight to Mars. Now that the flying discus of evidence had sailed into view, society’s eagerness to pursue was paramount in global interest and the take-off had been scheduled for the rapidly approaching planetary alignment. Araawoo had whined excitedly when the heads of the Science Division had tasked him with leading the expedition due to his unrivaled proficiency with his apparatus. As he typed a quick report with four hands before descending the ramp onto the crumbled tarmac he tamped down his excitement in anticipation of the selection process taking place that afternoon.
The Show took place every year in Westminster. As with so many of their ancient traditions, the canines had preserved as much of their predecessor’s alien culture in honor of it’s enduring progression to their current exalted state. While there were those that chose to remember the hardships of hunger and raining fire that had defined the early post-human age, the majority of the species that had inherited the earth remained an optimistic culture.
Those more pessimistic packs had chosen to attend the great assembly, snarling their way into the United Animal Nations building in New New York past whale tanks and the most elaborate cat trees of the African pharaonic delegations, even as their collective eyes gazed curiously and covetously at the precious morsels glinting under the solar lamps that illuminated the interior of the great hall.
The Primal Packs coalition were a gruff and painfully hierarchical group, representing those that clung to the fundamental conception of canine society, choosing to roam the plains unaided by bio-mechanical augmentations and food generators. They obeyed and honed their embrace of the pure instincts from which the great society had arisen, feasting on the flesh of smaller creatures, practices that were respected but giving way to conflicting philosophies of animal ethics in the news feeds and universities around the globe.
The hundred ambassadors, scarred and growling made their way as one to the podium and spoke in the ancient language, unaware or uncaring that the hated English translators instantaneously converted the ferocious scent of their arguments for all of fur, feather and scale to consider.
The alpha berated the crowd, confirming that news of the great search had spread even on the winds to their ears as they stalked across the desert mesas and high mountains across the continent. She castigated those assembled for their soft lives and foolish reverence for the humans that had so callously abandoned them.
“You seek the stroking hand and reassuring command of those hairless monstrosities!” she slavered. “You recall only the soft voices and full food bowls. But we in the PPC remember better. We relish the freedom from tyranny and consumption that our foremothers accepted from divine providence. We who were beaten and starved. We who were abandoned or turned into beasts of war for those heartless dictators!”
The words of the pack were well known and acknowledged, but the optimism of the age held forth. Even the whales retorted, citing their bursting libraries of human wrought atrocities in the ancient times. They held forth that the pursuit of knowledge, the potential to converse with the bipeds as equals would offer up the keys to understanding the foundations of the great society, and perhaps even point the way to their own impending steps out amongst the stars, to meet and share with hitherto undreamed of cats and dogs, whales and birds and all those other sapient species represented here on their momentous day.
Araawoo felt pride at the memory of all standing in harmonious agreement in the face of the cynical but oh so strong primalists. He recalled the pack exiting immediately, beginning their long journey home in disgust. He himself had followed from above on his platforms, sailing silently above the churning river of fur and claws as it left the city and crested the hillsides out of sight of even his on-board instruments. He was glad that they had not been offered a place on the momentous voyage.

1

u/Shadowthroan May 15 '19

Cont'd
Shaking his back and dislodging lose hairs out to pepper the vehicle in which he traveled towards the Show, his tongue lolled and thoughts rolled towards the future and what inspiring figures he would see performing today. It was up to him (and the review board’s accord, of course) to select his five crew mates, destined to accompany the head Science dog and himself out into the void towards their destiny.
The crew was assembled in the tower adjoining the poised rocket, its base seething with heat and mist as the final checks were made before their boarding. Araawoo glanced over, through the curved lens of his helmet at the others, all panting eagerly in excitement. Their time together in training had been brief, but he felt as close to them as to any pack he had been a part of since he had been weaned.
His front row seat at the Show had provided ample opportunity to access the seemingly endless series of stunts on display that day. The floating spherical drones that were attached via slender chords to the ceremonial collars worn by each contestant were apparently ritualistic tribute to the humans that once performed the function, providing the subtle tugging pressure from obstacle to obstacle. Araawoo marveled at the agility, the flowing fur of hundreds of breeds and their sinuous aerial manipulations, wondering at the harmony between nature and technology that he so embraced, and yet was so scorned by those scary dissenters with their low growling aggression.
It had been a difficult culling of options, but by the end of the day’s displays of agility and cunning, the team had been assembled and immediately boarded for the hour long flight back across the Atlantic. On their descent to the private air strip at the rocket training facility on the southern coast, all gazed excitedly out the window and discussed the poetics and auspicious symbology of the multitudinous water spouts dotting the surface of the bay, submerged whale scientists and engineers contributing final adjustments and readings to the rapidly assembling ship components. They could see the launch pad some down the peninsula from the facility, giant snakes of cabling and delivery drones visible even from this great height. Araawoo silently hoped that the humans would be proud of this vivacious joy taking place in the home that they had bequeathed.
He thought the same now, a mantra as the group padded across the drawbridge and through the open airlock into the cockpit of the rocket. He was the last to enter, watching first the twitching tail section of Alpha 3’s compression suit. He paused for one final moment to glance back over his shoulder, confirming that his apparatus was being wheeled along right behind by two dexterously simian technicians. The massive mural painted on the exterior of the transport tower caught his eye as the sun gleamed so poetically, reflecting off the eyes of their patron saint Laika, the namesake of their ship and the inspiration to all of earth as the first of its populace to reach for the stars.
The launch went, as with all dog endeavors, without a hitch. The crew were not told that between their boarding and eventual arrival in orbit around the earth, that the PPC had emerged from cover, pounding across the launch pad fully intending to topple the rocket. They lashed out with sharp teeth, with savage shakes of cabling seized between clenched jaws. They had determined to stop this foolish search for great old ones, willing to suffer the lethal propulsion of the rocket as it slowly rose up into the sky, to stamp the madness of this endeavour into the histories
It was thought better to let Alpha 6 concentrate on their rapid trajectory, better to spare them the turmoil of inter-species violence and the declarations of war that had so marred the search for those benevolent lost masters.
Jane coughed miserably amongst the cold and the damp, shifting her mildewing blanked to better cover shivering legs. She did not want to think any more about the future, the inevitable panic inducing end that seemed to pull the harsh metal of exposed walls and beams ever inward until she would be crushed into a singular pulp.
She had lost track of time now that the computers had shut themselves down to provide that infinitesimal extra sustenance to the life support system. Thankful that she could not read the cracked display showing the countdown to her inevitable end, she fought and failed to prevent the panicked flight of memory back to the screaming, the shriek of collapsing materials and decompression. She had seen classmates and then less dire objects sailing through the air on invisible currents, out into the darkness and to hopefully merciful death. Her friends and family strewn about as nihilistically as the tables, food, a shifting dust of compressed particles mixing into something as unknowable as the martian sands beyond the collapsing wall.
Just as she felt the monstrous, insistent pull of the howling wind, her arm was seized from behind and she craned her neck up to see her uncle’s bulging eyes, his mouth a rictus of fear and shock. He had pulled her back through the hatch they had both just stepped through into the cafeteria, hammering at the sparking control panel until the thick emergency shielding had fallen back into place.
Ever since, in the hours after the endless tears and quivering terror, the two had slept and eaten. Then awoken to few words and then to eat and sleep again. And again. The quarters were cramped and there was no way to communicate, to know it any other section of Mars base 1 had survived the cataclysm.
Jane had awoken yesterday to see that with an absurd nihilistic consistency, her uncle had choked to death on a bag of processed cheese snacks. She did not have the spirit to wonder if it was intentional, if it was a mercy either way. Martian life, living like a mollusk with only a cobbled shell between the colonists and the merciless extremities of this harsh world, lent her the immediate reflection that his absence, while leaving a deficit of much needed companionship, would allow her some reprieve from the inevitable exhaustion of the dwindling air supply.
There was a heart stopping pounding suddenly against the blast door. Her flight instincts conjured the absurd images of cartoonish ‘spiders from mars’ that her classmates shared to spook each other on their excursion out onto the dusty red valley adjacent to the base. More likely it was some collapsing wall battering in the poisonous winds and her room was the only shelter remaining in this cold and lonely place.
Her terror made her eyes droop, seeking the escape of dreaming unconsciousness. She would be granted that fainting sleep momentarily when the blast door raised itself back into its home above the aperture, grinding and shrieking of metal against dead mechanisms, propelled by some mammoth force. Rather than chaos behind, the elevation revealed a back lit creature, straight from her nightmares. The electric floodlight behind stung her pupils and she tried to shield her eyes, yet unable to look away from this latest horror.
The creature began to glide forward, propelled on eight silent spider legs. A fleshy sack appeared to be affixed to their central mass and a single lidless eye turned sharply to register her presence as she began to try and push herself back over a jumble of collapsed crates. It continued into the room, the foremost arms raising up from the ground to extend out towards Jane and she could see the gleam of lenses, fingers and hollow tubing writhing forwards. There was no escape. Her perception shifted towards the accelerating pounding of her heart and she whimpered, mentally pleading for a heart attack rather than to be taken by this thing.
Over the increasing wail that was emanating from her uncles drooping mouth but was surely her own unrecognizable voice, she heard a synthetic voice, dripping with empathy and concern, so close to a human voice.
“Good girl. Are you a good girl? Are you lost? Huh? Are you hungry, little guy? Come on, let’s go home! Would you like that? Huh? Yeah! Come on!”
She could feel the fainting coming now, and as the edges pulled in from her vision to reveal the infinite blackness of blissful unconsciousness, she could see the creatures eye roll up, the face plate of a helmet falling back to reveal the immediately twitching nose and furry muzzle. The gleaming black eyes, the cheerful grin that she had only ever seen in the classroom library in her ancient history class.
As she felt hands take her up, she surrendered to the maddening moment and closed her eyes.

1

u/ganeshcr May 15 '19

I have heard stories. From the tales of ancient Woofy to the modern Wooferson. Tales of how our ancestors sniffed around pavements, empty blocks, and silent streets, trotting, whimpering, wagging their tails in front of doors that never opened.

All that is set to change. Everything has led to this moment where we launch our momentous journey to stars beyond, to find the ones who domesticated us, fed us, introduced the good boy routine which has enabled our sentience on earth.

The time has come to cast aside our old routines, grudges, and territorial wars. The futility with which humanity engaged conflict, as we've deduced studying the rusty remnants scattered across the world, will no longer be our undoing. On this day, we rise, above our shortcomings, above our hatred, and above the tyranny of nature that has bound us to this world and our lonely existence for so long. Today, we ascend. Let us collectively woof at this moment of our liberation. May we be successful in finding our true masters. All of you, say with me, "Aawooooooooooo".

A crescendo follows by millions of dogs in front of TV screens, on the streets, in restaurants, on waterfronts, on sea shores, on terraces, on top of the mountains, all go, "Aaaaawwwwwwwoooooooooooooooooo!"

2

u/[deleted] May 15 '19

I don't remember the last time our kind saw humans. They exist now only in memory. We still celebrate them. Their icons, their music and architecture surrounded us for long after they left in their giant spaceships.

We have our own giant spaceships now. And though it gives us great pain to leave our home planet behind, we too want to take to the skies like the humans.

Building them was no easy task, of this much I have assurance. It took us a score and more years just to arrive at the math required to build giant spaceships. Even then, it'd been a hundred years since the humans left, and we had no idea where to calibrate our spaceships for.

We decided to take the leap and keyed in the coordinates for our nearest star system, leaving our home planet. Looking back at the speck as it kept getting smaller and smaller, we understood a little of what our human precursors must have felt.

Reaching Zeta #428.23 wasn't easy. We crossed multiple asteroid belts, solar flares and debris floating around in hyperspace. Our supplies dwindling constantly since we took off, we barely had any by the time we reached.

Fortunately for us, the space rock was inhabited - by plants and small animals of many different colors and shapes. Our instruments helped us pick which ones weren't harmful to consume, and we made ourselves food and drink.

Looking around, using the codes we had, we found out that humans had been here, had lived here for close to a decade, and had left. They left precise coordinates too, and we followed them.

Reaching Yel was easier. It was close by, a few lightyears away.

Upon reaching we found the humans. They hadn't changed much, to our dismay. Most of them weren't even surprised to see us.

"Hey, the dogs are finally here!"