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Make the Gods Wonder
By
James M. Ward
Background
Three hundred years ago mankind lived on 77 different worlds and explored all
through space. At the exact same time in all of the 77 solar systems and along all
the space lanes used by humans, alien battlefleets attacked in a coordinated melee,
attempting to destroy all of mankind in one massive wave attack. Mankind’s S-ships,
robotic attack spaceships, used in man’s defense, computed battle defenses on all
77 worlds was useless to try and save all of the 77 worlds. The artificial intelligences
(A.I.s) of the ships came to the same conclusion at the same exact time. Each of the
S-ships gave up their normal duties and flew to Earth Prime to protect it from the
invaders. They weren’t in time to save the Earth. They did save what was left of the
solar system.
During mankind’s expansion, Earth’s moon turned into a tourist center. Three
different huge domes were transformed into bits of Earth’s past. There was an
Egyptian dome, a Camelot dome, and a roaring ‘20s Chicago dome. Each of these
provided the culture and supposed action from those legendary times. The aliens
had planned on capturing those domes to study what was left of humanity. The
mankind’s A.I.s (artificial intelligences) working in labs under the domes had a
decision to make. Their primary program ruled they must do everything they could
to protect their human charges. Over night, the programming of the humanity
under the domes drastically changed. The people in the three different domes took
on the belief that they were actually living in the age represented by the domes
they were in. An intense breeding program took place. After three hundred years of
controlled breeding, the humans of the domes were perfect physical specimens.
Now there was a problem. There were special minerals needed for the maintenance
of computer systems and the closest source was on Earth Prime. The androids and
A.I.s shook their computer brains at the thought of what was needed next.