The Species, by Graham Attenborough

Interim Report on Blue Planet; Star System #**~^#**<~*: Extinction Event.

We began our survey of the Blue Planet many generations ago. Since that time much has occurred, culminating in a catastrophic extinction event, which has decimated almost all flower and fauna on land and much of the planets ocean besides.

Initially, the species responsible for this event had made little impact on the planet's Eco systems, living, more or less, in harmony with its fellow creatures. However, on subsequent visits we found that the species had multiplied exponentially; had begun to form large settlements, and was systematically destroying the environment.

Only a few generations ago, we were extremely alarmed to discover that the species had spread to such a degree that much, of what had once been a Paradise Planet, had been so badly damaged by their activity, that many of its fellow species were either extinct or surviving in captivity and small corridors of natural habitat.

A word here on the species. The species in question is a problem-solving, tool-using biped. The species is basically a scavenger. The species is highly social and in small groups is capable of living within its means. Unfortunately, it would appear that, approximately thirty thousand of the planet's years ago, an anomaly occurred in its evolution, leading to arrested development in the species. This anomaly allowed the species to believe that it was unique, in some way special, and that its immediate (and largely imagined) needs outweighed those of all others with which it shared the planet. Eventually, the species came to see themselves as a kind of god and that the Blue Planet and everything in it belonged to them to do with as they pleased.

Herein is the sorry tale of this most wonderful planet: that it spawned a creature that saw itself more important than the planet that had spawned it. There is hope however. Once the species finally recognised the irreversibility of its actions, it began to use its destructive power on itself like never before. Their final war, over what sparse resources remained, exterminated billions leaving only a few thousand of the most powerful and despicable of the species. These few have escaped the Blue Planet and are now seeking a new world to inhabit.

It is the regrettable recommendation of this report, that these survivors be sought out and destroyed before they are able to infect any other habitable planet. It is essential, for the well-being of the galaxy, that the species is completely nullified forthwith.

*#¥~<~+^#*

Translated by Graham Attenborough (2016)