Mortal Protection Services Chapter 5: III.2: Gaia

Read chapter 5 of Mortal Protection Services by B.T.Skull on NovelPedia.

III.2: Gaia The planet for option 2 was pilfered from a star system three hundred light years away. Nobody else was using it, and it was just the right size and make-up for a relatively easy terraforming job. It had once sustained life, so there was already oil. Jim had brought it over for the humans and had already spruced it up with his long work, preparing for this day. It isn't like Jim didn't have a few million years of warning that whoever was living on Earth would likely need an assist when that black hole came wandering through. Even for MPS, a proper terraforming job takes a few thousand years. Jim gave the people of Option 2 a chance to name their new home, before even beaming them down. 'Gaia' ended up winning, and so they called themselves themselves the Gaians of Gaia. Gaia had three major continents, and some impressively large islands and archipelago that summed up to another two continents worth of land. That said, Gaia was a water world, for sure, even moreso than the Earth. 81% of the surface was water. Of course, the globes in all the pre-built classrooms showed as much, as did Gaiaggle maps, the website we made for them. With a little more than a third of humanity getting beamed down, we decided to spread them out a little. There was plenty of space, and quite a few islander type cultures that would thrive in the great archipelago. The gaians took three weeks for us to be able to shove off and stop helping. This bunch had a lopsided population, heavy on research scientist and hopeful optimists. Lots of engineers and physicists and the like, but not nearly all, just a lot more than their share of the total human population. The average avarice level was significantly lower on Gaia than Earth before, or Terra. The gaians' problem, in my cynical view, was that they would be too trusting of their technologically advanced neighbors. They hadn't considered that, perhaps, MPS wouldn't protect them from the neighbors. Jim did help address some of my concerns in this regard with his final missive to the gaians. Subject: Welcome to your new home. Humans of Gaia! Great name choice. It represents you all quite well. MPS thanks you for your patience during this adjustment period. We have done our best to help set you up for success. Everyone has been assigned a job, and trained to do it. Though your numbers are smaller than you may have hoped when you voted, there are more than enough of you to make it work on Gaia. Put wise leaders in place and you'll do fine. I'd like to remind you that Mortal Protection Services will be watching. If it happens that your group is the last of your species at some future point, and you are facing annihilation, we will step in once again. However, if those that voted option 1 or 3 are still out there, we will let your branch of humanity wither. Good luck gaians! Jim, Mortal Protection Services Humanity Specialist. And then, we watched, and didn't intervene. Despite the fact that nearly a third of them felt 'underemployed' for their qualifications, the people of Gaia worked hard at their new society for those first few months. The pre-made, human-style radio telescopes and satellites immediately started picking up 8 year old video broadcasts from the neighbors. Their tv did suck. The neighbors were... well for a lack of more succinct descriptor, Space Sasquatches. Or Wookies if you aren't worried about Disney suing. They were big smart apes, like humans, only fully hairy, and with their average member standing head and shoulders above the average human. They were called the Killitoot, and their language was much less... animal noises than the fictional Wookies. Their mouths and vocal tracts could speak most human language just fine, and likewise, humans were capable of speaking most Killitoot languages without issue. We each have a few hard noises for the other to make properly, though I am getting ahead of myself. It was less than a year before the first Killitoot ship arrived. This init