The Axonite of Earth

In the early ages of the Sol System of Earth, there were 9 more planets than the 10 we know of today. Jupiter and Saturn did not have as many moons as it does today. Saturn didn't even have its rings yet. The Earth we currently call home did not even have our moon.

The moon we know today was once the fourth planet from the sun. Orpheus was very similar to Earth, it was only about half the size of Earth, It had a liquid surface, a single very salty ocean and not solid surface features except for its polar ice caps. It has a single moon which was very tiny, more like an asteroid that was absorbed into Orpheus' orbit. But Orpheus was on a collision coarse with Earth Zero. Earth Zero's Orbit was a remarkably stable and almost perfectly circular path around the sun, in contrast to what Earth's orbit is like now which is a more traditional ellipse. Orpheus was drawing closer and closer in orbit of the sun but It would not cross the path of Earth Zero for hundreds of millions of years.

Earth Zero did not look like it did today. Earth Zero had a single large liquid ocean of water with a few islands. The majority of the solid surface was under hundreds of meters of water. Since Earth Zero had no moon, its rotation was wobbly. It tilted side to side from a range of 5 degrees to 30 degrees so the climate on the few islands varied greatly year to year. Earth Zero's single ocean was for the most part shallow but there were huge canyons and crevices that plunged three to seven kilometers. These crevices formed heavy salt water channels that eroded the sea floor into rivers. Earth Zero's gravity was about 67 percent of what it is today so the dynamic of fluid and the rocks was much different. But the geology was nothing in comparison to another scientific wonder of Earth Zero, before Earth had Luna, our moon. That scientific curiosity was life. Prevalent, diverse, rich, energetic, and beautiful life. Everywhere.

Life was in the sky, on the surface of the ocean, on the little islands, on the sea floor. However, the life on this world was much different than any life we have on Earth today. The radiation levels from the sun were far higher in intensity, radiation from the cold depths of space was also a serious threat. Life had no choice but to live primarily on the ocean floor where the ocean would shield from gamma rays, comets, asteroids, and a host of other violence coming from space. Life on Earth Zero evolved a high tolerance for radiation and were not as threatened by radiation. However, life did evolve very fast as a result. Since radiation is one of the causes for mutations on life on the current Earth, life would diversify and experiment much more in Earth Zero when radiation was a constant hazard. The life began to float out of the oceans and jellyfish evolved that used radiation for a kind of radiosynthesis for chemical energy. Giant slugs the size of blue whales slithered across the polar icecaps for millions of years eating up radioactive algae converting the radiation into a type of cellular cold fusion, generating nutrients. A scum belt encircled the entire Earth Zero's equator that used the intense rays of our young sun to create sugars and carbon dioxide. A variety of organisms fed on this scum from under the ocean surface and on top of it from the air. This belt of scum was a single colony of organism. In a sense, this life form was so large that it lived AROUND the planet quite literally.

Because of this dynamic to life that accelerated evolutionary processes, intelligent life evolved in one tenth of the time it took for intelligence to evolve on Earth One. In just a few hundred million years, a species of something that looks like a cross between a slug and an octopus evolved intelligence superior to that of Homo Superior (us humans). These beings inhabited the deep ocean floor subsisting on crops of algae and other lower species of domesticated snails and clams. These beings evolved from a creature called the Xiconozons (zik oh no zonz), small creatures that swam freely in the medium of the ocean. They were territorial, aggressive, cunning, occasionally eating flesh of other animals, primarily eating sugary fruits and slimes. They reproduced a single unit at a time and cared for their children. They lived together in troupes and nested with one another. They communicated with a large lobe-like organ that could receive and transmit a very broad range of the electromagnetic spectrum. Communicating primarily with touch, visible bioluminescence, and smell, they also had the ability to communicate telepathically (with limitations of time and space) through the transmission of radio waves in close proximity ranging from just a few centimeters to about 1 and a half kilometers.

These beings evolved a higher and higher capacity for language, intelligence, tool use, and culture in a very short time. It took humanity about 4 billion years to get from the first single celled organism to what we are now. It took the Axonites just 300 million years.

4.5 billions years ago, the sol system had something insidious in store for Earth Zero though. Orpheus was drawing nearer and nearer to the Axonite’s precious blue world. In the last leg of their evolutionary ladder, there were 18 distinct species of Axonites that tolerated one another’s existence (as opposed to the 30 or so different species of humans that competed with one another until there was just one species remaining today). These 18 species cooperated the efforts of their small tribal nations to build space ships that would colonize other planets. The Axonites built 145 space craft that could travel 3 percent the speed of light and began to leave the Sol system. One of the ships stayed behind though.

One of these ships landed on a world just a few hundred million kilometers from their original home and found it very suitable. They terra-formed this tiny world orbiting Jupiter called Europa. Europa seemed like a tropical paradise at the time. A vast liquid ocean, solid surface floor, lots of resources, already rich with microbial life and slimes, and it was constantly bathed in a perfect climate of radiation from Jupiter itself. In the process of terra-forming, the Axonites drove all the native life forms into extinction.

The rest of the population of Axonites continued to explore the local star systems sweeping through the spiral arms of the milky way galaxy searching for the perfect world to inhabit. The Axonites on Europa lost all contact with the other Axonites forever. These beings watched from a distance with their telescopes as Orpheus collided with their home world. Slowly, one by one, their artificial satellites in orbit of Earth Zero were vaporized when the wall of liquefied rock expanding around the impact into space continued to widen and unwrap the entire surface of the Earth Zero.

It was then that they turned their telescopes away and forgot of their now destroyed home world.

Over billions of year, a satellite formed from the material whipped off of the Earth. This satellite is what we call The Moon today.