Some folk infer from the fact that Earth had single-celled organisms for three billion years before multicellular life finally arrived, that the leap from single- to multi-cell is the “Hard Step” that explains why we do not see a universe teeming with intelligent life.
Those people were about half correct. The hard step is having all the supervisor drones installed on a farm planet to keep the biosphere generating fossil fuels (and not, say, evolving any life that would consume those fuels) break down.
We worked this out after we dug up a broken supervisor. But not, alas, before we repaired it.
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ChookMother 🇦🇺🦘
in reply to Kit Bashir • • •Kit Bashir
in reply to ChookMother 🇦🇺🦘 • • •Jay Stephens
in reply to Kit Bashir • • •That sentence is not great as it stands (hence my tripping up on the "break down" which I DM'd you about) and this toot is, imvho, otherwise your best tootfic, period. The challenge of keeping the twist working as well as it does, retaining the callback, meeting the character limit, and making parsing it easier on the reader... is unenviable.
Kit Bashir
in reply to Jay Stephens • • •@jaystephens @anne_twain v2 incorporating your lovely feedback aus.social/@Unixbigot/11378564…
Kit Bashir
2025-01-07 06:24:41
ChookMother 🇦🇺🦘
in reply to Kit Bashir • • •Can I suggest having that also in past tense - " The hard step was ..." Jumping between tenses makes it harder to follow the narrative.
You might also consider capitalizing Hard Step, to link it to the previous paragraph.
Kit Bashir
in reply to Kit Bashir • • •Version 2 of this #Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot with thanks to the RetroProofing gang!
Some folk inferred---from the fact that Earth had hosted single-celled organisms for over three billion years before multicellular life finally arrived on the scene---that the leap from single- to multi-cell is the “Hard Step” that explains why we do not see a universe teeming with intelligent life.
Those people were about half correct.
On a farm planet, the Hard Step is avoiding the notice of the strikebreaker drones; machines tasked with ensuring that the planetwide bacterial soup produces petrochemicals and feedstocks and
not, say, us (or anything else multicellular).
Any phenotypes that show signs of unionising - forming cellular collectives that benefit themselves rather than the Bosses - get stomped down HARD by the Strikebreakers. Complex life only got going hereabouts when an unlikely catastrophe broke the breakers.
We worked all this out only after we dug up a broken drone. But not, alas, before we repaired it.
oxy but high contrast
in reply to Kit Bashir • • •ChookMother 🇦🇺🦘
in reply to Kit Bashir • • •