Written in September 2017. First published in News and Views newsletter.
Imagine sometime in the future where space travel is as
regular as air travel is today. Because of the distances involve they are space
ferries in operation between the planets. As everyone knows, it takes forever
to travel to Mars, so these ferries have facilities to make them as
self-sufficient as possible and the trip comfortable. Things like automated
farms, restaurants, a school, theatres, a library, a hospital and … a vet.
Yes, some passengers have bought their pets with them. On
one of these vessels at any given time they are probably a dozen animals at
these vet/kennel at any given time. A dozen animals, of all walks of life,
including fish.
Now imagine that something happened to one of these vessels.
Space can be dangerous, after all. What if an asteroid hit one of those vessels
and killed everyone on-board …. Except the animals? (One got smuggled on board
and was under quarantine, leading to the place been sealed off, saving their
lives.)
So, here’s the question. With an endless supply of food,
water and air, and no humans to guide them, how would they cope?
In an environment originally-built for humans, would these
animals continue been “animals?” Could curiosity eventually allow them to work
out how their life support systems work, and allow them to fix them if a fault
occurs? Could that later go further, maybe allowing them to read our books? And
if so, would they understand what they read? Would they learn from them? Would
they use the knowledge we had recorded to build a new civilization? A society
with laws and a culture like ours or something completely different? Something
unique. Maybe they’ll create their own stories and literature. Maybe in some
distant future, a descendent of a bird might be reading Penguin Island
with hands that were once wings. Just a thought.
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