Star Trek- The Dig

To Live. To Love. To Learn.

The excavation proceeded well and even ahead of expectations. She figured maybe they'd reach the vault in a couple of days. The lady archaeologist and her team of graduate students had an advantage over centuries before, using modern twenty-third century tools and equipment. Sometimes, for the sake of relic preservation, the old-fashioned hand tools were still best.

"Miss Jones!' cried out one of her students. It was an Andorian female named L'Shara and her antennae were wiggling. "We hit something metallic!".

Tammi walked over and saw for herself. That section of the dig had been the least likely area for a find, so she was a little surprised. It definitely looked like a ... box. A small, palm sized, gold embossed box. She and the others who leaned in could see the gold was still intact. She applied the tricorder and discovered it was real gold.

"Hmmm...", she muttered. "Seems this ancient civilization valued gold, too. Now, L'Shara, since you led the team and discovered it, why don't you go ahead and slowly bring it up and set it down over here", she said indicating a relatively clean area of ground nearby. They all gathered around while the young, blue skinned alien student did this.

Then the Andorian pointed out the strange markings. "Looks like a written language, maybe instructions for whatever's in the box", she said. Tammi again ran her tricorder, this time adjusting the setting to the language translation matrix. The Universal Translator works for the spoken word, but written words can still be difficult to decipher, so another method is used.

"This may take a while", the Starfleet Academy archaeology professor sighed, "Why don't the rest of you take a break and get out of this K'varen sun!" Most of the students happily complied and moved away. She wiped her brow as her ablest student, L'Shara, remained to assist, taking her own readings for backup.

As she was working on the translation matrix, Tammi wondered about the ancient people of this planet, K'varen. It's known by cave drawings that they were bipedal, probably mammalian, and evidently worshipped gods of the sky or nature. In other words, maybe not too unlike ancient Earth. She hoped studying this relic would give more information.

Finally, her tricorder beeped, indicating either it had found something, or it was finished. Her assistant's device did the same a few seconds later. They each ran an analysis of their findings. When they were done, they each stared at the results, then at each other. Then they smiled.

"Yup", exclaimed Miss Jones. "They were advanced enough for this! And gentle hearted maybe, too."

The translated writings consisted of the one word, "LOVE", repeating several times around the outside of the box, and simple instructions for opening.

Later, when everyone had gathered back together and the local sun was nearing the horizon signaling dusk was near, Tammi explained the situation and what she was about to do. It was within standards but unusual for scientific protocol, but her students were loyal and more importantly, just as curious as she was. She felt strongly curious! Everyone nodded their heads in agreement.

So she slowly pinched the sides at the points indicated by the writing, and the box opened. Suddenly a soft but dazzling golden light shone forth, lighting up the area, making it seem like midday again. After the oohs and aahs from the awed crowd, the voice called out from the box!

"Rukzhikos...", sounding like gibberish. Luckily the voice appeared to be recorded as a loop and kept repeating. Finally, the oral UT kicked in from the communications badge she wore and translated a female sounding voice as thus, "Greetings whomever finds this. Since you're there and we're not, we wish you well, and to learn from our mistakes. Know then that we destroyed ourselves, our whole civilization, in a devastating war probably long ago, by your time. We bickered over territory and resources, but mainly over philosophies and ideologies. We might've survived but hate, corruption, lust for power and the like, came to rule our senses and laws. Some of us understood a better way, but as of my recording this, have been unable to prevent a wholesale slaughter, and environmental disaster too. The better way is..." the message trailed off as sounds of struggle followed.

The silence prevailed for several minutes. Finally, Tammi sighed and pointed to the gold embossed message on the box in her palm. "Well", she began, quickly adopting lecture mode, "whoever they were, at least she and her group were able to send a message, anyway. Loudly and clearly! They probably had more to say, but we may never know. Unless we find something else on this world. In any case, in that sense, they live on. So everyone, let's turn in for today, get some rest, 'cause tomorrow we continue with our dig, and strive to learn, to enlighten ourselves and others. We learn the past to help the future. This is what it's about, folks. To live. To love. To learn. Goodnight".

The students each mumbled their good evening wishes to one another, and sauntered off to their respective prefabs. L'Shara lingered a moment by Tammi, finally stepping away. Tammi, still holding the golden box with LOVE embossed on it, chose to stay and meditate upon these matters.

Disclaimer- Star Trek is owned by CBS Studios and Paramount, not by me.