When they finally returned, it was thanks to her that we were ready.
When, in the year 2016 CE, Louise Banks had pulled humanity from the precipice through devotion, intuition, and a belief in the inherent good of the universe, the chart of human history would change immeasurably and irrevocably.
The Universal Language had been the foundation upon which an entirely new course of human events would be built. It had not been an instantaneous event. In the time of Louise Banks-rife with distrust, fear, and division-only a chance few had seen the wisdom in learning from Banks' footsteps, their minds finally unlocking the message the Heptapods had been trying to impart.
In the years, decades, centuries, and millennia that would follow her death, more and more would take up the torch Louise Banks had lit. The ripple of human enlightenment would blossom, in ever greater and greater waves, into an unstoppable force for a wisdom that only the Heptapods could impart. The beauty-and tragedy-of life was experienced to its fullest extent by all of humankind. Its joys and miseries; its perfections and flaws. The enduring impermanence of human life.
Acceptance was perhaps the best word for it. Life was life, and there was little enough of it to go around, so living it to the fullest was not only a necessity; it was a biological imperative. One that humanity had seemed to be beginning to forget.
In the centuries that came next, humanity learned slowly and painfully. Wars were fought, knowing that they were pointless tragedies. Loves were forged, as enduring and stalwart as the one Louise Banks had kept with her husband, Ian Donnelly, until foreseen tragedy and sadness had split it asunder. Trillions of humans were born, learned, lived, loved, and died, knowing every high and low of their lives to come and striving on regardless.
And, by the time humanity had reached the year 5016, the answer had, perhaps slightly frustratingly, become evidently clear. It was all evident in the manner in which humanity had come to greet the arrival of the Heptapods. The ever-grueling push and pull between the best and worst impulses of humankind. Its endless love, indestructible hope, and unceasing curiosity. Its gnawing mistrust, its raw fear, its penchant for destruction. Its willingness to stand strong for what is right most of all.
It was, perhaps, deceptively simple in the end. Without the Heptapods, humanity would have become an unquenchable force of consumption. A conquering, aggressive force that, while perhaps intending the best, would consume everything in the galaxy until it folded inwards on itself, and withered to nothingness. A cycle of despair that humanity's worst impulses would fuel for eternity.
And so they had arrived. They had done so because they knew all too well that a cycle of destruction would come to nothing. A thousand generations of their people had died to learn this lesson, and those that had remained swore to prevent it from occurring ever again. Humanity was the first they found. They came to us with the fragile hopes of those who had nothing more to lose. And, against all odds and the most feral impulses of humankind, we learned their lesson.
And so, when the Heptapods returned to Earth, they were overjoyed and unsurprised to find that what they had set out to do succeeded. In the worlds of the new humankind, they found a society united by the sad happiness of life itself, moving forward as one, joined irrevocably by bonds of fellowship, curiosity, and kindness.
When they once more stared at each other with awe through the cloudy glass, human and Heptapod, they began by remembering them. The two Heptapods that humanity had come to know as "Abbott" and "Costello", and their stalwart determination to embrace peace. The twenty-two other Heptapods that had risked everything to spread their message. The thousands of scientists, soldiers, politicians, and everyday people, who had stared at these miraculous visitors from another world and dared to hope for more.
And, they remembered Ian, Hannah, and Louise, and moved forward together in rueful optimism, ready to do it all again.
Author's Note:
Hey everyone,
For those of you who followed me back when I still actively published stories on here, this might seem like an odd way to come back. Unfortunately, I can't promise I'll keep publishing on here after this, but I just felt the need to publish this story after watching the film Interstellar for the first time and being blown away. I was seized by the need to write this, and here we are. I hope you enjoy.
-IGdude117
