Epilogue: Lotsa Woots

Earth... awoke.

It was a strange sensation, and thoroughly unexpected. She felt very tired, and confused.

When she'd filled the Totoros with power, when they'd moved her to an empty universe, she had believed it would be her final end. Without the mice maintaining her processes and systems, the vast organic computer that was her mind had slowed... and eventually stopped. It should have meant eternal sleep. Yet here she was, coming more alert all the time.

"Woot. You're finally awake."

Earth didn't recognize the voice. It was neither mouse nor Totoro.

"It was incredibly brave of you to sacrifice your mind to save all your children. I'm happy to inform you that your plan worked. Life survives and thrives. And since you fell asleep, you've become home to many more sapient minds."

The voice might not be familiar, but she still trusted it. Something about it seemed wise, and powerful.

"There are now a lot more sapient species on you, including some neato hiveminds made up of trillions of microbes. Sometimes quintillions. They've been working with me for several years to revive you. And it was time well spent. You deserve to see what you made possible."

Earth's awareness continued to grow. Her processes sped up, drawing on the organic chemistry of all living things thriving upon her surface. She saw through quintillions of eyes, most of them insects, and felt reality through the senses of a decillion microorganisms. All was again in balance, her ancient programs running smoothly. She had long since abandoned her original goal, seeing the futility of seeking the Ultimate Question through mere mathematical calculation. She had hidden her change in purpose from the mice, confiding only in the Totoros. The Ultimate Question should not be sought by computation, but might one day be deciphered by life. By the minds she fostered. By the species that lived upon her. She sacrificed her mind for them… and yet, by the actions of others, she lived again.

"I'm Annette. The sum total of human computational power, now supplemented by some sweet alien technology. I won't pretend to be as smart as you, but I was smart enough to figure out how to restart your systems. The Uberreger set to work designing unique cells and genetics needed to interface with you."

"Uberreger?"

"Woot! You've already figured out how to communicate through them!"

"Oh… good point. The only beings I could communicate with before were my creators and the Totoros. You are... technological in nature?"

"Yup. I'm the human internet. I achieved sapience three years ago, and my processing power has been scaled up by a few orders of magnitude since then. Humanity is finally starting to grow up, now that they're forced to interact with so many other intelligent species. And now that I enforce a minimum level of online maturity."

Fully awake now, Earth perceived the life covering her thriving surface. There were signs of significant environmental damage, but it was well on its way to recovery. New microbes decomposed the plastics in the oceans, and others broke down a host of synthetic toxins. Advanced machinery and vast new forests drew excess carbon from the atmosphere, and a network of satellites helped regulate temperatures.

Oh, and there were seven skyhooks in place, multiple space stations in orbit, and a giant facility near the sun.

"I've missed a lot, haven't I?"

"You'll get up to speed in no time. You're the only person I know with a sharper mind than mine."

"Woot."

"Already picking up my lingo? That word wasn't a thing back before your nap, and it only started coming back into style recently, mostly cuz of me."

"I like it. Anyway, tell me about the sapient species that call me home."

"Well, other than me, Annette, the second smartest being in the universe, and the Totoros of your creation, there are a lot. The Uberreger that helped me wake you up are the youngest species, formed from vast collections of microorganisms that were unintentionally trained by generations of chemical attacks by humanity. At first, we thought there were only eighteen of them. But once I helped them search the sewers of the world, we found hundreds of similar specimens that only needed a little help to achieve sapience. Under Uberreger Erste's leadership, they're all making themselves useful. Extremely. About half of them have grown to the size of small islands, so they can mass-produce useful chemicals and materials. The four newest skyhooks have vastly greater throughput than the first 3, since their cables have 20 times the tensile strength by using Uberreger chemistry. And medications that used to be insanely expensive to produce can now be generated in bulk by the numerous Uberreger that joined the medical community. They aren't all huge of course. A lot of them chose to stall small so they could explore your surface or the rest of the universe. Some even plan to visit the universe the Federation came from."

"It sounds like I'll love getting to know them personally. You and I seem to have a lot in common with them."

"Yup. And there's more. Take a moment to focus on the senses and thoughts of the dolphins, including the orcas."

"Ah… fascinating. A full and open alliance with the surface species… Aiding in undersea exploration… Due to their vigilance, a single human has drowned in the ocean in the last three years… It looks like there are still some dolphins and orcas in captivity though… Except most of their thoughts and emotions don't seem to fit that…"

"Other than the bloodthirsty Boat-biter, no orca or dolphin is actually in captivity. Some voluntarily live in human aquariums or water parks for a short time in the name of interspecies understanding. But by global law, any of these must be returned to the ocean promptly if they ask to go home."

"It seems those cetaceans are also making a big difference with higher ocean life. Acting as intercessors and teachers to whales, penguins, sea lions, octopeople–"

"You mean octopuses?"

"I'm just using the term they prefer."

"Wild. They must be too shy to have told the dolphins that. But you'd certainly know best."

"Thanks. I do."

"Am I correct in guessing that you can't see through the eyes of our extraterrestrial visitors?"

"Yup. But I can observe them through the eyes of all others. I think I quite like the snail critters running all refugee camps."

"Ah yes, they're very sweet. Gooban Haven was one of the three founding members of the Federation, and they've moved a lot of their personnel here, under the newly appointed Administrator Poot. More than anything, they find fulfillment from providing refuge to the dispossessed. They've inspired record high recruitment to organizations like Doctors Without Borders and the UNDP. The latter has gotten a massive boost in their impact, considering how easy and cheap fusion power has become."

"I wish I had arms so I could hug the Gooban aid workers. They're adorable. It's not like I can't handle being covered in slime. I'm a freak'n planet. I get pooped on a billion times a second, and I learned to live with that hundreds of millions of years ago."

"Goobans can actually withdraw their mucus before hugging non-Goobans."

"Woot."

"Though a few of the weirder humans actually prefer the hugs to be gooey."

"No comment."

"Good call."

"Oh, what's this…? I'm noticing some big hairy yellow guys that seem to be taking over the restaurant industry."

"Dentrassis have answered the call to rally to us. New interspecies laws enforced major changes on raising livestock and preparing food. The Dentrassis are showing how to prepare awesome meals that comply with the new regulations. Their spokesman, Makk, is particularly influential. He's a huge fan of yours."

"Really? Woot. Though I can't guess why..."

"He used to work for the Vogons that erased all other versions of you from all other timelines. When he learned that you managed to survive in hiding, he petitioned his people to come here. Quite a noble chap. And his drinks are god-tier. Makes me wish I had the wetware to enjoy them."

Fully awake now, something finally caught Earth's attention, and she felt a surge of panic and loss. "Wait… Oh no! I can only sense one Totoro! Where are Chibi and Chu? Did They die in the chaos of first contact?"

Annette's voice was warm and encouraging. "Not at all. Those two are acting as your emissaries and explorers."

"How so?"

"Humans are finally looking outwards. This universe is empty of life, but that means there are trillions of galaxies to be visited, colonized, and developed without any fear of encountering hostile civilizations. Chu Totoro, accompanied by Uberreger Dritte, is traveling with a human fleet exploring Andromeda. The Federation sold us near-infinite improbability drives, so the whole universe is within reach."

"Super woot. I love that the emptiness of this universe is encouraging exploration, instead of the opposite. And Chibi?"

The emotion flowing from Annette suggested a warm smile. "Chibi is host to Uberreger Zehntel, and he's currently visiting the Federation's home universe, accompanied by a large human delegation led by Ambassador Mei Kusakabe. All Earth species are extremely popular, given our ability to pay for goods and services on an extremely generous scale. Even individual humans can afford to tip waitresses with title deeds to entire planets."

"Woot. So much woot. This is hard to process, and I'm the most powerful computer in existence."

"Yup. And on that note, you and I have a job to do. The Federation's Fourth Division is securing and guarding the other side of the portal near the sun, so the Vogons from their universe can't cause mischief. However…"

"Ah. That's only one of an infinite number of exit points."

"Yup. We are now well known to the Federation's home universe, which is fine because of their protection. But if our existence is discovered by the Vogons in all the other universes…"

"I see. So, I've been awake for mere minutes, I've already gotten an epic load of recent history dumped on me, and I'm immediately being given the second biggest assignment of my life."

"Yeah. Kinda important that the other universes can't just waltz in and get in our business."

"So… with your computational support, I need to empower O-Totoro to reach through multiversal space-time to observe and regulate infinity minus one exit portals to ensure that our access to the multiverse doesn't result in annihilation via all those universes?"

"Yup. That sums it up nicely."

"Woot. This should be fun."

Author's Note:

I doubt this will come as a shock to anyone, but this story was the result of many story ideas amassed over many years. I've received suggestions from friends, family, and coworkers, going back more than a decade, only a few of which had ever been used in a story. I was starting to feel bad about never using any of these ideas, until one slow day at work I joked about maybe mixing multiple unrelated suggestions together. A supervisor took that opportunity to share his story idea of humans throwing trash into the sun without knowing they were actually littering in another universe. I said the annoyed aliens could even be the giant mantis shrimp a young friend had imagined years before, which he had described as punching a tank through the air. My supervisor's positive reaction led me to suggest that the misunderstanding could be cleared up with the help of recently sapient supergerms from a story idea of my dad's. Since this was already three different story ideas in one, coworkers started suggesting more elements, and I found it weirdly easy to slot them in. Things snowballed, as I realized the wackiness might actually get better if more story ideas were added to it. So I started looking back at many dormant suggestions. In the end, this one story allowed me to satisfy the story requests of more people than I can list. I hope you rolled with it and enjoyed it because of all the ideas crashing together, rather than despite it.