Anonymous
7/3/2025, 3:59:33 AM No.5010934
Imagine you are born in a place that's not your home. You want to eat. You want to survive. Maybe have children...but then there are these massive, near cosmic-sized creatures that don't just hate you; they your entire kind wiped out because something vaguely about you damaging their trees by living a normal life.
These colossal cosmic creatures are around by the millions, and every second, there's a chance they might see you and kill you on sight, without warning. It's not because you did something because maybe you will do something. They don't even eat you. They stomp on you and go about their day, talking about what type of food they'll have when they get home. No trial. No justice. No attempts at reason. You're just dead.
Ironically, you figured out the best means to fight such a cold, purposeless existence in a meaningless universe:You do nothing. You just sit there, or walk around aimlessly. You don't run if these cosmic entities see you. Why would you? A single one has roughly the same strength as 100,000 of your species. So instead, you just accept death. You might talk to your friends, you might travel to see and understand the world a little more, even if it raises more questions. You know you'll be murdered in cold blood at some point. You've seen so many mashed up carcasses of your own species just laying there as a constant reminder of the fate that awaits you. Yet still, somehow, you still hope. You hope in the face of every. Not in life, but hope that somewhere out there, beyond the furthest planet and the furthest star...lies a reason for why this all happened. Or a little fraction would be fine. Just a nanosecond of significance and meaning in such a tireless and terrifying universe.
This is the life of a lanternfly. This will be you when aliens come.
These colossal cosmic creatures are around by the millions, and every second, there's a chance they might see you and kill you on sight, without warning. It's not because you did something because maybe you will do something. They don't even eat you. They stomp on you and go about their day, talking about what type of food they'll have when they get home. No trial. No justice. No attempts at reason. You're just dead.
Ironically, you figured out the best means to fight such a cold, purposeless existence in a meaningless universe:You do nothing. You just sit there, or walk around aimlessly. You don't run if these cosmic entities see you. Why would you? A single one has roughly the same strength as 100,000 of your species. So instead, you just accept death. You might talk to your friends, you might travel to see and understand the world a little more, even if it raises more questions. You know you'll be murdered in cold blood at some point. You've seen so many mashed up carcasses of your own species just laying there as a constant reminder of the fate that awaits you. Yet still, somehow, you still hope. You hope in the face of every. Not in life, but hope that somewhere out there, beyond the furthest planet and the furthest star...lies a reason for why this all happened. Or a little fraction would be fine. Just a nanosecond of significance and meaning in such a tireless and terrifying universe.
This is the life of a lanternfly. This will be you when aliens come.
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