How Civilisations May Ascend
Perhaps the future of life lies within us and not without us, to paraphrase a psychedelic line from the past.
We hear much talk in science fiction of civilisations that have approached some kind of physical, technological, or indeed existential barrier ascending (or more fittingly transcending) to a kind of “next level” of existence.
Whether it’s the First Ones from Babylon 5¹, Rassilon’s Ultimate Sanction plan for the Time Lords during the final days of the Last Great Time War, or perhaps such ascended beings such as the Q Continuum from Star Trek multitudinous plot lines abound.
But, they all deal with ascension to somewhere else, somewhere “out there”, where people discussing the endeavour look wistfully up into space as if it’s a place higher up, above where they are now, and seemingly hidden from normal sight.
Perhaps this came from a theocratic narrative, us being confined to the earth whilst the gods with their perceived purity and omniscience occupied a higher place or plane, unreachable by the mere mortals kept firmly down to the ground.
Whereas, in all possibility (at least in terms of speculation rather than hard scientific fact) the “out there” might very well be already “down here”.
