Chapter 136: True loyalty

When the two dinosaurs returned to the lake, evening was already falling, but there was still time. Sobek led Carnopo along the mountainside where the Neanderthal village was located. Even though he had never followed them and had never seen their city, Sobek had memorized the smell of that girl who had knelt before him begging him to spare her and her companions' lives. From what she understood, she saw him as a deity. Following her scent he quickly tracked down the city surrounded by the wooden palisade. At 10.5 meters high, Sobek could easily look across the wall, but the same could not be said of Carnopo. So the two looked for an elevated place. Anyway, with [Ambush], no one could see them. Eventually they climbed a slightly higher hill. They both had good eyesight, so it was enough. Sobek discovered that the Neanderthal city was exactly as he had imagined it: simple, ancient, very similar to the Sumerian or pre-Columbian civilizations. He didn't mind the style at all. "Do you see?" he asked Carnopo. "This is what I hope to achieve. These people take from the forest only what they need to live. They fears us and respects us at the same time. This doesn't stop them from creating their buildings and houses, because they need them to survive; but they still live in harmony with the rest of the ecosystem, taking away from the earth only what she can restore" Carnopo did not mind that vision. There were large areas of land without trees; there were dinosaurs held captive and used as labor force; but everything was more harmonious, devoid of the overwhelming feeling of cities and without fumes or pollution. The land around the city was immaculate, and no one would have guessed that humans lived nearby. "So coexistence is not impossible..." "No, it is not. Not for now. We can live in peace, but that will only happen if humans understand the importance of this. That's why we have to show strength" Sobek explained. "My dream is that one day this simple city will become the model of all human cities, and that finally the natural balance is restored. No predator would kill more than it can eat; when humans will understand this, nothing will prevent them from living in harmony with us" "For some reason I can't help but believe you" Carnopo said, then he sniffed the air. "Curious, these humans smell different" Sobek had expected it: deceiving a carnivore's nose was very difficult. "They are another species. But don't fall into error: even among the humans you have known there are many who can live with us. A lot of humans fight every day to protect nature and animals, although sadly they are rarely heard" "Why?" "Because they are weak. Among humans, power is in the hands of unscrupulous people. It has always been this way and it will always be like this. They are not like us, who just need strength to choose who's in charge; their social structure is based on gab, power plays and misleading speech, and it is easy to deceive the people. Unfortunately, humans don't like to be afraid, so they prefer to believe those who tell them that everything will be okay, even if it's a lie. And so the evildoers, the profiteers, the demagogues go to power... in essence, the rich, who are the same ones who don't care about the environment and just want to get their hands on the riches of the forest. Those who speak the truth, fight for what is right and believe in right ideals are quickly eliminated from the political game" "It's a stupid thing. Do they really get duped so easily?" "Unfortunately yes. And that is why those who fight for the right causes remain weak. But when the time for our ascent will come, they will become strong. We will ensure that they are the ones to support the pillars of a new human society, a more just and deserving one. And in the end, we'll all win" "It seems like a dream" "It is. But all big changes start with dreams. A person who does not dream is a person destined to stay where he is" Sobek looked Carnopo in the eyes. "Once a great man said: 'All men dream. Those who dream at night wake up and find that nothing they have experienced is real. But those who dream during the day are dangerous men, because they can make their dreams come true'. I have chosen to be someone who dreams during the day; it's risky and could lead me to ruin, but I still want to try to make it happen. And you, Carnopo? Who do you choose to be? One who dreams at night or one who dreams during the day?" The carnotaur was silent. For several seconds not a fly flew between the two. Then Carnopo looked up at him, and Sobek recognized a light in his eyes, a light he had long ago learned to associate with the term determination. "I choose to be someone who dreams during the day. I want to believe that. I want to believe that your dream is achievable" The carnotaur bowed his head, in a clear attitude of submission. "I don't care how it turns out. I will always follow you. If I have to die for you, I will. I'll never find another pack leader to follow. My life belongs to you, now and forever. Tell me what to do to make this dream come true, and I will work to make it happen" "Very good. I accept your loyalty" Sobek answered satisfied, when suddenly a notification came from the System. [Caution! The member of the pack known as Carnopo completed the hidden quest "true loyal servant". From now on he can receive new degrees. Do you want to choose which role to entrust to him?] "Uh? What is this? Another hidden quest?" Sobek thought, not expecting that flap. However, he certainly could not remain motionless in front of Carnopo like a stockfish, so he decided to divert the conversation: "Come. Let's go back to the pack now". The carnotaur followed him without object. As they returned, Sobek walked a little further and tried to understand what that message meant. After a while he was finally able. Apparently, since Carnopo's loyalty to him had far exceeded the normal relationship between pack leader and simple member of the group, he could now receive a title. The title would have allowed him to have additional boosts compared to other dinosaurs. There were twelve titles: advisor, assault commander, army commander, defense commander, air commander, navy commander, scientist, negotiator, builder, chief of reconnaissance, chief of espionage and chief of exploration. Each title allowed for different boosts in terms of intelligence, military strategy, stealth skills and so on. "There are twelve of them... something tells me it's not a random number. Maybe God wants me to look like some kind of crazy Jesus of the dinosaurs!?" Sobek thought, trying to avoid questioning that woman's thoughts. Unfortunately there was a problem: once assigned, the title could not be removed. 'I want to make sure I give Carnopo the right one. After all, it is one thing to give the title of scientist to a fool, another to give it to someone who is already very intelligent and talented. I have to find out if Carnopo excels at something and if that something can come back to me. useful. Only then will I decide which title and therefore which boost to give it'. Sobek had long since learned not to skip ahead and to ponder a decision carefully before implementing it. Throwing himself headlong into an uncertain situation would only complicate his life. So we might as well wait. However, the surprises weren't over for that day. As they were returning they passed a group of tyrannosaurs heading in the same direction. It wasn't hard to understand what was going on. Buck was returned. =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= AUTHOR'S THOUGHTS Hello! Welcome back to one of our 'short' conversations. Following the last few chapters I think some clarifications are needed, so... let's get busy. 1) I think chapters 127-128 have confused quite a few people: why include this huge excursus on the Mother Cell if we all know that it was God who gave Sobek the System? Well, as Dio stated in the prologue, he used a 'trick' to birth Sobek on Eden. As has been repeatedly proven Eden is a world of science, where there is no supernatural (just like in our world), and God apparently prefers it to stay that way, so all of Sobek's abilities have a scientific explanation. Consequently, it was absurd to expect that God hadn't also thought of a way to give birth to Sobek and justify his continued evolution. I therefore imagined that he took advantage of 'certain events' which will be discussed later to give Sobek the Mother Cell, which in Sobek's mind took the form of the System to facilitate his work. After all, for an omniscient being like God, such a thing should be relatively simple, right? 2) Given the situation, I think I have to explain some quotations that have been made in chapters 127-128. The Mother Cell, for starters, is a pathogen/microorganism that appears in the 'Zoo' series, just like Robert Oz himself. This is the pathogen, created by the multinational Reiden Global (also existing in the world of Eden), which in the series unleashes the apocalypse by making the animals intelligent and giving them certain mutations. The Mother Cell in the world of Eden works the same way, except it's slightly more OP. 3) The so-called 'tenth man' (chapter 127) is a really existing counter-espionage method, but in real life it is called 'devil's advocate' and serves to counter the so-called 'groupthink'. Groupthink is a psychosocial phenomenon that occurs within a group of individuals in which the desire for harmony leads to conformity: in these groups there is a sort of 'single dominant thought' and consequently the absence of listening to 'thoughts do not conform to the dominant one'; in practice, everything that does not conform to the thinking of the group is rejected. The 'devil's advocate' method serves to contrast this thought by allowing those hypotheses that we can define as 'irrational' to be considered: within the group, someone must necessarily be left free to be critical, that is, he must operate as the 'tenth man', to try to avoid the danger of the group making wrong decisions, avoid running into easy mistakes. This technique is often used both in counterespionage (both industrial and military) and in science (because it allows to accept and explore hypotheses otherwise considered impossible). However, the name 'tenth man' was not coined by some spy or philosopher, but by the 2013 film 'World War Z' which explains how the Israeli government has made use of this technique during the various wars that have plagued Palestine in recent decades. 4) The neutronium (chapter 135) is a material that really exists: it can only originate under extreme pressures and only high gravity is able to keep it stable. The only place we can find it today is inside neutron stars, which possess nearly broken physical properties. Neutron stars are what remains of a supergiant star after its death. Let's explain things in more detail. After their birth, the stars, regardless of their mass, all live an existence poised between two forces: the gravity that tries to compress them and the radiation pressure coming from the core due to the nuclear fusion. As long as this delicate balance is maintained, the star remains stable; however, after millions or billions of years depending on the mass of the star, the core runs out of hydrogen and the radiation pressure stops. For a brief instant, gravity wins and begins to compress the core. This causes the core to heat up even more and start burning the helium instead of the hydrogen, very rapidly, releasing much more radiation pressure which pushes against gravity and causes the star to expand to gigantic proportions. The star is obliged to grow and grow and grow. In the case of stars with a mass similar to our Sun, the star expands until it runs out of helium, after which it collapses into a white dwarf. But stars with a mass at least ten times the one of the Sun are very, very different: In this case, the enormous pressure heats the core so much that the fusion of heavier elements like carbon becomes possible. The star begins converting carbon to neon, neon to oxygen, oxygen to silicon, and silicon to iron; once iron is reached, nuclear fusion is no longer possible and as a result there is no longer anything that can fight against gravity. The entire star implodes on itself at one-quarter the speed of light, and then explodes; a tremendous shock wave catapults the star's outer layers into space and emits more light than an entire galaxy. This is a supernova. What remains now is the core of the giant star, compressed so much that it has reached the dimensions of a few tens of kilometers in diameter: if the star has sufficient mass, then the core becomes a black hole; if not, it becomes a neutron star. Mmm, but what does this have to do with neutronium? Very simple: subatomic particles like electrons and protons don't like being in contact with each other and their repulsive force keeps them constantly apart; but when the supergiant star collapses, the gravity and pressure of its core become so strong that the repulsive force of the particles fails and they are compressed against each other; all particles merge into a huge sea of neutrons. What we have obtained is what is called neutronium: an extremely hard material due to the fact that all its particles are supercompressed. A single teaspoon of this substance would weigh as much as the Himalayas. Only the enormous gravity of the neutron star allows the neutronium to remain stable: if it were to fail, in fact, the neutrons would spontaneously look for protons and electrons to form new atoms. Consequently, it is impossible for neutronium to exist outside neutron stars... unless time itself freezes, as theorized in my story by Robert Oz. 5) Let's also spend a few words on 'absolute zero' (chapter 135): it is the minimum possible temperature of any thermodynamic system, at least for our current understanding of physics. Corresponds to 0 K, equivalent to -273.15 °C. It can be demonstrated on the basis of the laws of physics that it is an unattainable limit temperature, even if it is possible to experimentally obtain very close values. At the temperature of absolute zero the molecules and atoms of a system would be in the fundamental state, ie they would possess the least kinetic energy allowed by the laws of physics; this energy, although very small, is always greater than zero and corresponds to the zero-point energy foreseen by quantum mechanics for all systems that have a neighboring potential. This state corresponds to that of minimum entropy of a system. If it were possible to reach true absolute zero and not just very close temperatures, then spacetime itself, the fabric of our universe, would become completely frozen. Blocking spacetime means freezing everything inside it permanently. Some scientists believe that such a 'block' would be so strong that spacetime would move matter to another dimensional plane, overriding weight, density and other fundamental rules. Indeed, some scientists have theorized that below absolute zero the conditions would be such extreme to reverse the direction of the atoms, forming a 'hot' in the 'cold' conditions. This is such an incomprehensible state that it becomes difficult for us to understand what would happen. Absolute zero is not present in my story, but the conditions shown by the Sobek scale, in which spacetime is blocked to prevent the neutronium from dissolving, are very similar. 6) The hypothesis that the mind can potentially influence space-time actually exists, albeit in a somewhat different way from the very simplistic one with which I have illustrated it to avoid boring readers with overly complicated topics. Currently we have no way to verify this hypothesis or even to deny it: it is therefore considered pseudoscience. However, don't dream: as Ian Malcolm explained in my story, our minds are too primitive to have any meaningful impact on the structure of our universe. We will either have to wait billions of years of evolution before we can reach that stage, or hope that genetic engineering progresses far enough to allow us to increase our brain capacity in a short period of time. But who knows what could happen in the future... 7) Dr.Sidney Burke (chapter 135) is a major character in the Netflix series "The imperfects". I liked that series, so I decided to give to one of its character a little cameo in my story.