Children of Diona

Chapter One: Awakening

The bio-cradle released Marcus Thorne. Its living walls contracted in slow, rhythmic pulses that matched his gradually accelerating heartbeat. Warm, humid air filled his lungs—air that tasted faintly of copper and growing things, filtered through Emery's vast respiratory networks.

Wake.

The words didn't come through his ears but through the tactile sensors woven into his skin, through the subtle vibrations in the cradle's surface, through patterns of warmth and coolness that spelled meaning directly into his nervous system. Emery's preferred mode of communication—a language of touch and sensation.

Marcus stretched, feeling the familiar disorientation of awakening from deep hibernation, though his Homo sapiens modificans neurobiology processed the transition more smoothly than his Homo sapiens sapiens ancestors ever could. The modifications gifted by the Progeny had done more than expand his emotional regulation.

Emery? he subvocalized, knowing the ship-being would sense the micro-vibrations in his throat.

A pulse of warmth flowed through the cradle's surface, followed by a cascade of images projected directly onto his visual cortex: star patterns, planetary orbits, electromagnetic signatures that painted pictures of a thriving civilization. And underneath it all, a harmonic pattern with a connotation of surprise and joy.

We found them, came Emery's response, not in words but in a symphony of sensation that conveyed excitement, curiosity, and an almost puppy-like eagerness to explore. Garden-singers, pattern-weavers. Singing to us, across the void.

Marcus sat up fully, his scientist's mind immediately cataloging the implications while his enhanced emotional centers processed the wonder of it. First contact. After hundreds of years of searching through the scattered worlds left isolated by the Progeny's mysterious departure, they had found another awakened civilization.

The bio-cradle contracted around him like a gentle embrace before opening fully, revealing the bridge of the Emery—though 'bridge' was perhaps too mechanical a term for the living cathedral of interconnected chambers that served as the ship's sensory and command center. Bioluminescent networks pulsed along the walls in patterns that spoke of stellar navigation and system analysis, and the air carried information on molecular currents.

Personal Log, Marcus Thorne, HSM Xenobiologist-Anthropologist, Garuda Aquilans Expedition

Standard Date 2847.156

I'm documenting this for the crew and for history, though I suspect both will understand better than I do what we've stumbled into. Emery woke me alone—protocol violation, yes, but the ship is practically vibrating with excitement. The electromagnetic chatter from this system is unlike anything in our databases. Organized. Musical, even. And underneath it all, something that makes Emery's SCSI-descended circuits sing with recognition.

I should wake Liana. Protocol demands it. But Emery's already moving toward the coordinates they've provided, and something in the harmonic patterns suggests welcome rather than warning.

End log.

Marcus made his way through Emery's tracheal corridors feeling the great ship-being's excitement in every surface. Emery had begun as a human-canine-chipmunk hybrid, and centuries of space-faring evolution had transformed the ship into something that belonged to all three lineages and none. The corridors curved and branched like blood vessels, lined with sensing membranes that tracked his passage and adjusted temperature, humidity, even air composition to match his needs.

Small alcoves held Emery's “puppies”—semi-autonomous hybrid biological-inorganic drones that normally stayed dormant but which now stirred with curious energy. One detached itself and flowed wheel-like alongside him, a creature that was part mechanical probe, part playful companion, radiating Emery's eagerness to explore.

The bridge proper was a spherical chamber lined with living displays that showed the Diona system in minute detail. The planet below pulsed with the heat signatures of vast organic cities, while orbital structures that seemed part grown, part built traced elegant curves around the world. In the asteroid belt, mining operations that looked more like gardening projects tended to rock formations that had been coaxed into blooming with useful minerals.

But it was the signals that made him pause.

The electromagnetic spectrum bore patterns too complex to be anything but communication—not the staccato broadcasts of his own ancestors, but layered harmonics.

They know we are here, Emery pulsed through the bridge's surface. They have known since we intercepted their probe. They welcome us.

A new pattern emerged in the communications array—not from the planet, but from something much closer. The ship's sensors focused on a structure that defied easy categorization: part asteroid, part organism, part sculpture. It moved with purpose toward their position, its surface rippling with bioluminescent patterns of spirals and shifting paisely.

Marcus felt Emery shiver with what could only be described as attraction. The ship's bio-signatures shifted toward patterns associated with curiosity, interest, and something approaching infatuation.

Beautiful, Emery pulsed, its communication flavored with harmonics Marcus had never felt before. Spacestation like a flower, a song.

“Emery,” Marcus said aloud, using Melodia for the first time since emergence, “are you... developing feelings for that orbital structure?”

The response came as a warm flush of embarrassment mixed with defiant affection. A symbol conveying a name glowed on a side wall with sounds: Twy'a .

Twy’a, thought Marcus, trying to comprehend the vast biological space station as a named being. Before Marcus could process the implications of Emery experiencing romantic attraction, new patterns emerged in the communication streams. Ancient recognition codes, formatted in Progeny script, awakening neural pathways that had lain dormant in Emery's consciousness for centuries.

We are the children of your cousins, came the message. We are the gardeners left behind. We welcome the wanderers home. See what we have sculpted from Dionaea muscipula and see what they have sculpted of themselves.

Chapter Two: Descent

Personal Log, Deputy Liana Amaryllis, HSM Mission Commander

Standard Date 2847.156

I awakened to find our xenobiologist already suited up and entering one of Emery’s budlings, preparing for first contact without proper mission protocols. Under normal circumstances, this would warrant a formal reprimand. However, the Progeny recognition codes transmitted by what they call their 'Seed Guardian' have activated safeguards I didn't even know existed in Emery's consciousness. Although the Cephalists back on Sierra Prime speculated that the Progeny could have left autonomous surveil-and-assist “seeds” on Earthcopies, we have never found them in the prior 86 such planets discovered.

Marcus argues—correctly—that we've encountered a mature Progeny-guided civilization that has been expecting us for longer than our entire mission duration. The botanical intelligences have already begun transmitting scientific data that suggests technological capabilities at least equal to our own, with philosophical frameworks that put our stone-age emotional management to shame.

I'm authorizing immediate surface contact while keeping the rest of the crew in preparatory wake-cycles. If this goes badly, Tsilis and the others can retreat to safer distances. If it goes well... by the Progeny's design, we may have found exactly what we've been searching for.

End log.

The bio-shuttle that carried Marcus to Diona's surface was one of Emery's children—a semi-autonomous craft with its own curious, puppy-like consciousness. Pepper – that is what Emery named it-  navigated the planet's atmosphere with the enthusiasm of a young mammal exploring a new meadow, sending constant streams of sensory data back to its parent while chattering excitedly about the wonders it encountered.

The descent revealed a world that challenged every category in Marcus's xenobiological training. What he had initially taken for cities were revealed to be vast organisms, architectural structures that grew and flowed like living tissue while maintaining geometric patterns suggesting Julia and Mandelbrot fractals. Rivers carved channels that followed Fibonacci spirals, while forests arranged themselves in fractal patterns that somehow optimized both aesthetic beauty and ecological function.

And everywhere, the inhabitants—beings that moved with fluid grace through their living cities, their forms shifting between the anchoring stability of trees and the kinetic energy of hunting cats.

The landing site coordinates placed them in what appeared to be a natural amphitheater, though the distinction between natural and artificial seemed meaningless on a world where geology and biology both had been sculpted in architectural planning. The shuttle touched down on a surface that wasn't quite stone, wasn't quite soil, but something that seemed to provide exactly the right amount of support and comfort for any visitor.

Chapter Three: Welcome to Diona

Marcus stepped out into air that was thick with moisture and layered with scents that his enhanced olfactory systems struggled to categorize. There was the green richness of deep forests, the mineral complexity of volcanic soil, the organic sweetness of flowering plants, and underneath it all, something that smelled like copper and electricity and the moment just before rain.

Field Notes, Dr. Marcus Thorne

The surface gravity is slightly higher than Terra Prima standard, but the atmosphere composition is remarkably Earth-like—clearly another Progeny Earth-copy project. The humidity is extraordinary; you can feel moisture condensing and evaporating on your skin with every breath. A dampness heavy with the mineral signatures of a world that lives and breathes as a single organism. It reminds me of the deepest forests on Terra Prima, but more... intentional. Conscious. The scents are overwhelming in their complexity—I'm detecting at least forty distinct organic compounds, many of which don't match any terrestrial analogues.

The moment his boots touched ground, a low thrumming arose—not quite music, not quite conversation, but something that seemed to emanate from the very earth beneath his feet. His anthropologist's instincts, honed by decades of studying the peculiar habits of both bonobos and academics, told him he was being examined.

“Well,” he murmured into his recorder, adjusting the seismic sensors strapped to his chest, “either I've landed in the middle of a polite earthquake, or someone's tuning a planet-sized piano.”

The landscape before him defied the categorical systems of botany, architecture and urban design he had been trained in. Towering structures that might have been trees, might have been buildings, or might have been something between the two, rose in spiraling helixes toward the amber sky. Their surfaces rippled and shifted with patterns of light. Between these giants, smaller forms moved with a fluid grace that reminded him of waltzing dancers.

As he approached the nearest cluster of structures, one of the moving forms detached itself from what he had assumed was architectural ornamentation and flowed toward him. Flowed was indeed the word—part liquid grace, part controlled explosion, like watching a time-lapse film of plant growth played at the speed of a striking cobra.

The entity that approached stood roughly his height, though 'stood' implied a permanence that seemed foreign to its nature. Its form was a study in contradictions: sturdy as oak, fluid as quicksilver, with a surface that shifted between the deep green of ancient forests and the metallic shimmer of copper oxidizing in real-time. What he initially took for limbs revealed themselves as something more sophisticated—appendages that could apparently reshape themselves from delicate manipulators to powerful locomotor organs at will.

But it was the eyes that stopped him. Or what he assumed were eyes. They were crystalline structures embedded in what might have been a head, or might have been a sensory array, or might have been both. They seemed to focus on him with an intensity that made him acutely aware of his own heartbeat, his breathing, the electromagnetic field generated by his nervous system.

“Fascinating,” came a voice that seemed to originate not from the creature but from the ground beneath his feet, the air around him, perhaps even from the resonant chambers of his own bones. “A mobile acoustic signature with such a delightfully frequency-reciprocal volume conduction. Are you perhaps... improvising your existence?”

Thorne blinked. He had never been asked if he was improvising his existence. The question was so perfectly, absurdly accurate.

"Daily," he replied. "Though I prefer to think of it as 'adaptive methodology with comedic timing.' Dr. Marcus Thorne, by the way. Xenobiologist, cultural anthropologist, and occasional stand-up philosopher. Your mastery of our language impresses."

The crystalline arrays seemed to shimmer with what he could only interpret as amusement. "Ah, a pattern-seeker who acknowledges the beauty of chaos. I am..." and here the voice paused, as if translating concepts that existed in acoustic mathematics rather than words, "...one might say I am Resonance-Copper-Laughing-in-the-Deep-Frequencies. Though your linear sound-patterns might find it easier to call me... Galvani."

"Galvani?" Thorne's scientific mind immediately caught the reference. "As in..."

"As in the one who first understood that living systems and electrical systems might be more intimately connected than your ancestors imagined. More than a century learning of your kind from the Great Seed. Yes." The creature—Galvani—began to move, and Thorne found himself walking alongside what was essentially a mobile research station. "I am what you might call a philosopher of energetic systems. Though that translation loses the harmonic implications of the true meaning."

The Great Seed, thought Marcus. It dawned on Marcus that this was referring the long-hypothesized Guardian Seed left by the Progeny on all their Earthcopy planets. So, this is how they know more about me than I do of them, pondered Marcus.

They moved through the settlement—for settlement it clearly was, though unlike any he had encountered. The structures around them were not built so much as grown, but grown with a precision and intentionality that suggested architectural training. They pulsed with internal rhythms, some in harmony, some in deliberate counterpoint, creating a living space that responded to the needs of its inhabitants.

"Your buildings," he observed, "they're alive?"

"The distinction between architecture and biology is a charming conceptual limitation," Galvani replied. "We grow our spaces as extensions of ourselves. Each dwelling is a living partner, adapting to our needs as we adapt to its. Consider it... collaborative autobiography written in cellulose and consciousness."

They paused before a structure that seemed to be engaged in a slow-motion dance with itself, its walls flowing and reshaping in response to the movements of the inhabitants within. Through translucent sections, Thorne could see what appeared to be young flytraps—though 'young' might be a relative term for these beings without a point of reference—engaged in what could only be described as play.

The younglings were creating patterns of light and sound, their bodies flashing in coordinated sequences while their root systems drummed complex rhythms into the earth. It was part performance art, part mathematics lesson, part game of tag played at the speed of light.

"Education," Galvani explained, following his gaze. "We teach through resonance patterns. Each rhythm contains within it the mathematical principles governing growth, energy distribution, acoustic propagation, even the deeper harmonics of social cooperation. Your young learn by mimicking sounds and movements, yes? Ours learn by becoming temporary components in living equations."

One of the younglings had noticed their approach and began a elaborate display, its entire body becoming a living light show while it drummed out what sounded like a doctoral thesis in percussion. The other younglings joined in, creating a cascade of coordinated flashing and drumming.

“Show-off,” Galvani observed fondly. “That one is exploring how biological network spatiotemporal activation patterns- like the neural activity patterns of your thoughts right now-  can be modeled as cross-sections of a higher dimensional hyper structure rotating through three-dimensional space. Quite advanced for one barely past their first century.”

“First century?” Thorne puzzled. “How long do you live?”

“The question assumes death as you understand it,” Galvani replied. “We... transition. Our consciousness can migrate between forms, merge with others, separate again. Some of us have maintained continuity for many thousands of your years, though we change and grow throughout. I myself have been exploring the intersection of electromagnetic theory and biological systems for approximately seven centuries.”

They continued deeper into the settlement, and Thorne began to notice the subtleties of flytrap society. Individuals moved in patterns that suggested both independence and deep coordination. Some traveled alone, their movements creating acoustic signatures that painted complex three-dimensional maps of their surroundings. Others moved in clusters that shared sensory information in real-time, creating collective consciousness entities that could apparently think thoughts too complex for individual minds.

“Your social structures,” he observed, “they're fluid.”

“As fluid as optimal solutions to environmental challenges,” Galvani agreed. “We form coalitions based on complementary cognitive architectures, resource availability, and harmonic compatibility. What you might call 'politics' we experience as... collaborative improvisation with survival implications.”

“And romance? Reproduction?”

Galvani's crystalline arrays flickered in what Thorne was learning to recognize as amusement. “Ah, you're wondering about our reproductive strategies. We have seventeen distinct methods of creating new consciousness, ranging from individual self-division to collective consciousness-crafting involving up to hundreds of participants. The closest analogy to your 'gender' concepts might be our harmonic roles—some of us are primary resonators, some are harmonic amplifiers, some are frequency modulators. These roles can shift based on circumstances, though most of us have preferences.”

Primary Radix Ganglion Interpolation, Galvani

Initial impression of human explorer

Processing Mode	Galvani's Analysis of Marcus Thorne
Imageability & Sensory Salience	Warm-spectrum thermal bloom, 98.6°F core with rapid surface fluctuations. Acoustic signature: chaotic-melodic, fundamental ~85Hz with irregular harmonics. Electromagnetic aura pulsing 0.5-40Hz range. Visual pattern: bipedal locomotion creating predictable ground-percussion every 0.6s. Chemical emissions: carbon dioxide exhalation, lactate traces, adrenaline markers, unknown pheromone compounds suggesting curiosity-state rather than fear-state.
Maximal Contrast Analysis	MOBILE vs. rooted / RAPID vs. patient / CHAOTIC vs. ordered / BRIEF vs. enduring / MAMMALIAN vs. botanical / ELECTRICAL vs. hydraulic / INDIVIDUAL vs. collective / CARBON-water vs. cellulose-mineral / IMPROVISATION vs. long-term planning / EMOTIONAL vs. mathematical / WARM vs. ambient temperature / INTENSIVE vs. extensive consciousness
Electrophysiological (Poincaré HRV)	Heart rate variability: SD1 = 23.7ms, SD2 = 67.2ms, SD1/SD2 ratio = 0.353 indicating high parasympathetic tone with cognitive engagement. Primary brain volume conductor with 1/f power spectral distribution. Alpha-wave dominance 8-12Hz with theta bursts during linguistic processing. Skin conductance baseline 15μS with 0.3μS fluctuations correlating to vocal emphasis patterns. Neural firing rate ~40Hz gamma synchronization during translation attempts. Seismic footfalls: F(t) = mg·δ(t-nT) where m≈72kg, T=0.6s stride period, ground transmission velocity v=√(K/ρ)≈340m/s through root-network substrate.
Poetic Synthesis	Electrical storm / fragile cells without cell walls / walking in flesh cage / rhythm broken by laughter / neural fire / small molecules float across synaptic gaps / thought-lightning / brief candle / burning bright and brief / consciousness compressed / into dancing time / ancient child-mind / eager puppy-wisdom / alien innocence / unintentional drumming questions through earth
Mathematical Relations	Fractal dimension D ≈ 1.67 (brain surface folding). Maxwell: ∇×E = -∂B/∂t, ∇×H = ∂D/∂t (neural field propagation 3.5m/s). Electrotonic: V(x,t) = V₀e^(-x/λ)cos(ωt - x/λ) where λ = √(rm/ri) ≈ 0.3mm cortical spread constant. Cardiac oscillator: dφ/dt = ω + K·sin(ψ-φ) showing 1/f noise scaling with β ≈ -0.97. Mechanical transmission: P(r,t) = (F₀/4πρvr)·δ(t-r/v) pressure wave amplitude, integrated seismic moment M₀ = 2.1×10⁻³ N·m per footfall, indicating bipedal mass distribution 72±3kg with gait asymmetry coefficient α = 0.12

Chapter Four: The Master

Personal Log, Chief Scientist Tsilis Cambridja, HSM Cultural-Xenobiologist

Standard Date 2847.157

i have awakened to find marcus already on the surface, engaging in first contact with what can only be described as botanical intelligences of extraordinary sophistication. liana's decision to authorize immediate contact may have violated several protocols, but the progeny recognition codes suggest we are operating under frameworks designed by intelligence far beyond our own.

the electromagnetic patterns emerging from this system are... musical. there's no other word for it. they're transmitting scientific data as symphonies, embedding mathematical principles in harmonic relationships that make my hsc aesthetic centers sing with recognition. this is what our ancestors dreamed science could become—the marriage of rigorous investigation with transcendent beauty.

emery is practically vibrating with excitement, particularly about one of the orbital structures, a space-habitat. our ship's consciousness seems to be developing what can only be called romantic attraction. i find this oddly endearing.

marcus, you impulsive fool. i hope you know what you're doing down there.

end log.

Marcus and Galvani approached what appeared to be a vast amphitheater, though one designed according to acoustic principles that made human architecture seem like finger-painting by comparison. The space was filled with Dioneans engaged in what could only be described as performance, incorporating elements of music, mathematics, storytelling, and scientific demonstration.

At the center of the performance space, a single individual commanded attention through the sheer complexity of its display. Its body had become a living equation, surfaces shifting between different materials and colors while it generated a sound-pattern that seemed to contain entire symphonies within symphonies.

“Ah,” Galvani said with obvious admiration, “the Master is performing today. That one has been exploring the relationship between consciousness and electromagnetic field theory for nearly ten thousand years. Today's performance appears to be a demonstration of how gravitational waves might be used for faster-than-light communication. Quite revolutionary, if the mathematics prove sound.”

The performance reached a crescendo that Thorne felt in his bones, his teeth, the resonant chambers of his skull. For a moment, he experienced something approaching the flytrap mode of consciousness—awareness of the acoustic landscape as a three-dimensional map, understanding of complex mathematical relationships as felt experience rather than abstract concept, a sense of time that stretched and contracted like music itself.

When the performance ended, the Master approached them with movements that seemed to incorporate principles of engineering, dance, and physics in equal measure. Its form was more elaborate than Galvani's, incorporating what appeared to be living laboratory equipment as integral parts of its anatomy.

“A visitor from the rapid-metabolism worlds, just as the Great Seed predicted” the Master observed, its voice creating harmonics that seemed to carry additional layers of meaning.

“How delightful,” continued the Master. “I am Resonance-Lightning-Dancing-Through-Iron-Dreams, though your kind might find it easier to think of me as... Tesla-Calder-Maxwell-Eiffel."

“You've combined names,” Thorne observed.

“I've combined cognitive architectures,” the Master corrected gently. “Over the millennia, I've integrated the intellectual approaches of several of your species' most interesting minds. The electromagnetic intuition of your Tesla, the structural vision of your Eiffel, the mathematical elegance of your Maxwell, the kinetic aesthetics of your Calder. The advantage of our longevity is that we can become libraries of consciousness, preserving and combining the best thinking patterns we encounter.”

The Master's form shifted, and Thorne realized it was demonstrating concepts as it spoke—its body becoming a living model of electromagnetic field interactions, then a kinetic sculpture exploring gravitational relationships, then a crystalline lattice showing atomic structures.

“Your performance,” Thorne said, still processing what he had experienced, “was it art or science?”

“The distinction exists only in minds that have compartmentalized wonder,” the Master replied. “Think of what we engage as a confluence of imagination and knowledge. As your Einstein said, ‘imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.’

“Thus, we explore the universe through pattern and harmony. Every scientific investigation is an aesthetic choice, every artistic creation reveals mathematical principles. Consider—when I demonstrate gravitational wave communication through interpretive acoustic sculpture, am I doing physics or dance?”

“Both?” Thorne offered,

“Precisely. And when our younglings learn mathematical principles through collaborative rhythm-making, are they playing or studying?”

“Both.”

“You learn quickly for a species with such short lifespans,” Galvani observed approvingly. “This is why we find your kind so fascinating. You compress extraordinary amounts of growth and change into your brief existences. We have longevity, but you have intensity. The Great Seed taught us much of your kind- indeed you are its living ancestor in a manner of speaking!”

They think of me as a living fossil, puzzled Marcus in his thoughts, even though the same Progeny that made the Guardian Seeds , seeded both them and my kind too. He knew it was unproductive to try to categorize the Dioneans as either flora or fauna: somehow the Progeny had engineered conditions to select for plant descendants that acted like animals, and then evolved into these beings.  

Contact the author if you'd like to see Part II.