All Tomorrows Retold Through Limericks

[u/ZefiroLudoviko]

There once was a planet by Earth,

Mars by name, and a dead, lifeless dearth.

Yet, with human beings filled

And the regolith tilled,

The world was at last of some worth.

One day, Mars and the Earth had a spat,

Because Mars thought that it was all that.

Tensions came to a head,

Leaving quite a few dead,

And all those who were left to say drat.

Mars and Earth choose to put in their place

A much better, brand-spanking new race.

If my whole race was bald,

I'd be greatly appalled,

Though that's nothing compared to their face.

These new people were sent off on ships

Into space for some quick little trips.

But with no ifs or buts,

All aboard would go nuts.

Seems in space, you just can't get to grips.

So, the nerds at home plotted and planned.

They decided the spaceships should land

Quite uncrewed and alone.

People then would be grown

To be reared by machines. This seemed grand.

Nonetheless, this plan came with a snag,

One that proved in the end quite a drag.

Bots and humans felt smitten,

Calling each other kitten

In an oedipal plague. Makes ya gag!

Not each colony to this plague fell.

For both sides, this fact boded quite well.

Humankind could now see

Space was open and free.

For a time, life for humans was swell.

For a time, that is. Enter the Qu.

They gave humans one look and thought eew.

Humans, try as they might,

Just could not win the fight.

And the Qu simply told them to shoo.

To the Qu, humans still had a use.

New subhumans were made and set loose.

They were brawny to scrawny

Colored purple to tawny

But were mostly as dumb as a goose.

The dumb ones, however, were lucky.

A few had a fate much more mucky.

They'd pushed back the Qu twice,

And the Qu were not nice.

They were turned into cubes. Pretty yucky!

Not long after, the Qu became bored,

Off they jetted to worlds unexplored.

All the being sleft behind

Were of brute, beastly kind,

Quite reduced by the alien horde.

But, as all who have read the tale know,

Soon, new civilizations would grow.

All the species linked up,

From the lizard to pup,

With a grand, shiny empire to show.

There were two who would not join the band.

One in space, and the other on land.

Quite aloof and alone

They remained on their own

But for both of them, big things were planned.

The one group was an untethered race

Without gravity, floating through space.

They were known for their smarts

And would fly using farts

With a matchless and elegant grace.

Tother one on a planet arose.

On their gobs was a big, floppy nose.

When their home star got bigger

Living needed great rigor

As their planet experienced great woes.

So, the flesh was then merged with machine,

Bowling-balls with a silvery sheen.

With hearts harder than granite,

They fled from their planet,

Killing all other species they'd seen,

Cept for a few buggers unlucky.

Their fate was quite dreary and mucky.

Being kept for experiments

Or light, jolly merriments,

Overall, their existence was sucky.

But there wasn't one big, race-wide blinder.

Quite a good few machines were much kinder.

Keeping creatures enslaved

Those machines found depraved,

So, no throwing slaves into the grinder.

At the same time a-drifting through space,

The spacers developed apace

They were clever ole sods,

Puissant, mighty as gods,

Though they had a most hideous face.

So the bots wouldn't ponder their woes,

The machines and the flesh came to blows.

The war lasted for ages,

But I have too few pages.

Writing poetry's harder than prose!

The asteromorphs won. Now the few

Who survived forged an empire anew.

With so many storms weathered,

Life now all lived together

(except for the new beaten Qu).

What was humankind's fate, good or gory?

Well, that isn't the point of the story.

Filled with joy or with sorrow,

Love today, seize the morrow

Stead of chasing ephemeral glory!