Journal Items

Mystery Build 2015 - The Epic Story of Evolution

 

Act #1: Birth of Earth, Milky Way - 4,600,000,000 years ago

The creation of the universe was the beginning of everything. 13.9 billion years ago, the Big Bang wasn’t something that happened inside the universe - it was the moment when both time and space were created. Since that point the universe is expanding and entropy is increasing. Protoplanets were smashing together and converted huge amounts of kinetic energy to heat. Our Earth became a molten ball of lava. Heavy elements sank to the center, and many lighter elements floated to the surface, where they cooled into the Earth’s crust. Steam and gases were released in volcanic activity to the surface, and formed the atmosphere. Constant collisions from comets caused the splitting of the crust and created entire oceans of lava. As the Earth cooled, the water vapor that has accumulated in the atmosphere fell as rain and created the first oceans. Plate tectonics affects moved the continents apart.

Act #2: Human Evolution at Rift Valley, Africa -  2,800,000 years ago

An asteroid or comet wiped out the dinosaurs about 66 million years ago. But primates continued to evolve, the line of the apes diverged from the Old World Monkeys. Monkeys like the aggressive Baboon became pretty successful species and survived, but never made it to become human. The Australopithecus male is chasing him away with a stick. He arrived about 4 million years ago on the scene and was not very tall. He may have used simple tools and communicated through gestures and primitive sounds. The Homo naledi female is scared of the Baboon and tries to protect her child. This species had already human qualities like creativity, intelligence and caring for each other. The Homo sapiens began wearing clothes and used bow and arrow to hunt animals. They made fire, invented symbolic language, colonized whole continents and created the first human society.

Act #3: Civilization at Valley of the Kings, Egypt - 1323 B.C.

The glory of Ancient Egypt is presented by its leaders. The two pharaohs King Tutankhamen and Cleopatra are reborn and leaving the pyramids with a dark dead horse in a war chariot. Cleopatra keeps reins as an experienced warrior and a strategic ruler. Only 17 years old when she took the throne, she quickly became one of the most powerful rulers Egypt had ever known, while King Tutankhamen was a tool for powerful interests. He assumed the throne at 9 years old and was used to turn over the dictates of his father.

It all comes back to steam engines and coal, when you trace back the story of the Industrial Revolution, that began around 1750. Automate machine production made it possible to mass-produce goods and the invention of the steam locomotive improved transportation. Factories changed the way people lived and worked in a dramatic way.

When people think about history they usually point out the achievements of human culture, and forget about the immense effect of disease. The Black Death, which struck Europe in the mid-fourteenth century, had an incredibly high death rate: A third of its population died. The plague doctor mourns over the dead body of a little girl that died in World War I. People’s attitude changed with the First World War. Before war was perceived to be necessary and often even glorious. But this war was a tragedy, because it didn’t really accomplish much and a lot of civilians died. The First World War accelerated the development of new technologies like poison gas and machine guns to kill the enemy, but diseases caused more deaths than the war itself.

Act #4: Moon Landing at Sea of Tranquility - 1969

The moon landing of Apollo 11 was a milestone in human history. The two Cold War rivals, the United States and the Soviet Union, started the Space Race in 1955. This competition for supremacy in spaceflight had its origin in the nuclear weapons arming after World War II and was seen as a symbol for national security and ideological superiority. The Soviets achieved an early lead by putting the first satellite Sputnik into space. But then the United States won, when Neil Armstrong was the first man to walk on the Moon. He is having a beer and chilling in his beach chair after his achievements.

Act #5: Future Life at Losthaven, Planet Xouria - 3,006,000,023

Losthaven was the place where the first human settlers landed on Planet Xouria. With the Supernova disaster, they had to create a space colony on another planet to avoid the tragedy and save the human race. Being able to construct a futuristic city from scratch, I wanted to blend nature and architecture together. I design structures with organic components like the Honey Hive that is made of mud. In my utopia, human civilization has come to respect nature and doesn’t exploit it. My building use renewable energy sources like the Solar Lotus or the Windmill. The aesthetics are inspired by different cultures and the buildings have super-crazy shapes. Losthaven is the embodiment of the idea of creating a better future for the next generations.

But the humans are not alone on Xouria. The creatures of old legends became alive on this planet. Fairies are flying into Losthaven. And well, we are not talking about the little sweet fairies that popular culture has depicted. These fairies are aggressive and dangerous, so you better don’t upset them. And a few humans just managed to make them angry, because they locked up Saule, the goddess of sun and fertility, in the Honey Hive. Saule is very precious for the whole planet. Her hair is out of golden light and helps nature to grow and develop. The goddess screams so loud for rescue that the windows are breaking. The cyberpunk girl is not very impressed by what is going on. She slowly whips her gun and uses the spear for defense.

After observing the evolution of life on Earth for billions of years the two mice are curious what their favorite species is up to next…