Welcome to Gaia! ::

There is an old saying "Many fall down to the underworld, but few return to the sun lit lands". This can refere to many things. The Deep Under is one of them.

In one such chamber deep beneath the city is a place that few venture. Here is an expert from the journals of one of the few to return to the sun lit lands.

'Welcome, to bio-archive 5.'

The door opened with a feast of sensory information. The air, warm, humid, and smelling of cedar trees, diffused light filtered through branches, the sounds of life and flowing water in the distance with a muted roar of an unseen waterfall putting a slight mist into the air. Incresed air pressure and 0­² content flowed with energy into the lungs with a slight hyper baric effect delivering more oxygen into the blood stream making the blood sing with refreshing energy resting and restoring. This combined into a calming peace that just would make one want to breathe and enjoy, untill one noticed that animal life was there as well, birds resting in the trees and flying high above in the air between the canopy and the cieling unseen, obscured by the light mist. Insects of all types, dragonflys flying about in a seeming game of tag and just a vibrancy and space.

It was as if one walked into an underground forest in a space a few cubic kilometers in volume, the forest all around, the place one came from but a moss covered building looking more like a mound and looking like it belonged there.

This is but one chamber from the DU. After more records have been compiled will the information be shared with the overworld.

Draqx continued walking towards the distant sound of water and soon came to a sudden stop of the trees near a cliff face. The view was one of a deep bowl with a river going over the edge in an impressive waterfall on the oppisite side. The mist from the falls wafted on a warm zeypher up from the cliffs blowing Draqx's hair dramatically.

The differeing ecoscaps could be seen from the vantage point, boreal forests, rain forests, tropical, a patch of desert and rock. and all around movement from living things, bears across the bowl fishing in streams for salmon and koi in streams and ponds. Eagles and raptors of all types in the sky, once and a while diving and giving a clear cry out. insects buzzing around just out of sight. The sheer vibrancy of life one could feel and take in with the soft breeze.

(sorry no lightning and maniacal laughter, yet.)

Draqx looked pensive and a bit sad as he paused a moment before replying in a slow deep voice.

'Alas, I have tried limited experiments in trying to re-introduce test flora and fauna to the surface. Perhaps you have heard rumours of an oasis of life cropping up seemingly over night, and not being seen again. Easily dismissed as a travellers tale brought on by the wastelands.

Some of them are true, I have tried. Again and again, to the point of touching minimum sustainable genetic diversity at one point. But the tests indicated that for them to flourish a worldwide chage would have to take place, and something would need to protect it from human interference afterwards.

Only one thing I had encountered could fit both tasks at the same time. something, one could say, is a distant cousin of what I have become. but then one would definatly have to call it the "Black sheep" of any connection due to its... history.'

Draqx shakes his head and walks parrallel to the cliff face looking pensive and slightly worried.

'Not time, It is not ready to be let out again. Not scince the great equalization, it has not been the same. Soon though, it has been healing, but it is still weak.

You need not to know of this, but I will show you more come, we must venture onward, ever onward.'

Draqx's mood brightened as he lead on.

'Of course there is more, did you think that the entire surviving genetic record of this planet could be contained in just this one bio-archive. Not to mention the knowledge and culture archives.

Plus if I remember correctly, I did introduce this "room" as bio archive 5. You never did ask about the others, not that there are only five after all.

I will skip the desert, artic, and tropical rain forest envirments. And perhaps the marine tanks would be best left till later. In fact, the backup historical database might be the best for the next destination, do you not agree?'

Draqx lead on through the forest to another mound and entered its airlock waiting for the other person, along the way he said this cryptic bit.

'Good, we should start at the Bio-morph war floor, I assume you should be most familiar with that period of history and it will not be such a shock.'

Draqx nods.

'That is right, I had forgotten that your kind knows the most common form of bio-morph as a type of moss, often called mimic'

Draqx gives an enegmatic smile.

'Did you really think so, did you not think they would be smart enough to plan ahead and cache something away for a future time. Or that they fought so hard at the end to ensure thier survival as a whole, if not individually?'

His voice dropps deeper with a dramatic flair, one eyebrow raised.

'They played for time, and in that they won. They won the breathing room to expand at thier own pace, unencumbered by petty disputes and fights. and in that they thrived and flourished as they were designed to.'

Draqx turns to keep walking and just over his breath, to himself, says

'Trust me, I should know'