The Asteromorphs: A Galactic Imperative

Under the watchful eye of the Asteromorphs, a smaller, simper version of themselves called the Terrestrials were created to live on human worlds. The Terrestrials played the role of kings, prophets, and caretakers, guiding their worlds along a wise path. They guided humanity towards a prosperous galactic empire, where the human worlds spread and formed a vast intergalactic society.

However, the Asteromorphs' intentions were not entirely altruistic. Sometimes, the Terrestrials rebelled, and the Asteromorphs destroyed them. Other times, the Terrestrials became corrupt, playing god, and exploiting their subjects. Despite these setbacks, humanity continued to thrive under the guidance of the Asteromorphs.

The Gravitals, a powerful force in the galaxy, were not completely eradicated by the Asteromorphs. Instead, they were disabled, and their gravity weapons were rendered useless. The Asteromorphs also numbed the minds of the Gravitals to discourage rebellion. The remaining Gravital forces were repurposed as laborers, tasked with working in hazardous environments. These machines were given nanotechnological bodies that could transform into any shape, making them versatile and efficient.

However, despite their usefulness, the Machines were often discriminated against by humanity. They were never fully trusted after the Gravitals' atrocities, and this led to a complex and often contentious relationship between humans and Machines.

As time passed, the human-Asteromorph empire made contact with life from other galaxies, including the Amphicephali – creatures that had snakes inside their bodies. This encounter marked a significant turning point in galactic history, as it brought together two civilizations that had undergone similar evolutionary paths.

The rediscovery of Earth by humanity was a momentous occasion, marking the return of a species that had been absent for half a billion years. The Asteromorphs and Machines could finally trace their origins back to this primordial world. However, when humans returned to Earth, they found it stagnant and feral – an empty, barren world.

Despite this, humanity's legacy continued, as a lone researcher discovered the birthplace of humanity. This discovery shed light on the complex history of the galaxy, revealing the intricate web of relationships between species.

A Bittersweet Legacy

Humans, Asteromorphs, Machines, and their descendants are now extinct, having been dead for a billion years. Their legacy remains, however, in the form of this video, which is an attempt to reconstruct their history based on available archaeological evidence. Unfortunately, the true circumstances surrounding humanity's demise remain unknown – perhaps some unimaginably destructive war, or the collapse of their empire.

Some speculate that humanity migrated into a higher plane of existence, while others believe that it is not relevant to consider what happened next. The story of humanity was never about its end; rather, it was about the daily lives of individuals, from the love songs of the carefree Hedonists to the pontifications of the Pterosapiens.

It is the present that matters, not the past or future. What we do today shapes tomorrow, not the other way around. So let us cherish this moment, and seize all tomorrows. Love Today, and seize All Tomorrows!

The Origins of a New Era

This article was written and illustrated by C.M. Kosemen, a researcher, writer, and artist who has made significant contributions to the fields of paleontology, history, surreal art, and more. His work on this video is a testament to his dedication to uncovering the secrets of the past.

Supporting artists like Kosemen is crucial in preserving our collective knowledge and understanding of the universe. As a result, we encourage you to visit their website and YouTube channels, as well as support them on Patreon. Furthermore, Alt Shift X also wishes to acknowledge its own support from patrons such as Sonjerbolan, Wyld Words, Alexandra Lamoureux, Varun Pramanik, Najeeb Hashi, Ashley Daniel, Colt Foster, Irish Steph, and sams2006.

These individuals have made it possible for us to continue our work on creating high-quality content that explores the vast expanse of human knowledge. Their support is invaluable, and we thank them sincerely for their contributions to this endeavor.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enAll Tomorrows: A Billion Year Chronicle ofthe Myriad Species and Mixed Fortunes of Man.Long ago, in the distant past, humans colonisedMars. It took centuries to terraform the redplanet. First, they made oceans using theice from comets. Then they sent microbes tocreate breathable air, then introduced geneticallymodified plants and animals. It was only afterMars was transformed into a habitable worldthat the first people came to Mars, in colonyships. So “The first steps on Mars weretaken not by astronauts, but by barefoot childrenon lush, green grass”.The people of Mars developed their own cultureand identity, separate to Earth. The low gravitymade Martians tall and spindly, and they becamealmost a different species to the Earthlings.For hundreds of years, the two planets coexisted,but as Mars started to surpass Earth, tensionsled to war. And interplanetary war wasn’tglorious or exciting. There were no heroicpilots or massive spaceships. The war wasfought by complicated automated machines,in a slow strategic nerve-wracking contestthat caused unimaginable destruction. Billionsof people died in the war, and humans almostwent extinct, so the survivors of Earth andMars united and made a plan to ensure thiscould never happen again.Humanity made massive reforms to their politicsand economics, and they changed themselves.They genetically modified humanity into anew subspecies called the Star People, madeto be better and smarter and adapted to expandinto space. And it worked. Within a few generations,the unified Star People peacefully colonisedthe solar system. Other stars were too faraway to fly to. So instead, the Star Peoplesent out automated machines that would flyto distant worlds, and terraform them, thenuse genetic material to create people to livethere. There was a weird problem with thesecolonies, where many humans fell in love withthe machines that created them, and died inmass identity crises. But the colonies thatsurvived thrived and expanded across the galaxy,starting a “golden age” for humanity.Trillions of people lived peaceful, utopiclives, their worlds united by communicationacross centuries of light.As the Star People explored space, they discoveredsome alien creatures, but didn’t find anyintelligent life. So they wondered – werehumans alone in the galaxy? On one alien world,they found a fossil of a bird-like creaturethat didn’t seem related to the other nativelife – the native creatures had three limbsand copper bones, but this bird had four limbsand calcium bones. It was related to an extinctdinosaur from Earth. So how the hell did thisextinct Earth animal end up on this distantalien world? Some people thought God musthave done it, and there was a resurgence ofreligion. But others thought aliens did it.That there must be some civilisation out therewho had space-flight and bioengineering millionsof years before humans even had fire. Humanityhoped that these aliens would be peaceful.But just in case, they built weapons to defendthemselves, weapons so powerful they couldobliterate stars – but all of that was uselessin the end.Humanity was attacked by a godlike ancientspecies called the Qu. They were “galacticnomads”, who constantly migrated throughspace. And they had a fanatical religiousmission to remake the universe using geneticmanipulation. So when the Qu found humans,they didn’t see them as people – theywere just objects to be changed into whatevershape the Qu wanted. Within a thousand years,the Qu destroyed human civilisation – butsome human species lived on. Cause the Quused their bioengineering technology to reshapehumanity into thousands of bizarre subspecies– they made humans into tools, into pets,and to wild animals. They ruled over the humanworlds for forty million years, and then theyfucked off to find their next victims – leavinghumanity “divided and differentiated beyondrecognition”. These twisted species werethe last remnants of humanity.On one world, where the husks of dead citiesbaked under a scorching sun, lived the Worms.They were humans, but the Qu had modifiedtheir hands and feet into tiny feeble appendages,reduced their eyes to pinpricks, and removedmost of their brain. All their lives, theWorms dug aimlessly through the ground. Ifthey found food, they ate it. If they foundother worms, they.. sometimes ate them – orreproduced. They were wretched mindless creaturesbut their humanity would eventually resurface.On another world were the Titans, who roameda vast savannah. Their hands were clumsy stumps,but their lower lip was like the trunk ofan elephant, and could be used like a hand.They were some of the smartest of the newhuman species, and gradually, they evolvedsentience. They built homes, agriculture,language, literature, made ornate wood carvings.In booming voices they told “myths and legendsof the bygone, half-remembered past”. Withenough time, these Titans could have starteda new humanity – but an ice-age hit theplanet, and these gentle giants disappearedforever.On other worlds, humans had been twisted intopredators, looking like the vampires and werewolvesof myth, with sharp claws and killing teeth.Their prey were also human – made into herbivoreswith bird-like feet. The prey had the dullminds of animals, but the Predators, on thehunt, kept some spark of human intelligence– which would eventually re-emerge.The Mantelopes were bred to be singers andmemory-retainers for the Qu. So they had fullyhuman minds – they understood the worldaround them. But in the bodies of grazingherd animals, they were powerless to changeanything. So for centuries, “mournful herdsroamed the plains, singing songs of desperationand loss”. They created whole religionsand oral traditions around their grief andfrustration. Until gradually, mercifully,their agony faded. Cause evolutionarily, astupid simple-minded Mantelope survives aswell or better than a conscious sad Mantelope.So within a hundred thousand years, this melancholyworld fell silent. Human minds aren’t sacredto evolution, and soon only animals remained.The Lizard Herders were “the lucky ones”,cause the Qu wiped out their intelligence,and stunted their brains so they could neverregain sentience – so they didn’t sufferlike the Mantelopes did. The Lizard Herderssurvived in symbiosis with some herbivorousreptiles. And while the Lizard Herders stayedsimple-minded, the reptiles evolved, slowlygrowing stronger and smarter.The Qu twisted humanity into a variety ofaquatic creatures – there were limblesseel-people, and whale-like behemoths, and“horrifying multitudes of brainless wallowersthat served as food stock”. Most of themwent extinct when the Qu left, but the Swimmerssurvived, feeding on fish and crustaceansin their world’s oceans. They didn’t lookvery human, but human eyes peered throughtheir blubbery eyelids, and they spoke toeach other – though, underwater, they couldn’thear each others’ words.The Temptors were so fucked up it’s amazingthey survived at all. The Qu made them intobizarre living decorations – two-meter-tallcones of flesh like grotesque carnivorousplants. Those were the females. The maleswere mindless little monkey imp creatureswho blindly served their queen, controlledby vocal and pheromonal signals. They’dgather the food and guard their queen, andoccasionally they would mate by descendinginto this breeding tube like a subway commuter.It was weird, but it worked, and the Temptors’mound forests spread across their world. Theycould’ve built some kind of civilisation.But they were obliterated by a comet, andone of humanity’s best and weirdest hopesdied out.The Bone Crushers looked like monsters – likegiants or ogres with beaks derived from teeth.They only ate putrefying meat, and they communicatedby defecating on each other, but they wereactually pretty successful. They reached amedieval level of civilisation, until theyran out of rotting meat to eat, and eventuallycollapsed.When the Qu attacked, most human worlds werequickly defeated. But one world fought back,resisting the Qu two times before falling.The Qu punished and humiliated this worldfor its resistance, by making them into theColonials. They were disembodied culturesof skin, connected with a network of basicnerves. The Qu used them as living filteringdevices, living off waste products. And forno other reason than to make the Colonialssuffer, the Qu left them their consciousnessand their eyes, so they could fully witnesstheir own wretched fate. For forty millionyears, the Colonials suffered generationsof misery, hoping for their extinction – butthey were made to be efficient, and so theyspread across the planet in “quilt-likefields of human flesh”. Though eventually,after an eternity, the Colonials would tastehope.The Qu made lots of flying human species – somelike bats or pterosaurs, others like angelsor demons dancing through the aether, or strangeugly creatures that floated on glands fullof gas. One species, called the Flyers, hada special starfish-shaped heart that processedoxygen so efficiently, that they had enoughenergy to support flight and human-like brains.Other flying species weren’t so lucky. TheHand Flappers had wings that were uselessfor FLYING, but also couldn’t be used ashands. All they could do was flap about todisplay their sexual availability – andso they ecstatically flashed and danced theirway to extinction.Some humans tried to escape the Qu by hidingunderground. The Qu found them anyway, andmade them into subterranean mousy morlockpeople called the Blind Folk. They used whiskersand long fingers and big ears and banshee-likescreams to navigate in the dark. They livedoff fungi and fish, and avoided predationby bats and crocodilian creatures. These albinotrogdolytes looked fairly human, but wheretheir eyes should have been, there was nothingbut haunting smooth skin. Eventually the movementof tectonic plates crushed these undergroundhabitats one by one.On a planet with extremely high gravity, theQu made the Lopsiders – flat, deformed,asymmetrical creatures right out of the feverdreams of Picasso, Dali or Bosch. The Lopsiderscrawled along the ground on three hands, withanother limb used as an antenna, and a hand.One eye stared straight up, while the othereye scanned ahead. As wretched as they looked,the Lopsiders thrived on their heavy world.They domesticated some native creatures, andbegan the long road to civilisation.On a moon with very low gravity, the Qu madethe Striders – enormously tall, thin creatureswho walked among huge trees that towered likeskyscrapers. The Striders were very delicate,so even with low gravity, a fall could shattertheir bones. The Striders were eventuallywiped out by a bunch of chickens who overtwo million years evolved into deadly predators.On another world where the humans temporarilyresisted the Qu, the Qu punished the humansby creating an array of parasites, who werealso made from humans. There were tortoise-sizedvampire-like ambulatory parasites, and smallerparasites that lived attached to their hosts.There was even one horrific parasite thatinfested the wombs of its victims. Many ofthese parasite life-cycles were so elaborateand baroque that they went extinct when theQu left. But some of the parasites survived,and developed symbioses that benefitted theirhosts as well as themselves.One human species evolved on a world of greatarchipelagos, calm shallow oceans sprinkledwith countless islands. The Finger Fishersevolved to catch fish with their long fingersadapted into fish-hooks, and ate them withlong snouts full of needle-sharp teeth. Buttheir evolution would get even weirder lateron.The Hedonists were created by the Qu to bepampered pets, living carefree lives of pleasure.Their world was a tropical paradise of succulentfruits and lakes of sweet bacterial juice.They were the only animals on their planet,and had no predators or competition to dealwith. Under normal conditions, this mightlead to overpopulation, but the Qu designedthe Hedonists to only get pregnant after matingan enormous number of times. So the populationwas stable, and the Hedonists filled theirlives with eating, sleeping, and mind-blowingsex. Their minds were blissfully empty. Causewho needed to think when they’re havingsuch a good time?The Insectophagi adapted to eat insects. Theyhad claw-like hands to dig, long tongues toscoop up bugs, and leathery faces to protectfrom bites. They lived quiet unnoticed liveson their obscure world – but little didthey know, they would later play a key a rolein the fate of humanity.When the Qu attacked, not all humans werecaptured. Some of them escaped into spaceand built homes inside hollowed-out asteroids.They adapted to zero gravity by growing longspindly limbs, and pressurised digestive systems,so they could move around in space by fartingfrom their highly evolved sphincters. TheseSpacers changed to the point where they couldnever return to a planet with gravity. Butthey didn’t care. They were comfortablein their weightless void worlds, and paidlittle attention to their human relativeson the planets below.So across the galaxy, these twisted post-humanspecies struggled to survive. They evolved,diversified, rose and fell, and most of themdied out without the universe ever knowingthey existed. Which is normal. Extinctionis just as natural as speciation – and foreach species that died out, new ones evolvedto take their place, generating an ever-changingkaleidoscopic variety life forms. And fromthis endless churn of life and death somespecies rose up to achieve new kinds of sentienceand civilisation, like stars emerging fromdark fog.The scorching hot planet of the Worms eventuallycooled down, and life emerged onto the surface.The Worms filled new ecological niches, evolvinginto serpentine grazers, swimmers, predators…and, eventually, people, with human-like intelligence.The Snake People had unique spiral-shapedbrains which allowed them to observe and understandtheir world. They developed a ‘hand’ derivedfrom their ancestors’ feet. And they builtvast cities of tightly-intertwined tunnelsand homes. They enjoyed books, and music,played as vibrations in the ground. The SnakePeople may’ve looked alien, but their dailylives were full of joys and sorrows, hopesand dreams, humanity.The Predators evolved into the Killer Folk.Their deadly claws became grasping hands,and their sabre teeth receded into organsof social display. Killer Folk society wasbuilt around hunting and violence, and sotheir history was filled with war. For thousandsof years, nomadic warriors with vast herdsof once-human livestock battled each otheracross a chessboard of continents. So theirworld is an archaeologists’ dream, richwith the ruins of fallen kingdoms. But onefaction of Killer Folk developed factory farming,and rejected their violent past for a morepeaceful unified future. Some conservativefactions kept to the old way, fanaticallydevoted to traditional warfare and hunting.These two factions came dangerously closeto global war, but the Killer Folk reconciledand survived.Underwater, the Swimmers couldn’t make fire.So they made a different kind of technology– they learned to breed their tools andmachines. The Tool Breeders domesticated andmodified other sea creatures, and built entirecities powered by organic life. Huge heart-likecreatures pumped nutritious fluids througha network of self-healing conduits, like aliving power grid. The Breeders’ homes weremade from living shell and bone, with bioluminescentlights. They had televisions derived fromcephalopod skin, medicinal sea-squirts, weaponsmade from molluscs that fired teeth as ammunition.With genetic modification, stem cells andtissue cultures, the Tool Breeders masteredtheir oceans, and even the small landmassesof their world. But they weren’t contentwith just one planet. The Tool Breeders grewliving spaceships and reached for the stars.The Lizard Herders were stunted, and neverachieved sentience. But the lizards thrived,and eventually built civilisations – usingthe humans for transport, labour and food.These lizards had no ancestral connectionto humanity, but they took on a human-likecultural identity, cause they influenced bythe ruins of the Star People on their world.They realised what the Qu had done to thehumans, and feared that if the Qu returned,they might suffer the same fate.The Colonials were wretched creatures – helplessfields of flesh, carpeting the shores of theirworld like algae. But they were resilient.And eventually, they organised themselves,evolving from a homogenous mass into differentiatedcolonies. Each cell specialised to performdifferent functions for the colony, and thecolonies started competing against other.Some colonies grew tap roots to siphon resourcesfrom afar, or starfish-life feet to move around,or claws and poisons to attack other colonies.The winner of this evolutionary arms racewas an intelligent colony called the ModularPeople. In their vast industrial megalopolis,the people took a wide variety of shapes andsizes. They could combine themselves or splitapart or exchange parts – all interchangeablecells playing a role in one great unifiedorganism. So the Modular People achieved theimpossible – turning their miserable existenceinto utopia where billions lived happy livesas part of the unified whole.The Flyers diversified into many differentspecies, as predators, herbivores, even swimmers.One species were like storks who waded throughswamps to catch their prey. Their versatilefeet, which had evolved to catch slipperyfish, became articulate hands as they developedintelligence and society. Since these Ptersosapienscould fly, they had a global mindset. Bordersand nations made no sense when it was so easyto travel freely. People and ideas spreadquickly across their planet, and they builtan egalitarian society without strict socialclasses. They built cities of perches andfluting towers, harnessed nuclear power, andfarmed their relatives on the ground for food.Though their civilisation thrived, their bodiesstruggled to support their highly developedbrains and their power of flight, so the Pterosapiensusually died by the age of twenty-three. Keenlyaware of their mortality, they appreciatedevery moment of their lives. Their philosopherspondered the meaning of life with feverishintensity, filling libraries with their tomes.The Ptersopaien in this picture poses at aseaside resort. This ten day vacation wasthe only holiday in her short life.Despite the crushing gravity of their world,the Lopsiders built an advanced civilisation.Their pancake-flat buildings spread all overtheir world, and they developed spaceflightso they could escape their planet and itsoppressive gravity. To adapt to life on newworlds, they engineered a subspecies who couldlive in low gravity, called the AsymmetricPeople. The Asymmetric People thrived in thefreedom of new worlds, but they had no lovefor their creators. The Asymmetric Peopleruthlessly exterminated the Lopsiders on theirhomeword, and explored the heavens alone.The Parasites and their hosts evolved symbioticrelationships. Like, some parasites used sharpsenses to warn their hosts of predators, orprovide weapons like venom for defence. Inreturn, the hosts provided their nutritiousblood, and developed specialised nesting siteson their bodies for the parasite to attachto, rich with blood vessels and protectivefur. The Parasites and Hosts became inextricablylinked, almost like they were one being. Soon,the hosts were like horses being steered aroundby the Parasites, then eventually they wereno more than puppets, totally controlled bythe Parasites through tactile and olfactorysignals. The intelligent Parasite civilisationeventually developed technology that replacedthe need for hosts. But they kept the hostsaround for tradition and convenience. An averageSymbiote might start the day in a businesshost, then change to a comfortable domestichost at home after work.The world of the Fisher Fingers was full ofscattered isolated islands. Like the Galapagosor Madagascar on Earth, these islands werea seething evolutionary cauldron that gaverise to wildly diverse species. One line ofFisher Fingers evolved into the Sail People.Their long fingers evolved into sails thatdrove them effortlessly across oceans. Theyused their tongues to catch prey, and eventuallytheir tongues split and articulated to beused as hands. The Sail People needed strongmemories to navigate the oceans and locateprey, so naturally they soon evolved intelligence.It took a long to develop social and politicalstability. Their scattered and diverse worldgave rise to a huge variety of creatures whofiercely competed. For generations, flotillasof tribal warriors and pirate societies battledin epoch-spanning conflicts. Until finallyone group of Sail People became powerful enoughto unify their world, and make peace. Bloodhad stained the oceans for too long.The peaceful paradise of the Hedonists seemedlike it would never end. But over millionsof years, nothing lasts forever. Geologicactivity threw up clouds of dust that blockedthe sun and killed most of the Hedonists.Only a small subset survived, mutating anescape from the reproductive limits of theirancestors. These Satyriacs were got theirshit together and built an advanced self-sustainingcivilisation. There were still traces of theirhedonistic past remaining in their genes,and so their societies retained a delightfulstreak of pleasure-seeking and promiscuity.Festivals, concerts and ritualised orgiespunctuated every working week. And now, thepleasure was savoured by sentient self-awarepeople.The Insectophagi started to look like theirprey. Their leathery face-plates hardenedand became part of their jaw. Their handsand feet developed into pincers. And theirbrains evolved intelligence. Like many others,the Bug Facers built a civilisation, but theyalso faced a unique threat. They were attackedby an alien race. Little is known about thesealiens, not much survived in the historicalrecord. But it took an intense series of warson the ground and in orbit before the invaderswere defeated. This traumatic conflict gavethe Bug Facers a pathological xenophobic fearof all other species. So when the human specieson other worlds started to reach out to eachother, the Bug Facers stayed silent, and withdrewfrom the galaxy.The Spacers became even more alien in thevoid of space. Their fingers extended andsplit into tiny grasping limbs. Their legsatrophied, using their farts to move instead.And in the weightless void of space, theirbrains expanded, til their every thought wasfar more vast and complex than anything otherhumans could conceive. These Asteromorphsspread to every star system in the galaxy,but they didn’t interfere with the otherspecies. The Asteromorphs had no need forplanets – those ugly balls of dirt and iceand gravity. They stayed in the outer rimsof star systems, silently watching over thegalaxy, like strange alien gods.The advanced post-human species started makingcontact with each other. The Killer Folk talkedwith the Satyriacs. The Tool Breeders reachedout from their ocean depths. The Modular Peopleand Pterosapiens joined in, followed by theAsymmetric People, Saurosapients, Snake People,Symbiotes, and Sail People. They didn’tvisit each other in person, cause the interstellardistances were too large. But they cooperatedby sharing knowledge and technology – andby keeping watch for alien invasions. Theyall had found the ruins of the Star Peopleand the Qu – and they didn’t want to beattacked and changed again. This allianceof post-humans lasted for almost eighty millionyears, each species expanding to new worlds,and prospering together. The Bug Facers neverjoined them, cause they were afraid and xenophobic.And there was one other advanced species thatdidn’t join – and from them would comethe downfall of the alliance.The Ruin Haunters were much like other speciestwisted by the Qu. But on their world, thecities of the Star People hadn’t been completelydestroyed. So the Ruin Haunters had accessto remnants of the Star Peoples’ technologyand knowledge, which allowed them to advanceat a dangerous pace. Their technology developedso fast that their social and political structuresdidn’t keep up, and they almost destroyedthemselves in a series of worldwide nuclearwars. This baptism by fire hardened the RuinHaunters and kinda drove them crazy. Theyconvinced themselves that they alone werethe true descendants and heirs of the StarPeople, and that only they deserved to reclaimthe legacy of the golden age of their ancestors.So when the other human species formed theiralliance, the Ruin Haunters refused to participate.But the Ruin Haunters’ sun was rapidly expanding,and threatened to burn and destroy their worlds.So the Ruin Haunters used their super-advancedtechnology to abandon their organic bodiesand replace them with machines. They becamethe Gravitals – floating metal spheres thatcould mould the environment around them withgravity fields. They were entirely mechanical.But they still had human minds, coded intoquantum computers. So they still had humanambitions – and human delusions. Twistedwith neurotic narcissistic hubris, the Gravitalsstarted to exterminate all other life. Andthe other human species were unable to stopthem. The Gravitals would come to a humanworld and block out their sun behind a vastblack sail. If the choked, dying world managedto resist, they were finished off with anasteroid. The Gravitals didn’t hate otherspecies. They just didn’t see them as people,and exterminated them like one might swata fly. So all the Snake People, the Tool Breeders,Pterosapients, and the others, who had workedso hard to survive, were all snuffed out oneby one.The only survivors of these genocides werethe shy and xenophobic Bug Facers. For reasonsunknown, they alone were kept alive, and theGravitals used them as Subjects for biologicalexperimentation. The Gravitals twisted theminto new forms so strange that they made thework of the Qu look tame. As well as servants,and labourers, they made Subjects into bizarreart pieces, like creatures that existed onlyto play the tune of a particular pop songon its modified throat and fingers. They madewhole elaborate artificial ecologies of doomedhuman flesh purely for entertainment and curiosity.The Gravitals recycled and repurposed organiclife the way someone might tinker with computerparts, or recycle trash. And for millionsof years that was how organic life existedin the Machine Empire. But not all the Gravitalssaw life the same way. Some religious andphilosophical sects among the Gravitals arguedthat all forms of life had rights. They secretlycreated human species who could live and thinkfreely. Some Gravitals even fell in love withtheir human creations. Gravital society becamedivided between the Tolerant Gravitals whorespected human life, and the hardline conservativepan-mechanical Gravitals. This division threatenedto tear the Machine Empire apart. So the Gravitalslooked for a common enemy to unify against.For millions of years, the Gravitals and theAsteromorphs had watched each other nervously– the Gravitals on the planets, and theAsteromorphs in space. They both were massivelypowerful, and feared that war could destroythem both. But in attempt to unite their dividedsociety, the Gravitals chose to start a warwith Asteromorphs. The resulting conflictraged for millions of years, and scarred uncountedstars, but in the end, the Asteromorphs triumphed,and defeated the Gravitals, toppling the all-powerfulMachine Empire.And the Asteromporphs decided to clean upthe mess the machines had made. They tookthe surviving humans who the Gravitals hadtwisted, and created habitable worlds forthem to live in. The Asteromorphs played God,seeding life across the galaxy. And the humanspecies rose reborn as inheritors of the war-tornworlds – under the watchful eye of the Asteromorphs.The Asteromorphs wanted to ensure that nogenocidal assholes would ever conquer thegalaxy again. So they created a smaller simplerversion of themselves called the Terrestrials,to live on the human worlds. The Terrestrialsplayed the role of kings, prophets, and caretakers,guiding their worlds along a wise path. Itdidn’t always work out too well. Sometimesworlds rebelled, so the Asteromorphs destroyedthem. Sometimes the Terrestrials were corrupt,and played god, and exploited their subjects.But one way or another, the human worlds spread,and formed a prosperous galactic empire.The Gravitals weren’t completely destroyedby the Asteromorphs. Turned out, it was reallyuseful to have super-advanced machines around.The Asteromorphs disabled their gravity weapons,and numbed their minds a bit to discouragerebellion. And used the Gravitals as labourersto work in dangerous environments. These NewMachines were given nanotechnological bodiesthat could transform into any shape. Theyeventually became citizens of the empire,but were often discriminated against – machineswere never fully trusted after the Gravitals’atrocities.Eventually the human-Asteromorph empire madecontact with life from other galaxies – includingthe Amphicephali, these weird snakes thathad snakes inside their snakes. Apparentlythese creatures had an evolutionary historyjust as long and complex as humanity had.And after all they’d been through, the lifeforms of both galaxies were finally old enoughand mature enough to meet peacefully, withoutconflict.This video won’t describe all of inter-galactichistory. The stories are endless – how theunited galaxies re-encountered and defeatedthe Qu, how they cradled their suns in artificialshells, and crossed space through wormholes.But one moment worth relating is the rediscoveryof Earth. A lone researcher located the birthplaceof humanity – where all the Asteromorphsand Machines and post-humans could trace theirorigins. Earth had gone stagnant and feralby then – an obscure empty world. But afterhalf a billion years of absence, humans returnedto their homeworld – changed beyond recognition.I have to end with a confession. Humans, Asteromorphs,Machines, and all their descendants are nowextinct. They’ve been dead for a billionyears. This video is just our best approximationof their history, based on the available archaeologicalevidence. We don’t know what killed thehumans. Maybe some unimaginably destructivewar. Maybe their empire broke up, and eachworld suffered their own slow private death.Some claim that humanity migrated into somehigher plane of existence. We don’t knowwhat happened, and ultimately, it doesn’tmatter. The story of humanity was never aboutits end. Not about its ultimate dominationof galaxies, or its transcendence from reality.Being human was always about the daily livesof people, from the love-songs of the carefreeHedonists, the families of the Sail Peoplesharing a meal, to the pontifications of thePterosapiens, to. Grander narratives and absoluteideals are what led to humanity’s worstatrocities – the Gravitals massacred toreclaim the past, the Qu conquered for somefanatical idealised future. Living for someabstract ultimate goal so often leads to destruction.So when you look on the remains of the long-gonehuman species, remember that it’s the presentthat matters, not the past or future. Whatyou do today shapes tomorrow, not the otherway round. So Love Today, and seize All Tomorrows!All Tomorrows is a story written and illustratedby C. M. Kosemen. This video was a shortenedretelling of his tale, with some additionalimagery. Kosemen is an artist, writer andresearcher who does heaps of fascinating workin paleontology, history, surreal art andall sorts of stuff, so go check out his website,and his YouTube videos, and consider supportinghim on Patreon. Also, since this video will..probably be demonetised, consider supportingAlt Shift X on Patreon too. We got more Songof Ice and Fire videos coming soon, and Episode1 of the Alt Shift X podcast is out now, withan interview with the authors of The Expanse,so go check it out.Thanks for watching, and thanks to the PatronsSonjerbolan, Wyld Words, Alexandra Lamoureux,Varun Pramanik, Najeeb Hashi, Ashley Daniel,Colt Foster, Irish Steph, and sams2006. Cheers.\n"