The Survey

This was his first time.

He would easily admit to being nervous and worried about screwing up on this outing.  He wasn't sure that anyone could really be prepared, even after all of the hours, days, years he and others had spent trying to know all that there was to know about what he was to observe.

The fundamentals of the situation lie in the clockwork operations of the universe itself.  The planet of origin, his destination and study, rotated with its solar system though and ellipse that took thousands of years (measured in rotations around the local star) to complete.  There were two crucial points in that course.  At one, since named the "sweet spot" for shorthand reference, the minds of the advanced inhabitants finally became clear, as if waking up from a confusing dream.  All of the previously obscured reasons behind the seemingly random chaos of their existence were no longer a mystery once the entirety of their faculties were engaged.  

Not long after this moment it is inevitably realized that the path that their home will then follow takes it though a large debris field which would assuredly result in serious calamity on the surface of their home.  Many then chose to leave the planet behind.  Others stay.

Over and over again the same circumstances play out, and each time it is a gamble as to whether the species will survive to return again to that place of highest experience.  Those who do not make that long journey try their hands at assuring that the pattern continues.  This is done in two ways, by both meddling in the genetics of the home bound population to ensure the greatest chance of survival and also by seeding information about both the great reward waiting at the end of the journey as well as the cataclysms to follow.  This information is nested in religious and alchemical texts that are meant to guide the more ignorant versions of themselves through the darkest times of their foolishness.

Of course he had never made this trip before, seeing as how his ancestors had left the planet so long ago and he himself had spent nearly a lifetime preparing.  Part of that preparation included learning of what they once had been, which was so much different than what he was now.  Being unmoored from the source of origin did things to the physical bodies of the exiles.  It made them dwarfish with large craniums and expansive, dark eyes as better adaptation to the corners of space, as well as skin that had changed to a silvery hue.

He had done his best to steel himself to what he was to behold, the weird looking beings who were parallel offshoots sharing the same genetic roots. Preparation would always fall short it would seem. Certainly they would look upon him with similar alarm if they did happen to see him, which all of the precautions taken should prevent.

And what of the hints and guides that had been left, and what of the genetic manipulation that had been done by those before?  Would this current crop make it to the apex of their existence?  There was always the fear that the most recent batch would be the last, that this current one would destroy itself in its ignorance of the fullness of its progression, for the darker parts of their psyche were indeed very, very dark.

After his initial observations he could only report what was constantly cycling through his mind:

It was all a dispiriting and horrible mess.