Almost 20 years ago an exploratory mining operation was launched and charged with finding a new source for the building blocks needed to sustain our own civilization. Their search for basic resources has revealed, in a place of arid rock and ash a people lost to time. Lost to their distant cousins for ageless centuries, resigned to the oblivion of limbo for generations and lifetimes, but now their story can be told.
For this we have you to thank. From the first accidental discovery at the end of drill and shovel to the present and delicately executed, on going excavation there were you and people like you. With a thirst for knowledge and betterment for your fellow creatures you and hundreds of others gave of your time, your expertise, your knowledge, and your wealth. Now the story of a people long dead has joined our tale.
As we relate and retell the story of this people I ask that we see in them ourselves for we walk a similar path. We have a common story if not a common ancestry.
A story of great accomplishment, advancements of technology and culture once thought impossible for people of their era. It is a tale begun through millennia of strife, a fight to survive both their world and themselves.
Like a flash of distant light they were once here, shining brightly at the apex of power. Like the stroke of a lightning bolt great was their impact, loud their thunder, but in the end all that is left to us is the evidence of their destructive power and ultimate demise.
I give you the tale of a people in infancy that learned to conquer the world around them. I give you a tale of a people who chose to bend the world around them to their will. I give you a tale of a people that built great monuments, performed great deeds, and made great mistakes.
I give you the cautionary legacy left to us by the remains of a forgotten people and a planet once called earth.