A group of alamosaurs were grazing quietly in the middle of the forest. The herd was quite large: making an approximate hypothesis, one could safely admit that there were at least a hundred of them.
Such a pack ate disproportionate amounts of food, clearing large acres of forest at very high speed. Wherever they went, the green foliage of the trees gave way to bare branches. The alamosaurs had to eat around one ton of food each day to support their mass of over seventy tons of weight.
While a hundred alamosaurs might seem like a lot, they weren't even remotely close to a real herd. Some groups of sauropods could have numbered thousands of individuals. Such herds of giant herbivores could clear entire acres of forest in a matter of hours.
Such large herds were also possible on Mesozoic Earth, although they were much rarer. But on Eden, which possessed an infinitely larger amount of land and thus much larger food sources, herds of thousands of sauropods, including
Jocelyne didn't know what else think, except that the hall she had just entered was extremely beautiful.It was a huge room, made of gold and white marble, with beautiful chandeliers encrusted with diamonds and sapphires. All the people inside were dressed in sumptuous and magnificent clothes. She felt like she had just entered a fairy tale palace.The only strange thing was that all the people inside the hall were masked. None of them had their faces uncovered. They were beautiful masks, of course, but it almost seemed that people wanted to hide their true identities. The women all wore the mask of a doll, some resembling porcelain dolls, some rags, some plastic, but all beautiful beyond measure. Men, on the contrary, had a mask that vaguely resembled an animal, while some even had one that even resembled a demon. Those with the demon mask, in particular, were the most beautiful of all and dressed in the most beautiful clothes.The only exceptions were her and
When Sarah and Ian came out of their cabin they noticed that Roland's men were already in action: they were dragging numerous crates under the controls of their leader. Nick seemed to be in a nervous breakdown as he yelled at the hunter and Eddie tried in vain to mediate between the two."What happens?" Sarah asked the photographer.Nick gritted his teeth. “Isn't it obvious? The bastard wants to go catch that dinosaur""What? Did you go crazy by chance?" Ian exclaimed stepping forward. "You have seen with your own eyes that bullets do nothing to it!""Exactly. For this we will resort to a trick. It may be invulnerable from the outside, but inside it is made of flesh like all of us" replied Roland showing the contents of a crate. Looking inside, the four saw kilos and kilos of frozen meat.Nick was the first to understand. "Do you want to put the narcotic in the food""Exactly. After it has eaten it will go down like a stockfish. There
"Damn..." Eddie murmured. "That son of a bitch really caught it"Ian swallowed. Seen up close, the dinosaur's gigantic body looked even more huge. "It can't go out, right?" he asked in a whisper to one of the guards.The man laughed. "Unless it can cut reinforced steel, I highly doubt it" he said. “Anyway, now it's sedated. You can approach safely"Sarah obviously didn't think twice. In a few moments she was next to the dinosaur's body and was already touching the huge abdomen. "No feathers" she whispered to himself. "Except for a small group of quills on the neck and head. More evidence of probable evolution from an aquatic dinosaur..."Ian couldn't understand how his girlfriend could be so casual. He was literally shitting himself. The giant dinosaur scared him quite a bit. Maybe it was because of his past trauma at Mega Beast Park… but the professor Malcolm felt it wasn't the case. It was as if his one was an instinct. He had the impressio
That night wasn't very pleasant: around two o'clock of morning a deafening noise had woken the entire ship. The dinosaur had awakened and started fidgeting like a madman in its cage. Many attempts to calm it down had been unsuccessful and eventually Roland had drugged it again. That event clearly didn't help morale on board. Not only did Nick, Sarah, Ian and Eddie become even more hostile to the idea of taking the animal away, but Roland himself became worried: if he couldn't find a way to calm the dinosaur he couldn't feed it, which meant risking its death. For this he had accelerated operations to the maximum. The next day the camp was completely dismantled and the ship began its return voyage. The situation didn't improve in the following days: every time the dinosaur woke up it would shake like a madman and desperately try to break the cage. Roland had been forced to sedate it continuously. Fortunately, after three days, probably due to the constant narcotics and the absence o
Meanwhile, of course, Sobek was listening. He almost laughed when humans called him a baby; in fact he had been born just a year ago (or maybe a little more), but certainly Sarah, Ian and Eddie certainly weren't expecting it.The scientific explanation of its size had surprised him not a little; he had always assumed that its weight was only 14.5 tons because the System magically made it so. But deep down, he reflected, Eden was a world of science, not magic. Even if the System was something otherworldly, the changes that took place in Sobek's body still had to find a scientific reason for existing.In a certain sense, the System had made him aware of this fact: even if the descriptions of the abilities were rather approximate, Sobek remembered that for example for [Powerful bite] we were talking about modifications to the mandibular structure and the muscles of the mouth, and that [Rapid digestion] was referred to as gastric juices, all scientific explanations.
As Sarah and Ian re-entered their cabin, the woman threw herself on the bed and threw a fist on the pillow. "That bastard!" she screams."Yes, the definition is correct" Ian muttered leaning against the door jamb. He wanted to come forward to comfort his fiancée, but from his experience he had learned that it was best not to get too close while she was really upset. Or he would become her punching bag.Sarah continued to furiously punch the pillow. “Ugly son of a bitch! Damn capitalist asshole! How dare him? Naming an animal that I discovered! He's a piece of shit!"The last punch was so strong that the pillow opened at the sides, throwing out some feathers. Sarah deeply inspired and then threw herself on the mattress, sinking her head into what was her Punch Game Machine a few moments before.Seeing that his fiancée had finally vented her anger, Ian found the courage to step forward and sat down on the bed next to her. "I know he's an
It took the ship a short time to leave the forest by retracing the river in reverse. Once they arrived at the colony of Odaria they stocked up with provisions and then went out into the open sea via the river.For the first time, Sobek found himself crossing the ocean. Fortunately, since he was an aquatic dinosaur, he didn't feel seasick. Even during the storms he didn't feel the slightest discomfort.The only unpleasant part of that trip was boredom. The journey was rather monotonous. Sobek spent most of his time sleeping, although he had to force himself to do so as his brain didn't need to rest too frequently like normal living things. But the alternative was to stay awake and get bored.Eventually he had come to appreciate Sarah and Ian's conversations and even those of the guards. Even if they were mostly uninteresting talk, they were still better than absolute silence. Even the presence of Nick, who occasionally went down to the hold to see his friends, wa
"Escape?" Carnopo shook his head. "Don't dream. I don't know if you've noticed, but you're locked in a cage, like me""I could go out at any time. Look" Without getting noticed by the humans Sobek lowered one of his claws on one of the bars and cut it as if it were butter.The carnotaur gasped at that show of strength: cutting the reinforced steel like that was an unprecedented feat! "If you are so strong, why don't you escape right now?""Because now isn't the time. I didn't let them caught me just to leave here empty-handed"Carnopo clenched his teeth so hard that they screeched. "Did you let them caught you? Are you crazy by chance? I'd give my life to get out of this fence, and you...""... and I'm the answer to your hopes. I'm here because I want you to escape with me. You and all the others" Sobek interrupted him, emitting a smile when he saw the amazement make its way on the face of the carnotaur."Let us all escape?" The suspicion qu
It took Sobek a few moments before he realized he was back in the room where it all began. That room where time and space ceased to exist, and where everything and nothing seemed to have changed at the same time. He already knew where he had to go; walking through the infinitely large (or perhaps infinitely small) room, in a few minutes (or perhaps a few centuries, who knows) he reached the familiar armchair on which was seated a woman with white skin and light hair.God didn't even seem to move since she sent him to Eden. Even her expression didn't seem to have changed at all. She was still the same, beautiful and terrible at the same time, whose gaze was both magnetic and loving on him. “Welcome back, son,” she greeted him in her crystal clear voice.Sobek advanced on her. This time there wasn't an armchair waiting for him, but a large mattress wide enough to allow him to lie down. She lay back on it and gazed intently at God. Even now, after he'd grown i
On the continent of Maakanar, near a river that was once a typical spinosaurus nesting place, something immense could be seen. A huge creature was lying on its belly, but nevertheless it was so tall that its dorsal sail towered over the surrounding masts.Sobek was now thirty-three years old. To say he had grown into a behemoth was an understatement: he now measured 150 meters from head to tail and reached 45.6 meters in height. Even without activating the mutation he was now larger than Godzilla: the gigantic atomic reptile was a tiny lizard compared to him. All kaiju would be small compared to him. Even King Ghidorah would have been forced to acknowledge its superiority.In the last five years he had hardly moved. After the death of his last loyalist he returned to his birthplace and settled there. He ate what was provided to him from the [Personal Manger] and drank the water from the river. Otherwise, he remained calm, warming himself in the sun or admiring the star
After a few days Nefertiti settled at the lake together with her father and her last remaining uncle. With the help and indications of Sobek she built a comfortable nest and there she laid her egg.Thus began the brood. The female spinosaurus never moved from above her little egg, keeping it constantly warm. Sobek and Buck brought her food and water. When Nefertiti was hot, Sobek used her huge wing as a parasol and Buck fanned her with his tail. In the rare moments when it was cold, the two of her huddled to help her warm up.That routine went on for three months. Finally, at the end of the third month, a familiar clicking sound came from under Nefertiti's paws.The female spinosaurus reared up and looked down. A small crack was opening on the egg. With a smile she moved from above it. The crack widened more and more and finally a large piece of egg broke off, showing a lively green eye that stared intently at Nefertiti.“Hello, baby. I'm your mothe
Time had passed again. Sobek couldn't even figure out how much time had actually passed now. One year? Two? Maybe three? He didn't know.After his retirement, Sobek had gone deep into the forest of Maakanar. It was hard for him to move his huge body through the trees and very often ended up destroying them: his passage was evident as a trail of uprooted trunks was always behind him. He had moved permanently to the lake where he had met Buck and where he had established his first army. And he hadn't gone there alone.Carnopo and Buck had joined him just a month after his departure. They, too, had decided they'd had enough and abandoned their roles entirely. After all, in the new world there was no longer a need for either an army commander or one of the shock legion. Now there was peace, and the old war veterans had no reason to try to find their place in their world. So they had decided to do what they had always done: follow their pack leader.The trio spent th
Another year had passed. In Sobek's eyes, time seemed to have begun to flow more rapidly. The months and weeks all passed almost the same and in a flash the morning turned into evening.Humanity had continued its advance. By now, Aphrodites had been fully colonized. Whole cities had sprung up on it and millions of settlers had begun to live there. Davis had now reached more than a billion inhabitants and Hermes now owned thousands of mining establishments.Thanks to teleportation technology it was so advanced that traveling between planets was even easier than going from one city to another. Since energy and material consumption were now no longer a concern thanks to solar panels on Hermes and mining plants on asteroids, everyone had a portable teleportation device. By now, being hired to work a mine on an asteroid was no different than being hired to work at the local convenience store.Colonies on the moons of Leviathan and Behemoth had multiplied, providing e
More time, more changes. In just one year, many things had changed.Nefertiti had assumed control of the entire astrophysics division of the dinosaur pack, effectively acting as acting pack leader for them. After the first shared mission, she had begun to promote more policies of integration and union between humans and animals. She had facilitated interspecies interspace operations, sending animals and humans to work together in the new worlds to be colonized. Furthermore, there was still much to colonize, as human attention was slowly shifting beyond the outer Solar System to the dwarf planets and comets of the Oort Cloud.The work was not cheap and with it the possibilities of working together. With the Dyson Sphere nearing completion, energy was no longer an issue. After determining which moons to colonize, the Eden Union had begun an intensive mining program in the asteroids of the main belt in order to be able to build huge lenses to capture the sunlight and also
One more year, more innovations. The more time passed, the more progress seemed to accelerate. It was like a speeding train that multiplied its speed every second: first slow, then faster and faster, until it turned into a giant projectile.Sobek knew that progress was bound to accelerate more and more, after all it was his nature. For each new discovery, countless doors open. And every door leads to other doors. This was the nature of progress. It was no coincidence that it took humanity less than two hundred years to go from horses to aircraft capable of leaving the orbit of their home planet.He recalled that on Earth, where he came from, progress had become so fast in the 21st century that it was enough to be born even a generation later or further back to find oneself in a completely different world. While in 1990 the main communication system was the satellite phone, in 2020 people used social networks for the most disparate things. While in 1990 movies were watc
More time had passed. This time it was a year… or maybe a year and a half? I don't know. Not that it mattered much, actually.The world's attention to the inner solar system was gradually waning. Now that three planets had been terraformed, even if one of them still wasn't enough, and Hermes had become a stable colony that was continuously producing large panels of glass that joined in the orbit of the Sun to form the Dyson Sphere, the humanity was beginning to anticipate new challenges. From the inner solar system it was time to move to the outer solar system.Although some colony outposts were already present on some moons of Behemoth, they could not be defined as true colonies. However, now that energy consumption was no longer a problem thanks to the Dyson Sphere, which although not completed already released enormous amounts of energy, the Eden Union decided to start an exploration program of the entire outer solar system, or at least of the space between B
Two more years had passed. The advance of humanity towards the stars continued inexorably.The hypotheses of the scientists had proved to be correct: using a combination of gravity control technology and energy obtained from the Dyson sphere, although still incomplete, they had managed to accelerate the rotation of Aphrodites. The planet was slowly accelerating, though not too fast. There was generally talk of an hour each week. At this speed there was no risk of destroying the infrastructure already present on the planet. Yes two years, the rotation period had gone from 2082 hours to 1978 hours. Continuing at this rate, it was expected to reach 24 hours in 'just' another 38 years.Once this process was completed, the huge orbiting mirrors could finally be taken off. The day/night cycle would no longer be artificially determined and there would no longer be the risk that something would go wrong due to the impact of a micrometeorite. In addition, the accelerated rotati