“When in the height heaven was not named, and the earth beneath did not yet bear a name, and the primeval Apsu, who begat them, and chaos, Tiamut, the mother of them both Their waters were mingled together, and no field was formed, no marsh was to be seen;
When of the gods none had been called into being, And none bore a name, and no destinies were ordained;
Then were created the gods in the midst of heaven, Lahmu and Lahamu were called into being…”– Enuma Elish, ancient Sumerian creation myth
“In the beginning, God created heaven, and the Earth.”
– The Book of Genesis 1:1, Hebrew Bible
It was mostly empty.
Well, to be more accurate, there were naturally occurring life forms of all types. This was not uncommon among planets of this size and composition. There were trees, plants, insects, microscopic organisms, and a full complement of more substantive biological entities evolved from various strands. All of these life forms were needed to eventually achieve and maintain a balanced ecological and biological equilibrium.
There were no humans.
Something so complex and varied, at once so beautiful and hideous, so capable of feats of astounding intellect – a lifeform such as this was not evolved by pure chance from a tepid puddle of bacteriological slime and simple proteins.
It was by design.
The humans never knew how they came to be. Whether it was a fragment of knowledge simply forgotten over a great span of time, or whether it was by intent that they should not recall their birthing into this material plane – they had no recollection of how they came to be. This is certainly not to say they never puzzled over it. Millions of generations of scientists, poets, philosophers, seekers, mystics had never managed to arrive at even so much as a remotely quantifiable or agreeable hypothesis. Some believed that there was a sentient race of life alien forms in the universe who created us. Others believed in an invisible, all powerful being they referred to as a “God” who created us. Still others believed humans evolved naturally from a branch of primates.
It was none of these.
The Earth, or as it is known celestially – “Gaia” – was mostly empty. There were many lifeforms to witness the events which transpired that day the pod came down, but there were none who comprehended. There were no analytical minds to wonder about the silvery shining metal object as it hurtled down from the sky like a ball of fire. While there were many curious eyes gathering to set upon it’s glimmering husk half buried in the crumpled earth, there were none with the intellect to reason at the sight of the strange creatures who emerged from its depths when the pod door slid open.
Two of them emerged together.
Two shiny metallic creatures emerged from the wreckage of the crashed pod with a dull mechanical whirring of servo motors. They stood upright upon two appendages, and astride of their center section were another two appendages. Atop their center section sat an egg-shaped protuberance, with two smaller glowing spheres set into recessed pockets. There were none who could have deciphered them, but across their chests were printed a short series of simple glyphs, accompanied by another mysterious symbol. Had there been any creature capable of reading them, they would have noted that one of them was inscribed “Lahmu” while the other read “Lahamu.”