Extracts taken from Maia’s Millennium (24.231%). Edited for brevity
“Of course, there was huge expectation for Say-Sto, as we called it then.” Devin James, line producer for the docu-series admits with a chuckle, “Especially for Sapien Ascension. We’d never seen numbers like it.
“But we loved it, she loved it. She wasn’t happy if she wasn’t educating. And with the reach of Sapien I think she felt she could get through to the whole spiral arm.”
The team spent several days at a climate research probe over the tropics as the flight-effects wore off and they acclimated to the local day-night cycle. With the day of departure approaching, the energy in the station picked up.
“But never Maia. She always had that same dependable demeanour.” Morine Dubois, Dr. Marielle’s then assistant, “I believe she was constantly planning or writing or practicing in her head. No one ever saw her write anything down – and pretty much every word of that show is hers – she just always knew what to say.
Sapien Story’s drone operator and cinematographer, Anella Ingles, echoed Morine’s thoughts: “Once we were down in the old European waters, choppy seas and ocean spray or not, she was ready. Had that iconic opening ready to go.
“Then that pause where you see the old skyscrapers poking out of the water behind her. That “Grave of London” line, hers. Imagine how common it is now. She made that up!”
Guzhuin Taylor, the 23rd century philosopher, wrote in his seminal piece Borderless that “without knowledge of one’s history one cannot know one’s heading.”
Welcome to the Grave of London, here in the River Thames Estuary. Our birthplace’s starkest reminder of how close we came to losing it all.
“And the rest is history, I suppose” Devin James again, laughing, “We’ll never know why it was such a big hit. It was just the right time for it.”
The right time indeed. In an age when most were looking forward, ever up and up, one careful voice proposed a different perspective. One woven with caution learned from the past.
But it was the story she told next which would capture the public’s heart like no other.
However, to tell today’s chapter and to piece together how we emerged from near catastrophe we must go further afield than our birth planet.
In fact, when we talk about single humans who have had the biggest impact on sapien existence, we have to mention someone who had no ties to this world at all.
Someone without whose Intervention you and I would not be here today.
johannes 