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"I found it in an old time capsule. I think we buried it in a storage locker when I was a kid. 

What?! No, this was before you were born, listen, this is important. 

A time capsule. Well it was something grown-ups used to have kids put together so they would keep busy. 

I know, I know. They teach you this...but I think you should know your history. 

I want to tell you! 

You see that, right there? Yes you can touch it...What is it? Well it's actually a rather interesting thing. It's what we used to call a book. 

Remember when we were at your friend Suzy's birthday? You were all playing that game in a circle. Tele-phone! Right! That's it. Well that's how we used to be before they could make these, these 'books.' People would tell stories and spread them around by mouth...then one day someone found out they could capture those stories...and they could copy them over and over.

Who made the stories? Oh, well I think his name was, Gutterbug or something...wait no that's not it...Goo-tin...Gutenberg!! I think that's it. Well he and a few others came up with this thing called a printing press. A printing press...yes. 

I guess it wasn't just stories there were other things like, well, maps. Right honey, like that except it wasn't just the water, the trees, mountains, deserts and forests...What do I mean? Well when they figured out how to print things...maps and territories became known to more people...and that was pretty amazing. The people who paid for those trips to make the maps were kings, like on those cards grandpa showed you. 

It was before your mom and me were born. There was a war. What's a war? Well it's when people get upset and look away from the now time. Yes, I do know the game grandpa taught you is called war too. Those cards are actually important too...did I ever tell you what a king was? I did? Hm...well I'll tell you more about that later.

Well there were a few different types of people back then, but some people believe that this Gutenberg fellow had created a machine that held great implications for mankind. Some people feared it, thought it would destroy our history, our achievements! 

You don't understand that word? Which one? Oh, im-pli-ca-tions, it means something that might happen...consequences. 

So some people began to use the printing press to make maps, books, and all different kinds of ideas. 

Yes, maps like that star chart you like so much. 

Did they have journals? That's a good question. Actually as it became cheaper to make books, all different types of things began to be captured by Gutenberg's invention. Publishing houses were popping up all around merchant cities. All different thoughts and ideas began to circulate the globe.  The globe, that's what they used to call the planet. What planet? Earth! I'm talking about our history!

Stop biting your nails! That's not good for you. 

Where was I? Right, so, people began to write more, and some books became really popular. People began to look at books and printed words to see where they fit into the world. Before then not as many people knew how to read, for a while they actually used pictures more than words. Yes pictures. Well they used the pictures because not a lot of people spoke Latin. 

La-tin, it was a language. 

That book you have in your hands right now, that is a Bible. It was the most printed book ever, only the Koran almost passed it. That's right, they were! They were outlawed and a lot of them were destroyed, your great grandfather was able to find this one and he gave it to your grandfather and when I was about your age your grandma gave it to me when we were making a time capsule, like I told you. 

She always felt nervous with it around, I remember she told me to put it in with the other stuff. Why was she nervous? Well it's a pretty complicated story, for another time...

People began to realize that words gave them power, if they were written of enough, they could live forever in other people's memories...

Clio!! Stop biting your nails!

Yes words gave people power. How? Well, it was called fame. Some people became famous for good reasons, they cured diseases, wrote amazing stories, led nations through rough times...they advanced humanity. 

What's a nation? Well it was a group of people that live together. No not like us and mommy, more people like all of our friends and families that live around us, all of us could be called a nation together, I guess.  

Anyways some other people tried to become famous for no other reason than to be known as famous. They just wanted to be known. Some people started to see that pretty quickly after Gutenberg's press, a writer named Saucer, no... Chaucer! He thought of the idea, and then others like Montaigne...they thought that fame sought for the sake of fame was not to be idolized. It was fleeting and held no value. 

They saw other people in their time and how they began to reinforce class structures. 

No, not like school classes. 

Well do you remember those cards that you and grandpa played with. The king and the queen and the jacks, they were royalty. They had more power. And then there were people who worked the land, on farms, they had less power. 

What's a farm? That's where the food used to come from. We didn't use all the greenhouses, and grow rooms back then like we do now. 

So, for hundreds of years everybody amassed all of this information, these stories and ideas, our minds were emptied and printed onto countless books. And then one day those books could be catalogued on computers. And so we began to index all of the earth, all of our thoughts, personal, impersonal, all the facts and information we ever found was put onto computers. 

This one strange man, Warhole, I think his name was, he said everyone would have 15 minutes of fame in their lifetime...the obsession with fame became greater and greater as technology made everyone more connected. 

Other people began to use words to try and patent life. Patent? Well it means someone owns something. 

Haha! I don't know if I'd say mom and I own you, but you belong to us. 

Well they said they could own seeds for those plants that fed everybody and other stuff like that. That wasn't that fair, and people got pretty upset. Well that all really started back with the printing press – people started to try to put their names on everything –whether it was theirs or not. 

Eventually we realized that our memory was collectively stored on this thing called the internet. It wasn't that long that we began to realize that language itself didn't have to be a barrier anymore so some people created the transpeak device and everybody could understand everyone...that's when the war happened. 

It wasn't like the game you played with grandpa. A lot of people died. We realized that fame fed the same greed that starved others, some people wanted everybody to be able to speak freely; others wanted to keep the barriers. So we ended up going where there were no barriers.

Why didn't they look at the stars? Well, I guess we were all blind to them until we were thrust upon them. But we're going back...now. 

Look up sweetie. See that light there. Count with me. One. Two. Three. That's it. 

Now, can you tell me why we call it Earth?"