PHILCO: Was that Friday, one-and-a-half billion years ago? 'Cuz I didn't get my copy of the Times that day!
VERONICA: A branch of the House of Archaeon--the old ones who established life on Earth four billion years ago--a branch of that dynasty, the Asgardarchaeotes, created an altogether new form of life through a process called endosymbiosis! They basically subsumed and enslaved purple non-sulpher bacteria that had learned how to produce energy from raw materials, whereas previously cells only survived by eating other cells!
VERONICA: A branch of the House of Archaeon--the old ones who established life on Earth four billion years ago--a branch of that dynasty, the Asgardarchaeotes, created an altogether new form of life through a process called endosymbiosis! They basically subsumed and enslaved purple non-sulpher bacteria that had learned how to produce energy from raw materials, whereas previously cells only survived by eating other cells!
VERONICA: Once an independent branch of the Tree of Life, this separate one-celled creature became an organelle called 'mitochondria' in the advanced cellular structure of the newly empowered Asgardarchaeons.
PHILCO: Now, come on, Veronica! You're talking about antediluvian, one-celled creatures as if they were in a drama straight out of the House of Plantagenet!
PHILCO: Now, come on, Veronica! You're talking about antediluvian, one-celled creatures as if they were in a drama straight out of the House of Plantagenet!
VERONICA: Look! We just saw how the human form appears to other, equally sophisticated forms of life on earth! Let's face it: our understanding is confined to a closet of senses that didn't evolve to see reality entire: only enough to survive. Humanity is clueless about life's essential narrative! Individual, one-celled organisms are connected in ways of which we have no understanding, and they behave like an ancient clan in a stately mansion, not as billions of drifting soap bubbles!
What I'm trying to tell you is that all life on Earth belongs to one of two families: the Archaeons or the Eukaryotes, descendants of the Asgardarchaeotes. So, yeah, one-and-a-half billion years ago it was a major revolution when the clan of Asgard went full-bore Prometheus and stuff, essentially bringing fire to the blind, anaerobic, bacterial masses!
What I'm trying to tell you is that all life on Earth belongs to one of two families: the Archaeons or the Eukaryotes, descendants of the Asgardarchaeotes. So, yeah, one-and-a-half billion years ago it was a major revolution when the clan of Asgard went full-bore Prometheus and stuff, essentially bringing fire to the blind, anaerobic, bacterial masses!
