Side note: subterranean microbes play a large role in the plot of Stephen Baxterʼs science fiction novels Proxima (2013) and Ultima (2014). Iʼve yet to encounter such a story in which microbes are not only intelligent but are engaged in terraforming and communicating with an interstellar community of other similar planetary biomasses (albeït on geological time scales).
Side note: subterranean microbes play a large role in the plot of Stephen Baxterʼs science fiction novels Proxima (2013) and Ultima (2014). Iʼve yet to encounter such a story in which microbes are not only intelligent but are engaged in terraforming and communicating with an interstellar community of other similar planetary biomasses (albeït on geological time scales).