“This is Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz of the Galactic Hyperspace Planning Council,” the voice continued. “As you will no doubt be aware, the plans for development of the outlying regions of the Galaxy require the building of a hyperstpatial express route through your star system, and regrettably your planet is one of those scheduled for demolition. The process will take slightly less than two of your Earth minutes. Thank you.”
“There’s no point in acting all surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display in your local planning department in Alpha Centauri for fifty of your Earth years, so you’ve had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and it’s far too late to start making a fuss about it now.”
About as much as watching my ant farm!
I think we’d have seen them already if ours was an interesting planet. I think we scare the hell out of them, so they don’t come around.
Puppies and kittens are cute. The human species is cute/funny to watch.
I was raised in an era when dogs were dogs and cats were cats....no one ran to the vet every time one of them sneezed...if real sick, they would walk off into the woods and go to ‘Rainbow Bridge’.
Dogs ran the neighborhoods and did their business, cats the same...I am NOT suggesting it was ‘better’, that is just the way it was and I do sort of like not having to ‘watch where you step’.
Now in some major cities the dogs are tethered and the owner/guardian walk them and pick up after them and am sure some stiff fines if you don’t follow that.
HOWEVER, now the people are doing their business where it is convenient etc etc.
Like J Seinfeld pointed out
If you are walking your dog and he takes a dump and you clean it up (as required) what are those Martians that just landed supposed to think and who do YOU think they would think was ‘in charge’?
Not any time soon, and perhaps not within a few hundred years, and perhaps not in a few thousand or a few million years, but....
In time, we will discover that....
THIS IS IT!!!
WE ARE THE ONLY INTELLIGENT LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE...
and perhaps the only life anywhere in the universe.
I would prefer that any aliens that watched us would think that we were “boring” - and not “delicious”.
Earth: Mostly harmless.
After fumbling with her chopsticks for a bit the alien known as the Guardian soon gave up and decided to switch to a fork for greater speed in allowing her to quickly consume the delicious cornucopia of Chinese food items. Samantha Carter gave her a serving of stir fry and dumplings, which of course the Guardian also ate enthusiastically.
The Guardian talked with her mouth full, “This is heavenly, even better than I ever imagined. These food items are all fresh?”
Carter swallowed. “I think so.”
“You must be a very wealthy person to afford all this.”
Carter chuckled, “Oh no. Everybody eats stuff like this.”
“Amazing. This food is seasonal?”
“No, you can buy it year around.”
“Then this meal is a miracle.”
“Really? How do you mean?”
“Just look at all this.” The Guardian pointed at her plate of stir fry with her fork. “The tomatoes, the peppers, and the shredded lettuce are summer crops; the dumplings are made of wheat, a fall crop; the meat is typically butchered in the winter when other food sources are not available; the shrimp comes from thousands of miles away. To provide all these fresh food items simultaneously year-round requires collecting them from opposite hemispheres of your planet using an incredibly fast and efficient worldwide transportation supply chain. The logistics must be mind-boggling to allow billions of people to eat foods of this kind daily.”
“Really? It seems pretty routine.”
“It is absolutely amazing to me.”
“Sara, isn’t your technology far more advanced than Earth’s? Your people have flying jumpers and hyperspace drives.”
“True, but we have nothing like your scale, your logistics. The worldwide effort required to create meals to feed billions like this routinely and at such minimal cost is truly a miracle.”
Carter made a small shrug, “Huh. I never thought of it like that to be honest.”
“Earth is indeed incredible.”
It was past midnight. The Guardian was alone in the guest bedroom. She was unable to sleep, gazing up at the ceiling of her bedroom, pondering everything that she had seen that evening.
During that short time she had seen only the barest glimpse of what Earth was like. It still seemed like a fantasy to her.
Earth was fascinating. It was incredible.
No, it was impossible.
No civilization should be able to survive that way, not on that scale, not for that long, not without immediately falling apart into a total anarchy of chaos, famine, and mass death.
Earth had no central government, no controlling authority. At least a half dozen nations owned civilization-destroying weapons that could be launched on a moments notice. And yet Earth’s humanity was happily fed and clothed in relative comfort, driving blissfully to and fro in their automobiles, watching silly TV shows, eating Chinese-takeout, all while living their lives with no awareness of just how incredible it all was.
Something or something had to be watching over this planet.
It was the only explanation.
Planets were rare. Planets with life were rarer still. Earth, the planet with the such an astounding quantity of intelligent life flourishing on such an astounding scale, was unique. It was the most amazing planet in the known universe.
Surely the Designer had to be watching this world with keen interest.
More than watching. Earth was impossibly stable. He had to be doing something, either directly or indirectly, to prevent such a miraculous planet from immediately self-destructing into total chaos and anarchy.
Her people had believed that the Designer was a high and remote entity who did not interfere or participate in his own Creation, indifferent to the suffering and yearnings of mere mortals.
But now she knew that they were wrong.
The evidence for it was right here. It was right under her feet. It was so obvious that a child could see it.
She remembered her conversation with Doctor Kurosawa:
“Doctor Kurosawa, your God not only interacts with you and interferes with his Creation, but according to your religious writings He actually injected himself into his Creation as a human being, to experience it all for himself? All because he cares for you?”
“Yes. Because He cares for us. He cares that much.”
“This is completely beyond me.”
She sighed. She continued to gaze up at the ceiling. Having now seen Earth first hand she began to understand. It was obvious to her now that He did indeed care for these people. He cared for them enough to create and sustain such an incredible world.
He was indeed interfering with His Creation, participating in it, interacting with it. Nothing else could explain a planet like Earth.
But how was He doing it?
What was the best way to interact with them?
Do it as one of them.
It made sense.
But why? What was the reason?
Was it simply because it made His interaction with them all the more precious? More special? Or was there something more to it than that?
She felt that there was something missing in her line of reasoning, something important.
Yes, something was missing. She couldn’t put her finger on it.
She kept on pondering the question until she gave up. Eventually she fell asleep.
“Might humans develop technology that can be used to destroy us?”
This earth is fabulous!
“Why is it that all of the instruments seeking intelligent life in the universe are pointed away from Earth?”
We are a backwater in the galaxy.