Turns out the global warming crowd was right, but for entirely the wrong reason. Truth of the matter is it never had anything to do with carbon dioxide or greenhouse effects or any of that crap. It was just the engine coming on-line.
All I remember is one minute I was sitting there on the couch, snarfin’ a bag of Doritos and watching the game on ESPN. Next thing I know, one of those Breaking News things comes marching across my screen just as Bagwell is about to come up to bat with the bases loaded and only one out. This had better be damned good, I’m thinking, but I honestly expected it to be just another plane crash, or civil war in Botswana, or some other crisis about which I could care diddly-shit. Well, for a change they came up with one that even I found captivating and relevant.
The announcer (looking extremely serious) says that in thirty seconds we will cut to an emergency press conference co-hosted by the leaders of the U.S., England, China, and Russia. Sounds like pretty important stuff I’m thinking – and thirty seconds is just enough time for me to grab another beer.
Next thing I know I’m watching the president on TV, and he’s got this kinda dazed and confused look on his face, which is weird, because he always seemed to have it pretty much together in the past. Here’s my best recollection of what he had to say:
“My fellow Americans, and our friends around the globe – we come to you this evening to share some altogether astonishing information – something that has profound implications for everyone on this planet. The first extraordinary development – and there are several – is that we have, for the first time in the history of humanity, spent the past several days engaged in steady, clear, and meaningful communication with an extraterrestrial race of beings. This race calls itself the Abrado, and they inhabit a system of planets encircling a star that is approximately sixty-five light years from our own.” He paused briefly and reached for a sip of water. It looked to me as though his hand shook a bit as he set the glass back down on the table.
“As astonishing as this development is, it is only the beginning of a story that will affect each and every one of us in the coming days. Many of mankind’s oldest and greatest questions have been answered in the past week, including where we came from, why we are here, and what our future holds. Here is a brief summary of the facts as they have been explained by our Abrado liaison.”
“The planet Earth is a little over two thousand years old. Neither the creationist nor evolutionary theories that have captured the popular debate for the past couple of centuries even comes close to explaining the true origins of our people. In fact, Earth was deliberately placed here in orbit around our sun, roughly around the time we equate to Christ’s life.” He paused for a moment, glancing off-camera uncertainly. With the tiniest of nods, he again faced forward, wetting his lips before continuing.
“It would be more accurate to say that the earth was flown here. Turns out our planet is actually an extremely large interstellar vessel, fabricated by the Abrado and navigated to this spot in our solar system as part of an elaborate scientific experiment. Indeed, many of the artifacts and documents over which we have debated, experimented, and fought countless wars, were simply installed on the planet during its construction as parts of the experiment. These include everything from dinosaur bones and Egyptian relics to the Dead Sea scrolls and original texts of the Bible. None of it was real – at least not in the sense that we have believed it to be so. The only reality is what civilization has achieved in the past two thousand years.”
Son-of-a-bitch, I thought. We’re nothing but a goddamned ant colony. Then a bizarre thought occurred to me, in that strange sort of non-sequitur way – I wonder if Bagwell is watching this, or is the stupid ballgame still going on?
“I should also point out,” continued the president, “the Abrado have indicated that we are only one such experimental colony in a collection of approximately 350 similar installations around our galaxy. We have not yet engaged in detailed conversations with our liaison about the purpose of our experiment, although it seems to have been primarily concerned with the development of civilizations and societal interactions. Apparently this all has to do with their own future colonization efforts – how many people to put in one place, how they ought to be juxtaposed, that sort of thing. So those are the short answers to where we came from and why we’re here. But as astonishing as these answers may be, the truly awesome part is the answer to the question – so what happens now?”
He paused again, reached again for his water glass, and loosened his tie, all while glancing briefly down at his notes.
“Let me begin to address this question by first observing that the debate of the past few decades on the subject of global warming is not only now irrelevant, it is also unequivocally solved. We have, of course, known for a century or more that the core of the earth is comprised of molten rock and metal. What we did not know is that this material is simply the core of the engine that brought us here, and that it has been, if you like, idling ever since our arrival. The atmospheric warming observed by scientists over the past fifty years or so is very real, but it has nothing at all to do with anything mankind has done. It is simply a by-product of the engine beginning to warm up again after two thousand years. All of which is a round-about way of saying that we – every last one of us – will shortly be returning from whence we came.”
“The Abrado have indicated that the acceleration of Antarctic ice cap melting that has been in the news lately is nothing more than the slow uncovering of what is essentially the exhaust nozzle for the ship. They have also stated that they expect the engine to require at least another full year to achieve the necessary operating temperature, during which the Antarctic ‘plug’ as they call it, will be blown free. Fortunately, this will have no demonstrable effect on earth’s ocean levels, as the great majority of material will simply be vaporized or expelled into open space.”
“Following that event, our planet – our home – will begin accelerating out of solar orbit and toward the Abrado system. This will be a very long journey, one whose conclusion none of us talking tonight will survive to see. Once it gets up to full speed, which will require approximately three years, earth’s maximum interstellar velocity will be around sixty percent of the speed of light, meaning that the journey will take something like a hundred and ten years. Thus, with a little luck, perhaps your grandchildren will live to meet our original creators.”
“There are, I am sure, a tremendous number of questions and concerns that will arise now and in the coming days, and all I’ve given you is the extremely high-level picture of what we know at this point. We will be happy to attempt to answer any questions you might have at this time, although there is every likelihood that we will not know the answers.”
After what seemed an interminable pause, nearly every reporter in the room simultaneously shot up their hands and began shouting for attention. The president did a quick scan and pointed to a reporter from the San Francisco Chronicle.
“Mr. President, how exactly are we able to hold discussions with a civilization that is sixty five light years away?”
“Well, I’m no scientist,” the president responded, “but that one’s easy, if surprising. One of their vessels is, as we speak, parked in orbit approximately four hundred miles above us. They arrived in the vicinity of earth about four days ago and initiated dialog with us shortly thereafter. I should add that we expect to engage in face-to-face conversation sometime within the coming week.”
There ensued another flurry of hands and shouts, followed by a more technical question.
“Sir, how exactly can the inhabitants of earth survive more than a hundred years in deep space without the heat and light of the sun?”
“I’m going to defer to one of our newly appointed scientific experts for the answer to that one,” replied the president. “Allow me to introduce Dr. Marcus Singer from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at Cal Tech.”
The camera swung slightly to the left, coming to rest on a bearded elderly man sitting at a desk with a microphone before him – a man clearly unused to talking into television cameras. He looked extraordinarily nervous, and the magnitude of the subject matter wasn’t helping.
“Well…” he began, “this is a question that has created a good deal of dialog between us and the Abrado. The answer sounds deceptively simple, but I have to admit that we are taking this one somewhat on faith, although their explanation sounds remarkably feasible, given sufficient scale and resources. There are two principal things we need the sun for – heat and light. Both of these challenges have been addressed separately by the Abrado. First, the subject of heat – this one is remarkably simple actually, in fact, I would say elegant. It works rather like a co-generating power plant at a factory. Because our atmosphere is actually an extremely effective insulating layer, and will continue to be so, without any damaging effect from the absence of the sun, all that is required is for the central core engine to divert a very small portion of its heat to the earth’s surface. In essence, we’ll all be heated geothermally.”
“The light problem is a good bit trickier, although just as feasible in concept. Not only does the core engine generate tremendous heat, it also creates a good bit of light, using essentially the same thermonuclear fusion process as our sun. We just need a way of getting it to the outside and evenly distributed around the earth’s surface. That, aside from direct communication, is the primary reason why the Abrado needed to come here now, a year before we embark. Their vessel is extremely massive, and its principal cargo comprises a large number of satellites designed to act as reflectors of the light generated inside the planet. By positioning a network of roughly five hundred such satellites at an altitude of forty thousand miles, in an array spanning only one hemisphere, they should be able to effectively replicate the day and night cycle to which we have all become rather accustomed. The earth will continue to rotate about its polar axis throughout the journey, an effect allowed by using the South Pole as the engine’s thrust line. The Abrado will spend the next six months or so deploying and adjusting the satellite network. Best we can tell, the sky during the day will look much like it does today, except that there will be no single point light source.”
Singer paused momentarily, unsure how much additional detail he should go into. He stared out over the sea of waving hands and shouting reporters, and only vaguely heard the follow-up question from another reporter.
“Mr. President, exactly how much say do we have in this process?”
“Speaking frankly,” the president replied, “none at all. The Abrado have been decent about trying to tell us what’s going on, but they have also made it clear that we are just along for the ride. Of course, the obvious follow-up question to yours would be what’s going to happen to us once we – or more accurately, our descendants – arrive. The answer is we have no idea, and so far they haven’t chosen to share that information with us. What I can say, however….”
And so on it went like that for another ten minutes or so, with lots of reporters asking questions that no one had answers for, and everyone getting pretty worked up about the whole thing. Somewhere along the line the questions started getting kind of repetitive, so I just got up and grabbed another beer. I tried surfing around a little bit with the remote, but pretty much every channel was showing the press conference, which I suppose was understandable given the circumstances. After about five minutes of flipping, I gave up and went back to ESPN just as they were wrapping up the special report. The announcer closed by saying something about how there would be a more in-depth program later tonight covering the whole situation. Then he said “We now return you to your regular program.” and that was that…
Well goddamned if they weren’t still playing the ballgame – Chicago now leading by two runs, bottom of the seventh. I guess I figured if I can’t change what’s going to happen and it won’t have any real direct effect on my life, why get all agitated about it? Anyway, I’m sure there’ll be plenty of discussions, articles, talk show interviews, and whatnot on the subject in the coming days. Hell we might even get to see one of the aliens on Larry King or the cover of TIME magazine before it’s all over. In the meantime, life, as they say, goes on.