Babel, Babylon, and Beyond
by Corwyn Green
(1997)
And it came to pass that Peace and Love prevailed on Earth. There
was no war, no hunger, no disease. Only those who wanted to struggle did
so.
Countries retained their traditional cultures, languages, and
leaders, but the leaders didn't lead their countries. They met once a
month--or as needed--in one of the capitol cities of the world, choosing
cities alphabetically by country, to discuss the problems of their world.
Since there weren't many problems, these meetings didn't get long enough
to get boring. Everyone was only too glad to come and help their
neighboring countries in any way they could. Utopia had come to Earth.
Then the dolphins started talking. "Civilization at last!" said
the dolphins. "It's a very unexpected pleasure for us to welcome our
brothers and sisters of the air to our world--come play with us any time.
"We will teach you telepathy and magic. We did not teach it to you
before because we were afraid of another Atalantis--as mis-used magic was
responsible for it's loss. There are many more than one continent at stake
these days."
The New Agers, who had been tolerated but not respected even in
this enlightened age, felt vindicated. They said they forgave and blessed
everyone. Now that every conflict has been resolved, all faults forgiven,
it was time for our Brothers from the Stars to come...
And indeed, the Aliens came and declared that they will take half
the human race to the stars. But only half. They said that since
alphabetical order proved such a workable scheme for humans, that the
humans should divide themselves alphabetically, into countries A to L and
M to Z. But they left it to the humans to decide which half would to go to
the stars.
The Aliens said their spaceships could survive the Big Crunch and
the ensuing Big Bang, and they would let the space-heading humans use
those spaceships--they would give them immortality as a race, as well as
immortality for the individuals. The humans that stayed on Earth would not
have those privileges of course--their cultures would die when the Earth
falls into a cool red sun.
This was a problem, so naturally the leaders of the world met (on
Moon-colony City, as their alphabetical list dictated) to discuss it. But
instead of mingling, as was their custom, they unconsciously avoided
leaders from the other side of the alphabet. By the time the meeting
started, one side stood near one wall, the other side near the other wall.
They faced each other across a very symbolic distance.
"First of all, would anyone like to prove the nobler side by
volunteering to stay on Earth?" someone said.
Everyone held their breaths, waiting for the other side to
volunteer. "It is inevitable that they, being good Humans, would volunteer
to stay and then I will get to explore the galaxy," everyone thought.
"Why don't we all re-name our countries with something that starts
with A and then say the first half of the alphabet goes to the stars,"
said the American President.
"What if the Aliens ignore our name change and leave us stranded
on Earth?" Asked the leader of Zimbabwe.
"Wouldn't happen."
"Then put a 'Z' in front of your country's name and say the second
half of the alphabet is going to the stars."
"Zamerica!" exclaimed the outraged American, "Blasphemous! We have
a rich culture associated with that name--we would sooner be-head the Bald
Eagle!"
"But then you are proposing we do what you won't!"
"Peace! Gentlemen!" someone interrupted. "Let us first ask the
Aliens if they will accept such a solution."
The Aliens didn't.
So that was that. Half of them would have everything and half
would have nothing. They just had to decide which half.
The New Agers proposed that this was the test--that the ones who
volunteered to stay would be the ones the Aliens would take.
The leaders of the world debated a long time over this question:
whether the New Agers were right or not, whether volunteering to stay for
the purpose of going was corrupt and therefore invalid, or was it enough
for the Aliens that the volunteers put themselves at risk of staying?
Eventually, they got sick of debating and decided to flip a coin.
But by then, they didn't trust anyone to flip this coin, because everyone
belonged to some country or other and therefore had a side they wanted to
win. What if they subconsciously cheated in their own favor?
They could play a game, but what game? A race? There were Africans
who's ancestors hunted by running after a deer until the deer dropped from
exhaustion, picking up the deer and running back with it to their village.
Naturally, no one wanted to race them.
Baseball, the universal sport? "No", cried the Moon-colonist. Not
unless it was held on the moon--in which case they'd win every game, being
the only ones used to the lower gravity.
So people decided that all the games, including chess, would be
played--at once. Each game would count as one point, and the side of the
alphabet with the most points would win the stars. So Earth and it's space
colonies held an impromptu Olympics, a combination of summer and winter
games, and the first Olympics ever to be held outside it's traditional
four-year cycle. They scheduled this Olympics three months away and
departed peacefully, having solved their problem.
The first month was spent in excitement. The Olympics would be
big, beautiful, important. It would be the greatest endeavor Humanity had
undertaken in a century! The media talked about it. The people talked
about it. Even bathroom graffiti talked about it.
In the second month, one of the javelin throwers from the first
half of the alphabet mysteriously disappeared. The media dismissed the
event--considering how many athletes were scattered around the globe, it
was inevitable that at least one would have an accident and would need to
be replaced. The people doubted that it was an accident. The bathroom
graffiti cried "murder".
Then three javelin throwers from the second half of the alphabet
were found dead---one stabbed, one poisoned, and one drowned. The first
side officially apologized for the behavior of one or a few of it's
members and promised to punish the perpetrators of this crime. The second
side officially forgave the first side.
Then a small nuclear bomb exploded on a golf course where the
Armenian golfer--reputedly the best golfer in the world--was practicing.
The bomb killed the golfer and his troupe of makeup artists. Only the
golf-club caddie survived. Investigators concluded that the nuke was made
from radioactive materials taken from household nuclear-powered appliances
likes clocks, radios, calculators, and a novelty nuclear powered
eggbeater.
The Olympics was postponed a year--until the violence stopped and
the wrong- doers were punished.
But the violence never stopped and the wrong-doers, when they were
discovered, were hailed as heroes.
The chess players when into hiding. The American Football players
didn't and many of them died from poison in their beer or nuclear
exploding cigars which left their homes radioactive and uninhabitable.
The dolphins retreated to the deep, surfacing only in the center
of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and only when they absolutely had to.
But on the bright side, the New Age movement, which had lasted almost as
long as Christianity, quietly disappeared, proving the old cliche about
clouds and silver linings.
Political activists came out of the woodwork, claiming to know the
country/s responsible for the deaths and inciting people to violence in
the name of justice. Mobs attacked each other based on country of origin.
Mobs became official armies and the world rediscovered war. Countries
united (alphabetically) and the world rediscovered world war.
No one bothered to find out whether the first javelin thrower who
disappeared had been truly taken by the other side or if his disappearance
had other, non-political causes. At this point, everyone had forgotten the
javelin thrower in light of the millions of deaths each held the other
side responsible for.
The Aliens did not abandon Earth to its devices and vices. The
Aliens flitted back and forth around the planet, selling weapons to each
side and telling each side, "Whoever wins will be given the stars, but we
really want your side to win, which is why were giving you whatever
technology our Prime Directive permits us to give you. But we can't
give--we can only peacefully trade, so pay up."
Some of these Alien weapons mysteriously malfunctioned, and each
side, assuming the Aliens were on their side, suspected that humans from
the other side were responsible.
The war escalated. One of the Alien weapons turned all the open
water to poison. The side using the weapon had stored up a supply of water
for itself, while the other side had not, giving itself a slight advantage
as the other side had to recycle all things containing water.
The dolphins could not live in such water and surfaced, belly up,
in all the oceans of the world. Their human "brothers and sisters of the
air" didn't even report this event on the news--they didn't even report
all human casualties.
The side that had not collected water, collected a supply of
rain-water. Then it sent small masses of radioactive material into the sky
to poison the clouds. The clouds actually glowed at night as evidence of
the radioactive dust within them. The phrase "every cloud has a silver
lining" became literally true, but it lost it's optimistic overtones.
Naturally, humanity discovered spying and each side found
individuals willing to do it. Other individuals, who were too scared to go
and spy in enemy territory, would sell their own side's secrets to the
other side for temporary monetary or political gains.
But as spies and double-crossers increased in number and skill,
the information each side had about the other became more extensive and
accurate. Mutual misconceptions disappeared and the truth about the Alien
weapon trade came out.
People stopped suspecting each other and started suspecting the
Aliens.
Again--and for the first time in months--the leaders of the world
met to discuss their mutual problems.
Each side had combined human technology with Alien technology. At
first, they could not bring themselves to share their war technology with
each other, even though that was what they had come to do. But after much
debate, accusation, defense, and cross-accusation, they shared their
secrets with each other. Together, they created something that could
destroy all the life in the universe thrice over.
They also invented a way to protect the human population of Earth
from this weapon.
They constructed and fired that weapon. Mars died (again).
Moon-colony City had been told it was protected but it wasn't, so it died.
All life died except for Earth...and the Aliens. Apparently, using the
Alien's technology (even when combined with Earth's) against the Aliens
did not harm them.
As all life in the universe ceased to be except for the guilty
parities, leaving no one to dispute the rightness/wrongness of this act.
In effect, the humans collaborating with the aliens had invented the
indisputably perfect crime.
The war went on for aeons. In the course of the fighting, Earth
lost whatever innocence it had gained in it's Utopia age. Humans because
lean, mean, survival machines.
Finally, Humans won the war using the advantage they did not know
they had: their planet. Both sides had technology and space ships, but
humans could also leave those spaceships. Humans had only to wait while
the Aliens got severe cabin fever and died for a lack of a will to live.
Humans finally became what they always wanted to be--the only
intelligent beings in the universe.
Humans claimed the Alien spaceships as a prize of war. They opened
the ships and cleaned them out. Within one of them, in something the size
of a closet, they found a human skeleton. The skeleton was identified as
the Olympic javelin thrower who had mysteriously disappeared before the
Olympics that had never come.
The javelin thrower had been abducted by the Aliens all along.
Humans found out that the Aliens hadn't built the ships they were
using. The Aliens had been using the ships for two Big Crunch/Big Bang
cycles, while the ships themselves were much older than that. The ships
were immortal--they never broke, they never wore away with use. Everyone
agreed that this was impossible, yet everyone agreed that this was exactly
what the ships were.
By then, the time had come for the universe to collapse on itself.
The humans, in the Alien ships, were ready. The Aliens/human war had so
decimated the population that now all the surviving humans could fit on
the Aliens ships--there was no question of anyone staying behind.
The universe imploded and exploded, and life arose on the new
planets. The Humans in the immortal ships traveled from planet to planet.
They came, they saw, they conquered. They'd take a shore leave, re-stock
their ships, and leave a lifeless planet stripped of natural resources as
evidence of their passing. Sometimes they also left flags.
But the Humans in the Alien ships knew that their technology was
merely superior, not all-powerful, and therefore, they knew they could be
beaten by a lucky inferior. Humans did not want to risk encountering a
race of warriors capable of defeating them, so they only approached
planets which had been at peace for many generations.
The End
Main Page / List all stories / Top 5 Stories
Last modified: April 4, 2002