Shock and Awe

The explorer emerged from a “worm hole” in space and began to orbit Earth, undetectable by human technology. Its mission, as programmed by the ancient race that sent it on its journey, was to find, catalogue and, if need be, assist the beings or civilizations that it found.  The ship, christened Gamma Five, was a super-computer carrying a minimal biologic crew of three.  The race that launched it had a philosophy of peace and benevolence that it wished to share with the younger races that it encountered in the galaxy. 

Gamma-Five found a world that was environmentally severely degraded and wracked by discord that had not as yet resulted in the use of nuclear weapons, but it seemed only a matter of time before a desperate country or group might resort to their use which would then rapidly cascade into a planet destroying hell.  

The biologic crew was appalled by what they found.  To gain an understanding of how these beings, who called themselves humans, arrived at such a point, Gamma-five began a review of recorded human history as well as the vast catalogue of literature and visual entertainment that presented a picture of their beliefs and philosophies.  It found that humans had throughout their history always fought and waged wars for domination—individual against individual, clan against clan, tribe against tribe, nation against nation, belief against belief, religion against religion.  Gamma Five concluded that if this trend continued, there could be only one outcome—a total destruction of the science and technology-based civilization and a return to the clan level on a severely damaged planet from which point the process would slowly repeat itself.   

The biologic aliens, Gammas A, B, and C, discussed this dismal prediction telepathically.

Gamma A asked, “These humans will not survive to attain adulthood if present conditions continue.  Should we intervene?”

Gamma B replied, “By our philosophy we must attempt to assist them and change the trajectory of their history.  That is also programmed into Gamma-Five’s mission mandate.”  

“The will to dominate and conquer seems so ingrained in their nature that I doubt that anything we can offer them as an inducement to change their ways will be enough to convince them,” said Gamma C.  “Gamma-Five, from your study of the humans, do you have a comment?”

“I agree with Gamma C,” said Gamma Five.  “Even when their sages or prophets preached peace,  tolerance, and humanhood, their teachings became quickly subverted by their followers who either tried to force their beliefs on others who did not agree or perverted the meaning of what had been taught to suit selfish purposes.”

“You feel then, Gamma Five, that just showing them that their actions are leading them into disaster would not alter what they are doing?” asked Gamma B, raising a questioning digital tentacle.

“I do,” said Gamma Five.  “They have been repeatedly warned of the folly of their actions or inactions by their fellows humans and yet their governing bodies do not listen.”

“Yet we cannot just leave and let them self-destruct,” Gamma A said.  “A quandary.”

“Gamma Five, from your study of humans, how could we best help them change course?” asked Gamma B.

“They are a paranoid, suspicious race. Composed of different factions constantly looking to dominate or to avoid being dominated.  Perhaps if this trait can be turned from being directed against each other to against a common foe, that might stop their internal strife long enough for them to mature”

“I see,” said Gamma C.  “Divert their attention to a threat external to themselves.  You mean such as we might represent if we reveal ourselves, given their paranoia!”

“Exactly,” said Gamma Five.  “Their popular entertainment has always harbored the possibility of encountering alien life forms and usually the aliens that they encounter are hostile.  Further evidence of their underlying nature.”

“But,” said Gamma A, waving a large tentacle for emphasis, “It is against our nature to actually threaten anyone.  To defend ourselves if need be, certainly.  If we use this tactic, we should appear to be a threat without actually being one.”

“To get their attention and announce our presence, we need to do something awe-inspiring that is totally beyond their understanding; to shock them out of their core beliefs.  And that the entire Earth experiences together,” said Gamma B.  “Thoughts, Gamma Five?”

——————————————————

And so in July the full moon was suddenly gone for ten minutes all around the Earth that night, replaced by a black hole in the night sky around which the stars still shone.  And the next day, the sun suddenly turned black in a blue sky at noon.  A message was heard telepathically by all humans:  “Greetings Earthlings.  The events of last night and today was our way of introducing ourselves to you.  We are an ancient race and in our travel through the galaxy we came upon your world, a once Edenic place that you are in the process of destroying.  This must stop!  We will not reveal ourselves to you at this time, but remember, we will be watching you!” 

The explorers hoped that the shock of their arrival and the message that they delivered would unify the humans and they prepared to continue their explorations, leaving behind an observation sentinel. 

In the aftermath of this unprecedented event, governments around the world convened to deal with the crisis, even as people prayed and rioted, took to their survival shelters and raided gun shops. 

—————————————————————

The president of the United States called an emergency meeting of his cabinet, senior military, and key scientific advisors.

“I’ve declared martial law to cope with the panic and riots,” said the president, “that I’ll lift once we have some answers for the public.  First, do these aliens pose an immediate threat to us?  General?”

“Not an immediate threat in our opinion,” the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs answered, “Otherwise they would have just invaded without this magic show.  I mean my God, we can’t even detect them!  Longer term?  We don’t have enough information.”

The vice president said, “I agree.  They said ‘at this time.’  So we don’t know what their long term plans are.  They also said, ‘we will be watching.’  a warning,an implied threat?”

“NASA has some interesting information that Houston received from the Space Station,” said the president.  “John?”

NASA’s head scientist spoke, “At the moment that the sun disappeared from our view, it was still very much visible to the Station.  But below them in the atmosphere they saw a shining sun-bright disc that traveled with the Earth’s rotation that would have been the diameter of the sun as seen from the ground.”

The president waited until the murmurs and exclamations died down.  “Do you have a hypothesis?”

“Other than whatever was done was done in Earth’s atmosphere, no.  The disc instantly disappeared as the sun-block ended.  The Station was able to quickly analyze the atmosphere in the area of the disc afterwards and found nothing.”

“Suggestions—anyone?” asked the president.

An atmospheric scientist raise her hand, “Could it be water vapor that was somehow controlled by the aliens to form the disc?”

“How would that work?” the president asked.

“I don’t know,” she replied.  “Perhaps a physicist or a chemist could comment.”

A physicist from Cal Tech raised his hand, “If the aliens did not introduce a substance to form the discs, and they used what was present in our atmosphere as the disc material, then water molecules would be the most likely candidate, as my colleague has suggested.  To do that is beyond our science, but probably not theirs.  The aliens would need to concentrate water molecules to form the disc, and then orient and coordinate each water molecule to reflect light in single direction away from Earth.”

  “You’re suggesting that in essence they created a giant mirror,” the president said.

“That could be one explanation of how they did it,” replied the physicist.

After a long pause while this thought sunk in, the Secretary of Defense asked, “ If they are able to do that, could they also form a concave disc that would concentrate the sun’s rays on a single point on earth?”

“Of course I don’t know for certain, but if they can do what they just did, I don’t see why not.”

“So—they could pose a very real threat to us, to all of us,” the Secretary said to the president.

The silence that followed was broken when the Chief of the Space Force mused, “If we could learn that technology we would immediately once more become the most powerful nation on earth.  To use the sun to fry or threaten to fry any adversary!”

“Like burning holes in leaves with a magnifying glass when we were kids,” said the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.  “Would it be possible to form a lens as well as a mirror?”

“If the aliens could do the one, it’s highly likely they could do the other,” replied the physicist.

——————————————————————

Other nations were not without capable scientists and ambitious generals who met and arrived at the same analysis.  And so the great Space mirror/lens race was on, despite the intentions of the aliens.