by Mike Combs
Copyright © 1996
Rented "The Arrival" last night. Pretty slick flick. Charlie Sheen was occasionally annoying when his husky whispers dipped down below the range of audibility, but his character was respectable, maybe even likable, and certainly worth rooting for. The suspense works, the science was plausible, and the movie has way-cool computer-generated aliens.
For those who haven't seen it yet, the plot is this: The aliens were among us in human form, and (as is always the case in such situations) were covertly trying to take us over. Specifically, they were dumping tons of CO into the atmosphere to speed up the Greenhouse Effect. It was their version of terraforming; 2
an attempt to make the Earth less suitable for us and more to their liking.
"We're not doing anything to you that you're not already doing to yourselves," one of the human-guised aliens sneeringly tells the hero. "All we're doing is accelerating the process. What it will take you a hundred years to do, we will do in ten."
This got me started thinking. Suppose I were a nasty alien from a technologically superior race, and was looking with alarm at this planet populated with homosap's who are breeding like mad, and growing more technologically powerful each day. If I had the ability to infiltrate their society and covertly mess with their culture, what would I do to try and keep them in their place (and out of my neighborhood)?
Encouraging the widespread acceptance of addictive drugs would be a good start. Numb those disturbingly-well-developed brains with chemicals. A clever strategy would be to redefine their language such that one of their most-widespread drugs was not even referred to as a drug, but by another word. This despite the fact it annihilates brain cells, lowers sensible inhibitions, destroys internal organs, kills millions on the highways, and wrecks families and careers.
Hey, we're off to a great start. Now we do everything we can to encourage paranoia. If we can get these carbon-based units to believe everything's controlled by a shadowy group, then they can take comfort that whenever they fail, it's not their fault. They can't get ahead because of The Conspiracy. This will be particularly effective with races which have been treated badly by others in the past, and will interfere with their struggle for equality.
Breaking the Earther's will is all well and good, but specifically I want them to stay out of space. I would obscure the immediate social and economic benefits of space travel, and suppress all knowledge of potential future benefits. The last thing I want is those big-ugly-bags-of-mostly-water tapping into the energy and resources of space, or proliferating in space habitats. I'd start a campaign which asks the question "Which are we going to spend our money on, space, or helping humanity?" as if the two issues weren't intimately-connected. I want to keep the Earth-Worms planet-bound; forever, if possible. But I don't just want them to give up on space. I want them to discard science and technology altogether. Knowledge is power, and I don't want them to have any. I would instill in their youth a contempt for science, such that they so torment those who choose a scientific education that few are willing to go that route. The fewer scientists those grubby hairless apes turn out, the better. I would encourage religious groups to go into the science classroom, and give battle over the teaching of basic scientific facts.
This is starting to work, but we're just not getting the message out effectively enough to suit me. I would look at a planet bathed in innumerable TV transmissions, and know exactly where my forces needed to come into play. Hollywood, here I come.
I would try to ensure that the entire population watches television, instead of reading books. Books can put profound ideas into their misshapen heads, television can only titillate. I would ramp-down their attention spans, until it was insufficient to let them learn anything of worth.
Manipulation of television could further our earlier plan for making science nerdy. Portray scientists as laughable, abnormal social misfits who can certainly cause lots of trouble, but can never participate in the solution. If anything, make them an impediment to saving humanity. This will have the pleasing effect of reducing the risk of real scientists going off and saving humanity. It would be most convenient if the human race would destroy itself and save us the bother, and scientific knowledge is the biggest threat to this scenario.
But it's that rapidly-advancing technology which might lead the-bipeds-with-the-big-heads to build starships. Portray technology as the cause of the problem, but never the fix. Since in all likelihood it's their large multinational corporations which would develop the technology to build those accursed starships, use television to promote the belief that corporations are the root-cause of all evil in their world instead of political avarice, religious and racial intolerance, and mental illness. As long as the dramas are more entertaining than their evening news, maybe the huemons will never learn any better.
My ideal, perfect TV program should really push that "hidden conspiracy" thing. It would have two investigative characters: One who gravitates to the most outlandish, paranormal explanation, and is almost invariably right; and one who prefers the most rational, scientific explanation, who is almost invariably wrong. Make the latter a poor advocate of the rationalist point of view. I would make the show so slickly-produced, and so genuinely entertaining, that even those opposed to the philosophy being advocated still feel impelled to watch. Maybe we'll get some converts.
This show would go a long way towards encouraging a belief in magic amongst these savages, which certainly works to my advantage. After all, when you enter into the midst of a primitive tribe, you only have to worry about the tribesmen armed with spears. The ones armed with voodoo are at the bottom of your list of worries.
But there would be one show I would hate above all others, and would utterly destroy if allowed to.
Star Trek.
Star Trek portrays a positive future in which their disgusting race has quit squabbling amongst themselves, and worked together to solve their global problems. Although its science bears little resemblance to reality, and it frequently descends into meaningless techno-babble, Star Trek is still dangerous because the characters' scientific knowledge is viewed as an asset, not a liability. On my ideal, perfect show, I'm able to weekly reinforce the idea that there's no use in investigating the universe. Try as you might, you can never solve the mystery because The Conspiracy won't let you. Each episode ends with the protagonists no closer to the truth than they ever were, only with more befuddling mysteries before them. I'm hoping that with enough seasons of this, Earthlings will eventually decide examining the universe is not even worth bothering. But then here's Roddenberry's evil spawn contradicting my message. Each episode ends with questions answered. Every week, mysteries yield to scientific investigations. The universe is ultimately a knowable place. I don't want the Terran Pigs to find out about that!
Worse, the characters in Star Trek frequently use technology to solve problems and to help people. This is all in direct opposition to the message I'm getting out in every other show on the air. We can't stand for this.
Worst of all, the show provides a concrete vision of a tomorrow where humanity is cruising about the galaxy in starships. That's the absolute last thing we want. Whatever the Earth Scum can visualize, they can eventually create, if they want it badly enough.
But wait, maybe we could infiltrate Star Trek. Maybe we could arrange for an episode on Next Generation where it's revealed that Warp Drive damages space. This would bring the show more into alignment with the theme of my other shows: Technology can only hurt the natural world. Best to suppress it whenever possible.
I could arrange an episode of Voyager where a scientist has to surrender her rational view, and embrace a backward planet's mysticism in order to save the life of a dear friend. Maybe I can get one of the actors to direct that one; the fans love that.
The best move would be to invent a villainous race of grotesque half-men/half-machines. The message would be clear: Keep technology at arm's length, lest it transform you into a pasty zombie. The last thing I need is for these mildly-intelligent monkeys to hit on the idea of putting chips into their brains. The result might be a new, advanced form of intelligence capable of doing things neither man nor machine could accomplish alone. After all, such an intelligence could compete with my form of intelligence. Hey, "The Arrival" is right after all. Evil aliens wouldn't do anything to us that we aren't already doing to ourselves. This is news that should cause us great cheer.
"Are you crazy?" you ask. "Isn't this all terrible?"
Not really.
If there really was a more-advanced race of hateful aliens in our midst who wanted us out of the way, we would be screwed. Screwed the same way as the American Indians when Columbus and crew showed up. Screwed the same way as the Aztecs when Cortez and company arrived.
But if we are, after all, only doing it to ourselves, then at least we have a choice.