Earth Seven Page 2

  A monochromatic purgatory would be the fate for one quarter to one half of the universe unless we did exactly as McGee demanded and immediately. She could make the oscillations start again. That was her power. Poof, you’re gone. Poof, maybe I am too. Who gets sent to the nothingness? Nobody knows. It’s random. However it is controlled by the Improbable, the First McGee and she gets a pass from an eternity of contemplating the blueness of it all.

  So in the most improbable moment of history the First McGee stepped forward. She described it as suddenly ‘looking at a small crack in the ground and for an instant seeing all the way to China’. At other times she described it as realizing she could ‘knock all the balls into the pockets from a single shot’. It was the rarest of rare events. An improbable at an extinction event? Imagine the odds of that. One in a number we don’t even have a name for, but is slightly less than infinity but looks a lot like infinity if you squint.

  As a result, for the first time we know of, the universe experienced an extinction threshold event and survived. The RESET weapon was never used. The quantum experiment it was based upon was disassembled and components dumped into a black hole.

  Previous iterations were not so lucky.

  Previous iterations?

  Yes. Previous iterations of the universe.

  As measured by the Moliere Rings, the barely visible radiographic dust at the edge of the universe, we are not the first version of existence. I am required by law and license to always tell the truth. You can count on this.

  We’re not the second, third or fourth iteration either. Not the tenth, fiftieth of even hundredth. No, we’re not even in the first thousand times the universe has existed. The concept of time dissolves when considered from a large enough vista. Just imagine the time between iterations of the universe, perhaps billions of years of nothingness before it starts again.

  Officially, as calculated by the Physics Department and certified as true by the History Department, we are the longest surviving version of the universe thus far. We are also the 1,143rd version.

  All the previous versions made the same mistake, the exact same mistake. Hence the Moliere Rings we can count. They used RESET. The First McGee stopped us from using it by controlling a different crisis, a crisis that says a lot about the very nature of our existence and it is not good. There may be evidence that the universe is a computer simulation. I know this is a lot so let me see if I can makes sense of it for you.

  Think of it like this. You are flipping a coin again and again. You expect it to come out either heads or tails. Heads the good guys destroy the universe because they are losing the war and don’t want to become slaves. Or tails the bad guys do it because they are losing the war or maybe just for fun because that is what bad guys do. Either way, it’s turned out like that every time before. All 1,142 times that has been the outcome. Nothingness. All mass removed from the universe.

  But this one time the First McGee got the coin to land precariously on its edge. Highly improbable but still within the universe of possible outcomes. That gave her control of the outcome because she could completely screw up 25 to 50% of everything by sending it to monochromatic eternity. And with it she gained control of the universe or at least she told us she had control. With control she demanded change. A universe desperate for survival and teetering on the edge of nothingness agreed.

  Are you really willing to risk a monochromatic eternity? Even if it’s purple? You don’t get to choose the color.

  Yes, we changed. It was necessary to survive. And she gave us no choice. The oscillations between existence and non-existence were growing in size and she had the switch literally in the palm of her hand.

  In what became known as the First Three Principles, the universe was rebuilt upon a new foundation. Granted there were many more principles to follow. Once you start making rules it’s kind of hard to stop. But she started with three simple principles.

  Abolition of all forms of slavery

  Life is sacred

  Immediate ceasefire followed by demilitarization

  A short list. Sounds simple, doesn’t it?

  It’s not.

  Remember economic slavery? Debt is one form of economic slavery. Abolition of all debt. Not that simple is it? It caused much upheaval. Markets crashed. Many people complained but many, many more were happy. Spontaneous parties erupted across the universe when people finally understood all debts were forgiven. Commerce temporarily came to a halt as all accounts were settled and finally restarted out of necessity.

  Life is sacred? Also not so simple. Forget the death penalty, war and abortion. You’re thinking local. Let’s take it to a wider level. What am I talking about?

  Out among the stars we’re all vegetarians. Seriously, I’m not kidding. If you think it is ridiculous let me point out just one possible outcome.

  How would you like to find out that humans are particularly tasty in a nice white sauce? Perhaps it’s your legs that everyone loves. You are great on the BBQ. Perhaps it’s your butt cheeks flash fried before drenched in a wine sauce. Maybe you are near perfection when sliced thin and put on a pizza. Imagine if your toes were a crunchy delicacy for another species. Earth would become a farm and you’d all be the livestock. Not my preferred outcome for anyone. I hope you agree.

  So rather than find out how tender and succulent we all are to each other, we take it out on defenseless plant life.

  The change to a plant only diet was immediate and brutal and involved all intelligent species. Planets in quarantine are exempt from the rules. Why bother, you’re not expected to survive anyway.

  Many galaxies had a hard time with gastric distress at first. It was one of the catalysts for development of the Remedium, our portable health partner. Imagine perfect health from a machine that fits in the palm of your hand. All because the planet Driffor smelled horrible for almost one full year. I can confirm that the rumors that you could smell Driffor from space are false. This assumes the area beyond planetary atmosphere as space.

  Eventually digestive systems recalibrated and livestock was set free. There were complaints, lots of them. But the First McGee promised to grind up the bodies of meat eaters and feed them to whatever animals they had eaten in violation of the ban. This quickly brought about compliance and many breakthroughs in laboratory grown animal substitutes.

  Prior to issuing the First Three Principles the First McGee was not a vegetarian. It was not easy on her either as she suffered acute gastric distress when she moved to a plant-based diet. As is often the case many ingest too much fiber during the transition period and as a result spend hours on the toilet.

  Of the Three Principles the easiest to understand and implement was demilitarization. Let’s face it, if you can blow up the planet a thousand times over, it is just a matter of time before a megalomaniac gets control of the weapons and lets them fly.

  As someone who has studied your history via our on-ground visualization program I can point out seven times when planetary destruction was within one Earth hour of happening. Four times it was a technical error. Twice it was human error. The first time it was an unfortunate coffee spill. But human intervention was required each time to stop it from happening.

  Weapons are some of the most closely tracked objects in the universe. We know where to find them to decommission them. First there was an immediate cease-fire. Then we formed the commission on decommissioning.

  So if we’ve conquered our destructive demons, what’s left?

  Who runs everything?

  Who is the boss?

  In a word? Nobody.

  The universe is not really run by anyone or any group. It’s much too diverse for that. We all simply operate on the Principles of McGee, Volume One.

  However the cosmos is managed, although management might be too strong an idea. Think of it more as being nudged along in a general direction, like a child kicking a stone down a path, not sure exactly where it will go, but setting the d
irection. Again, in accordance with the Principles of McGee, Volume One.

  That is the function of the University of Centrum Kath. We nudge.

  Other will tell you that the universe is run by the University of Centrum Kath. Most believe that we do. The First McGee often spoke with fondness about her own time at university. She referred to it as the best years of her life and it became the basis for our current civilization. Because of this 93.17% of the population think we run everything.

  But none of them are required by law and license to always be truthful, like historians. A historian would never say the universe is run by the University of Centrum Kath. We know better. In order to run the universe it would require a higher level of success than the university has ever achieved. That is the state of things.

  As for the history I am sharing with you, it is necessary to start in the past to understand how the Crisis on Earth Seven began.

  21.94563 years ago (Atomic Standard)

  Earth Seven

  Allor and Roan walked down the trail high above the river. They planned to cross at the rope bridge approximately half a kilometer further along the trail. The two boys looked down the steep cliff into the river. The water was rushing down the gorge, frothing as it hit the many rocks in the river.

  “Buno is lying,” said Roan. “No chance he could survive a jump from up here.”

  “I don’t know,” replied Allor, “maybe with the right combination of luck,” said the handsome younger boy with the dark eyes and jet-black hair.

  “No way. Even if he missed the rocks when he entered the water, he would have been smashed against them and killed within seconds,” said Roan emphatically. “The shit from his ass comes out of his mouth.”

  “You may be right,” said Allor as he tossed a wooden stick down into the torrent below. It hit and was immediately sucked into a vortex just to pop up a moment later on a collision course with a sizable gray-pink boulder. It hit hard and broke against the massive stone.

  “I can volunteer next year,” said Roan.

  “That’s great. What will you do?” asked Allor with a sparkle in his eyes. He kicked a small stone over the edge of the trail watching it disappear as it fell into the river below.

  “Rope harvest and tending, probably. That’s where they start most of us.”

  “But it’s outside, and fun,” replied Allor.

  “Hot, sweaty work with long, sharp tools to cut down the giant plants. Then drag them to the wagon. I am beginning to wonder if this is a smart idea at all,” replied Roan with a smile and in the voice of his grandfather as well as an affectation of the old man’s bent way of walking.

  “Its important work,” replied Allor. “If it’s not done, we can’t go to the Toggis plateau except by the long way. Imagine no more honey. Or flying fish?”

  “I once ate flying fish fourteen days in a row when our family went on the hunt. My uncle sets up trading for the hunters, and we sent him everything we took from the herd.”

  “You do the kill prayers?”

  “Sure did,” replied Roan. “Even let me lead them sometimes. Imagine that, all those brave hunters gathered around the fire and the only ones they wanted to hear talk were the children. It was like they were sick from all the killing.”

  “But how was the fish?” asked Allor.

  “The softest most wonderful taste ever. And with the herbs from the coast, it becomes so sweet. Every night I went to the fish fire. The men cooking were friendly and happy to see me. They teased the men at the other fires because I would never go to any fire but theirs.”

  “When they have the best, it makes sense,” replied Allor.

  They rounded the curve on the trail carved into the side of the mountain. Ahead, they could see the huge timbers and ropes of the bridge. The broad wood cantilevered out of the ground and nestled with others at their lashings that held them back from a steep fall into the river below. Roan smiled when he saw it. His father had helped rebuild this bridge two years ago.

  “Why didn’t they run them to the Toggis this year?” Allor asked. He picked up a rock, tossing it up twice into the air to gauge the weight and feel before hurling it well past the bridge then arcing downwards into the river below.

  “You’re the only person I know that can do that,” said Roan.

  “I know,” replied the younger boy.

  Allor had fallen out of a tree a year earlier. Once he healed from the accident, he discovered that he was able to throw stones remarkable distances. But only a few times before his shoulder would start hurting. Still, it was something he could do that no one else could, and this made the young boy happy as well as making him feel special.

  He would daydream of a world where it was the most needed skill on the planet and vital to prevent a catastrophe from happening. Because of his ability and the numerous times he had saved the people of the Confederation, he was made king over all lands and peoples.

  His daydream was destroyed a few weeks ago when Roan told him that the Confederation doesn’t permit kings. Allor was annoyed. He had to reimagine his entire dream story from the beginning again, this time as an emperor. But he didn’t share his thoughts with Roan.

  “If they run the herds into the Toggis again, it will be too much for the grasslands,” said Roan. “Two years is all it can support before we have to leave it to grow back for a year.”

  “Noril coast is pretty,” said Allor. “Supposed to have flowers you can eat. And sweet too.”

  “Yeah, can’t wait until I get to go hunting there,” said Roan.

  They were about fifty meters from the bridge when they saw a brilliant light far off in the sky. It was unlike anything they had seen before, brighter than even the brightest star. Its brightness rivaled the sun and it was coming towards them.

  Allor looked at his older friend. “I’m scared,” he said.

  “The cave over there,” said Roan, pushing Allor towards the hand-cut cave meant for shelter from severe weather. As they scrambled to the cave, they heard a loud high-pitched screech getting closer and louder. As soon as they were inside, they turned around just in time to see a dazzling light flash by them heading along the ravine. Almost immediately there was a large explosion, and the ground shook under their feet. For a moment they were scared the cave would collapse when a few bits of rock fell to the ground. Then silence. No birds, no other animal sounds, no wind in the trees. Complete eerie silence.

  They stayed in the cave for a long time before they summoned the courage to step outside. They moved with bodies that pushed out from the cave but with feet at the ready to take them back in an instant. Roan walked out the furthest and looked down the ravine and at the river. On the walls of the valley were cuts, substantial deep cuts, as if a giant had stumbled down the canyon drunk on Semu tea and had broken off boulders as it stumbled from side to side.

  Roan pointed further down into the chasm.

  “Look there,” he said. “See the steam rising from the water, way down there?”

  “Yeah,” said Allor excitedly. “I know how to get down there,” he added.

  The path down was long. It took almost an hour for them to reach the shore of the river below. The trail was seldom used as evidenced by the overgrowth of large weeds, bushes and fallen limbs. The sun was high in the sky and the boys were sweating when they finally stood on the bank looking in wonder at the river. In the water was a long, fat and round cylinder that was shiny and gray. At one end there was an orange glow like fire. This was the reason for the steam rising out of the river. They stood watching the water boil in a small circle surrounding the tube.

  Allor was the first to see it. He pointed to the large group of fallen rocks. There were a few trees that were also pulled out of the ground and blended in with the collapsed rocks.

  “Let’s go,” said Roan.

  “I’m hungry,” said Allor. “I need to eat first.”

  Allor had been sickly for most of his early
life. It was only after his mother met a woman who studied food that Allor’s health began to improve. Key to his improvement were small meals every few hours and less bread.

  The two boys sat on the rocks in front of the crash site and quickly ate their food.

  “I bet it’s a falling star,” said Roan.

  “What else could it be?” replied Allor.

  “But what, what if it’s…” said Roan, hesitating, as if mentioning something horrible and evil, “...what if it’s Ceros whose come back,” he finished with a forced laugh. Allor started laughing too.

  Here you might want to know a bit about the Cult of Ceros. They believed that one day their prophet Ceros would return. He was last seen about 500 years ago when he traveled the land telling everyone who would listen that it would be really nice if they could all be really nice to one another. His message was simple. Don’t be a dick! This is not an uncommon message across sentient history, even your history on Earth Five.

  Because of his message of kindness, many hated Ceros. Some people take comfort in being disagreeable, their mouths pre-formed for the word ‘no,’ and their minds pre-set to the position of ‘against.’ It seemed apparent that those that hated Ceros were dicks, dicks that refused to change.

  But many adored him for it and became his followers. They found some kind of sense in it. If nothing else they understood that there was greater efficiency of accomplishment without constant barriers from sourpusses. In his time, Ceros helped many people become better than they thought they could be. And plenty of satellite surveillance of him indicates he was indeed a delightful person. I’ve watched it myself as part of my coursework at the university.