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Prime Contact
(c) @JJMarmite
Prime Contact was the highest grossing entertainment ‘Concept’ the world had ever seen, and it’s makers were very sure that everyone remembers that it was a ‘Concept’, and not a show. A show would be something lesser, something pedestrian; Prime Contact was more like a way of life. At least, that’s how it was marketed at the time. History has shown that to be the case.
Once all space exploration had been privatized, the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence practically dropped off the map. It had been said beforehand that private-investment would keep the search going, but this was quickly proven to be the fluffiest of wishful thinking.
Most every money-making venture that was going on in the depths of space felt that it could do just as well if not better without any pesky aliens gumming up the works, and so actively searching for them was seen as counter-productive. The extraction of resources and the operation of tourism worked far better without objecting natives getting in the way, it was felt.
Only the entertainment industry truly saw the potential to be gained from finding other life and so Avarice Entertainment International (AEI as it was proudly known) – the most prestigious and well-respected of all media conglomerates (indeed, the only one left after it had merged with every competitor) – bought up all of SETI’s resources and equipment for a pound at auction and immediately set to work.
Buoyed and invigorated in the way that an organization can only truly be after an enormously bulging investment of capital, SETI surged to work as never before; bristling with an influx of exciting new talent and with a legitimate drive and definite goal. In barely no time at all they were spewing out the most advanced unmanned probes that mankind had ever seen, scattering them across the heavens in the search for life while AEI set to work on Phase Two of their grand scheme.
Months of complete and utter silence went by – space, it seemed at first, was devoid of anything even remotely useful to them as the probes sent back report after report of lifeless rocks and gas-giants. Those months soon turned to years with still no sign in sight of what they were looking for. AEI became the laughing stock at the various glamourous money-balls and money-galas that their executives attended but still their CEO – the honourable and semi-immortal Mr. Red – could not be swayed. Even when his entire board committed ritual suicide in a desperate attempt to sway him from his grandiose course of action he did not demur for even a moment.
This wasn’t just about making money, and he knew that. It was about making an enormous amount of money and also creating a legacy that would stand the test of time. He had read the ancient secrets of ‘investing’ and ‘planning for the future’ along with such blasphemous notions as ‘expecting a return in the long-term’ and he put his secret knowledge to full use in his direction of the company, his actions seeming inscrutable and incomprehensible to his contemporaries.
And, of course, his stubbornness eventually paid off.
One can only imagine the jubilation there must have been in SETI Command – now renamed ‘Avarice Entertainment Interstellar Entertainment Division’ or AEIED – when the first reports came back revealing that an Earth-like planet had been discovered and that it contained life of sufficient similarity for the next stage of the scheme to be viable. The probe was set to remain in orbit to scan and absorb all it could from below while the Second Phase was launched; advanced Flat-Space drives (a recent addition taken as a prize in a corporate firefight) would see it there within weeks, long enough for AEIED to learn all it needed to learn.
The planet was nicknamed ‘The Set’ (official Avarice Entertainment International designation: LV-426) and extensive observation of its surface and its natives proved everything that could have been hoped for and more besides. Its inhabitants were sufficiently analogous to humanity to be practically identical, though in a stage of development roughly similar to the early to mid medieval period.
This was so perfect a set of circumstances that Mr. Red very nearly wet himself out of pure joy. Several of his closest confidents and cronies had less luck with their bladder control, but such accidents were acceptable when emotions were running this high. So many champagne bottles were uncorked that one unlucky intern lost an eye, and at least two people were hospitalized from carbon-dioxide exposure. Good times were had by all regardless.
Everyone waited with bated breath for the second phase to begin; the enormous and vastly expensive Second Phase Probe emerging from Flat-Space a little ahead of schedule to rapturous applause back at AEIED. Already television networking managers were being massaged and plied with promises of the most thrilling entertainment event they or anyone they’d ever know would get to witness. An entirely new channel was forged; millions of viewers glued to sets displaying only a blank screen such was their desire to see what was being promised to them.
The Second Phase probe arrived in orbit around The Set exactly on time and started its pre-programmed tasks. It elegantly split along its seams, separating into its various components which began to descend through the atmosphere of The Set like so many fiery comets. The natives – awestruck by the sight – fled to their leaders for guidance but their kings and queens were just as dumbfounded as their subjects, unable to do anything but stare upwards as the blazing objects soared overhead.
Meanwhile, the Second Phrase probe busily seeded billions of cameras across the planet, ensuring good angles on every possible scene. The tiny, almost microscopic machines flew hither and thither, viewing everything and sending it back through their relay-hubs back to the master-hub which still hung in orbit, broadcasting everything back home on a super-fast tight-band connection. Those at AEIED watched with hungry eyes, knowing what would come next and eagerly awaiting it. Plastic sheeting had to be pulled over the consoles to stop the drool from interfering with the equipment, such was their desire.
The Second Phase probe’s remaining sections split further, a different section landing in what the research had deduced where the most prominent kingdoms and landmasses on the planet. Landing with earth-splitting force they struck deep, burrowing and cracking through rock and becoming as immovable as mountains. Glowering, ominous obelisks of hardened steel and high-technology they awaited the approach of the natives, who did not disappoint, flocking to the probe-sections in droves.
At this point, it started being televised, as this was the start of the action. The viewing public had already been worked into a frenzy by a tightly-executed marketing campaign that had seen remarkably few casualties given its quality. The teeming mass of humanity crowded around their eight-by-fourteen tele-walls to watch the next great event in human history – first contact with another alien species via the medium of high-calibre entertainment.
While the probe in orbit had done a fine job of analyzing from above, it had been unable to get an up-close look at the natives. The obelisks had no such problems – the first to reach it was dragged screaming into its Interaction Aperture and instantaneously dissected and examined, the fine detail of its body chemistry immediately stored and spread across the network for greater use. Activating in built meme-broadcasters – the kind normally reserved for forcing the unwary and unprepared to purchase products they didn’t truly want - the obelisks communicated with the terrified masses before them, speaking directly to their minds with the voice of an angry god.
They told the masses that they demanded tribute, and if they were not obliged then their wrath would be terrible. They told them that they required wood and iron, and in copious amounts. Filled with fear the masses did as they were told, bringing ton upon ton of lumber and iron and heaping it before the obelisks. Of course, their in-built matter-processors could make use of anything, but symbology was important – it heightened drama. Hoovering up the offerings the obelisks sat silent momentarily before spewing out arms and armour in abundance; swords, spears, shi
elds, chainmail, axes, bows and more besides – enough to arm a nation. Speaking again to the minds of the masses, each obelisk gave a clear and clarion command:
“Take up my weapons and go forth to slay all that may oppose you. Kill the followers of the false-obelisks and claim their land for your own. Raze their cities and plunder their riches, until only you, the rightful ones, rule!”
The masses could only obey. And so the wars began.
This was where most of the viewing public back on Earth agreed that the show started to get really good. The sheer amount of cameras meant that every battle could be viewed in glorious detail, with the media-consumer at home able to decide which angle suited their mood best. Most opted for screen-in-screen-in-screen-in-screen; overloading their senses and allowing them to drift happily into a daze. The early battles were bloodied, crazed affairs with each side assured of their victory as favoured servants of a higher power. Once it became clear that no-one side had a clear advantage over the other, things started to slow down slightly and the rather more thoughtful second season could begin.
Years had passed by this point – with many at home dying in front of their screens, refusing work, sleep or food if it meant having to abandon their viewing – and the obelisks had become part of the fabric of life on The Set. Cities had long since sprung up around them, great castles constructed next to them. The obelisks had narrowed their focus down to arbitrarily selected families, creating dynasties that ruled without question and who they would only communicate with.
Every so often the obelisks would start to communicate with other natives, telling them that it was they who were the true leaders chosen to rule over their people, leading to bloody internecine rivalry and warfare that the viewing public lapped up. The politicking was almost as satisfying as the bloodshed that invariably resulted. All the while, the weaponry was churned out, and it was advancing. Already the battlefields of The Set were thick with the smoke of gunpowder as batteries of mighty cannons exchanged fire with one another, ranks of musket-armed soldiers firing and dying in droves.
Meanwhile, hordes of writers deep in the bowels of AEI’s extensive Creation Suite toiled endlessly, experimenting with the possibly ways to escalate. They needed bigger and better spectacles to keep the viewers interested and argued ceaselessly over how best to do this. The guns grew bigger and bigger, open battlefields giving way to the churned and muddy hell of trench warfare as enormous howitzers spat shells the size of buses across miles of blasted wasteland, killing scores with each mighty detonation. On Earth, Prime Contact was declared to be an official religion, though no-one could remember asking for it to be.
At the obelisks secret insistence, dissent started to spread through the nation of The Set: rumours that the obelisks were not as benevolent as they purported to be. Those who expressed such sentiments were ruthlessly hunted down and punished, but their numbers were swelling and soon vicious civil war blossomed across the planet, every moment captured in glorious ultra-definition. Someone proposed broadcasting in 3D but was immediately shot through the lungs for making such a barbaric suggestion.
But then tragedy struck! Viewer numbers looked like they might dwindle. Even though it was reported that everyone on the planet was watching Prime Contact at all times – with some having had implants so they could watch it while in their sleep; a measure necessitated by health and safety concerns – it was feared that the audience could not grow anymore. Efforts to get people who had yet to be conceived to watch were proving frustrating, and so it was decided to draw the series to a close. The obelisks – sending out waves of morbid, doom-laden eschatology – started to produce weapons capable of the most untold destruction and the war-addled inhabitants of The Set did not hesitate to use them.
Huge chunks of the formerly pristine planet were blasted with huge blasts of radiation, fused to glass by the heat and rendered uninhabitable. Broadcasts became slightly trickier as the atmosphere was suffused with electromagnetic interference and a nuclear winter descended. The signal was boosted at the cost of many a tumour at AEI Broadcast Central so that the last, tortuous, heart-wrenching moments of life on The Set could be caught on ultra-extreme-close up; the choicest printed on t-shirts for posterity. Soon, there was nothing left to film.
There was pandemonium across earth. It was the end of a three-hundred year institution. The riots tore apart cities and millions were left bereft and gormless, unable to comprehend of a world without Prime Contact. Mr. Red – having been dead for a hundred and fifty years – was hastily dragged back to the land of the living and all the leaders of the world pleaded with him to commission a fresh series. Stroking his fleshless chin with skeletal hands he sat in contemplation for hours before finally nodding.
Yes, they could have first contact again. And this time, it would be even better.
My Sci-Fi - A Spotlight on @Nika_Yaya
I think that perhaps my initial face when @AngusEcrivain asked me to participate in the sci-fi smackdown was a little bit along the lines of "WTF?" I was not a sci-fi writer, and too be honest I don't think I knew what that even entailed. I took a glance at the Forbidden planet page, reading the carefully deconstructed styles of sci-fi and a sense of impending doom began to take over.
Fortunately for me a lack of ability to realize my limits, and quite possibly a death wish. So I wrote my first sci-fi, and found that I not only did it, I kind of enjoyed it. So much so that I continue even when there is no crown to be won.
Like The Tin Man, my newest escapade. Derived from an off kilter idea to warp the Wizard of OZ, I created a world torn apart by families determined to create better and badder ass soldiers for their territorial wars, totally oblivious to the real victims, the now underground inhabitants of the ruby red planet. Adding a twist to capture the remaining OZ character, The Tin Man centers on my favorite topic- Humanity.
It wasn't till after I made an effort to write Sci-Fi capable of standing along side the other writers involved in the smackdown *cough* Parishsp, *cough* Dan *cough* Gav *cough* Ash. cough cough, sorry, bit of sci-fi stuck in my throat. Any ways, being amongst such great writers and having to work so hard made me realize that I actually have appreciated quite a bit of sci-fi before, though I didn't really categorize it as such. 12 monkeys, Inception, the Matrix, and my personal favorite, WALL.E, all show the choices presented to humans and how our choices affect so much more than just ourselves. It shows how power relates to humanity, and how amazing and scary we can make our own world.
As for me, I think Sci-Fi has embedded itself in my mind, I may have to see a doctor for that, because now along with the romance and poli-sci that riddles my mind, I know am in the process of producing and posting a new version of sci-fi, a tale of how our world's created, and how death is but a passage into another life, all controlled by inhuman spirits. Death Dealers will hopefully be up soon, so stay tuned, the aliens have not finished with me yet :D
Phoenix Rising - A Review by @British_Beauty
~Air moves us
Fire transforms us
Water heals us
Darkness becomes us
Ice holds us
Earth grounds us~
Follow these six on their adventure to find freedom, family, and meaning to their lives.
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