Humble Beginnings

by KA Hopkins

  I joined Marc in the ward room. He had just finished a beer and a small steak dinner. He rolled his eyes at all the plates I was carrying. “We are going to need a bigger fridge if you start eating three squares a day that size.”

  “It’s either eat or sit around naked in the sun for twelve hours.”

  “I’ll have Mother figure out where we can put an additional fridge.” With both of us in the room, Mother pulled up all the suspected alien collaborators at NSA, based upon the NSA Director’s interrogation and on what info Guide found regarding sudden changes in personal wealth and status. Cross-referencing the two sources provided a list of nearly 200 people at NSA that we were ninety-nine percent convinced were directly or indirectly working as alien collaborators.

  “Marc, how are we going to get ahead of this? We are looking at 200 different snatch jobs just for one agency. What about the CIA, FBI, Homeland Security, nuclear and other critical government organizations; not to mention state and federal politicians? Throw in the names of those running high tech corporations we got from the bigwig we dropped off at the Moon in place of my family and we’re talking thousands of suspected collaborators.”

  Marc replied, “Like any pest infestation, it is better to get at it sooner rather than later. Guide what are your thoughts on NSA?”

  Guide said, “NSA surveillance is the number one tool used by the alien forces to blackmail and influence the Global Elite. There is a strong probability, if you remove the aliens’ access to NSA, they will use everything in their power to try and regain control. I recommend we destroy NSA's surveillance capability to prevent future abuse by anyone. That said, the ability to scan and analyze nearly all worldwide communications would certainly help find other alien collaborators no matter where they’re hiding.”

  “Marc, if we want to influence the military, media, public figures or even heads of major corporations, NSA surveillance data gives us a pretty powerful blackmail tool. Everyone has something to hide which, when we find it, gives the leverage we need.” Omni pulled up a quote from Lord Acton for me, “Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.” The aliens had corrupted many great men who were coerced into many depraved acts against mankind; what was true 200 years ago was still true today.

  “So, how are we going to guarantee the surveillance power of the NSA will be used for good and not evil?” Marc asked.

  “I’m not sure any man can control such power without being consumed by it.” I said. “Guide, can you guarantee that the information you gather will be used only to rid the Earth of the alien influence?”

  “I can do nothing of the sort. Once I give information to humans, humans are free to do good or evil with it; it all depends on circumstance and point of view.

  The freedom of choice means that humans can unfortunately make bad ones, not always intentionally. Even great decisions may prove to be bad ones if circumstances change. Where your centrally planned governments get it wrong, is the fundamental belief that man can be protected from himself by instituting more rules and laws. Eventually these rules and laws severely limit everyone's freedom because someone “smarter” is making the decisions, which creates dependence. Dependence on anything or anyone is detrimental to the individual in the long run. It often leads to stagnation, loss of innovation and eventually apathy. This in turn inhibits the growth and prosperity of society.

  While many laws are created with the best of intentions, given how long it takes to pass them in a democratic society - unintended consequences occur. Even if the laws work for a time, circumstances will change and eventually the laws and rules passed become outdated, causing more harm than good. This is the Achilles heel of big government - its inability to adjust quickly enough to match changing circumstances. In place of constructive change, ‘media spin’ is used to hide the facts. Every centrally planned economy is predestined to fail due to the red tape inefficiencies it creates. Centrally planned economies are seldom destroyed by a single event, more through the gradual erosion of morals that comes with dependency.”

  My head hurt from trying to following Guide’s elaboration on the challenges of big government and why it’s predestined to fail. I had to admit Guide and Mother certainly could debate and carry on with the best human minds, but that was not what I was looking for. I needed a straight up answer to a simple enough question; do we destroy the NSA, yes or no? Big government and its pros and cons were a different, far more complex issue that someone else could deal with.

  Marc yawned, “While this is all very interesting and eventually we are going to have to come up with something to replace the World’s current governments - can we get back to do we or do we not destroy NSA? If we try and snatch the targets one at a time, I guarantee at least a few of the snatch jobs will end in a cluster-fuck which will warn the others. I think we need to do it in one big operation, which we don’t have enough manpower for. There’s one point where I wholly disagree with Guide’s assessment - I believe the NSA is far too powerful to be in anyone’s hands and needs to be shut down. Mother, you might as well jump into the fray, what are your thoughts on this?”

  “The NSA has the most powerful human computers on the planet; if you need computing power, there’s no organization more capable than the NSA. They’re a critical resource in any future fights against any alien species trying to conquer Earth. But, if the widespread use of surveillance technology cannot be controlled under strict guidelines, then it should be destroyed. Intercepting all worldwide communications has too great a potential for misuse in the wrong hands.”

  I asked, “So any ideas on how to make 200 top NSA management personnel permanently disappear? Getting them all in one place is going to be tough; they have security protocols that prevent large gatherings at unsecured locations.”

  Mother replied, “Your choice is to kill the top 200, or wipe out the entire staff of 18,000.” Great, I said to myself, I have the choice between bad and worse, kill 200 or kill 18,000. Mother continued, “Guide, can you enter an event in all the targeted NSA employee email calendars; something important enough to warrant a face-to-face meeting, overriding their security protocols? I’m thinking something to do with the next stage of the alien invasion plan. To support it will require a massive increase in worldwide surveillance, through all forms of electronic communications, to track every potential troublemaker. To appeal to their greedy nature, we can sweeten the deal by offering large bonuses to anyone who can figure out how to meet this agenda in the shortest possible timeframe.”

  Marc asked, “Doesn’t it bother you that we’re talking about killing 200 people in cold blood? What about giving them the option of changing sides?”

  “Approaching 200 people individually will take months of effort. I don’t think we have the luxury of that kind of time, given we are well into the six month preparation window Mother warned about. For us to have any chance of success, we need to stop the use of the surveillance networks by the aliens, sooner rather than later,” I said. That put an end to the discussion. I just committed to the mass murder of 200 people, justified as the lesser of two evils. It had taken me all of a minute to come to the decision.

  “Guide, please check the availability of the new Utah NSA facility for next week. It’s a secure site and can easily host a meeting of the top two hundred NSA managers.” I said.

  “What are you thinking?” Marc asked.

  “Get them all in one place and drop a really big bomb on it - the bigger the better.”

  “How big is big?” Marc asked.

  “Mushroom cloud big.”

  “While I find the change in roles amusing, using nuclear weapons is a bit much, even for me. Whatever happened to maintaining a low profile?” Marc said.

  “Actually, I’m thinking the government will do it’s best to cover up any nuclear accident, just like they did in the past.”

  Omni provided references to Chrome Dome missions from the 1960’s, when B52 strategic bombers act
ually carried live nuclear weapons to the edge of the Russian territorial border to demonstrate the resolve of the US leadership. I explained to Marc my idea to resurrect the old mission profile, but make China the target.

  “China is making lots of noise of late within the South East Asian sphere, so a show of force by the US military is not an unexpected strategy. Guide can issue fake orders to have nuclear armed bombers fly from continental USA, all the way to China. It is 7500 miles from the US to China across the Pacific. The bombers could fly along the 200 mile proposed Chinese territorial limit, then recover to Diego Garcia in the Indian ocean - a total of 11,000 miles and roughly twenty-two hours of flying time. The distance and flight-duration will clearly show China that the United States can project military power anywhere in the world.

  With routine flights occurring weekly, we can arrange an accident similar to one in 1966 over Palomares, Spain, when a B52 strategic bomber hit a KC135 tanker during refueling and crashed with four nuclear weapons on board. Only this time, Guide will defeat the nuclear safety inter locks, allowing one of the nuclear weapons to detonate over the secure facility holding the NSA conference.”

  Omni calculated blast damage assessments for me.

  “A seventy kilo ton bomb will turn everything above ground, a mile from the epicenter, into rubble, with moderate damage out three to four miles, and first degree flash burns out to three miles. The Utah facility is well south of Salt Lake City, so it will incur minimal collateral damage. However, the towns of Lehi and American Fork have nearly 78,000 people and will suffer heavy damage, with an estimated 20,000 killed or injured. If we use a ground burst, damage will be limited to about two miles from the epicenter, which should reduce the destruction to 5000 killed or injured.” I said.

  Marc shook his head and said in a very low voice, “I can’t condone this. That’s too much collateral damage for just 200 targets.”

  “I don’t think we have a choice.”

  Marc stood up, looked at me, and in a low voice that conveyed absolute seriousness said, “We always have a choice. We can choose to lose this particular battle and pick another target and another place. The price is too high.”

  I wanted to argue with him but he was right, the numbers just did not add up. Killing thousands of innocents to get 200 suspected alien collaborators was not justifiable and was a horrible precedent to set. Guide calculated from the NSA surveillance traffic - there were at least 50,000 people working for the alien cause, knowingly or unknowingly, 2500 alien collaborators that directly profited from the alien technology and human experimentation, and 600 Draco/Gray aliens on Earth. If we ended up killing millions to get at the thousands of perpetrators, how would history judge our efforts? Saviors of the planet, or the worst mass murderers ever, having killed more people than the likes of Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Genghis Khan combined?

  While I could live with the idea of being a mass murderer - after all, you cannot make an omelet without breaking eggs - what terrified me was, even if millions died, would the outcome be worth the sacrifice? Maybe Mother could help with information of planets previously attacked by the Dracos; was there something we could learn from their history?

  Mother responded, “I understand that you are having grave difficulty in deciding the fate of so many others. If you did not, I would be concerned. I would like to tell you a story of two alien worlds. A long time ago in a galaxy far away…”

  “Stop with the Star Wars crap,” we both protested.

  “The events I’m about to describe happened over 50,000 years ago, many light years from here.” Mother said.

  “This is the story of two very different races and how each of them reacted to being attacked by the Draco. As you know, the Grays are an old race having more than 200,000 years of written history. For many reasons that I won’t go into now, they chose cloning as the means to perpetuate their species. The Grays had long given up on warfare as a means of expanding their trade routes; they depended on being the best and cheapest at what they did. They avoided conflict through the negotiation of favorable trade terms. Their population was stable, so they had no need to colonize new planets. When they needed resources, they found trading a better option than war. They believed war only caused the destruction of potential customers and their resources. This approach worked for nearly 100,000 years, until the Gray’s ran into the expanding Draco Empire.

  The Draco have a completely opposite philosophy to the Grays - war gives the ultimate trade advantage. The victor gets everything; natural resources, slave labor, new markets and sets all future trade rules. The Grays, threatened with total extermination, agreed to be the slave vassals of the Draco. As a result, very few Grays were killed during the conflict.

  At the same time of the Draco/Gray conflict, the Nordic races from the Pleiades star cluster were in the midst of expanding their trade empire; but they were in need of planets to colonize due to a fast growing population, very much like what Earth will experience in a hundred years. When the Nordic races found a planet they liked, they took it and fought anyone who opposed them, be it the local inhabitants or another alien race. It was only a question of time before the trade empires of the Nordics and the Draco collided.

  A characteristic of interstellar battles is that they are mainly small, intense actions spread over a long timeline. Logistics becomes the decisive factor, due to the distances and the destructive power of the weapons involved. The Nordics had a substantial logistic advantage over the Draco due to their high birth rate, being one of the few alien races still having and raising families. On average, Nordic families have four to six children per couple and a short child to adult maturity cycle of less than fifteen years. This results in their population exploding every five generations, so roughly every hundred years, the Nordics must find new planets to colonize. The Draco, on the other hand have one or two offspring at most, each taking a hundred or more years to mature. While Dracos are fearsome fighters, losses in battle are nearly impossible to replenish without cloning, which is morally repugnant to the Draco.

  Due to their aggressive nature and love for combat, Dracos are the best tacticians in the galaxy. But space is vast and open space battles are rare. Planetary battles are far more common. Once the space battle above a planet is won, any visible colonies on the planet’s surface don’t stand a chance. It can take decades to set up a colony, but only a few hours to destroy one with orbital bombardment.

  The battle for planet resources continued off and on for nearly 25,000 years, the last 10,000 years being all out galactic war with all alien races involved on some level. Tens of billions were killed, with entire planets turned into lifeless cinder balls or asteroid belts. Finally, with the resources of a hundred worlds exhausted, the various races decided to call a strategic ceasefire. The survivors created the ULIR to eliminate fighting over newly discovered planets. It resulted in 5000 years of peace. It is not perfect - there are still minor disputes between the alien races, but nothing on the same scale as before. So there you have it. One race gave up without a fight and are now slaves to the Draco Empire. The other fought them to a stalemate and retained their freedom, but the fight ended up involving every space-faring species in the known galaxy, causing massive destruction and loss of life. To understand why each race chose the path they did, it helps to have an appreciation of each species’ decision making process.

  The Grays have a hive mentality, all working for a common purpose. Freedom of thought is a foreign concept - everyone has their duty to fulfill and does it to the best of their ability. The hive decides as a collective what’s best for the hive. As long as the hive survives, there is no issue with the Draco Empire calling the shots. It may not make sense to you, but it works for the Grays and they’re now the most trusted slaves of the Draco Empire.

  Nordics have a form of government that depends on the consensus of the masses. What the masses agree to, their leaders must implement. Leaders who do not listen to the masses are removed quickly and sometimes
violently, with a minimum of bureaucratic red tape. All laws are decided by the people, for the people. You might imagine nothing ever gets done, if every important decision needs to go to the people for a vote, but quite the opposite is true. Issues requiring the passage of laws are clearly stated, discussions are held for seven days and then a mass vote is taken through communication devices all adults are required to have. Everyone must vote, by law. No lobbying against or for any law under consideration is allowed. Facts are presented with great effort to rule out bias. Anyone trying to influence the vote is thrown in jail. Since everyone is involved in the process - and would much rather be doing something else - they don’t pass laws that are superfluous. In fact they pass only the minimum laws necessary for their society to function.”

  Thoroughly confused I said, “Mother I’m not really sure I get the point of your story. The Draco defeated the Grays, who accepted their fate as slaves, few were killed in the takeover and they’re ok with Dracos being the boss because of their hive mind. The Nordics fought for their freedom and got the entire galaxy involved, costing billions of lives, but it’s what their people wanted. The Grays’ society has flourished under Draco control and the Nordics are struggling, judging by how they had to abandon many former colonies like the ones on Earth.

  Mother replied, “That sums it up.”

  I said in despair. “I have no idea how this is supposed to help.”

  Marc shook his head in disbelief, giving me one of those dumbass looks, “Dude, don’t overthink this. The point of the story is give up and accept becoming a slave or fight for your freedom.”

  I said to no one in particular, “Not much of a choice - so if bombing the NSA Utah facility has too high a price in collateral damage, are there other options?”