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Nov. 2nd, 2020 01:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
evening_tsarWanted to post an excerpt of this, before it (hopefully) goes out of date:
" Around 06:15 standard time, a gigantic sphere, some four hundred cubic metres across, appeared above the Mojave Desert and hung suspended in the air one hundred metres above the ground. For some twelve hours it did nothing. Then, at precisely 18:00, observers say it took on a slightly reddish hue. Then, the desert erupted in the most violent storm it had seen in more than a century. Thousands of explosions pockmarked the desert floor, casting an estimated one million metric tons of dust and dirt into the air. The explosions continued for an hour, they stopped very abruptly and the sphere flew eastward.
Attempts to intercept the sphere invariably failed, as all electronic devices within one kilometre of it would shut down. Explosives failed to ignite in its vicinity, and missiles tended to clatter off its surface and fall undetonated to the ground.
Its arrival above Washington D.C. caused great panic and consternation. The President and Congress were evacuated, and most of the civilian population fled in panic. Attendance in Evangelical churches is said to have soared around this time, though figures have not been independently verified. The sphere stationed itself above Independence Avenue, surprising many in bypassing the White House in favour of the US Department of Energy. At which point, all power in the District of Columbia shut down.
The power failure lasted no longer than twenty minutes. The was the amount of time the sphere lingered over Washington, after which it continued east, soon leaving US airspace and heading out over the Atlantic Ocean.
Violent storms followed in its wake, though these slackened off as it approached European airspace. Again, NATO missiles failed to detonate on the surface of the sphere, and it crossed the Portuguese border on midnight of the twenty-seventh. It headed on a straight, east-north-east course, passing over Paris, Warsaw and Minsk (to the evident disappointment of British defence policymakers). It stopped for precisely twenty minutes over each of these cities before continuing on its way, during which time all electrical power went out as it had in Washington.
The sphere crossed into Russian airspace shortly after 6 am, despite the rigorous efforts of Russian air-defence. It hovered over the Kremlin for precisely twenty minutes, plunging the Kremlin into darkness. It then changed course, heading east-south-east, going over Kazakhstan and into Mongolia. The Chinese detonated a nuclear devise over their border, hoping to catch the sphere it its back blast, but it passed through the mushroom cloud apparently unconcerned. It stopped over Beijing, continued on to Seoul, then Tokyo, shutting each of them down as well.
At this point, it turned abruptly south west, crossing over Taipei, Haikou, cutting through Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Burma, and finally came to a halt above Sri Lanka.
At this point, every cell phone, laptop, and tablet in the world, regardless of the wishes of their owners, began spouting a collage of pre-recorded words. The words they heard came out in the dominant tongue of their region, but every language that had ever been broadcast over any media was represented. Each word had a different voice, apparently culled from previous broadcasts, so it was alternately male, female, old, young, high and low. Sometimes music would be playing, only to be cut off when the next word began. The abrupt changes in volume and pitch were quite jarring to the listeners. While the details varied from region to region, the gist of the message was more or less as follows:
“People.” (some transcripts read “inhabitants”). “Your species has attained sentience with impressive speed. Your swift domination of this biosphere has also been impressive. But your stewardship of its ecosystems has been terrible. It would appear that you are not just indifferent to your habitat, but actively, intentionally, trying to destroy it. You are directly responsible for the extinction of more organisms than natural evolution, and consume more resources than is sustainable by this biosphere.
“As current actions appear to indicate you have no interest in your long-term survival as a species, the decision has been taken to expedite the process, to prevent further damage to other, otherwise successful organism. In the event that your apparent wishes have been misinterpreted, you will be given fifty of your years to alter your behaviour, cease the current level of damage, and restore some semblance of balance to your biosphere. Failure to comply will be taken a desire for self destruction, and your species will be exterminated in accordance to your wishes, without further inconvenience to other organisms.”
With this, the sphere rose further into the sky until it disappeared into orbit.
For a time, the reaction of the human race was one mainly of shock. The sphere had arrived and departed so quickly, humanity in general wondered if it hadn’t suffered some form of collective hallucination. The world’s satelite observation systems had failed to detect the sphere’s arrival, and failed in all subsequent efforts to trace it after it left. More than a few individuals insisted it could only have been a hoax or a conspiracy, and millions of websites dedicated to this idea soon proliferated (the perpetrator of said hoax varried from region to region).
Most people who had seen the sphere, were happy to accept its authenticity, and its message, recorded as it was on every communication device on the planet, was similarly accepted as genuine.
The world swung into action at once. The sitting President of the United States, who was not a man to be pushed around, insisted his country would never submit to blackmail, called the sphere’s ultimatum “a declaration of war” and immediately announced a dramatic increase in the military budget, which was approved unanimously by Congress.
The Chairman of the Communist Part of China similiarly announced his country would never be bullied or allow foreign powers to interfere with its domestic affairs, and also boosted the arms budget. Russia compared the sphere to a long line of foreign invaders who had attempted to exterminate Russians before, and promised it too would be repulsed.
As the great powers made their declarations, other countries fell into line, and a great race of armaments production began.
In Tehran, the Ayatola declared fatwa on the sphere and urged the faithful to take up arms when the time came.
Hindu Nationalists in India declared any problem with pollution or emissions could be dealt with in three years time (a claim they would repeat in three years time).
In London, Parliament announced the sphere’s proclamation would not interfere with its efforts to depart the European Union, and again quoted Winston Churchill.
The newly spurred armaments industry crated new production demands and building quotas. For a short time, there was even a small economic boom in many places, as factories filled and recruitment soared. Energy extraction became an important priority, and previous restrictions on materials like coal and uranium were lifted. In Calgary, a statue of the Sphere was commissioned, and erected over the Legislative Building.
" Around 06:15 standard time, a gigantic sphere, some four hundred cubic metres across, appeared above the Mojave Desert and hung suspended in the air one hundred metres above the ground. For some twelve hours it did nothing. Then, at precisely 18:00, observers say it took on a slightly reddish hue. Then, the desert erupted in the most violent storm it had seen in more than a century. Thousands of explosions pockmarked the desert floor, casting an estimated one million metric tons of dust and dirt into the air. The explosions continued for an hour, they stopped very abruptly and the sphere flew eastward.
Attempts to intercept the sphere invariably failed, as all electronic devices within one kilometre of it would shut down. Explosives failed to ignite in its vicinity, and missiles tended to clatter off its surface and fall undetonated to the ground.
Its arrival above Washington D.C. caused great panic and consternation. The President and Congress were evacuated, and most of the civilian population fled in panic. Attendance in Evangelical churches is said to have soared around this time, though figures have not been independently verified. The sphere stationed itself above Independence Avenue, surprising many in bypassing the White House in favour of the US Department of Energy. At which point, all power in the District of Columbia shut down.
The power failure lasted no longer than twenty minutes. The was the amount of time the sphere lingered over Washington, after which it continued east, soon leaving US airspace and heading out over the Atlantic Ocean.
Violent storms followed in its wake, though these slackened off as it approached European airspace. Again, NATO missiles failed to detonate on the surface of the sphere, and it crossed the Portuguese border on midnight of the twenty-seventh. It headed on a straight, east-north-east course, passing over Paris, Warsaw and Minsk (to the evident disappointment of British defence policymakers). It stopped for precisely twenty minutes over each of these cities before continuing on its way, during which time all electrical power went out as it had in Washington.
The sphere crossed into Russian airspace shortly after 6 am, despite the rigorous efforts of Russian air-defence. It hovered over the Kremlin for precisely twenty minutes, plunging the Kremlin into darkness. It then changed course, heading east-south-east, going over Kazakhstan and into Mongolia. The Chinese detonated a nuclear devise over their border, hoping to catch the sphere it its back blast, but it passed through the mushroom cloud apparently unconcerned. It stopped over Beijing, continued on to Seoul, then Tokyo, shutting each of them down as well.
At this point, it turned abruptly south west, crossing over Taipei, Haikou, cutting through Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Burma, and finally came to a halt above Sri Lanka.
At this point, every cell phone, laptop, and tablet in the world, regardless of the wishes of their owners, began spouting a collage of pre-recorded words. The words they heard came out in the dominant tongue of their region, but every language that had ever been broadcast over any media was represented. Each word had a different voice, apparently culled from previous broadcasts, so it was alternately male, female, old, young, high and low. Sometimes music would be playing, only to be cut off when the next word began. The abrupt changes in volume and pitch were quite jarring to the listeners. While the details varied from region to region, the gist of the message was more or less as follows:
“People.” (some transcripts read “inhabitants”). “Your species has attained sentience with impressive speed. Your swift domination of this biosphere has also been impressive. But your stewardship of its ecosystems has been terrible. It would appear that you are not just indifferent to your habitat, but actively, intentionally, trying to destroy it. You are directly responsible for the extinction of more organisms than natural evolution, and consume more resources than is sustainable by this biosphere.
“As current actions appear to indicate you have no interest in your long-term survival as a species, the decision has been taken to expedite the process, to prevent further damage to other, otherwise successful organism. In the event that your apparent wishes have been misinterpreted, you will be given fifty of your years to alter your behaviour, cease the current level of damage, and restore some semblance of balance to your biosphere. Failure to comply will be taken a desire for self destruction, and your species will be exterminated in accordance to your wishes, without further inconvenience to other organisms.”
With this, the sphere rose further into the sky until it disappeared into orbit.
For a time, the reaction of the human race was one mainly of shock. The sphere had arrived and departed so quickly, humanity in general wondered if it hadn’t suffered some form of collective hallucination. The world’s satelite observation systems had failed to detect the sphere’s arrival, and failed in all subsequent efforts to trace it after it left. More than a few individuals insisted it could only have been a hoax or a conspiracy, and millions of websites dedicated to this idea soon proliferated (the perpetrator of said hoax varried from region to region).
Most people who had seen the sphere, were happy to accept its authenticity, and its message, recorded as it was on every communication device on the planet, was similarly accepted as genuine.
The world swung into action at once. The sitting President of the United States, who was not a man to be pushed around, insisted his country would never submit to blackmail, called the sphere’s ultimatum “a declaration of war” and immediately announced a dramatic increase in the military budget, which was approved unanimously by Congress.
The Chairman of the Communist Part of China similiarly announced his country would never be bullied or allow foreign powers to interfere with its domestic affairs, and also boosted the arms budget. Russia compared the sphere to a long line of foreign invaders who had attempted to exterminate Russians before, and promised it too would be repulsed.
As the great powers made their declarations, other countries fell into line, and a great race of armaments production began.
In Tehran, the Ayatola declared fatwa on the sphere and urged the faithful to take up arms when the time came.
Hindu Nationalists in India declared any problem with pollution or emissions could be dealt with in three years time (a claim they would repeat in three years time).
In London, Parliament announced the sphere’s proclamation would not interfere with its efforts to depart the European Union, and again quoted Winston Churchill.
The newly spurred armaments industry crated new production demands and building quotas. For a short time, there was even a small economic boom in many places, as factories filled and recruitment soared. Energy extraction became an important priority, and previous restrictions on materials like coal and uranium were lifted. In Calgary, a statue of the Sphere was commissioned, and erected over the Legislative Building.
