Messages from concerned individuals.
Tilly and Zeb were sitting in the twilight of their local narcodive drowning their sorrows with a narcojuice or two.
Tilly took a gulp of the green fluid and shook her head. ‘He means it you know. He’ll do it.’
Zeb sighed miserably and sipped his juice, glancing over at her. ‘I know.’
The two of them were the only remaining elements of the Sector 47 council who had managed to cling on to their positions when Tump the unimaginable was swept in to power. Tump’s black and white policies had resonated with the population. He had focussed on spreading fear and providing draconian solutions.
There were a dozen nascent civilisations in Sector 47. The council had been taking a keen interest in them. When intelligent life sprang up and developed space travel they had to be monitored. Many people saw them as a threat. These aliens could start expanding into civilised areas which could cause major problems. They would start to compete for resources. They could bring their alien diseases with them. They were obviously of lower intellect and followed primitive cultural practices. They bred like monkwops. They could even start to displace civilised people and take over. They were violent and aggressive. People were frightened. They did not want aliens with their obnoxious ways moving into their neighbourhood.
A particular civilisation had begun to rear its head in one distant quarter. It already had space travel and was on the verge of developing both quantum jumping and fusion energy. It could be in their region soon.
Tump had callously exploited that. According to him these aliens were ignorant, aggressive and violent. They were renowned for their sexual depravity and criminal activity.
Tump had warned everyone that the onslaught was imminent. That billions of these retarded gangs of aliens would soon be swaggering down their streets, taking whatever they wanted, violating their daughters and slicing up anybody who stood up to them. He called them vermin and declared that they needed eradicating.
Somehow, in the course of the campaign, the gentle voices were drowned out. They had advocated a helping hand, the application of resources and compassion. They suggested that these emerging intelligences were sentient; they had feelings and they needed nurturing. Yes they were ignorant and limited, brutal and uncivilised, with strange cultural practices, but with suitable education they could be brought up to an acceptable level and integrated.
Unfortunately Tump was able to conjure up images of depraved aliens swamping civilised planets with their disease, barbarity and viciousness. The images of weapon-wielding aliens raping innocent children were powerful. Tump was elected on a landslide with the mandate to solve the problem and eradicate the vermin.
‘But what can we do?’ Zeb asked glumly, pursing his lips and peering down at the green fluid he was swirling around in his glass. ‘We’re only two voices. Nobody will take any notice of us.’
The two of them slumped dejectedly in their plexies, ordered another couple of narcos and mused away in their gloom, desperately searching for a solution. In a mere week’s time Tump was going to cauterise the planet and destroy all the aliens. It was simply too horrible to contemplate. Tilly and Zeb had vainly tried to get the council to see the aliens as ‘people’ but to no avail.
‘We could petition the Grand Council?’ Zeb suggested, looking over at Tilly. ‘They could put a stop to Tump.’
Tilly shook her head. ‘That’d be no good coming from us. Who are we? We are insignificant – two minor councillors from Sector 47. We don’t carry enough weight.’
They went back to gloomily contemplating the poor aliens being fried alive by the gloating Tump.
Then Tilly perked up, her eyes alive once again. ‘You know, that idea of petitioning the Grand Council isn’t such a bad idea, after all.’
‘It isn’t?’ Zeb muttered quizzically, uncomprehendingly.
‘But don’t you see,’ Tilly said excitedly, grabbing hold of his foremost tentacle. ‘Under Intergalactic law if the Grand Council is petitioned directly by a sentient race they have to give them a hearing. That would stop Tump’s plans. The aliens could put their case and the Grand Council would have to weigh up the merits. The aliens would be bound to win.’
‘But the aliens don’t know anything about Tump and his plans to annihilate them, or even that the Grand Council exists.’
‘No yet they don’t,’ Tilly said excitedly, her mind grappling with the problem. ‘Not until we tell them.’
‘But how would be do that?’ Zeb spluttered, putting his narcojuice to one side. ‘We don’t have access to any of the diplomatic channels. Tump controls all those.’
‘Then we use unofficial means and contact their mightiest leader directly! We tell them all about the threat and give them the means to petition the Grand Council and put a stop to Tump!’
The message popped up on the screen right in the middle of his favourite rerun of ‘Have I Got News For You’. It talked of planetary destruction, a despotic leader bent on extermination, a lot of scientific and mathematical stuff that had been added to give credence to the message, and details of how to petition the Intergalactic Grand Council.
Petulantly he fumbled around for the controls among the debris of a myriad take-aways. ‘Gadzooks, Yipes, great fish-hooks and shyte-hawks,’ Boris ejaculated angrily. ‘I really have to give up snorting this stuff!’
Opher – 17.6.2019