CHAPTER ONE: FRED NEEDS HELP

My name is Barney Rubble. I am often asked about the recent unpleasantness between planet Earth and the alien creature Gazoo. I hereby present my account of the war, tracing as closely as possible my thought processes at the time. Everything here has been declassified, and I feel it is in the public interest to know as much as possible about the events leading up to the Incident. Opinions expressed are solely my own, and do not reflect the views of either the armed forces or my government.

Certain individuals are keenly interested about my thinking process, for reasons that will make sense when you know the full story. I am surrounded these days by fussing Neurologists and relentless Psychologists. If I appear to be dwelling on my internal life too much, this is why. It is for them.

I will spell out various things my average contemporary reader already knows, but which readers in the distant future may not understand. Feel free to skip over tedious details.

Who am I? I try to keep my self-identity small, to avoid those biases that inevitably accompany professing allegiance to the various -isms. One must stay vigilant to avoid intrusive irrational ideas. It is my job to lead troops into battle, so I hold knowledge and inquiry in high esteem. Accurate maps save lives and win wars. I am, to myself, primarily a Rationalist.

I am also husband to Betty and father to Bamm-Bamm.

Third, I am an Army General.

If, for example, I included in my self-definition a political party, I would eliminate for myself the possibility of asking certain questions, of investigating certain asserted truths, of accurately mapping reality.

Someday very soon I may be ordered to lead troops in a military occupation of the moon. Imagine if, in order to join the Loyal Order of Water Buffalos, I had been required to profess a deeply held belief that the moon is made of cheese. I would be closing off my brain from entire fields of study. Since I already "know" all there is to know about the moon, why bother to run experiments on it? Why send advance probes? When someone presented me with evidence contrary to a cheese-moon, I would be forced to somehow explain that evidence away to stay "Loyal". This is how generals kill troops.

There are forty kinds of lunacy but only one kind of common sense. When I studied Gazoo, when I probed for his weaknesses, I needed truths entangled with reality. I needed reproduceable results. I needed weapons that actually worked in the real world, not just in fantasy.

By practicing Rationality I can send the future where I want it to go. I choose actions that WIN for myself and my soldiers. I'm aware how preachy I sound, but remember, I am still explaining my thinking to the several Neurologists and Psychologists hovering around me. Please feel free to skip these digressions.

More importantly for this account, I am also a next-door neighbor to Bedrock Mayor Fredrick Flintstone. When the incident began I was a Colonel commanding the Camp Millstone Army Base in Cobblestone County, just outside of Bedrock. I was reviewing some report or other when I received an urgent cry for help from my old pal Fred.

Fred Flintstone is one of those people who you vote for based entirely upon his appearance. He is always dressed professionally and is well groomed, in sharp contrast to our other neighbors. He has what is called the "Halo effect". Is he a good mayor? Yes. But not as good as his clothing suggests.

The Halo effect is what the brain does when presented with a positive characteristic. A nice tie or a nice suit or polished shoes causes the brain to assume without evidence that the person wearing the items is smarter, more honest, and more professional. Wearing a tie does not make you a better person. It just seems that way to people who don't understand the Halo effect.
Fred's message arrived in form of a second slab of rock, delivered by my secretary with the usual morning "Daily Granite" news slab. This declassified slab is now on display at the Smithstonean Institute.

It reads: "PLZ DELIVER GEN BARNEY RUBBLE CMP MILLSTONE HELP BARNEY WATCH BACKYARD 6PM STAY HIDDEN".
The first part of the message was obviously meant for Arnold the paperboy. Fred probably slipped him a few bucks for the service. The second part was asking me to discretely observe out my back window into Fred's backyard at 6 p.m. tonight. He wanted me to witness something. The word "help" sent chills down my spine. What was THAT about?

Fred didn't want help from the police, or help from firemen, or help from an ambulance crew. He didn't want to borrow a yard tool from his next door neighbor. Fred didn't want advice he could get from approaching me openly over the back fence. He wanted a secret witness.

I skimmed the Daily Granite. Nothing unusual. I set the slab aside and turned on the radio. Nothing on BDRX. I tried the television. Fred's wife, Wilma Flinstone, was hosting her morning cooking show "The Happy Housewife" on the Abbadabba Broadcasting Company channel. She looked healthy and undistracted. So she was not in on the secret, whatever it was, which meant my wife Betty would not be either.

I phoned Betty.

"Hey Betty, do we have anything scheduled for tonight?"
"Mr. Gotrocks is coming over for dinner. He wants to discuss his idea for a new weapon system."
"Really. Did he tell you that?"
"Nope. Feminine intuition."
"Ha ha."
"Mrs. Gotrocks told me. She was very apologetic. She'll be coming, but dinner is primarily a sales pitch for you."
J. L. Gotrocks is an industrial tycoon who is also a dead ringer for Fred Flinstone. We suspect Fred's dad had a genetic adventure one wild night. This is another "Halo effect" reason Fred got elected mayor. Voters imagine Fred shares Gotrock's business skills. As if such skills were inherited, rather than honed. Fred and J. L. disproved the inheritance hypothesis when they swapped identities as a wacky gag a few years back. It doesn't matter if your parents are both world-class piano players. If you don't practice the piano, you're still going to suck at it.
"Nah, it's fine. How are Pebbles and Bamm Bamm getting along?"
"They're fine. They're outside playing quietly with Dino and Hoppy. Say hi to Daddy, Bamm-Bamm."
I heard a faint shout from my boy in the background. "Gazoo!" He yelled. I then heard Fred's daughter Pebbles respond with an equally enthusiastic "Gazoo!"

If reality followed the logic of drama, this would have been the moment another chill raced down my spine. Instead I merely chuckled at the silliness of baby babble.

Dino and Hoppy, wanting to be part of things, began howling.
Dino is Fred's Snorkasaurus, a relatively small dinosaur and a popular pet. It enjoys having its picture taken. The perfect choice for a mayoral candidate. Hoppy is my Hopparoo, an exotic pet I adopted. Dino and Hoppy are great with the kids. Fred also has a saber-toothed tiger, but it wanders the neighborhood, dislikes newspaper photographers, and doesn't really hang out with our children.
The Hopparoo is a highly improbable animal. It is a dinosaur that evolved convergent to the kangaroo and shares many of the same physical and behavioral characteristics.

"That's great. Say, is the Polarock camera bird still alive? I'd like to take some pictures tonight."
"Yep. "Bamm-Bamm enjoys helping me feed the bird every morning. We still have several of those little slabs of undeveloped film in the closet."
The Polarock camera bird should not exist. It is some kind of specially trained woodpecker that can translate what it sees into two dimensional artistic renderings. It also has limited speech ability, which implies an ability to empathize with human minds rivaling that of a dog. I suppose in an infinite universe even very low probability things can happen, but I would have given this particular bird a zero probability. Well, the universe gets to be what it is, and doesn't care about our merely human opinions.
"O.K., great. See you tonight. Thanks, Honey."
"Bye, Dear."

So. No clues yet. Fred wants me to witness something. It is something he can't show me openly. It is something important and possibly dangerous. Is the source of danger the thing he wants to show me, or does the danger emerge from the reaction people might have to seeing it?

Here is my formula for winning:
Step one: Gather accurate, precise and reproducible information to incrementally update my model of reality.
Step two: Use the updated model to forecast the most likely future.
Step three: Make a plan with a measurable goal to bend that future towards my advantage.
Step four: Gather as rapidly as possible whatever resources I might need to succeed with my plan.
Step five: Carry out my plan and deal with unforeseen circumstances.
Step six: Make a record of what happened, so I can learn from my mistakes.

I had my camera. I had two windows that look out over Fred's back yard. I had Betty and the Gotrockses as 2nd, 3rd and 4th witnesses.

And I had my pistol.