Paulson I
The sun is low on the sky when I finally pull into the Mauna Kea Surveillance Observatory's parking lot. While technically still an independent facility, it is now under the partial jurisdiction of the TGDF, as to scan the skies for potential threats.
Dr. Jennifer Paulson is an older woman, with streaks of grey in her dark brown hair. The long years have visibly taken their toll since the old photos, but there remains a lively expression on her face when she greets me at the entrance. After a small exchange, we move inside for the interview.
Q: So, let me begin with, well, the beginning. Is it true that you were the first to detect them?
A: The first? No. Multiple observation stations across the world detected it, starting maybe a month before we got to it. But we were definitely the ones to really piece it together, and we were the ones who made it official.
Q: What caused your team to piece it together before other observers?
A: Well, other observers were not dedicated to searching for deep space objects like the telescope I worked at was- it was honestly an incidental finding by observation stations meant for studying distant stars or other galaxies. The initial observations just assumed it was a Trans-Neptunian object, sweeping down from the Oort Cloud on a ten-thousand year orbit. However, it was noted to be a bit off. Not quite right in albedo, and some unusual results from spectrographs.
So, early August we decided to take a look at it, and immediately realized something was off. Albedo-wise, it was very dark, on par with a C-type asteroid, but the spectrometry results didn't indicate it being primarily composed of carbon. Even that could've been natural, however. What really got our attention, thanks to a radio telescope we had, was the radiation.
Q: Radiation? As in from the ship's drive?
A: Oh, no, the drive had been deactivated long before. This was from the heat that any manned spacecraft radiates away, which is definitely a lot hotter than your average comet, as well as the ramscoop acting like a sort of magnetic parachute against the solar wind, bleeding off excess velocity as it dove towards the sun. They had deliberately done that, both to conserve resources by not using the drive, and to make their arrival less conspicuous. If they had used the drive, we probably would've seen them even earlier, and we'd already detected them about twenty AUs from the Sun.
Q: Why so early, if they were so far away?
[Chuckles] It's not like the old pre-war movies, where flying saucers can appear right above the White House before anyone notices. Space is not exactly empty, but that's largely when dealing with immense velocities and distances. As far as observation in the solar system is concerned, things like actual spacecraft, which produce radiation and light? That can be detected from billions of miles away, or even light years if the drive is powerful enough.
Q: How long did it take for you and your team to realize what you were looking at?
A: Six hours. As soon as we detected the heat coming off it, we made a few phone calls, had some other observatories use their radio telescopes, yadda yadda yadda... We, uh, we had a bit of trouble believing what we were seeing. I mean, we came up with so many other ideas as to what it could've been, only to write them off when we realized the pieces didn't fit, until we were left with...
She claps her hands together.
Aliens.
Q: That must've been an exciting moment at the observatory when you realized it.
A: [Laughs] I was like a little girl! We got out the champagne for a bit, after we sent copies of our data to other observatories to confirm, which didn't take long. At the time, we were so excited about the prospect of alien life. Not just some microbes under a rock on Mars, but an intelligent species that was coming here. There's an old picture around here that shows me posing with the astronomical plates, and I'm actually crying. It was intense, in a good way.
Then, someone contacted the feds, and suddenly we got phone calls from some very severe sounding people with lots of questions. Questions that really killed the mood.
Q: What sort of questions?
A: Have you told the public yet? How long until the public finds out? Do you have a trajectory for the spacecraft? Did you find any evidence of weapons?
Q: What did you tell them?
A: The truth. That we didn't know anything about the ship except that it was about a mile long and a mile wide, and that it was decelerating. That if the public didn't already know from some excited intern at our facility, they would learn from the observatories in other countries. The news would quickly spread, especially on the internet, and there'd be a lot of suspicion about any silence on the matter. There'd be no way for them to contain a leak that big, even if they tried.
That's why they decided to reveal our findings the next day, in a Presidential address. I was excited to see my face on national television, even if I was also pretty nervous. The news practically exploded, with everyone abuzz about the discovery. I mean, think about how huge of an impact the revelation would have... did have, on the world! The religions, the philosophies, the way we see ourselves in the universe. Suddenly, the galaxy just became a smaller place, all overnight.
Q: So, that was the Flishithy. How long until the Conquest Fleet was detected?
A: Two months, just in time for the initial freak-out to slightly weaken. We were watching the big ship like a hawk, with all the reflectors focused on it. Within three weeks we had just about pinned down they had come from Alpha Centauri, or at the very least had made a stop there. It had just swung around the Sun and was careening towards Saturn when someone detected the Fleet. It was the Chinese who spotted that first, and they sent the findings to us for confirmation.
Paulson sighs.
That... that was scary. Mind you, we didn't know anything about what the snouts were packing. If we did, there would've been a real panic, not just celebrations and debauchery. At the time, we thought it was a contact vessel, or maybe a scientific expedition. After all, it was only one ship, and the size made sense for a ramjet. I mean, we thought about invasion, but it was at the back of our heads. We dismissed it as a silly thought, fit for a dumb blockbuster.
When we detected 2500 sources of light in the outer boundary of the Oort Cloud, each one hugely Doppler-shifted...
We were dumbfounded, naturally. We had just finally made first contact after lord knows how many millennia of waiting, and suddenly we get another one in just months? And we knew they had to be a different species, too. Not just because it appeared they were coming from the direction of Cetus, but because of the way they were arriving.
Q: How so?
They weren't using magsails to decelerate, not at the velocities they were pulling. We'd already estimated that the Flishithy had been going about 0.1c at best based on their deceleration, while these were at five times the delta v while decelerating. Based on the spectrography work we did, with the absence of hydrogen lines, we figured out pretty quick that they were using incredibly effective photon rockets. That was, pardon the pun, light-years beyond our own technology.
Seeing that difference in technology only made the sinking feeling in everyone's guts worse. I mean, we realized pretty quickly that such a fleet had to be meant for something aggressive. Why send that many ships, each of them bigger than an aircraft carrier, if you just wanted to talk? Why send that many to explore? The costs in fuel and energy would be enormous, far too much to justify anything other than some manner of colonization. Whether they knew about us or not, or if they were coming specifically for us...
Paulson takes a sip from her water bottle, then glances out the window.
The atmosphere here changed in a heartbeat. One of my interns, bright-eyed kid, actually swan-dived off a ledge after a night of hard drinking. Can't blame him. As far as we knew back then, if an alien species could cross the void like that, and they wanted us dead... it'd be like a war between ants and boots. We were almost glad when the feds took over. It felt like I could breathe, even if it'd only be until they arrived.
Q: And how long would that be?
A: Six years, and we were lucky. I was twenty-nine when we made the discovery, and I looked fifty when everything went to hell.
-/-\-
Villasenor I
Though quite busy as a superintendent and space traffic controller, respectively, Ricardo and Isabella Villasenor still find time to invite me over to their home near Santiago, Chile. The pair, married for more than twenty years, sit beside each other at the small table in their dining room, a pot of coffee and some cake between us.
Q: Thank you for your time. To begin, I'd like to ask the two of you about life shortly before the Discovery.
A (Ricardo): Oh, we call it the Revelation here.
A (Isabella): Ricardo here thinks it's more ominous, but I like it because it has some nice gravitas to it. But I guess that's kinda sidetracking there-
A (Ricardo): It's absolutely sidetracking.
A (Isabella): Shush, you. Anyway, before the Revelation? Well, I was getting ready to start my last year of high school.
A (Ricardo): First semester at Universidad de Chile for me. I was planning on getting into tv.
Q: Pre-Revelation, what would you say your main day to day concerns were? What about the news?
A (Isabella): Personally, I wasn't very much into the news at the time. I was more concerned about things like schoolwork, my father's health, drama in my friend group, that sort of thing. I had more than enough on my plate as is; no need to worry about problems other people had.
A (Ricardo): I paid a bit more attention to the news. Things were, ah, definitely different back then. Even when the Message Bearer was discovered, I felt like it only dominated the news for like, a week? Two weeks. Not to say it wasn't huge, mind you. It was huge. I remember actually doing a little fist pump when I first heard about it, I was that excited.
A (Isabella): That was the first time I was really interested in the news. It was all we talked about for days on end. Feelings-wise, that was probably the best time in terms of how we viewed alien life. There were parties, ads, viral videos on the internet... People were excited.
A (Ricardo): I even attended a viewing party, trying to find the ship with a telescope before we realized it was waaaay too small and far away for that. Didn't stop me from binge-watching all the sci-fi I could, though. Street vendors were selling memorabilia that was often barely even space-themed, I saw people put pins on their backpacks with little green men, there was that big thing in Roswell...
Q: So, why do you say it only dominated the news for a week or so, if it was so big?
A (Isabella): Like I said, so many problems on our plate.
A (Ricardo): Even after the first week it was easily the hottest thing to talk about, and it was still a big part of the news. But my love is right; there was still so much stuff happening in the world that it went from the only thing we talked and thought about, to one of them. Back then, we had that epidemic in West Africa that had people freaking out. Ebola, was it? I think it was ebola before it got wiped out. There was the Russians, the old Russians, annexing Crimea, and that whole thing in the Middle East with some Islamic State kicking up trouble.
Q: Was there worry about an invasion back then?
A (Isabella): Not really, no. My local priest had a sermon about that, and it messed with my folks, but I was shying away from the church back then.
A (Ricardo): Some of the people on the news and internet talked about it, but for the most part it people weren't that worried. The experts were sure the Message Bearer was an exploratory ship, maybe even unmanned. After all, the trajectory looked like it was heading towards Saturn, not Earth. Things only changed when the Conquest Fleet was discovered.
Q: That was going to be my next question. Do you remember when the Conquest Fleet was discovered?
A (Ricardo): My god, do I.
A (Isabella): Everyone remembers that day as crystal clear as the other big days.
A (Ricardo): I was walking to my communications class when my phone buzzed. And then buzzed, and buzzed, and buzzed. First it was the news notification, the emergency address our president gave about the Fleet. 2500 ships at the very edge of the solar system, almost certainly not from the same ones who sent the other. That was what the news said, at first. The texts I got from friends, on the other hand, had all sorts of truths and panicked mistakes in them. My uncle said they had weapons on them. A friend thought they were going to arrive in two weeks.
I don't know how long I was standing there, reading. A while, definitely. I remember looking up to see that everyone else on campus had done the same thing.
A (Isabella): I was in my last class of the day. The kids in the class who had phones, and my teacher, all started looking down, then looking around. I ended up peering over a friend's shoulder as we read the news.
A (Ricardo): Immediately, I felt like I was falling and about to hit the ground. Like I was getting electrocuted. There was this poor man, though I should say boy since he was my age, and he started screaming. Sobbing. The sheer dread of what was coming hit him first, and it damn broke him.
A (Isabella): Class got dismissed, and we all hurried out, talking with each other. I decided to run home.
A (Ricardo): I didn't even wait for anything official. I just ran back to my dorm, grabbed my bike, and pedaled back to my place. To the devil with communications class, I was thinking. By the time I got back, a good two hours later, the riots were already starting. Real riots. Not violent protests, like we've had. Just panicked looting, fighting... someone tried to grab my bike, an older fat guy, and I just shoved my hand against his face and kept on pedaling. By god, you'd think the invasion had already started if you'd looked at the streets.
A (Isabella): I spent the night sitting on the couch, eyes glued to the tv. My father, who'd been managing to keep away from alcohol while recovering from his heart attack, came back with a beer and sat down next to me. He didn't say anything that night, but he shared some of the beer with me, figuring it'd keep me calm. I'd never drunk before, but I must've put away half the bottle. Helped me sleep through the chaos outside, with yelling, breaking, and even a gunshot here and there.
At least one good thing came out of that first day's panic, though.
Q: Which was?
A (Ricardo): Just a kid panicking.
A (Isabella): My best friend of ten years called me a little before midnight, blabbering about how he'd secretly been in love with me, but he was too scared to say it, but because the world was going to end in a few years he wanted me to know...
She clasps Ricardo's hand.
A (Ricardo): Never thought an alien invasion would help me make the best decision of my life.
-/-\-
Tashyamp I
Often found giving lectures in Yimptunf, the capital of the Fithp Nation in Brasil, Tashyamp nevertheless makes time every day to return home and attend to her children, alongside her current husband Shanyft-yamp. The gap in pre-war and post-war fithp is never as visible as it is with the former Breaker and her children, the latter of whom wear clothing derived from human styles and bear Race-inspired makeup on their trunks, in stark contrast to their near-naked mother.
After corralling her children into their scoop, she has me sit down on the grass with her as she sips her tea.
Q: Thank you for your time. I know you're quite busy, so I'll try to be brief. When did the Chtaptisk Fithp learn of humanity's civilization?
A: Very soon after the sleeper herd had arisen from their deathsleep, after Pastempeh-keph became Herdmaster. This was as we passed the orbit of the seventh planet, and engaged in a cursory passive sweep of the system for signs of technology. I do not know which fi' had chanced upon the faint radio signals emanating from Winterhome, but I do know it was brought to the Herdmaster's attention quite swiftly.
It was cause for some concern, but not as great as what the Home fithp must have experienced. We had expected there would be some manner of civilization on your world.
Q: From the thuktunthp, yes?
A: Indeed. The thuktun we bore had told us of your species. The Herd Who Walked Before knew of humanity, and had even provided etchings of your likeness in the stone. We knew we would have to subdue you, and had toyed with the possibility that you had also been given the thuktunthp. We had come prepared for a struggle.
Nevertheless, the Advisor had raised objections, worried that a fithp capable of producing detectable radio signals may be a strong herd, strong enough to overcome us. He continued to push for our colonization of the asteroids.
Q: How pronounced was this divide? What side did you take?
A: The divide was not particularly great at first, only growing with revelations. The shipborn knew what living in space was like. The first generation, the one who remembered Hearth as Thuktun Flishithy left for Winterhome, resented their life in the cold halls, and that resentment was passed down to their young. It was why, I feel, Pastempeh-keph was so intent on claiming Winterhome.
Likewise, the sleeper herd was split on the matter, and many were swayed by the shipborn. They remembered Hearth like the first generation of shipborn had, and now could see the resentment living in space had instilled upon us. It was why I was swayed to side with the conquest.
Q: When did your research on humanity begin?
A: After we swung around your sun and dropped our siskyissputh, hund, our ramjet into its corona. By then, your herd was essentially handing my work to me. For a short while, we were bombarded by directed radio signals, from what we now know to be various governmental and individual bodies. To us, it was confusing, often contradictory. Images of peace alongside images of war, complicated messages in languages we didn't understand alongside rudimentary lessons in communication. Basic mathematics were the first ones sent our way, and that simply made us wonder if you thought us incapable of basic geometry.
Of great confusion was the porm, no, the porn. For some time we theorized that had to teach your young how to mate with demonstrative videos.
Q: I was under the impression that the fithp also produce sexual artwork.
A: We do, both with the mating sculptures of before and the... work being created now. However, that is largely during musth, and the sheer volume of porn sent our way was confusing.
I digress. The point of the matter is that the signals sent our way made it easier for us to try and decipher your languages, as well as to understand your herd's culture. Even after Winterhome became silent, we had a great body of information to work with. By the end of the first year we had breakers with rudimentary understanding of the largest languages of humanity. English, Zhongwén, Manak Hindi, and others. Personally, I had studied to learn to speak Hindi and al-'arabiyyah.
Language was not the only difficulty we faced. It took us far too much time to realize that your species produced copious amounts of fiction, and so we had to try and ascertain what was real and what was a Dreamer's fantasy. The stories that were a bit closer to reality in terms of technology were quite frustrating, as it made it hard for us to determine your actual military capacity. I actually became quite fond of a Hindi-language film called Three Idiots.
Q: I would like to go back to something you said earlier, about Earth becoming silent?
A: Yes. By the time Thuktun Flishithy was in orbit around the ringed planet, the radio transmissions had stopped. Even our passive listening was becoming less fruitful. I believe part of it may be in part due to some of your leaders noting our destruction of our ramjet, but it was quite clearly largely due to the Conquest Fleet from the Home fithp. You did not want them to know much about your world.
Q: Did you know of the Race from the thuktunthp as well?
A: No. The Herd Who Walked Before must not have discovered them or their client species. Perhaps their systems were farther away during their time. We learned about them through your own transmissions, catching a brief glimpse of the panic they had incited. That led to much confusion and lack of ease in our ranks, and it only got worse as we continued studying your transmissions.
Q: Could you elaborate on that?
A: Your first transmissions had already made us feel uneasy. Not only because it was proof that the element of surprise had been lost, and that you were advanced enough to track and communicate with us, but the very fact that you were attempting to talk before fighting was disturbing. We are a young herd. The idea of herds wildly different from us was something for Dreamers, but it soon became an unpleasant reality.
It only became worse as we deciphered your transmissions. It showed us a world where herds didn't automatically subsume others, where the inducted were almost never loyal. With that and your clearly advanced technology, it was sobering proof that a conquest would not be the smooth process we had imagined, and that we may lose more than we anticipated.
The Home fithp added to our worry. Their photon rockets was beyond us, and so we worried that perhaps their weapons would also exceed ours. The fact that you had sent us messages of peace, only to panic and go silent at their discovery, cemented that concern. Yet, I believe it also helped the Herdmaster to stay on his course.
Q: In what regard?
A: He spoke to us often of how these two factors that, on their lonesome could have spelled disaster, would instead negate each other. Between an enigmatic and advanced force, and an entire world of seeming rogues, there could be a chance for our victory. After all, it was clear to us that they also desired Winterhome. It was likely that war between the two herds would be likely, and that they would weaken each other.
Enough for our herd to then come in and subsume both.
And so, despite my own misgivings, and the increasing number of dissidents, we continued to plan for the conquest. We spent years in the system, resupplying, training, and preparing a war-ending weapon. All the while, I studied your kind, and wondered what was happening on your cold blue world.
-/-\-
Front Page of Reddit, October 13th 2014
1. (101k) R.E.M - It's The End Of The World [youtube]
Posted to /r/videos three hours ago - 2088 comments
2. (221k) Over two thousand ships spotted at the edge of the solar system, likely to arrive in six years. [bbc]
Posted to /r/worldnews four hours ago - 198189 comments
3. (201k) FIRST PICTURE OF THE FLEET [imgur]
Posted to /r/invasion one hour ago - 84819 comments
4. (69k) Presidential Address on Fleet [cnn]
Posted to /r/politics one hour ago - 4290 comments
5. (71k) Martial law has been declared in over a hundred countries [nyt]
Posted to /r/worldnews three hours ago - 8818 comments
6. (55k) Two fucking alien contacts? Are you kidding me? [self]
Posted to /r/firstcontact one hour ago - 1911 comments
7. (88k) China has shut down the internet across the entire country, inside sources claim [bbc]
Posted to /r/worldnews four hours ago - 5929 comments
8. (44k) Please, just say anything to give me hope [self]
Posted to /r/self two hours ago - 18870 comments
9. (21k) C'mon Will Smith, do your thing [imgur]
Posted to /r/MURICA two hours ago - 1010 comments
10. (77k) The British PM has reportedly hanged himself [bbc]
Posted to /r/invasion two hours ago - 9913 comments
11. (9k) SECOND ALIEN SPECIES SPECULATION MEGATHREAD [self]
Posted to /r/firstcontact thirty minutes ago - 1901 comments
12. (82k) REMINDER THAT THEY MAY BE FRIENDLY SO KEEP CALM [self]
Posted to /r/blog one hour ago - 28890 comments
13. (31k) Times Square is on fire right now [imgur]
Posted to /r/pics three hours ago - 5129 comments
14. (11k) Army recruitment went up 2200% today [cnn]
Posted to /r/news four hours ago - 4429 comments
15. (33k) Indian President proposes sending alliance offer to the first alien ship [bbc]
Posted to /r/invasion two hours ago - 8165 comments
16. (61k) Russian forces reportedly pulling out of Crimea, sources say [nyt]
Posted to /r/worldpolitics one hour ago - 7161 comments
17. (21k) Dow Jones drops 44% [cnn]
Posted to /r/news three hours ago - 442 comments
18. (11k) Coming out of the closet cuz no one's gonna notice with this [self]
Posted to /r/self one hour ago - 6168 comments
19. (30k) WE WILL NOT
Posted to /r/invasion one hour ago - 1776 comments
20. (29k) GO QUIETLY INTO
Posted to /r/invasion one hour ago - 1776 comments
21. (30k) THAT GOOD NIGHT
Posted to /r/invasion one hour ago - 1776 comments
22. (22k) What are some things to give us hope? [self]
Posted to /r/askreddit one hour ago - 17891 comments
23. (40k) IT'S HAPPENING [imgur]
Posted to /r/memes two hours ago - 717 comments
24. (55k) They probably want us to panic. Keep calm and we can get through this. [self]
Posted to /r/invasion one hour ago - 188 comments
25. (11k) Putting together the Team [imgur]
Posted to /r/invasionmemes two hours ago - 817 comments
-/-\-
Erewlo I
Short, even for his species, Subleader Erewlo is rather skittish as he cautiously waves me down. He has chosen a public park in Riyadh for our meeting. "Some of the other males get upset when I discuss this, and I think having a Tosevite with me in public is safer than in enclosed spaces," he explains.
Q: Good morning, Subleader. Are you ready for our discussion?
A: Yes, yes. Sssa... do you wish for something to drink? Are you comfortable? I know you don't like the heat as much, and I'd hate to be a bother, so if-
Q: I'm fine, but thank you for your concern. Now then, I would like to start with the beginning. When did the Conquest Fleet first realize that Earth had become industrialized?
A: Too late.
He pauses for some time.
It was in flight year 33, going by our time, so perhaps six years before the war by your reckoning. It was very soon after we had begun decelerating in the Ppilov Scattering. I should know, considering that it got me woken up years ahead of schedule.
Q: By whom?
A: By the ship's computer. I was situated on the flagship itself, the 127th Emperor Hetto. Being woken up by the computer during the flight isn't actually that unusual, you see. Whenever the automated systems detect an error, or something that could become an error, the appropriate crewmales are woken up from coldsleep as to handle the issue. Due to the reliability of everything we make, serious issues are almost never found, but we still are woken up just to be sure. Normally it's simply a small issue with heatshielding or the like.
So I was not terribly worried when the computer woke me up. I had initially assumed that there may be an issue with our communications laser, meant to transmit messages back to Home. The statistics supported such a likelihood, as I was instructed that every ship likely suffers from minor communications malfunction once during a fifteen year time span.
He shudders.
Then I investigated the problem, and realized it was not a flaw in communications.
Q: Why did the computer only alert you, a communications officer? Was the computer designed to alert command in case of unexpected contact?
A: No, of course not. We were the Race! No one else was supposed to have radio. When the computer detected radio signals not coming from Race starships, it simply assumed that there was an error of some sort and woke me up. I had to do the diagnostics myself, three hours of programming, in order to find out that the source of the 'malfunction' were artificial radio waves emanating from Tosev Three.
Q: What did you do when you realized what was happening?
A: I curled up into a ball. Like this.
He demonstrates.
For two hours.
Q: Was it that great a shock?
A: No. I mean, yes. Yes it was a tremendous shock. But it wasn't that. I was pulled in so many directions by my liver, thinking. Is Tosev Three actually industrialized? Did I make a mistake? If I did, how do I fix it? If it's not a mistake, who do I go to? Chain of command said nothing about discovering that the primitives you were meant to conquer within a week of landing had radio.
It didn't help that I was alone in an empty, dark ship. Lights are turned off to conserve power, and there were only five other males awake at the time, doing routine check ups on the coldsleep capsules and other subsystems. I wondered if I didn't wake up properly, and was simply hallucinating.
I was only broken out of my panic when I received communications from other ships in the fleet.
Q: Were they other communications officers?
He coughs affirmatively.
A: They had all been awoken from coldsleep for the same reason I had, and all had been faced with the same dilemma. That was the moment of clarity I needed, the proof that I was not egg-addled. And so it was my decision to alert Fleetlord Atvar regarding the new development.
Q: Did you go directly to the Fleetlord?
A: No. I went for Shiplord Kirel, and then had him alert the Fleetlord.
He rocks gently.
But he decided to have me in the room as we woke him from coldsleep, so I could provide technical details. I was shaking with nerves as I told him of the artificial radio waves, and of how the tiny Doppler-shifts indicated that they had come from Tosev Three.
Q: How did he react?
A: He thought Kirel and I had played an elaborate prank on him! That's how impossible the reality before us was. The Fleetlord, brightest of our kind for tens of light-years around, thought that your species becoming industrialized was nothing but a fiction meant to alarm him.
His rocking picks up pace.
He was grumbling about gross insubordination as he tapped at the datapad and read the report, until he saw how many other technicians signed on it. Then, he became very silent. Both eye turrets were on the report, not even lending one to us as he mulled it over. When I saw the Fleetlord, who should've known what to do more than anyone else in the Fleet, start to pluck nervously at his chin scales? I fainted.
Q: What happened after you woke up?
A: After I woke up? I don't remember. I was simply put back into coldsleep, with perhaps no waking time beforehand.
He stops his rocking, and forces himself to relax his posture.
I wish I had woken up back at Home.
-/-\-
The Beijing Psychiatric Hospital is a state-of-the art facility, meant to put patients at comfort during their stays here. Wáng Yèwèn certainly looks comfortable as I enter his room. The surroundings are surprisingly furnished with calligraphy and paintings of cities that he's made. Numerous medical textbooks and sociology papers are neatly put away in a bookcase, which has a number of family photos on top.
Yèwèn is sitting up calmly in bed. His hair is clipped short, with streaks of grey running through it, but there is an unexpected vividness in his eyes. They look like the eyes of a jolly old man, wrinkled by smiles and laughter. It is a startling juxtaposition with the hideous burn running up one side of his neck, as well as to the straightjacket binding his arms for the duration of our meeting.
Q: Good afternoon, Wàng Xiānshēng.
A: Good afternoon. Your tones could use some work, but the effort is appreciated. Most foreigners I've spoken with were not willing to try. Of course, I digress. I take it you are here to ask me about the war?
Q: Yes and no. I was hoping to get a little insight into what was going on before the war, first.
A: Ah. I suppose all the big stories begin with something small, do they not? The best ones, of course.
Q: You could interpret it that way if you like.
A: Then I shall do so; it makes it much better to tell my story. What exactly do you want to know?
Q: It'd be best to start with what the public was feeling in the initial months of the discovery.
A: That was a late 2014. Chilly weather, especially where I was. You see, I was born in Chóngqìng, but I went to the capital to study medicine. I was planning on becoming a surgeon, though I'd always held a fascination with sociology. Of course, there was no money in sociology, and so my parents made sure that I didn't take any classes as a distraction while I was abroad.
You seem... impatient. I suppose I'm, how you'd say? Dawdling. Lost in nostalgia. I missed home dearly, and I miss it now. Yet, I was making friends in school, and classes were going well. That was when the news arrived.
Q: How would you say people in China had taken it?
A: People? I feel that is... too broad. Very generalizing. Each one is like a world unto themselves. I suppose the most apt analogy would be... yes, a mosaic. Each tile is a different color, or has different colors in different ratios, but when put together, they can form a picture.
That picture was cautious, and more than a little fearful, but ultimately hopeful. There were those who'd been waiting their whole lives to see alien life, hoping to find peace in the stars. Even those were not readers of science fiction, or focused too much on the more mundane matters of the world, were suddenly finding their eyes drawn upwards.
The internet was full of speculation. The part of me that was fascinated with sociology found itself at the forefront of my mind. After all, what could be as interesting a sociological topic as an alien mind? I knew my way around the censorship placed by my government, and I was constantly on message boards, discussing the news. We were constantly asking each other so many questions. Why were they here? What kind of technology did they have? What did they look like? Did they have religion? Did they feel the same emotions as us?
There were quite a few jokes and comparisons drawn to a popular science fiction series at the time, which featured aliens from Alpha Centauri. Most of the jokes were half-seriously hoping that they would be quite different from the aliens in that series.
Television was much the same. There were politicians advocating a military build-up, politicians advocating the creation of a international message of peace to send to our visitors, and everything in between. Ultimately, however, even in my country people were hopeful. Why would a species capable of crossing an ocean of stars want to conquer a world? What could they possibly hope to gain?
I was personally excited, you see. If they landed, wherever they were, I wanted to be there, to ask them the questions that burned in my chest like hot coals.
Q: What changed that?
A: The Conquest Fleet.
For a moment, his face contorts with pain and grief, only to be replaced by a chilly anger. His voice drags along the back of my neck like a knife made of ice.
For a mission of peace, one would expect a single ship, or perhaps a small handful. Even interstellar expeditions would not require an absurd amount of material or manpower, especially if their work was more of a matter of communication than anything really physical.
There was no denying that hundreds of ships would not have peaceful intent.
That was when the panic began. It was not as bad in my country as it was in many third world nations, but it was not pleasant. There were stampedes in food stores as people tried to purchase supplies, and looting when some less civilized people felt there was no need to hold on to the law. There were even bombings in the west, where things are already contentious. Tibet, especially, was becoming more blood-soaked than usual.
I saw little of the panic first hand. The government put guards around the universities, and we were barred from leaving. We were not as frightened as the others; we knew that it would be six years before the real trouble began. Still, there was a sense of... unease. For all we knew, the war would be little more than pest control on their part, and that we only had six more years to enjoy life before its swift end.
And yet, and yet... I had been hopeful about the first ship. It was clearly not from the same star system, and some remained calm enough to appreciate the magnitude of two entire alien civilizations making contact with us at the same time. Some even thought that the first ship would be peaceful, and help us agains the coming fleet. I certainly did.
There was some worry about that ship at the time, however. I remember reading on message boards on how the ship had shrank after swinging around the sun, as if it had deposited a fuel tank or ramjet. Regardless of intent, it indicated to some that this ship was planning on staying in our solar system.
Then came Cassini. The probe, I believe, was in the middle of its second mission extension. By a stroke of what must have been divine providence, it was on a route that allowed a flyby of the first alien ship, and the world waited with bated breath as the first pictures came.
Q: It only managed to take a few before it was destroyed, I believe.
A: And yet, what an impact those handful of photos had! Imagine the terror billions felt when we saw a mile-long monstrosity of a spacecraft, armored like a battleship and covered in what could only be weapons. It looked like something that could crush nations, and to know that it would be coming our way...
He breathes deeply through his nose.
The draft opened up shortly after that. Against the suggestion of my parents, I signed up. And the rest... well, I'm sure many know the rest.
-/-\-
You have been reading:
Worldfall, Chapter One: Discoveries