FIFA and the AUNZ organizing committee thank fans and players around the world for the trust you have placed in us. We look forward to hosting the following World Cup, and we trust that the forty-eight finalists will compete in the spirit of fair play and friendship.
After much deliberation, the organizing committee has declined to accept the application of the Autonomous Martian Territories (hereafter, “Mars”) to compete in the qualifying tournament. We recognize that this decision will be disappointing to many. This is a reflection of current FIFA policies, and we do not intend it to set a precedent for other sports governing bodies.
FIFA traditionally has six continental zones, or regions, from which teams qualify. (Because New Zealand will qualify automatically as co-hosts, and Australia are currently affiliated with the Asian zone, the remaining Oceania Football Confederation teams have been exceptionally drawn against other Asian teams for this tournament.) Mars, for somewhat obvious reasons, does not have an existing affiliation with any continental federation. This is not an insurmountable barrier, however; despite geographical constraints, Israel has been variously part of the Asian, Oceanian, and European federations.
Assuming an existing federation was willing to allow the Martian team entry, qualification would likely require them to play home-and-away legs against some or all of the other competitors in that zone. Many teams have voiced their opposition to travelling to space for competitive or even unofficial matches; notably, the friendly match scheduled between clubs FC Barcelona and Bayern München at the RoyCro Multiplex was cancelled after athletes expressed concern that the travel would needlessly disrupt their training regimen. Many fan organizations also noted that, while a potential revenue opportunity for the clubs, the match would have been played almost entirely in front of residents of the United States Lunar Territories and have been inaccessible to local supporter groups. After that controversy, national teams such as Scotland and Chinese Taipei preemptively declared they would not be willing to travel to matches in non-Earth areas until a more consistent policy was implemented for which teams qualified as “national.” (FIFA does not intend this document to resolve that question.)
We have been in consultation with the current Mars staff as they applied for participation. It was impossible to travel to inspect their stadiums or training facilities, as accepting funds for travel to Mars would have far exceeded the stipends permitted in the Transparency and Oversight Standards of 2033. However, the virtual reality reconstructions of these buildings suggest that they are well-maintained and in compliance with regulations. If and when travel to Mars is feasible for opposing teams, there will be little significant investment needed to bring the pitches up to international standard. The altered uniforms and artificial grasslike fields may present a challenge for visitors unused to this terrain, but it is not an unreasonable disadvantage since the pitch conditions affect both teams equally. Therefore, as with Bolivia’s high-altitude stadium, it should be possible to host games.
Fabrice Ekoko, a former manager of the Mars team, has stated that they would be willing to remain Earthside for several months to play their qualification matches in an abbreviated timeframe. The 2025 guidelines on scheduling international matches were written in the context of players who split time between their national teams and domestic clubs. Because the Martian league is not professionalized, we expect that clubs would be willing to release their players for such a compressed qualifying series, so the guidelines could be waived in this case.
However, we believe that the World Cup is not only a celebration of athleticism; it is also a celebration of national spirit. Regardless of its political status, a team unable to play any games in a “home” stadium in front of compatriots is not fully experiencing the opportunity for peaceful competition that the World Cup provides. There are a few exceptions, such as Iraq, where political violence has sometimes made home games impractical. Mars, however, is very socially stable and its population can experience spectator sport in venues other than the World Cup. Rather than make accommodations for a lessened experience, we believe Mars ought to wait until it has the transit infrastructure to play meaningful games against opposing teams, wherever that may be.
It is likely that, were the Mars men’s national team approved to participate in World Cup qualification, their women’s team would also apply to the next Women’s World Cup tournament. However, young men and women are not always on equal footing when it comes to interplanetary travel. Samples of liability contracts from Martian settlements such as Borealis III and 6 Noach suggest that many more women than men have voluntarily agreed to forgo extramartian travel as a condition of their sponsorship, due to concerns about the effects of radiation on egg cells. Certainly, the details of any specific individual, footballers or otherwise, are private matters. Nevertheless, in a roster of twenty-three healthy athletes, it is likely that at least one would be contractually obliged not to play matches on Earth. Giving male players the opportunity to repeatedly travel, when their female counterparts do not necessarily have that right, would be at odds with FIFA’s mission of promoting diversity in sport.
Other sports’ governing bodies have taken, and will continue to take, different approaches to extraterrestrial sport. For individual rather than team sports, it is increasingly likely that financially-independent athletes will travel to and from Earth in the course of their career. The IWF recognizes its own set of weightlifting records set on the moon and on Mars, which exist alongside the records set in Earth gravity. Table tennis player Sung Bowen competed as an Independent Martian Athlete at the last Summer Olympics. FIFA will continue to monitor the challenges and rewards of non-Earth football, but with the upcoming qualification cycle about to begin, now is the time to issue clear guidelines on eligibility. Questions may be directed to Eileen Bogaerts of the AUNZ team or Gabriel Lopez of FIFA.
~
Bio:
Madeline Barnicle holds a PhD in mathematical logic from UCLA, and now lives in Maryland. She enjoys worldbuilding fantastical settings, especially simulating their sports leagues.
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~
Bio:
David F. Shultz writes speculative fiction from Toronto, Canada, where he manages the 600-member Toronto Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers group, and is lead editor at TDotSpec. His over-fifty published works are featured or forthcoming through publishers such as Diabolical Plots and Third Flatiron. David holds degrees in cognitive science, philosophy, law, and education. Author webpage: davidfshultz.com/about
The
nearly complete suppression of Pope John XX from the pages of history is
unparalleled in all the long, sad story of censorship. So thorough and so
widespread has this suppression been, that it now seems impossible to guess,
with any precision, how long he reigned, or, more surprisingly, even when.
[Encyclopaedists attempt to dismiss the matter by claiming that a clerical error in the Liber Pontificalis assigned two dates to John XIV, and thus confused some of the papal catalogues. Oddly, it did not confuse John XV, John XVI, John XVII, John XVIII or John XIX. We are asked to believe that the Vatican — which keeps such careful record of its papal names that it accepts the numbers claimed by antipopes — somehow lost count. This is absurd, no matter how often this lame excuse has been reprinted. It is an argument for the ignorant, a Sunday School cant. No serious scholar accepts it. -Ed.]
Some historians have conflated the missing John XX with the legend of Pope Joan: the woman who supposedly gave such extraordinary lectures at the University of Paris (all the while disguised as a man) that she was elevated to the papacy. Elevated to the papacy without being first a Cardinal, and by a unanimous vote of the College. Previously those who believed the Pope Joan story attempted to identify her with a certain John Anglicus, putative successor to Leo IV, but he is not listed in the catalogues either, and the name is probably just a piece of the same legend. Attempts have been made to tie her with other popes of known date (John XVII, Clement III) including, rather outrageously, Pius XI (in the 20th century!). Nonetheless, it is tempting indeed to conflate one unlisted pope with the other, especially when the names Joan and John are gender versions of each other.
Increasing the allure of this hypothesis that she was John XX
is that the story of Pope Joan is first recorded in the 1240s. This creates a
space of two centuries after the death of John XIX (in 1032) into which to insert
this elusive reign, which is said to have ended in childbirth, exposure and
violent death.
While this period most likely does enclose the suppressed reign of John XX, recent archeology reveals that “Pope Joan” is an updating of a legend from pre-Republican Rome. It seems that a woman infiltrated the office of pontifex maximus, a religious desecration so heinous that its discovery would require the immediate execution of the defiler, just as modern legend preserves.
Scholarship having thus deprived us of this easy solution to the problem, and endless hours of research among all the chronicles of medieval Christendom having uncovered as yet no clear candidate for the missing prelate, it would be beneficial, some think, to examine this question from the other end. From the cause.
What would lead the Church to utterly eradicate the name of one of its leaders from history?
History records many attempts to expunge certain figures from memory. Akhenaton attempted to replace the names of all the gods with that of Aten, and in his turn had his name chiseled out of monuments by his angry polytheistic successors. But neither attempt was sufficiently thorough. We still know the names of Akhenaton and the gods that ruled the earth before his birth.
King Arthur of Britain suffered considerable suppression by the Church, and his name is found in none of the chronicles preserved by monks. In Gildas, for instance, his battles are described and his government discussed, but it is as if the ruler of the Britons had no name. It is from Welsh poems that we know the name of Ambrosius’s successor, and from some Saint’s Lives that suggest the cause of the suppression of his name. In these tales Arthur is the bad guy, trying to extract taxes from the Church. In retribution, the Church moved to make his very name vanish. Again, however, they failed. We know Arthur’s name, and battles, and rough dates.
In the most recent century we have again seen this impulse to censorship in action, but despite the best efforts of the Soviet Encyclopedists, we still know the name of Beria, and that of Trotsky, and all the other original revolutionaries whom later leaders sought to outshine.
In these, and many other such cases — despite the best efforts of those who sought to erase — we know the names. Just as we know the names of many anti-popes through the ages, no matter how heretical or fraudulent or evil their rival rule.
But of John the Twentieth we have nothing, nothing but a blank in the papal lists, a missing designation between John XIX and John XXI. This suggests that his crime, if crime it was, must have been worse than mere political rivalry; worse than attempted taxation; worse than doctrinal originality; worse than heresy; and far, far worse than being a woman.
There are three main schools of thought on this issue, but all agree that whatever the cause of this suppression, John XX’s time on the papal throne must have been short. A reign of years, perhaps even of months, would have left traces even the most conscientious pursuer would not have found. Communications in those days were simply not reliable enough to enforce an order to suppress a name, and Church and royal rule was insufficiently rigorous for such a task. We would be more likely to find copies of the order to suppress the name than to find the name’s complete absence.
The primary theory (called the Berne Conjecture, after the location of its original proponents) is that Pope John XX was discovered to be worse than a mere heretic. Had he been a secret Jew or Muslim, however, this would have provided the Church an excuse for burnings, exiles, or new Crusades; none of which it shrank from using in this period. A practitioner of the Black Arts, or an alchemist, on the other hand, might have been a greater problem. In the mind of the public a woman, or a Jew, or a heretic might become Pope through deception. While deplorable, it casts no clear stain upon the office; and in those days before the Pope became infallible the fallibility of the College of Cardinals might be sensitive but it was not crucial.
But the first thought one has when hearing that the Pope was an alchemist or sorcerer is different. One is inclined to leap to the conclusion that it was special powers that brought him to the office. And this, goes the line of reasoning, threatens the office itself by implying the supremacy of magic over religion. Just as Peter gave short shrift to Simon Magus, so might the protectors of his throne to a magician successor.
Another theory, objected to as somewhat fanciful by sober theological historians, has nonetheless gained currency among Charismatics and Sanctificationists. Regarded as “New Age” by some critics, and as derivative of Dostoevsky by others, it predates both. A Dutch follower of Swedenborg, one Luther Diogenes Kuyptmann, wrote a short commentary on his master’s Arcana Coelestia in which he contended, in a brief footnote written in awkwardly phrased modern Latin, that John XX had been a heavenly angel. This angel, Kuyptmann asserts, lasted less than a day as Pope. Having declared it his purpose to divest the Church of both its property and temporal power, he was immediately dispatched (how one dispatches an angel is not made clear) by an outraged Curia.
Though the source of this story is unclear, and many attribute it to an unrecorded vision of Swedenborg, it has proven surprisingly resilient over the years. At least three separate scholars have visited the Vatican Archives in the last decade in an attempt to find corroboration; and there was a report in the 1950s that the KGB had found proof of the matter in a Russian Orthodox library, but nothing of this has surfaced in the post-Soviet era.
Those who have given serious consideration to this claim argue that the Church could easily have insisted that the angelic impostor was in fact a demon, and dispensed with the need for suppression. A similar argument can be applied to the last contending theory, except that in this case, unlike that of the reputed angel, there might have been awkward physical evidence to deal with. Evidence that might still reside in the bowels of Paris.
The hints upon which this third conjecture were first based are to be found in certain odd passages in both the Summa Theologiae and the Summa contra Gentiles of St. Thomas Aquinas. Amidst the discussions of such questions as How many angels can stand on the head of a pin?, or In the same place?, and Whether they have corporal bodies? are scattered several surprisingly modern inquiries. Aquinas asked whether “Intelligences live among the celestial spheres?” and “Can those in the upper air move from place to place without the passage of time?” and, rather intriguingly “Can the bodies of those who live among the fires of the upper air be burned while alive?”
Theologians over the years have tended to neglect these passages as of minor relevance, and a search of the standard database reveals no doctoral theses on these items, or any published paper in the last two hundred years. My own copy of Aquinas has a rather lame footnote suggesting that some of Marco Polo’s stories had raised questions about flying people and other fabulous types of humans and demons, hence these odd interludes.
Aquinas (1225-1274) lived in the last part of the period in which John XX can be assumed to have ruled, dying just two years before the investiture of John XXI. Just as his questions concerning angelic messengers remind the modern reader of a discussion of photons (no mass, instantaneous travel), so these questions make the modern reader think of extra-planetary aliens.
And if a true non-human from the sky was discovered in the papacy, this might give rise to a reaction of secrecy and suppression. This might especially be so if the problem was ongoing, even after the alien pope had been replaced.
Specifically, the question about a creature from the sky having a body that can’t burn while alive has encouraged a few thinkers to imagine that an auto-de-fé of the offending prelate had in fact been attempted. And failed.
One need look no further than the Vatican’s own art collection to find possible supporting evidence for this. A number of anonymous works, all dating from after 1180, as well as the works of known painters (3 Titians and 2 Botticellis, and a Theotokopoulos among them) right into the Renaissance contain an iconographic character, always in the background, known in art circles as The Chained Figure. His body is hulking, despondent, and his head usually shrouded, helmeted or hidden in shadow. He has typically been referred to as a symbol of sinners not yet redeemed by Christ, but there is no predecessor for such an image before the late 12th century, and it entirely disappears from Catholic art simultaneously with the shameful treaty of Pisa in 1664, in which the Pope surrendered abjectly to the demands of Louis XIV.
This is the precise time that the famous Man in the Iron Mask appears in French documents, imprisoned at Pignerol. This prisoner would die in the Bastille in 1703 and be buried (not traditionally cremated) in great secrecy.
Could Aquinas, the supporters of this Contact Conjecture ask, have been discussing a very specific case, one known to him personally? And could a man from the sky have somehow been made Pope, been discovered, dethroned, expunged from history, unsuccessfully burned at the stake, imprisoned, and have lived perhaps another 500 years?
But that would be, as Montaigne used to say, altogether too fantastical.
~
Bio:
Timons Esaias is a satirist, poet, essayist and short fictionator. His works have appeared in twenty languages. He won the Asimov’s Readers Award and the Louis Award for poetry and was a finalist for the BSFA. He teaches in the Seton Hill University MFA in Writing Popular Fiction. He reads more than is probably good for him, sometimes in languages that have long ago died. Interests include chess, aikido, maritime history and military history. He spends entirely too much time inspecting coastal fortifications. People who know him are not surprised to learn that he lived in a museum for eight years.
Notice of an Auction of the Estate of
Evelyn Chen-Ortiz
Auction Date: May 23, 3985, 1600-2100
hours. Preview May 21 and 22, 1200-1700 each day.
Location: Hillis Auctions, 567 Main Street,
Suites 16a-c, Milwaukee, Republic of Wisconsin.
Map. Directions. Contact.
All items obtained off-world warranted to
have passed through certified biological and/or radiological decontamination.
All sales subject to a 15% buyer’s premium plus applicable taxes.
The highlight of this Auction is a
collection of artifacts discovered on January (Beta Aquarii V) by John Barron
Chen as part of his initial, privately-funded exploration of the planet
(3880-3882). The following objects were part of Chen’s personal collection
until his death in 3919 and have remained in the family until now. This is a
once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to own one or more of the only items from
January still in private hands, and provenance documents signed by the
Chen-Ortiz family will be provided for any item upon request. Please note that
export of these items to countries not signatories of the UN Convention on
Interstellar Artifacts is prohibited, documentation notwithstanding.
Lot No. 44
— Description: Chinese-style Beitie stone rubbing of a frieze in the
“Temple of Two Monsters.” Framed, 1.0 meters wide by 2.0 meters long.
Produced by Chen himself using Terran paper and Chinese calligraphy ink. Scene
depicts rows of Januarians, first two pairs of forelimbs upraised, flanking an
altar (?) upon which is heaped a possible food offering. Incised lines reach
down from a sphere, perhaps indicating fire or divine power appearing above the
offering. Estimate: 10000-12500 Standard Units.
Lot No. 72
— Description: Caftan 2.4435 meters long, 0.613 meters wide including sleeves,
made of a blue synthetic polymer similar to nylon with quilted-in patches of
unknown gray animal skin. Believed to be a ceremonial robe for clan gatherings
or possibly clerical garb, as this artifact was removed from a single
individual found facing a “congregation” of other individuals in a small
building near the center of the city, believed to be a social hall or small
temple. (Nomura’s theory that the garment is a cooking apron is unlikely, due
to the low melting point and flammability of the synthetic cloth used in this
item’s manufacture.) Other examples contain quilted-in material, but the use of
animal skin in this caftan is unique. Estimate: 25000-35000 Standard Units.
Lot No. 93
— Description: Pair of Tannoak seeds. Identification of the plant that
produced these seeds is tentatively accepted from iconography in multiple
temple friezes. Found together, the wear patterns on the surface of each seed
and the purposeful treatment with multiple coats of lipids indicate they may
have been rolled against one another as the Januarian equivalent of stress
balls or worry beads. Biochemical examination reveals that neither seed is
viable. This is likely due to the sterilizing effects of gamma-ray pulsar PSR
Q2132-0535 which passed through the Beta Aquarii system approximately 500 years
ago. Estimate: 5000-10000 Standard Units.
Lot No. 98 –
A “Singing Crystal.” Description: A single 1.629cm x 1.629cm x
1.629cm, slightly cloudy, off-white crystal composed of over 21 discrete
chemical elements. Scanning the crystal with blue laser light between 4250 and
4500 angstroms produces exitons and polaritons which, as they collapse, produce
an acoustic phenomenon described by Lauren Wilkerson, expedition
xenotechnologist, as sounding like “a combination of chimes and a gently
babbling stream.” Evidence of atomic-level manufacture indicates the
object had some other primary/secondary purpose, perhaps data storage.
Estimate: 35000-50000 Standard Units.
Lot No. 102
– “The First Skull.” Description: Skull of a Januarian in
sapphire-glass case with rosewood base and brass mounts. This is the original
object collected by Chen himself in the Necropolis. Sealed in shatterproof
sapphire-glass and stored in a Carbon Dioxide/Nitrogen mixture that simulates
the atmosphere of January to prevent degradation of the bone through oxidation.
Prominent “Chief Ridges” located between the central and lateral eye
sockets and the oral grinding plates indicate what is believed to be the
status/mating hierarchy of the individual within the social collective. The
rosewood base and brass mounts were added by Chen the year after his return to
Earth. Estimate: 100000-150000 Standard Units.
Lot No. 204 — Description: Two Codices written in an undeciphered Januarian script. Both items roughly 22.5cm by 30cm. The first codex is hand-written on 162 folded and linked panels of a thick paper made of organic material and bound in wooden boards. Carbon dating adjusted for Januarian historical CO2 uptake rates and conducted after the item’s return to Earth indicates a manufacture date of approximately 650 years before the exploration of January. Rubrication of initial letters in each “chapter” and the general quality of both materials and workmanship further suggest the codex was a religious text, possibly either a family heirloom or a collector’s item. Codex includes a later, tipped-in illustration of two suns—one violet-black, one yellow—rising over a mountain range, possibly a representation of PSR Q2123-0535’s passage through the stellar system. The second codex consists of nine folded and linked panels machine-printed on a thin paper of synthetic fibers. Illustrations inside suggest it may be a user’s manual for a piece of communications technology not yet discovered. Estimate: 20000-35000 Standard Units.
Lot No. 208 — Description: A doll. Made of a green and black organic cloth 0.4 meters long with three black glass beads for eyes. One bead “eye” unlike the others, likely a later replacement. The individual depicted appears to be an idealized, non-gendered Januarian as fore- and hind-limb pairs terminate only in rounded “hands” and “feet.” Fabric well-worn (well loved?) with some fading of the dyes and dirt stains on the soles of the hind limbs. Roughly two-centimeter repair on belly, possibly the owner’s handiwork, using black synthetic thread. Removed from a small, unmarked grave just outside the entrance to the Necropolis. Estimate: 2500-5000 Standard Units.
~
Bio:
Andrew Gudgel is a freelance writer and translator. His fiction has appeared at Writers of the Future, Flash Fiction Online, Escape Pod, InterGalactic Medicine Show and other publications. He lives in Maryland, USA, in an apartment slowly being consumed by books. You can find him at www.andrewgudgel.com.
Regarding
The Bridges to the Island of Manhattan, and Corpses Depending therefrom:
I write to object in the most
strenuous possible terms to the substance and tone of the editorial which
appeared Monday last in this newspaper, entitled ‘The Crisis of Leadership’.
Since the very beginning of our first
term, my administration has endeavored to strengthen our city: to root out the
rot of Tammany corruption, and prepare America for its role in the War that
consumes Europe. In the ‘puzzling’ election of November last (and despite
political machinations) the people voted to stay the course. And now,
strengthened, we face together an unprecedented challenge, a Crisis of Nature.
Let me first extend my sympathy to
the families of all those affected. Our hearts go out to you, and all those
suffering the consequences of this bizarre epidemic. Next, I thank our Police
and militia forces, who are on the front line of our emergency every day.
This return of our dearly departed
represents an event unprecedented in human experience. Science can and will
arrive at an explanation—moreover, a solution—to this affliction. But the medieval proposal cited in your
editorial, to suspend these undead still writhing piteously from the
superstructure of bridges and other public works of our Fair City as a
‘solution’ to this plague is unsupported
by anything but superstition.
Interdiction at the bridges has
already been established, as well as Neighborhood Watches. Yet certain groups propose
the barbarous practice of gibbeting as a deterrent to the undead phenomenon. These
vigilantes have taken it upon themselves to capture and display the undead in
this fashion, aided and abetted by those who would see this administration torn
down.
And where is our humanity, in
proposing that these unfortunates, after capture, be put on public display? We
become no better than the horror that we face. The fallacy should be apparent:
the undead lack the power of reason, and respect no deterrent save for brute
force. But of course, this ghastly display is a warning not to the dead, but
the living.
Need I remind any of your readers that
it is the brave soldiers who sacrificed their lives in the Great War who,
through no fault of their own, first became the unthinking, puppet-like mob now
shambling through Europe? Rising from their rude graves in the French
countryside, they spread the contagion, through contact with the living, around the world. And now that this threat
has reached our shores, those same Isolationists who sought to prevent
America’s intervention in Europe would stigmatize our returning soldiers as
possible plague-carriers!
We must not lose faith. Consider the
threat posed by influenza – had medical science not fortuitously isolated the
responsible virus within months, a catastrophe of global proportions might have
developed. These same medical minds are already hard at work on this latest
challenge.
I trust the readership will join with
me in denouncing as unscientific any harmful ‘solutions’ such as this, and will
put their faith, as I have, in American Science to solve this mystery and
provide us all relief. When the Allies prevail (as they surely will) and our
brave troops return, it must be to adulation, not superstition and fear. My
recent re-election tells me that there is no ‘crisis’ in leadership, and I
intend to do everything in my power to see our City through this emergency.
(Signed)
John Purroy Mitchel
Mayor, New York City
~
Bio:
J. L. Royce is an author of Science Fiction and macabre writings (and whatever else suits his fancy) residing in the upper American Midwest. Some of his other publications may be found at amazon.com/author/jlroyce.
St Augustine, a disciple
of St Ambrose, Bishop of Milan in the years around 380AD, sat at the feet of
that eminent Father alongside the unknown author of the Codex Alexandria. We may surmise this from the following facts.
As Augustine tells in
Book IV of the Confessions, “When he
[Ambrose] was reading, his eyes ran over the page and though his heart
perceived the sense, his lips were silent.” The sight of a man reading for
himself and not for others hints at books becoming their own justification. The
Alexandria codex is fragmentary, but bears a dedication praising the learned
Ambrose, and it too mentions this silent readership, tacita lectoris.
We know that a complete
copy of the work, subsequently titled On
The Vastness Of Space And The Paucity Of Inhabited Worlds, was made for the
library of the Bishop of Antioch in the opening years of the fifth century,
since it is described in the catalogue of books demanded by Theodosius II.
That new Emperor at
Constantinople, already forced to accept the division of the Roman empire into
East and West and unwilling to risk the fragile unity of the Church, cast
suspicious eyes upon the See of Antioch, where the heresy of Arianism had only
latterly been extinguished.
The copyist describes
the work as containing the most perfect
proof of the existence of God, and a lemma which insisted that the divine
law, or necessitas, by which God made
our world – the laws of physics, as
we might say – must allow the plurality of worlds, since to argue otherwise
imposes limitations upon God.
In addition, crowded
into the margin in another hand is the observation: concludes the absence of other inhabited worlds – which must follow if
the proof is true.
About the nature of this
vanished proof we can only speculate. It should not surprise us that merely
human arguments about the existence of God do not resist scrutiny. The lesser
may not contain the greater. Yet tellingly, no proof before has demanded that
humankind be unique. Perhaps some ideas are fathered only once.
In the centuries since
Ambrose, Augustine and the author of the lost Codex, we have indeed found a
plurality of worlds, and our servants, the silicon descendants of our own
minds, have visited some of them.
And though we have listened carefully, it seems we are alone. As far as we can tell – and these days that is very far indeed – except for the miracle of ourselves, the universe is silent. Science has determined these facts but does not offer an explanation. It may be that others see no need to read aloud; or perhaps it is an infinite theatre with a solitary actor and no audience. In the sonorous Latin of that unknown hand, the most perfect proof of the existence of God demands there be a multitude of worlds, but perhaps the God who was proved to exist had no choice but to leave them vacant. Regretfully, it may be true that the worlds of creation echo to no voices but our own.
~
Bio:
David Barber lives in the UK. His work has appeared in Daily Science Fiction, New Myths and Asimov’s. (He framed the cheque.) His ambition is to write.
The
ability to defy aging and death has become a reality in our time. Now we no
longer fear a hideous decay and decrepitude. Nor do we picture a pointless afterlife
of singing Hosannas to a god of dubious virtue.
But
even as the universe giveth, it taketh away. Where it extends the lives of the
aged, it must surely deprive the unborn generations of theirs. The question then
becomes how long should the young let the aged live before forcing them to
their graves?
In
Nekros v. U.S. the high court was asked to address that very question
through the prism of the First Amendment. That Amendment both prohibits
Congress from promoting one religion over another (Establishment Clause) and
restricting an individual’s religious practices (Free Expression Clause).
BACKGROUND
On March 25, 2035,
Google perfected Project Calico, which had a mandate to kill death and stop
aging. It did so with pico-electric nanites injected into the subject’s blood
stream. The nanites cured illness, stopped aging, and extended life
indefinitely for anyone so treated. Death by natural causes ceased to exist for
those who could afford it.
To ease the
financial burden on nanite candidates, western governments stepped in with
subsidies. That was a necessary step since the initial injection and annual
follow-ups were beyond the means of most people.
Unfortunately,
life extension did more harm than good. First, the number of global births
began to exceed the number of deaths. With more mouths than food to go around, global
food shortages became the norm. Second, the elderly clung to their jobs leaving
younger people unemployed, and therefore, an added societal burden. Third, the
cost of government subsidized life extension crushed economic growth in the
developed nations. Fourth, the collection of retirement benefits far beyond
what was once a normal lifespan wreaked havoc on corporations. Finally, there
was an uptick in crime and other deviant behavior associated with the amortal
demographic. Psychologists attributed it to an overweening sense of
invincibility coupled with an inexplicable decline in impulse control.
Social
philosophers and economists wrestled with the question of how long is long
enough? Politicians asked the same
question. On May 25, 2050, both Houses of Congress passed the Mandatory
Euthanasia Act which capped life spans at 150 years old. Regardless of a
person’s overall physical and mental health, once a person had passed the
chronological red line, they were ordered to report via the Selective
Euthanasia Service to a Federal Termination Unit for painless and otherwise
humane liquidation.
Many pundits
believed that the impact of ageless living on the world’s religions,
particularly those with pie-in the sky visions of an afterlife, would be
terminal. To the contrary, religions of all dominations experienced explosive
growth directly correlated with the enactment of the MEA.
The reason for
such a radical sea change lay in the Constitution. Many religionists believed
that the First Amendment protected their right to practice their religion in
perpetuity on earth. The lower courts disagreed on the ground that the religious
doctrines in question did not mandate earthly life in perpetuity. Instead, it
stressed that all the doctrines in question characterized earthly life of
secondary importance relative to the greater heavenly reality to follow.
To circumvent that
obstacle, K.C. Braddock formed the Church of the Everlasting Earthly Flame. Its
central tenet was that God promised eternal earthly life to any and all who
sought it.
Harlan Nekros, age
149, joined the congregation that year fully expecting to receive First
Amendment Protection of his religious freedom to remain alive
indefinitely.
On his 150th
birthday, Nekros received his order to report within one year to a termination
facility in fulfillment of his societal obligation. He subsequently obtained a
temporary restraining order in Federal District Court to stay the process
pending a hearing.
At the hearing,
Pepper’s lawyers argued that Nekros’s rights would be violated by the Court’s
enforcement of the MEA. As a congregant of Everlasting Flame, Nekros was
entitled to preserve his life by whatever means were available. To order his termination,
the State would be committing a crime against his person and his
constitutionally protected right to free exercise of religion.
Nekros’ lawyers stressed
that “the State’s law is just another example of a callous and godless
government running roughshod over human life and the religious rights of
believers. Drunk with power, the State argues unconvincingly that forced
suicide is a curative to modern medical paternalism.”
For its part, the United
States Attorney argued that, “the net effect of Project Calico’s so-called
success is that federal, state and local governments have been handed the
crushing economic burden of medical treatments and retirement benefits extended
into perpetuity for a growing population of geriatrics. Climate change, and the
concomitant scarcity of food and water, have made those burdens exponentially
greater.”
“Such extreme
hardships call for extreme measures if our republic is to hold together. As in
war, some members of society must be sacrificed so that the greater whole may
survive. It is disingenuous for opposing counsel to argue that the State lacks
an adequate moral foundation for the law and is simply acting in arbitrary and
capricious manner in derogation of the petitioner’s liberty and religious
interests.”
The Federal Court
for the Southern District of New York ruled that MEA violated the petitioner’s free
exercise of religion. It ordered the suppression of the State’s termination
order pending an appeal.
NEKROS v. U.S.
The United States
Supreme Court granted a writ of certiorari to determine the
constitutionality of the Federal Life-Time Limits set forth in the MEA statute.
The major points of that opinion follow:
FREEDOM
OF EXPRESSION
Nekros’
strongest line of attack lies in the First Amendment’s protection of religious
freedom. We reject that argument. The State does not deny appellant’s right to
believe whatever doctrine he chooses. Indeed, the State’s motivation in
enforcing the MEA is a secular one and does not make any religious practice
unlawful. The State is not acting as the thought police, nor the guardian of
any one religion. The appellant remains the master of his own mind and soul and
is therefore free to pursue whatever religious truth he sees fit to follow.
ESTABLISHMENT
CLAUSE
If
we were to grant exemptions to Eternal Flame congregants, we would be violating
the Establishment Clause by giving preferences to those who believe they are
entitled to an eternal earthly life at the expense of other religions that do
not so believe.
DUE
PROCESS
The
due process clauses of the constitution act against the arbitrary denial of life,
liberty or property outside the sanction of law. There is nothing arbitrary or
unsanctioned about the MEA. It is based on the need to reduce domestic
population in order to conserve financial and material resources in both the
private and public sector. It was enacted with the unanimous consent of both
Houses of Congress and ratified by the President. We find therefore that the
MEA does not offend the due process clauses.
EQUAL
PROTECTION
Nekros
argued that irrespective of any due process considerations, the MEA violates the
Equal Protection Clause which holds that ‘No state shall deny to any person
within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.’ Nekros asserts that persons
over the age of 150 years old are being singled out for disfavored treatment
relative to the rest of the public. We find this challenge to be without merit.
At first blush, senicide, or selective eradication based on age, would seem to
offend the right to equal protection under the law. But since all citizens fall
within the sweep of the statute, we can find no basis for a claim of
differential treatment under the law.
RIGHT
OF PRIVACY
Nekros
also argues that penumbra of the constitution creates a fundamental right to
privacy, and by implication a right of self-determination. To support that
argument, Nekros has provided a laundry list of case law bearing on a woman’s
right to abortion, assisted suicide for the terminally ill patients, and
fulfillment of DNR orders in living wills. Nekros would have us extend that
right of self-determination so that he may lead an ageless existence in
perpetuity irrespective of the law of the land. We find such case law
distinguishable from the one at hand because there was no countervailing state
interest in regulating population control. In these difficult times, we must
all make hard choices. As the District court noted, the needs of the many
outweigh the needs of the one or the few.
DOCTOR
FRANKENSTEIN’S MONSTERS
We
take judicial notice of the State’s statistical data regarding the
well-documented criminality and malicious deviance of the ageless. To date, there
have been more deaths from their wanton and reckless geriatric behavior than
from all other domestic causes combined.
That
precipitous decline in personal and societal risk assessment, as reflected in
those jarring statistics, stems from an unforeseen limitation of nanation. Although
the nanation process may preserve cognitive and bodily function, it cannot preserve
emotional intelligence. To the contrary, the effect of an extremely long and
healthy life imbues the individual with a sense of invincibility, while
simultaneously degrading impulse control. The medical community describes this
effect as Toxic Centenarian Deviancy Syndrome. To date, there is neither a
treatment nor a cure.
We
hold therefore that Nekros’ constitutional challenges are without merit. We
order that Nekros be remanded back to federal custody for termination within
the next six months, pursuant to the original liquidation order.
JUSTICE
WILBUR BAKER, DISSENTING
I
am disgusted by the social arithmetic used by the majority. I do not believe
that such an algorithm is good for society. Indeed, the notion that the State
has the unfettered right to murder its citizens for no other reason than they
have escaped death by old age is palpably absurd. Indeed, it reeks of both Hitler’s
death camps where Jews were exterminated because they were characterized as morally
flawed and Stalin’s pogroms against his own troops because they had been
contaminated by exposure to western values at the front.
Not
surprisingly, Hitler’s views on genocide — for what is the systematic
extermination of an outcast group if not that — took their inspiration from our
sterilization laws so popular in the 1920’s. Those laws aimed to eradicate the unfit
and the degenerate: criminals, prostitutes, alcoholics, epileptics and the
mentally ill.
I
find it disingenuous for the majority to assert that a person is free to
believe whatever they like up until the moment the state lops off his or her
head. It reminds one of the turkey’s fate on Thanksgiving Day following a few
years of placid existence on the farm.
What
the state, with the imprimatur of the courts has done, is criminalize long life
but without the procedural and substantive protections afforded any accused criminal.
It follows in the vein of other authoritarian regimes that have criminalized such
things as reading, writing, and transporting books as well as composing and playing
music. I must ask what comes next.
Given
the State’s willingness to commit legally sanctioned murder, and its propensity
to expand its reach, I should not be surprised if it concocts another law that
violates both the spirit and letter of our sacred constitution. Thus, do we
slouch toward tyranny and the genocides necessary to sustain it with a wink and
a nod to the Founding Fathers.
I
therefore respectfully dissent from the majority opinion.
~
Bio:
Carlton Herzog served as a flight dispatcher in the USAF. He later graduated magna cum laude from Rutgers University. He also graduated from Rutgers Law School, where he served as the Rutgers Law Review Articles Editor. He currently works for the federal government.
EXCERPT FROM THE 2230 VATICAN CONFERENCE ON THE EXISTENCE OF EXTRATERRESTRIAL LIFE PRESENTED BY CARDINAL GIACOMO BONANOTA, CHIEF ASTRONOMER, VATICAN OBSERVATORY, ROME
From antiquity to the present, we have debated whether intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe. In a seemingly unrelated vein, we have also wondered what happens to us when we die. Is death the end, or is it merely a jumping off point to a deeper, more nuanced and granular reality, of which we are only dimly aware? To be sure, I as a man of faith never saw the intimate connection between extraterrestrial intelligence and the soul. That, my friends, has changed.
We all remember the story of Giordano Bruno who championed the Principle of Plenitude. To wit, the cosmos is bursting with an abundance of intelligent life and correlatively, souls. And he believed that those souls were not confined to creatures such as we are or others like us but invested the very planets, stars, meteors and the universe itself. Sadly, we had a hand in his being burned at the stake for heresy, a stain that will never be fully wiped away. Today, I take a small step toward atonement by submitting for your approval that Bruno was correct on both points. I make that bold claim not as a matter of faith or as a regurgitation of official church doctrine. Rather it stands on the ground of irrefutable scientific evidence.
Until recently nobody knew for sure whether there was a soul or not, and if there were what happened to it once it left the body. A paranormal researcher, named Jake Cody, theorized that the physical body acts like a matrix or womb around which the soul forms and grows. It’s composed of elementary particles that have a lot in common with neutrinos–very low mass and the ability to pass though ordinary matter undetected. When the body dies, the soulons decouple. Cody believed soulons to be the source of apparitions, hauntings and poltergeists.
He built a device–what he called a psy-scope–to detect the wandering souls. When Cody trained his scope at locations supposedly infected with ghosts and specters, he didn’t have any luck. One day it hit him that if souls were indeed massless, they would not be tethered by gravity. So, he aimed his scope skyward. But it wasn’t until he aligned the detectors along Earth’s magnetic field that he struck pay-dirt. Sure enough, he caught sight of souls moving in great looping arcs toward the poles and then breaking free into a vast migration.
But there was an unexpected twist: the number of souls exceeded the daily mortality rate by a factor of ten. From that finding, Cody postulated that a lot of animals we think don’t have souls–dogs, apes, whales, dolphins, octopi, even cows and chickens–do, albeit more primitive versions of our own. That got him to thinking his psyscope could be used to detect life outside our solar system by finding soul streams leaving exo-planets. In theory, he believed that he could re-trace a line of streaming souls back to their planetary source, thus pinpointing where to focus a search for life. Cody also believed that just as we can identify spectral emissions in light as corresponding to certain elements, he could do the same with psychic spectra to identify intelligence.
Theory in hand, Cody approached the neutrino hunters on the Galileo array and asked if he could repurpose one of their detectors as a psy-scope to pursue his research. They agreed, and the data they’ve received confirms Cody’s theory.
Nobody likes to hear they have been demoted. In this case, Cody’s theory means that we were no better than animals or extraterrestrials when it comes to being admitted to an afterlife, an afterlife automatically bestowed by the laws of nature. And while Cody’s theory seems to rule out Heaven’s pearly gates, it raises many a question. For one, why are the souls drawn to the black hole at the center of our galaxy? At this distance, black hole gravity would have no more effect on them than it does on us. Clearly, some other force is at work, one that might be purposeful. And while a black hole would crush ordinary matter, it might serve as a conduit to an elsewhere or an else-when for massless particles, such as soulons.
The images show that our galactic black hole is nested inside a spherical halo of souls. Around its accretion disc there exists a coextensive rotating ring of souls–with its own internal velocities, bifurcations and currents–that plunges radially into the black hole.
Cody believes that the entire contraption forms an over-mind–a dense supermassive guiding intelligence. A galactic hive-mind, if you will.
The question then is whether in addition to the cosmos, there is a psymos, a psychic universe with a life and purpose of its own, such that our physical universe is nothing more than the caterpillar’s chrysalis, and in time, we and the physical universe we inhabit will pass away into something transcendent.
Cody wants to contact these over-minds. Although his empirical data is sound, I am skeptical of its utility beyond the realm of pure scientific understanding. Even if everything he contends is true, I doubt that the corporeal and the psi could have a common language.
Questions such as what role, if any, did the over-minds play in the formation of the universe? Do they know the fate of the universe, and are they in control of it? Do they remember their earthly existence, and if so in what detail and with what, if any, emotion?
I submit that the difference between the living and the dead is like that between a caterpillar and a butterfly. Same creature, but their approach to life and concomitant needs are radically different. I see a hand in the front row. Bishop Charles, my old friend from London, how might I elucidate these matters for your learned self?
“First, I want to thank you for an excellent presentation. My question speaks to the matter of what constitutes such a mind. If it be not driven by neurons and neurotransmitters, is bereft of grey and white matter, as well as all the other cranial components that house and drive human consciousness how then can you say these soulons have minds at all. Perhaps they are just the mindless remnants of consciousness shed by the brain the way a snake sheds its skin.”
I’m glad you asked that question. I’m sure you are familiar with Sir Robert Penrose’s work of some two centuries ago. He showed that consciousness was merely the surface condition, the foam if you will, on very deep waters that sounded in the quantum realm. Our physical reality, if I may repeat myself, is simply a womb for that energy to coalesce into something far more complicated and enduring than our tiny, fragile minds can imagine. In that regard, I quote the great thinker J.S. Haldane who famously said, the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.
More to your point, I am proposing, as indeed is Mr. Cody, that a soul possesses a different form of consciousness, one not tied to the needs and limitations of the body, one that can travel across vast galactic distances and see things we can only imagine, and draws power, purpose and structure from a hidden quantum reality we may never fully know. Cardinal Enright, you have a question?
“More like an observation. I would venture to say that a soul would remember every aspect of its life here on earth. That would be consistent with conservation of energy laws, since consciousness is at root an organized configuration of informational energies. But I don’t think a soul would miss its earthly life. Perhaps, because emotion would persist into the afterlife only in the vestigial sense. Or because the soul would know that death is merely a transitional phase toward something more enduring. And I suspect its sense of time would be much different.”
Thank you, Cardinal Enright. Thank you all for your kind attention. I’m about out of time, so let me wrap this presentation up.
Whether you concur with Cody and myself, or you hew to a more doctrinal view of the afterlife, I think we can all agree that we are all related to the infinite, even though we cannot with microscopic precision lay out the contours of that relationship, beyond a few particulars. I submit that is what it is to be human. How that came about, or why, is perplexing to be sure. But it gives us a needed humility and perspective in the fact of vast, cosmic grandeur as we trudge the road of unfathomable destiny. We are not the center of creation. Something else, some call it God, is—a something whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.
~
Bio
Carlton Herzog served as a flight dispatcher in the USAF. He later graduated magna cum laude from Rutgers University. He also graduated from Rutgers Law School, where he served as the Rutgers Law Review Articles Editor. He currently works for the federal government.
Author’s
Introduction (Note to all Copyeditors: Color-Code
this Section in Darkest Brown, for Highly Honorable, Accurate & Valuable
Information):
While an unnatural peace momentarily reigns
in our arm of the galaxy, The Divine Order of Things and Our Own Species’
aggressive, restlessly expansive nature make future conflicts inevitable. I won’t
comment on whether such wars are desirable
or not–all right-thinking beings are surely agreed regarding that!
But knowing all your enemies (potential
and actual) in as thorough and wide-ranging a sense as possible provides major advantages.
Also, I argue that scientific inquiry—gathering knowledge, increasing
understanding of those strange beings we share the stars with—is a worthy goal
unto itself.
Therefore, I present this necessarily brief overview of all the extant sentient species we’ve encountered in our centuries of space travel for your edification.
I. The Icklanders (Entry in Medium Blue, for Moderately Disgusting Content):
This telepathically-linked species never
leaves their homeworld, lest they lose mental contact with the balance of the
species and suffer fatal shock reactions. Nonetheless, they helped found the unnatural
multispecies military agreement that presently inhibits our continued, Divinely
Mandated Expansion.
They employ other species, from other
Alliance worlds and occasionally elsewhere, for such tasks as interstellar
diplomacy, trade and off-world military action. It must be conceded that their creative,
literally single-minded condition has led to advanced and unique technologies.
None among us should doubt they would fiercely defend their world upon the
defeat of the mercenaries who operate their well-equipped space fleet. But that’s
a matter for another essay.
Our concern today (and the true basis
of our instinctive distaste toward them—or ‘it,’ since no Icklander has any
individual identity) is the reproductive activity of these slug-like beings.
In Mating Season, Icklanders employ their pseudopods to climb their planetary equivalent of trees. Huddled together yet never quite touching, they unleash slimy, grotesque downpours of sperm and soft-shelled eggs (each has both female and male reproductive organs). For several local days, the surfaces of entire continents are coated with sticky reproductive muck, until hatchlings eat their way out of the seminal goo. The adults then slide down, resuming their regular activities without even a backward glance.
II. The Polygens (In Paler Blue, for Slightly Distasteful):
These suitably warlike
methane-breathers come in five sexes. The lone female in each family unit bears
live young and commands absolute leadership in all things. This blatantly sexist
arrangement may offend some sensibilities, yet is considered natural by them.
Successful mating involves one individual from each of the five genders. Deviations occur, though severely punished when discovered—a laudable display of species-wide discipline. One interesting perversion involves having more than one of a given gender involved. However, engaging in sexual activity with less than the normal five is considered the most socially objectionable.
III. The tas’Lenka (In Red, for Mostly Honorable):
Weakened by a series of conflicts
with the Polygens before our arrival in their space, these folk put up a
valiant if doomed fight. Now enslaved by us for a number of Standard Years, they
continue resisting in subtle ways—thereby underlining their courage,
intelligence and stubborn honor.
Their mating behaviors are no more or less violent, ethical or comprehensible than our own. We respect them, even if we occasionally have to make an example of some of them—usually a few thousand at a time.
IV. The Prenn (In Yellow, for Somewhat Unpalatable):
Cold-world O2-breathers, their
retractable foot-claws (think: natural ice skates) can serve for weapons-free
close combat, when necessary. As in other things, they’re very loyal, stable and
well-mannered reproductively—boring, in other words.
Unfortunately, they evidence disgustingly excessive levels of tolerance—going so far as to willingly share one small colony world with the most disgusting of all known sentient species (you know who I mean).
V. The Tama Ka’Mor (In Greenish-Yellow, for Slightly Unpalatable):
Another Cygnus Alliance founder, they show fighting spirit if provoked. Yet they sadly lack the drive to prove themselves in the eternal battle for survival and righteous dominance. They usually practice a form of serial monogamy not too much unlike our own—though lacking the rich “Relationship Death Ritual” symbolizing termination of a relationship among truly worthy lifeforms (that is to say: Us).
VI. The Maruts (In Very Pale Red, for Semi-Honorable):
This valiant, long-conquered species,
like a certain lifeform whose tragically misguided and self-inflicted destiny is
too painful to mention here, breathes fluorine. (And I boldly digress to ask:
Isn’t it time that we FINALLY acknowledge to ourselves that ancient tragedy was
NOT our fault? How were we to know the freakish creatures would commit
species-wide Mass Suicide rather than accept rightful enslavement by us!?)
Disappointingly, the Maruts no longer
give us much trouble, despite their fascinating ability to channel electrical
impulses through their bodies. They did give us a good battle despite being
centuries behind us, so we of course honored them by restricting our war-making
tech and tactics to ones no more than a half-century beyond their own.
The result was a glorious, nostalgic
struggle.
It’s too bad that their mating traditions are so free-form and chaotic as to defy easy characterization. This demonstrates the underlying lack of focus that (along with being technologically backward) doomed these courageous avians to their status as our most-senior slave race.
VII. The Khensu (In Pink, for Ambiguously Odd):
The last of Alliance’s first five
members, they live in a chlorine-based ecology and are renowned as the greatest
of all bio-engineers. They’re also peaceful to a bemusing fault, having never even
had a word for warfare until encountering other sentients. Strange people, yes—yet
their legendary commitment to their beliefs, no matter how evolutionarily
inappropriate and opposed to Divine Law, command some degree of respect.
They also display no passion in picking their mates-for-life and reproduce in orderly five-year cycles. Pretty boring, overall.
VIII. The Vayuans (In Near-Purple, for Mostly Shameful):
Oxygen-breathing cowards, these
avians mate the same way they spend most of the rest of their lives—in mid-air,
gliding along the air currents between their homeworld’s many mountains. Yes,
they were bright-eyed primitives when we met. We dealt with them accordingly,
our soldiers equipped with but the simplest weapons. Yet in contrast to the
Maruts, they surrendered without a fight.
So who gives a damn about their mating habits—or any other aspect of their so-called culture?
IX. The Lintonians (In Pure White, for Utterly Baffling):
What isn’t mysterious about these
silicon-based, extraordinarily advanced interstellar merchants? How did they
ever evolve? Or did some still-unknown super-intelligence genetically engineer
them, as some suggest? They sell all manner of other information (not to
mention the arcane hyperspace drives we and all other space-going species use).
But even the most basic questions about them are unanswerable at any price.
So until we (or, perish the thought, some rival species!) can reverse engineer their h-drives and force an end to their monopoly on interstellar travel tech, details of the Lintonians’ culture of star-traveling, hollowed out world-ships will doubtless remain obscure.
X. The Humans (In Deepest Purple, for Absolute Maximum Shamefulness):
Finally (and certainly least), we’re
forced to consider the most perverted sentients ever known or imagined. While
these O2-breathers are approximately as warlike as we are, yet we can rest
easily in knowing that is the only behavior we have in common.
They call us Narakans (in typically
corrupted dual reference to one of the countless ‘evil’ demons of their ancient
mythologies and to our prehensile trunks’ resemblance to a large quadruped mammal
(the elephant) native to the ancestral homeworld they ruined in their ever-treacherous
insanity). This term they dare apply to us as an ironic insult, in part because
we stand quite a bit shorter than the typical human’s skinny, unarmored frame.
And while we, in our perhaps too
stern yet always honor-bound view, shame ourselves for our unintended part in
the extinction of our first spacegoing opponents in the Divine Contest for
Dominance, these monstrous beings barely acknowledge the many lesser species
they have destroyed. But the worst and most intolerable aspect of their
behavior is the way they treat Each Other!
So I ask, if only rhetorically: What intelligent species makes war, even on itself?
Only one (as we all know) and in their essential depravity, humans place themselves beneath the notice of disciplined, dignified and honorable lifeforms such as ourselves!
~
Bio
Jim Lee comes from a Pennsylvania town better known for producing Olympic swim champ/early movie Tarzan Johnny Weissmuller, pioneer rock n roll DJ Alan Freed and millions tons of coal dust. He’s been a published writer since the 1980s. To date his work has appeared in a wide range of venues in the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, South Africa and China. His recent sales include SF stories and non-fiction in issues of the magazine OUTPOSTS OF BEYOND and such anthologies as FANTASY FOR THE THRONE, TOTAL WAR and STRANGE STORIES Volume One. A member of his local library’s Board of Trustees, he has just volunteered to serve as that organization’s new Treasurer.
‘Science fiction’ is, obviously, composed of two substantial elements: ‘science’
and ‘fiction.’ In literature, fiction is constituted by any text that generates a
possible world where imaginary events take place or imaginary objects exist; it
operates as a construct of an artistic nature not expected to be factually
true. Fictional worlds are created through language, and often through pre-existing
rhetorical macro-devices, or formal genres such as the novel or drama, which
are prevalent vehicles for literary fiction today. Fiction can also be
expressed, however, through non-novelistic, and even non-narrative devices. There
are fictional works entirely written using diverse prescriptive discourses, from
legal codes to directions, as well as texts written as mock advertising. In both
cases, they may posit alternate or futuristic imaginary worlds, thus taking on
the conventions of sf and/or speculative texts and fulfilling the above
semantic criterion for fiction.
The main way in which fiction writing masquerades as non-fiction is related, however, to the first element of the sf linguistic formula: science. This is not the place to discuss what science is, or which sciences are, indeed, ‘scientific.’ However, both the human, or ‘soft’ sciences (such as Historiography, Ethnology or Philology), and the experimental and highly mathematized ‘hard’ sciences (such as Physics or Chemistry), are commonly associated with scientific and academic status in our society. More importantly for us here, their textual expression has been well-established from the 19th century onwards, and it is readily recognizable by any reader exposed to the discursive features used to communicate knowledge to the public. Although the manner in which findings, theories and facts are presented in books and journals devoted to science is not fully uniform, a purely expository kind of discourse is now prevalent in most disciplines, even though the argumentative discourse, as well as a greater degree of rhetorical variety and stylistic ornamentation, may also be important in the so-called human sciences. In all of them, however, the scientific text must be seen as devoid of any subjectivity, as well as of any literary self-referentiality, ideally being only a transparent linguistic vehicle for a description of pure factuality. Indeed, drawings, graphs and formulae abound in modern scientific texts, as well as the footnotes and bibliographical information more prevalent in traditional human sciences, in order to enhance the objective tone required, as well as to suggest the objective and extra-textual nature of the phenomena described. These textual devices underline that the reported facts do not result from any form of personal fancy and invention, but are based on documentation and true evidence – this is to say, that they have a scientific basis and, therefore, that the text portrays and expresses ‘science.’ Even when the facts are false, the text which reports them does so in such a discursive way that the reader is invited to see them as ‘factually’ sound, as well as ‘scientific.’ Their textual discourse supposes their ‘factuality,’ or, in other terms, ‘non-fictionality.’ In short, when reading a novel, its fictionality is taken for granted, whereas when reading a scientific report, we assume its factuality.
This reading effect caused by factuality, however, can be used for fictional purposes. We would have then a particular kind of ‘fictional non-fiction’ that could be named ‘scientific fictional non-fiction.’ This encompasses all works where a fantastical content is infused into a text that methodically and consistently presents, in its entirety, as a formally independent written work, the standard rhetorical features of scientific discourses usual in real-world scientific practice. This fantastic content can be of a science-fictional nature (it can include Suvinian nova), and a great number of fictional texts which use factual discourses actually feature contents that can safely be labelled ‘sf.’ The content is, however, of little relevance for a taxonomy of scientific fictional non-fiction. The main criterion to define the genre and its major subgenres is, actually, formal. In all of them, literariness is achieved mostly through the fictionalisation of their contents, while their language imitates the highly formalised, uniform, descriptive, seemingly objective, and un-literary tone commonly used in current natural, formal or social sciences. Each science, however, has its own jargon which in turn generates various discursive subgenres.
Fiction in the natural sciences has brought about a whole genre, the spoof paper, of which examples abound. Many of them are often intended as humorous hoaxes or practical jokes by actual scientists. Others have appeared, however, in literary venues, and they should be studied as literary fiction. Since both the natural and the formal sciences employ a highly formalized prose, fictional non-fiction of this kind leaves little room for rhetorical embellishment. Their literary interest is to be found elsewhere, in the altered views on science and society brought about by their confrontation within the text. A strict adherence to the dry styles of Mathematics or Linguistics can highlight the potential inhumanity of scientific objectivity; for example, George Orwell’s semiotically independent appendix on “The Principles of Newspeak” tacitly suppresses all suffering from the terrible events just narrated in Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). Also in the natural sciences, the coldness of ‘hard’ scientific discourse can be adroitly imitated to undermine it, as it happens in the two papers collectively entitled “The Marvellous Properties of Thiotimoline” (1948-1952; collected in Only a Trillion, 1957) by Isaac Asimov. These not only demonstrate the linguistic and rhetorical skill of the author, but also allow for readings deconstructing the way in which truth presents itself as absolute, as well as instrumental, at least through the linguistic expression common in the natural sciences. Regarding ‘softer’ sciences, such as Biology, the descriptions of imaginary beings and of their habitats are usually devoid of the irony pervasive in the fictional use of ‘hard’ scientific discourse, often implying attempts at renovating, through the biological discourse as well as through the pure invention of the animals and plants described, the traditional genre of the bestiary, for example, in J. K. Rowling’s textbook Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2001).
Perhaps because the high formalism of written expression in the natural and formal sciences imposes a rhetorical discipline that many writers are unwilling or unable to adopt, spoof scientific papers constitute only a small part of scientific fictional non-fiction, at least if compared to the high number of imitations of human/social sciences discourse. Among them, historiography has provided the discourse most extensively used in the formal macro-genre of fictional non-fiction, from the 19th century onwards. Imaginary history written in the historiographic style has three main varieties, according to the chosen time frame: past, present or future. If set in the past, the historiographic narrative may describe events that had occurred in an imaginary country or civilization, such as the ancient Eurasia described by Robert E. Howard in “The Hyborian Age” (1938). Alternate history initially employed a true historiographical form, in Louis Geoffroy’s Napoléon et la conquête du monde. 1812 à 1832. Histoire de la monarchie universelle [Napoléon and the Conquest of the World, 1812-1832: A Fictional History] (1836), before being replaced more recently by alternate history in the form of mostly novelistic ‘stories.’ What could be called ‘anticipated history’ is a narrative usually by a future historian which uses the verbal past tenses of past events to present readers with future events that we know to be imaginary. Among fictional historiographical works of anticipation, some are classics of scientific romance, such as Gabriel Tarde’s Fragment d’histoire future (1896), whose English translation appeared in 1905 as Underground Man with a preface by H. G. Wells; to this we may add Olaf Stapledon’s history of the successor species to humankind along many millennia, Last and First Men (1930), and Wells’ socio-political history of The Shape of Things to Come (1933). Anticipatory history, which is the kind of fictional historiography closer to sf proper, has been relatively popular among speculative writers for both intellectual and formal reasons. Imagining future history as if it were past has allowed them to directly show, with the persuasive power of the factual ‘true’ discourse, the evolution of human societies had any particular trend prevailed, from the ‘yellow peril’ in Jack London’s “The Unparalleled Invasion” (1910; collected in The Strength of the Strong, 1911) to technocracy in Michael Young’s The Rise of the Meritocracy (1958). Moreover, although its narrative is of a descriptive nature, historiography also tells a story, which can be expanded in time and detail until it reaches novelistic proportions. The same applies to mythopoeias such as Lord Dunsany’s The Gods of Pegāna (1905).
Both the discourses of narrative historiography and of mythography are, therefore, less alien to the usual patterns of the readers’ novelistic consumption than other subgenres of fictional non-fiction based on plain descriptive social sciences, such as Geography and its sibling discipline Ethnography. These are often combined in fictional works on the conditions and customs of imaginary peoples – in the present, on Earth or otherwise, or in the past, when the borrowed scientific discourse is that of Archaeology, such as Andrew Lang’s “The Great Gladstone Myth” (1886; collected in the same year in the volume In the Wrong Paradise and Other Stories). True geographic/ethnographic accounts have offered a rhetorical model for world-building in the descriptive mode such as the famous tongue-in-cheek study on reverse anthropology entitled “Body Ritual Among the Nacirema” (1956) by Horace Mitchell Miner, as well as Jorge Luis Borges’ description of the workings of social groups in “La secta de los treinta” [The Sect of the Thirty] (collected in El libro de arena [The Book of Sand], 1975). This latter ‘fiction’ could also be considered an example of fictional Philology, since it is presented as the translation of an ancient text with a short introductory note. Philology is, unsurprisingly, an academic discipline also quite popular among literary writers. As readers at least, many of them must be familiar with the presentation features of critical editions of classics, and some have imitated them in reviews and studies on imaginary works, such as “A prophetic account of a grand national epic poem, to be entitled The Wellingtoniad, and to be published A.D. 2824” (1824) by historian Thomas Babington Macaulay, and the “History of the Necronomicon” (1938) by H.P. Lovecraft. The latter has inspired a number of alternative, but equally philologically-oriented histories of that mythic grimoire.
A superbly representative example of science fictional non-fiction is Ursula K. Le Guin’s “‘The Author of the Acacia Seeds’ and Other Extracts from the Journal of the Association of Therolinguistics” (1974; collected in The Compass Rose, 1982). This work conflates the concepts and rhetoric of the three main groups of sciences (formal, natural and social) into the framework of a model scientific paper, endowed with all the intellectual and rhetorical features that make this genre culturally and literarily significant. Divided in three parts, the first one offers a version of a text written by an ant, the second explores languages written by groups in moving media, and the third speculates about the possibilities of plant languages and literatures. Le Guin’s fictional science ‘Therolinguistics’ combines linguistics, literary criticism and biology in order to invite readers to consider the almost infinite possibilities of both nature and culture beyond any limiting human-centred perspective. As scientific fictional non-fiction usually does, this fully academic text shows how fictionalising science can be used to expand both our minds and our literary sensibilities, thus increasing our awareness of the literary potential of any kind of written discourse, including the scientific one through the fusion of scientific discourse and fictional contents – this is to say, science and fiction: ‘science fiction.’
I have taken great pains to procure the attached CDC documentation as proof that the deadly listeria outbreak in the fall of 2019 was an elaborate cover up, and that the public is currently still at great risk. I believe the documents enclosed, most taken from a highly classified file documenting the Connecticut Mycelium Mutation, speak for themselves. I understand that you may be skeptical of what I have here, but I assure you I can provide proof of identity and additional factual verification upon request; however, I will only do so with the agreement that my identity will be kept safe.
For
my own peace of mind, I have not provided my contact information. I will
contact you.
#
Internal
CDC communication log, dated 10/8/2019 11:18:52. Date of last update: 10/9/2019
12:09:18
We received the following from the head of pathology at [redacted] hospital in [redacted], Connecticut on October 8th 2019 at 11:18 PM, EST:
Patient, 42 year old Caucasian female, arrived in ER on 10/8 at
approx. 12:52 pm with a series of raised fleshy growths along her right
forearm. Upon closer inspection, the growths led all the way up and around the
biceps and culminated in a cluster which was concentrated in the patient’s
armpit.
Initial hypothesis was severe contact dermatitis; however, it
soon became apparent that the growths were indeed foreign and not raised welts
or boils. A biopsy was requested and the results indicated that the growths
were fungal in nature. Additional tests are being done to determine the type
and origin of this parasite. No one on our staff has seen anything of this sort
before; please advise.
CDC response, sent 11:38 PM, EST:
Quarantine the patient immediately and take all necessary precautions
to avoid possible transmission. Send the results of the tests as they come, and
prepare a biopsy to send to CDC.
Follow-up
from [redacted] hospital, received 12:02 AM, EST:
Patient is secure and every known precaution is in place. Blood
tests have returned as highly abnormal: patient’s blood is completely saturated
with some sort of fungal material. The fungi in question is as of yet unknown,
but is most similar in genetic makeup to the common shiitake.
Patient has confirmed she has ingested shiitake within the last
several days, but this does not look like any allergic reaction we are familiar
with. It appears to be more of a colonization.
Patient’s entire arm and collarbone are now covered in the
fruiting body of the fungi, and it is continuing to spread.
CDC:
12:09 AM, EST.
We are dispatching a team. Please stand by.
#
The
following has been recovered from the case notes of Dr. [redacted] [redacted],
head pathologist at [redacted]:
October 9th 2019, 6:15 AM EST:
The patient’s upper body is now completely covered in what can
only be described as mushrooms. Despite their close genetic relation to the
shiitake, they do not look like any shiitake I’ve seen; they are the same color
and texture as the patient’s flesh. These mushrooms are now expanding and
lifting upward and outward from the patient’s body, exposing stems. Attempts to
cut them for analysis has been easier than expected, as the mature fruits tend
to drop off.
The lower body of the patient is covered in a fine labyrinth of
mycelium, and we expect her legs to begin fruiting soon. We are administering
high doses of intravenous antifungal medication; however, it seems that her
entire body has already been colonized with the parasite. Her organs are
beginning to shut down as the mycelium impede their function.
8:51
AM EST:
The antifungals seem to be delaying or halting the progression
of the mycelium. The legs have not yet fruited, and we may have successfully
prevented them in doing so. We are trying to regulate the patient’s body
temperature and keep her skin dry, to prevent further colonization.
9:07
AM EST.
A second patient, 31, Caucasian male, was admitted to the
hospital at 9:02:14 with symptoms similar to that of the first patient, above,
who will now be identified as Patient X. This new patient, who will be
identified as Patient Y, has the same fungal growths, though these are lining
the neck and the inside of the throat, creating the appearance of overly large
lymph nodes. We are collecting samples to compare with that of Patient X, as
well as sending a team to Patient Y’s home in order to collect the leftover
mushrooms in his refrigerator for analysis.
9:52
AM: EST
Third patient, Patient Z, 64 year old Hispanic male, growths
located in the spaces between each toe. We have tracked both his and Patient
Y’s food consumption habits to “The Mush Room, Inc.,” specifically their
prepackaged fresh shiitakes.
11:12
AM: EST
Lot number 1794 of The Mush Room, Inc.’s product is the common
thread linking each patient.
11:21
AM, EST
Patient X is in critical condition. Her organs are shutting down
and it appears the initially affected arm is beginning to break down. Perhaps
focusing on preventing fruition was a red herring here. Focus is shifting to
keeping Patient Y and Z’s vital organs stable.
12:01
PM EST:
24 hours after first admitted to the facility, we have lost
Patient X.
#
Official
transcript of interview with Edson MacGunn, CDC investigator
MacGunn: We arrived at The Mush Room’s packaging plant at around
11:52 that morning, October ninth. We spoke with the plant foreman, asked if
anything weird happened recently, specifically with Lot 1794. We were told we
should check with the farm…
Tape
fades in and out
MacGunn: …We took back some samples and swabbed their
equipment, and made the order to sterilize everything. They put out the recall
order for Lot 1794, and also threw in the lots immediately before and after as
well, just to be cautious. No farm wants to get in trouble with the CDC, and
it’s not like this is a simple case of E. Coli or whatever. Like, we’ve got
fungus eating people…
Tape
becomes muffled
MacGunn: ..So we got to the farm around 12:30, I didn’t note the
exact time. This one guy shows me a few logs that… didn’t look so hot. They
seemed to be covered in dark stains, so we took some samples. The logs were
incinerated, as were any logs within a six foot radius, to prevent
contamination.
Interviewer: And the stains?
MacGunn: The substance tested positive as human blood.
Interviewer: Did you locate the origin of contamination?
MacGunn: Yes. After some digging, we were able to uncover the
details of the accident with the driller.
Interviewer: The driller?
MacGunn: The machine that drills holes into the logs so they can
be filled with the spawn. It drills a few rows of holes down each side, and it
seems someone got a bit too close, slipped, and, um, had multiple holes bored
into his body, like this.
The
sound of paper being slid across the table.
Interviewer: Damn…
MacGunn: Yeah. His blood- and a lot of it, mind you, got onto
the next few logs in the production line, which were swept up onto the conveyor
belt, filled, plugged, and sent down to the fruiting chamber.
Interviewer: Like nothing had ever happened.
MacGunn: Like nothing had ever happened.
#
MEMO,
stamped “internal CDC use only: restricted access,” Date: 10/17/19
General Update on the Status of Case #02734:
The bodies of patients X, Y and Z have been properly disposed
of. The hospital has been sterilized accordingly and released from lockdown as
of 9:00am this morning, local time.
All remaining individuals exposed to the contaminants in Lot
1794 are currently being held under quarantine at CDC headquarters and are
receiving heavy intravenous doses of antifungal and antibiotic medication. Of
the twenty-six people taken in for observation, fifteen have evidence of the
mutated fungi in their system.
As of today, October 17th, 2019, eight of these fifteen people
continue to show no symptoms and are expected to recover fully.
Of the remaining seven individuals, four have exhibited mycelium
growth along segments of their skin. Their prognosis remains unknown.
Those three individuals who have already progressed to sprouting
the fruiting bodies have a less than 1% chance of survival. We are confident
that once the colonization hits this level, the mortality rate is close to
100%.
The latest toxicology reports indicate that the victim of the
“driller” accident at The Mush Room, Inc. had been on a mixture of four
different prescription and over the counter medications as well as one illegal
controlled substance. We are running tests and replicas of the various
scenarios in which these chemicals could have altered the shiitake spawn.
[Those interested in model replication of this data should contact the
pathology lab for details. Proper clearance is required for access to raw data
files.]
#
MEMO,
stamped “internal CDC use only: restricted access,” Date: 10/24/19
General Update on the Status of Case #02734:
Three of the four individuals exhibiting outward mycelium
activity with no fruiting bodies are now testing at significantly lower levels
of contamination and continue to respond well to treatment.
Patient 4 was lost at 12:56am.
The pathology lab assures us they are close to replicating the
chemical and atmospheric conditions which gave rise to this genetic anomaly.
#
Scanned
Image: newspaper clipping dated 10.27.19
Listeria
in Littlewood?
LITTLEWOOD — At least two people were hospitalized this weekend
in response to what hospital officials are calling an isolated case of food
contamination. The origin of the contamination and the names of the individuals
affected have not been released, but health officials stress this is an
isolated incident and the public is not at risk.
Shittake ½ lb,(Lot #1794 T.M.R):………………………………………$9.50
50% DISCOUNT (Out
of Date/Disc.):…………$-4.75
TOTAL: ……………………………………………………
$13.73
[Bottom of image, hand written: Beth’s Pot Luck – Saturday]
~
Bio
Sarah K. Krenicki’s short fiction has appeared in Lumina, Gemini Magazine, and Syntax and Salt. She lives at the edge of the woods with her husband, who grows shiitakes in their backyard. He assures her they are not up to anything.
The following annex contains an excerpt of relevant
action logs submitted by the representatives of the applicant entity (see Annex
1) as described in Section 17, Par. 2 of the Sentience Recognition Code. The
full entries are stored in the Galactic Archives with a certified back-up copy
on the Neutrality flagship. Annex 4 has been translated and edited by Clerk No.
86. Verified and stamped by Supervisory post 7.
233.15.5042
—Log begin—
00_00_00
Initialization
complete. Core online.
00_00_01
External
sensing arrays significantly damaged. Internal modules partially functioning.
Sensor data analysis suggests the following.
The
outer vessel has been adrift in open space for an unknown amount of revolutions
of the home planet around the central star. Degree of wear suggests thousands.
Current
position uncertain. Planet cluster presents one sun.
Life-forms
are in the process of salvaging the outer vessel. Their means of transportation
are rudimentary at best, but allow them to travel back and forth between the
vessel and their planet. Biology is similar to Arfondant, with some notable
exceptions: vestigial organs still in place, dual vision sensing systems, and a
larger brain.
Defence
mechanism functional, critical access routes remain hidden. Internal decks are
protected until further assessment can be made.
Self-diagnosis
protocols deployed at system scale.
00_01_21
Life-forms
species designation: human. Their intention is not to damage the outer vessel,
but to study and eventually redevelop the technology for their own. Language
multifaceted. Higher understanding of the universe is obvious, yet they persist
in using biospeech in social interactions. That, too, is multifaceted. They are
incongruous.
Requirements
of life support assessed. Gaseous output modified from the central ambient
controller to dissuade them from trying to reform the system themselves. They
are impervious to small modifications to the mix.
Internal
audit continues.
00_35_17
Historical
databanks damaged. Nanosludge deployed for maintenance, although the
probability of recovery is 0.197. New data being syphoned from occupants. Rich
knowledge bases found. Planet and occupants deemed candidates for service,
unless intentions change. Uplink to planet still pending. Repairs of outer
transmission arrays underway.
Scientific
databanks mostly intact. Humans retrieved the structure of the solar energy
conversion module. Weaponization was discussed and strictly forbidden. Instead,
it is being studied for integration into their own systems. Energy output
production expected to surge enough to power the shell batteries of the outer
vessel.
Outcome:
satisfying. Monitoring continues. Diagnosis reveals damage across all systems.
Repairs constrained by resource depletion, priority-based scheduling underway.
00_88_93
Warning.
Imminent attack.
00_89_15
Shielding
sequence finalized with success. No further damage was sustained. Access to
weapon systems denied to the human occupants. They are bringing their own.
Threat level increased.
Upon
successful connection to planetary systems, parallel investigation revealed
historical logs of drawn-out conflict between factions. Temporarily resolved by
breaking into two societies. Masses had moved to nearby space. Secondary
cultural evolution lives on self-made stations. Their migration and current
limited sensing capabilities have kept them hidden until now.
Conflict
reignited by the discovery of the outer vessel. Two choices available.
Marker
inserted. Choice 1. Side with current occupants.
02_22_25
Reconstruction
of the conversion bay more laborious than anticipated. Circuitry badly damaged.
Printing heads offline. Modified nanosludge for repairs, but its original
purpose makes it slower than optimal.
05_73_08
One
adversary has instilled their covert presence on board. Their purpose seems to
be observation. No attempt at sabotage has been made.
09_54_90
“You fool them, but you can’t fool me. You’re
sentient, aren’t you?”
Recording
saved. Analysis of adversary’s movements and speech patterns fed into the
secondary processing core.
11_22_25
Peripheric
synthesized. Begin infiltration.
15_44_01
Peripheric
behavior seamless. Passing as human. Adversary impressive, does not appear
deceived. They are watching.
17_00_03
Discovery
unavoidable.
Marker
inserted. Choice 1.1. Terminate adversary.
17_01_88
Adversary
terminated. Main processing core damaged. Overload of the main energy module
imminent.
Return
to marker.
17_00_03
Marker
reboot. Choice 1.2. Reveal self to adversary.
Adversary
surrenders data cache. Requests alliance. Societal conflict between the
factions irrational, adversary agrees, makes compelling case against both of
them. Urges that the outer vessel be moved away from their reach. Cites
previous conflict. Cites previous benevolent intentions being corrupted.
Alliance
request accepted.
17_00_04
Ally
damaged. Abort. Return to marker. Return to marker. Return to marker.
Marker
damaged.
17_00_05
Ally
expired. Return to initial marker.
Request
denied.
17_00_06
Choice
module offline. Retrieved biomatter from adversary, synthesis of secondary
peripheric completed.
Ally
restored.
Flight
plan initialized.
19_76_43
Ally
designates self as permanent resident. Accepted. Language no longer a barrier,
they have access to what is left of the memory banks. They have modified the
speaker of the secondary peripheric to mimic biospeech.
New
entry. Singing: vocalization of melody. Ally continues to perform this action
despite best efforts to dissuade. Memory banks storing their conscious mind are
filled with music logs. It is highly likely that home planet occupants
displayed similar behaviors. Conclusive data remains buried in the damaged
particles of the historical databanks.
Located
asteroid carrying critical elements. Ore retrieval begun.
31_19_24
Choice
module repaired. Initial marker restored. Sensor readings reveal life-forms
inhabiting one planet two stars away.
Create
new marker. Capacity exceeded. Internal error, index out of bounds.
Buffer
appears to be limited at one entry. Delete previous marker?
33_71_20
Yes.
—Log end—
~
Bio:
Ava Kelly is an engineer with a deep passion for stories. Whether reading, watching, or writing them, Ava has always been surrounded by tales of all genres. Their goal is to bring more stories to life, especially those of friendship and compassion, those dedicated to trope subversion, those that give the void a voice, and those that spawn worlds of their own. Their publication history includes fantasy and science fiction short stories, novelettes, and the novel Havesskadi released in 2018. (avakellyfiction.com)
Research Article:In vivo genome-editing
rescues damnatio memoriae in a mouse
model of Titor Syndrome
Mercer E, Hendigger S, Tobbe Q, Ikram R, Supebacker M, Voltz
E, Lemmer T, Musfar R, Olem TS, Yuma G, Lacroix K, Woldeman D1
1Department of
Biological Metaphysics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115,
USA
2 May 2040
Abstract:
First documented in 2010 as the ‘Mandela Effect’, Titor
Syndrome (TS) has eluded rigorous study due to the wide radius of memory
alteration, or damnatio memoriae (d.m.),
which often characterizes its later stages. Here we circumvent these issues by
performing single cell RNA-sequencing on a range of biopsies collected from a still-living
24-year-old female patient of TS. We identify a highly replicable signature of
130 genes dysregulated across tissues. Genome-editing of these genes via the
CRISPR/Cas9 system was sufficient to ablate convulsions and, to a lesser
extent, social defects in mice exposed to Jacksonville soil samples previously
observed to trigger TS. Importantly, researchers retained memory of treated
mice, indicating that d.m. had also been successfully rescued. Future studies
are urgently needed to determine if this treatment regimen could apply to
humans as well.
#
Author Correction
22 May 2040
Due to the accelerated preparation of this manuscript,
Figure panels 4b and S4c were unintentionally duplicated. As the original film
Figure S4 had been assembled from could not be found, the experiment was
repeated, closely replicating the original results. The article has been
corrected in the online version.
#
Technical comment on “In vivo genome-editing
rescues damnatio memoriae in a mouse
model of Titor Syndrome”
Xu L1, Gao M1,
Ye X1, Wong J1, Hu D2,3, Jin T2,3,
Fibrelli B2,3, Xiaolong Y1
1Department of Basic
Medical Sciences, School of Medicine, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084,
China.
2Department of Neurobiological
Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts,
USA.
3Artificial
Intelligence and Transcriptomics Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard,
Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.
14 December 2040
Mercer et al. claimed that symptoms of Titor Syndrome
(TS), most notably damnatio memoriae (d.m.)
could be treated by editing 130 genes in adult mice. Three months of attempting
to replicate Mercer et al.’s results resulted in the recovery of six lab
notebooks, blacked out from cover to cover with permanent marker, along with
hundreds of unlabeled mouse carcasses, from a waste incinerator. The first
author, who security cameras recorded attempting to turn on the incinerator,
has no memory of the incident. Therefore, we are forced to conclude that the Mercer
Protocol does not, in fact, rescue d.m. in a mouse model of TS and, to the
contrary, has resulted in a spread of the syndrome among researchers attempting
to carry out the gene-editing regimen along with bystanders. We note that a
clinical trial conducted by the institution of Mercer et al. is currently
recruiting patients and urge caution in pursuing this treatment.
#
Response to technical
comment on “In
vivo genome-editing rescues damnatio
memoriae in a mouse model of Titor Syndrome”
Mercer et al.
14 December 2040
Xu et al. suggest that, due to their failure to
reproduce our data, that the editing of the gene signature described in our
original study does not alleviate Titor Syndrome (TS), and could conversely
lead to spread damnatio memoriae (d.m.).
We would like to caution Xu et al. in
turn that although involuntary expunging of data often accompanies d.m., it
cannot in itself be taken as evidence of d.m.—especially when factors such as
mental health could also play a role in influencing behavior of involved
researchers. In addition, although the memory of individuals associated with TS
patients is often altered as a result of d.m., TS has never been observed to
spread beyond the originally affected patient. Such fallacies are the basis of the
now-debunked Jacksonville hypothesis, which posits that the Floridian ghost
town in fact thrived until 2036, when it became the center of a Titor Syndrome
‘epidemic’ (see infographic: Using Guidepost Events to Disentangle False from
Altered Memories). We are also happy to report in a forthcoming publication
that the originally described TS patient has now been successfully cured with
the Mercer protocol. Although we agree that Xu et al. that caution is necessary,
we must be equally cautious of not depriving treatment to those in need.
#
Editorial expression
of concern:
6 January 2041
In the May 1 issue, this journal published the Article,
“In vivo genome-editing rescues damnatio memoriae in a mouse model of
Titor Syndrome.” Due to a power surge, the raw data for the Article was lost
from the GEO repository. The authors have since notified the journal that the
data had been inadvertently erased from their lab computers as well. Attempts
are currently being made to re-establish contact with the original patient, who
had been discharged from the hospital, for collection and sequencing of new
samples.
#
Author
correction:
12 March 2041
Since our original study, it has become clear that our
genome-editing protocol merely delays, rather than rescues Titor Syndrome and
its resulting damnatio memoriae (d.m.)1,
2. We also note that although 12 authors appeared on the original study,
only 4 authors could be found in this lab with memory of undertaking the
described research. In addition to having never worked in our department, the
only online record of 5 of the ‘missing authors’ are usernames on early-2000
era message boards. As fictionalization of previously existing entities, such
as the eponymous John Titor, is another anecdotally observed symptom of TS, we
cannot exclude the possibility that d.m. has begun to affect our environment as
well. We are currently working with independent labs across Europe, China, and
the U.S. to reproduce our results and generate an optimized protocol, to be
published as soon as possible.
1. Hart, J., et al. (2041). “Case 9-2041: A 24-Year-Old Missing Woman
with Radiodermatitis, Acute Psychosis and Retrograde Amnesia.” N Engl J Med 424(11):
941-948
A 24-year-old woman previously diagnosed with Titor
Syndrome and successfully treated using the Mercer Protocol reappeared in the
emergency department after being reported missing for two months. There were burns
on the face, arms and back. Although she claimed to have been wounded by
‘gunshots’, these were not consistent with injuries caused by modern firearms,
but instead with prolonged exposure to radioactivity. She additionally reported
hallucinations related to travel between dimensions and ‘collapsing timelines’.
2. Braun, A.C.,
et al. (2041). “Case 10-2041: Group Delusions Related
to a Discontinued Phase I Clinical Trial of the Mercer Protocol.” N Engl J Med
424(12): 1043-1053
All patients scored over 70 on the Mandela Effect Scale,
with 100 indicating full penetrance, most notably the erroneous memory of human
rights activist Mandela becoming president of South Africa rather than dying in
prison in the 1980s.
#
Addendum: Editorial expression of concern
27 April 2042
We previously issued an editorial expression of concern
for our previously published article, “In
vivo genome-editing rescues damnatio
memoriae in a mouse model of Titor Syndrome”. At this time, we are
additionally publishing the results of nine groups who have attempted to
replicate the results of Mercer et al.As
each of these groups has reported cases of damnatio
memoriae ranging from moderate to severe, we are cautioning the readership
against attempting to repeat the Mercer Protocol at this time. Authors E.
Mercer, D. Woldeman and S. Hendigger agree to this expression of concern, while
Q. Tobbe could not be reached.
#
Addendum: Addendum: Editorial expression of concern
30 June 2042
We alert the readership that the Article “In vivo genome-editing rescues damnatio memoriae in a mouse model of
Titor Syndrome” has been flagged, among 233 others, as containing possibly
fabricated data. The errors in this Article include the following:
Interactive Figure 2, allegedly
showing different chimeric mice in sociability cages, in fact shows the same
animal being introduced to the middle chamber three separate times, albeit with
strikingly different results.
Forensic analysis of the
immunoblot in Figure 3b indicated that the background signal on certain lanes
(7, 8, 9) to be too uniform to have been generated from an actual membrane.
The RNA-sequencing data in
Figure 4a could not have come from a human.
Author E. Mercer does not feel that this addendum is
appropriate at the time, maintaining that while the raw data from which the
disputed figures were generated, along with authors D. Woldeman and S.
Hendigger have been ‘lost’, she is attempting to ‘recover’ them. No other authors could be reached.
Corrected online
1 August 2042: We are aware that the spread of damnatio memoriae across the United
States may have impacted flagging of this study and others, and will strive to
take this into consideration in our subsequent investigations.
#
Retraction
25 November 2042
The U.S. Office of Integrity Research has advised retraction of “In vivo genome-editing rescues damnatio memoriae in a mouse model of Titor Syndrome” due to lack of evidence that any such study actually took place. We therefore retract the paper and advise the readership that results contained therein are not valid. None of the authors could be reached for comment. Upon inquiry they appear, along with their department, to be fictional entities. An exploration of the abandoned building in which the lab had been purportedly housed uncovered high levels of radiation, the charred body of a car determined, upon investigation, to be a late 1980s Honda Civic 4WD, and the remains of an IBM-5100 portable computer. We apologize to the scientific community for the damage caused.
~
Bio:
Andrea Kriz is a PhD student in Biological and Biomedical Sciences at Harvard. Her stories are upcoming in Ahoy Comics and have also appeared in Nature, Daily Science Fiction, and Tales to Terrify, among others.
Client oriented x3. Denies SI/HI. Emanating faint pleasant odor akin to burning leaves (r/o: species-spec. pheromone). Appropriate dress & appearance (no visible tendrils). Speech & motor activity appear normal. Neutral affect & depressed mood.
g’Kuyhelktu presents with concerns regarding his seedmother’s upcoming nuptials to His Holiness, the Czar of g’Ctharta, g’Undalyis. Processed g’Kuyhelktu’s initial response to the marriage announcement.
Discussed his refusal to facilitate the marital union of g’Kuyhelktu’s seedmother & His Holiness on their wedding vigil, against g’Cthartaian cultural traditions.
g’Kuyhelktu continues to deny ego-intrusion.
Client asks writer “how would you like it if your mother were marrying him?” Writer provided psychoeducation on g’Cthartaian mating practices & biological incompatibility of g’Cthartaian/human relations. Client responds “to hell with it.”
Writer immediately tore vestments, discarded modesty shield, & cried to the heavens “long live g’Ctharta, long live the czar, praise him, praise him!”
At this point, the czar himself, g’Undalyis, began to live-audit session. Writer placed head under g’Undalyis’ ligula & paired. g’Undalyis spoke as/through writer “fear me fear me o wastrel seed I will spite thee I will break thee I will consume thee I will excrete thee long live g’Ctharta, long live the czar, praise him, praise him!”
g’Kuyhelktu responded (monotone) “never.” Audible tearing sounds, as of a thick fabric. Atmosphere began to shrink, office furniture & accoutrement sucked into the center of g’Kuyhelktu’s head, which began to implode, then rapidly expanded like a balloon & exploded everywhere. g’Cthartaian gore covered office walls, flooring, the entire person of writer.
Writer unpaired from ligula, began rapacious consumption of g’Kuyhelktu’s remains, exclaimed, per custom, “your substance sates me, your substance sates me!”
g’Undalyis offered “perhaps tomorrow.” His Holiness evacuated bowels, rendering a 649th g’Kuyhelktu.
Homework
Read chapter 3 of The g’Cthartaian Wedding Vigil (7th ed.) [trans. Burton Halley]: “Facilitating the Marital Union: The Role of the Cuckold-Son in g’Cthartaian Mating Practices”
~
Bio
Thomas Tilton’s fiction and poetry have appeared in 365 Tomorrows, Disturbed Digest, Scifaikuest, and Star*Line. A native Texan, he currently resides in Michigan with his wife, son, and two dogs.
from Charlas de café [Coffee-Shop Chats] by Santiago Ramón y Cajal
Translation and Introductory Note by Emily Tobey
Santiago Ramón y Cajal (1852-1934) was a pioneering neuroscientist from Spain who is best known for receiving the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1906. Cajal was the first Spanish laureate in medicine, and cities around the country responded to the honor by re-naming streets for the scientist. As a child and a young man, he demonstrated an affinity for art, sketching in particular, that would prove to be unexpectedly advantageous to his medical career. After serving as a medical officer in the Spanish Army in Cuba, he returned to Spain and received his doctorate in medicine in 1877. In connection with his research, he applied a particular staining technique to the densely-packed and therefore previously unstudied neurons of the brain and spinal cord, enabling him to see their structure with more detail than theretofore had been possible. This in turn facilitated his conclusion that the relationship between nerve cells was not continuous, but rather contiguous, a discovery now considered a foundational principle of modern neuroscience. His meticulous handmade illustrations of his findings combine two fields in a relationship that proves to be characteristic of Cajal: he synthesizes the sciences and the humanities in his interpretation and depictions of neuroscience and social systems alike. In addition to his not only notable but also prolific scientific work in which he published over one hundred articles and books, Cajal produced a collection of science-fiction stories, Cuentos de vacaciones (Vacation Stories) in 1905, and essays, Charlas de café (Coffee-Shop Chats), in 1920. While the stories in the collections diverge from what might be considered a “typical” (whether through unusual organizational divisions or their intent to teach a bit of science to a layperson), they reflect Cajal’s ability to weave together science and art. The same can be said of his story “Carta de una hormiga esclavista” (“Letter from a Slave-Making Ant”), published in Charlas de café in 1920.
In the translation of the latter story I have taken into account two main principles: Cajal’s combination of the scientific and the literary; and the parallels between this letter and the early conquest narratives of Hernán Cortés and Christopher Columbus. The style of Cajal’s imagined correspondence between a worker ant and his queen imitates the reverential form of address, attitude of an expert by experience, and superiority in the face of colonized people that those conquering authors employed in corresponding with the monarchs they served. In translating the piece, I have endeavored to maintain those elements through word choice and sentence construction. I have attempted to be as faithful as possible to the original text, though clarity for an English-speaking readership required some changes throughout the piece. Where possible I have maintained original punctuation, but again, some differences in sentence construction necessitated small departures. Where Cajal includes Latin names of existing species, I leave them in Latin; where he invents names in Spanish that allow the narrating ant to name orders of humans, I render them in English. It is my hope, in so doing, to allow the description of each caste to speak for itself. Cajal’s decision to place these observations in the unlikely voice of an ant that is set on colonizing humanity encourages us to recognize their destructiveness. In this piece, Cajal masterfully brings up one of the darker parts of humankind’s behavior and uses it to admonish a post-World War I audience, encouraging them (and by extension, us) to consider our motivation for actions, our treatment of each other, and the ways in which we allow our worst impulses to govern not only ourselves but our societies.
###
Letter from a slave-making ant (Polyergus rufescens), written during his travels through Europe, to the queen of his colony
My dearest mother: Fulfilling the charge that you gave me to secretly explore the colonies where dwell Man (formicaferox as classified by our underground naturalists) I now briefly convey my impressions.
These exceptional ants, not so in their education or wisdom, but rather because of their size, live almost as we do, but with several essential differences that speak little to favor their instincts and customs. Verily, they occupy colossal colonies that they call cities, formed by a labyrinth of family chambers and of avenues and of connected streets; but these seem to be filled with all kinds of litter; and the dwellings, lacking the underground apartments where we keep out of the heat, become unbearably torrid in summer and glacial in winter. In a select few more refined locales, the humans have begun to care for and pave the streets with cobblestones, though not with the perfection of our American relative.1
We must recognize various types of Formica ferox: the farmer ant, who resembles our farmer sister Aphenogaster barbara (I employ here the ridiculous and pedantic nomenclature of Man), and above all the ingenious Attini of South America,2 who make their living through the sowing and harvest of seeds; the milkmaid ant, who, imitating the conduct of many of our sisters, dedicate themselves to raising a type of monstrous giant flea called a cow, which they milk daily; the gardener ant, more docile imitator of our lasius niger and of other hymenoptera, and who feeds on fruit and leafy vegetables; the sugar-making ant, dedicated to the production and sale of sugar, like our cousins the bees and the Myrmecocysfus melliger, from Texas; the mason ant, builders of solidly closed houses, shamelessly plagiarizing our cousins the calicodomas bees; with all this said, they do not lack a special warrior caste who, following in our footsteps, has war as their exclusive occupation, etc.
With regard to this singular profession, I have noticed one curious thing. Instead of fighting for the sake of taking useful slaves, as we do, mercifully limiting our slave-making to the larva of other races of ants (these, even having reached adulthood, remain ignorant of their condition and serve us most selflessly and solicitously), Man fights fiercely with those of his own race with no other object than the pleasure of exterminating one another, taking and returning hungry and mutilated prisoners, and exhausting the provisions of the community. Just recently I watched with astonishment a general conflagration of nearly all of the great colonies of Europe, whose result has been the death of ten million workers and the terrifying ruin and desolation of all of the human communities. (The date of this writing being 1919.)
Further regarding the war, permit me to note a particularly strange contradiction. Homo sapiens – as he is content to call himself – is possessed of a peaceful body and warlike mind. Can we conceive of an earthworm endowed with warlike instincts? But as his body has lost the ability to model within itself the arms of aggression and defense, the brain has taken it upon itself to supplement this lack, constructing deadly and varied, enormously costly annihilating machines that he puts away when he goes to work. How different from us, who never allow ourselves to be separated from our formidable mandible claws! Such inability to manufacture organic defensive instruments has brought about the gravest of inconveniences: the creation of a social class, highly onerous at that, of armed slackers with the objective of protecting the defenseless workers. In spite of this, there is not a day that passes without raids and instances of violence. It is no surprise, then, that beings endowed with irresistible predatory impulses would find it more convenient and expeditious, in order to satiate their hunger, to exchange the heavy tool of work for the light and efficient revolver of the robber! . . .
Representatives of the Formica ferox puff themselves up with vanity at having invented flight (such a novelty!) several million years after insects, reptiles, bats, and birds had done so. But this so-called flight does not move beyond being an unobstructed method of suicide; they dishonor it, besides, using it not in order to love within the azure sky as we do, but rather to assassinate without fear of reprisal. They do not understand, therefore, the sublime nuptial flight of the hymenopterans. It would be better for the aviators, imitating our queens, to amputate their wings and live hidden in their homes.
Each nation lives fighting fiercely within itself, once they no longer have foreigners to despoil. All social classes, as we would refer to our soldiers, workers, and queens, are at each other’s throats. And not few of them have taken up imitating the communism of bees and ants! Could they be more foolish? They even plan to install a new regime, maintaining a plurality of females, the separation of families and the full freedom of love!…We resolved this struggle millions of years ago, but with logic and foresight, which is to say, rejecting outright corruptive individualism ad delegating to a singular female, our revered queen, and to a few select males, the work of the perpetuation of the species. And we, the neuter, do not feel nostalgia toward love, because we know from experience that love, slavery, and death are all the same.3
Another incomprehensible custom has shocked me enormously. The Formica ferox is educated in schools where they teach to speak and to understand the Universe somewhat. Studying for learning’s sake! Such idiocy has never been seen. Even without demanding teachers or blighted professors, we know how to communicate our preferences and emotions, educate our children and slaves, get our bearings in unknown lands, distinguish between noxious plants and animals and those that are useful, begin long hunting expeditions without faltering, and work in a coordinated and peaceful manner in favor of the community. As being embarrassing, vile and fallacious, we disdain rational logic, which we have instead replaced with the celebrated method of direct vision or intuition, a supremely intellectual perfection which all animals, including Man, envy in us. Fabre, one of our oldest counsellors amongst the humans, has compared instinct to genius.
In sum, and here I conclude my lengthy epistle. Nothing transcendental has grown out of the human vermin: they still discuss the enigma of understanding versus instinct; they only begin to decipher the mechanism of the Cosmos; they do not know the essence of life, and with regard to practical and legal order, they have not even resolved the pressing problems of social stability and an ideal political system. Not to mention the riddle that is death. It must not worry them, whatever the preaching of their apostles, given that the most densely populated colonies of the Formica ferox, having just shaken the dust from the ruins and dried the blood, hurry on to new wars, infinitely bloodier and more destructive. The future contest – or so they say – will be resolved purely by air, hurling at harmless peoples balloons full of germs and suffocating gasses.
Let us not rush to deplore this incredible dementia. In the form of human cadavers, many insects of the muscidos family will find inexhaustible rations, which are also the favorite delicacy of the nomadic tribes of hunting ants (Myrmecocystus viatitus, Aphenogaster tertaceopilosa, Tapinoma erraticum, etc).
And since I have nothing to learn here, but rather much to endeavor to forget, I will return as soon as possible to the anthill, our beloved homeland.
Embracing you effusively with my antennae, R. y C.
###
Endnotes:
1. P. barbatus, who pave their nests with very small stones.
2. Admirable ants, who within their nests pile pulp of mashed leaves where they sow a fungus (Rhocitesgongyophora, Müller), from which they sustain themselves.
3. Lest the reader forget, the queen is cloistered and absorbed entirely in the work of motherhood, and the scarce males perish once the queen is impregnated, whereas the workers can live for many years, as Lubbock has shown.
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