The Visitors

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. However those that were able to let out one last cry knew that help was not on the way. No one expected these aliens, as soft and fleshy in appearance, to be as violent and unrelenting in their onslaught. While our kind may be double in height and at least triple in weight, we were clearly no match for the seemingly never-ending attack by the humans. Perhaps our own inquisitive nature and optimism is to blame, but had any of us known what was to come, we would have never been so kind to the first humans that arrived.

Our species is an advanced race, at least in the areas that we always found important. The days of jockeying for political power and fighting over whose religion is superior have long been extinct, which has paved the way for our people to really focus on what matters. We have been able to eliminate world hunger in our society by focusing on chemically mass producing food, in a manner where it can be done in almost all climates that exist on our planet, and at a fraction of the cost compared to traditional farming and agricultural methods. We have also made sure that the food that is being mass produced is healthy and full of the necessary nutrient and vitamins our race needs, thereby nearly eliminating deaths caused by poor diets or lack of adequate nutrition.

We have made considerable investments in curing disease and sickness throughout our planet, where the combination of these ultra effective antibodies with the healthy food we consume have allowed our people to live to over 300 years old. It is worth noting that our planet revolves around our sun about twice as fast as Earth does theirs, but still a very impressive life expectancy nonetheless. This is all in addition to what I believe to be the most impressive achievement of all - developing and maintaining healthy relationships with other intelligent lifeforms from across the galaxy. I am admittedly biased in this opinion, as I am the ambassador for interplanetary affairs, in which I lead the agency that is responsible for all communication with life outside of our planet.

Possibly the most significant example of our accomplishments I can give to any human reading this are the strides made to ensure our planet remains healthy, in a sustainable way, for all inhabitants of its land. Any notion of climate change, global warming, habitat loss for any creature, or anything of the sort remains as a folk tale told by elders to scare children for their amusement.

I state that this is our most important achievement because the reason humans ventured this deep into the cosmos was not for scientific research, or to find another habitable planet to sustain life. Humans have found multiple planets that could sustain human life, but the logistics around sending people over and rebuilding civilization there turned out too burdensome and time consuming, especially since the extinction of human life on Earth was already within view. Instead, the reason humans took the risk to venture over a hundred thousand lightyears from Earth was to attempt to save their dying planet, which was suffering from an immeasurable amount of global warming, overpopulation, and deforestation.

On Earth, the collective body of science came to an agreement that the only feasible way to save their planet was to discover a new source of energy that did not emit any greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, all while keeping the same efficiency as their current sources of energy. Based on this research, it was agreed upon by all members of science and politics from countries around the globe that any and every resource that can be spared must be dedicated to the space exploration for a cleaner renewable source of energy. There was even a name given to this endeavor - the Global Reparation Accord, or more widely known as the Hail Mary Plan. There were already strides made towards deep space exploration, where humans have been able to visit nearby galaxies. This new plan would push their venture out to even further distances to unexplored galaxies and planets, however based on the advances made since previous missions, there was confidence that it could be accomplished.

The situation on Earth was dire - the population has ballooned to over 10 billion people, where the effects of that was felt tenfold since due to climate change, any country within 500 miles of the equator was deemed completely inhabitable for human life. This caused residents of those countries to migrate either north or south to more agreeable places, which in turn caused those places to be immensely overcrowded. Borders between countries became impossible to control, and the lines defining where one country ends and one begins became more and more opaque as the years went by.

In a desperate attempt to compete with the world's superpowers, a number of countries facing irreversible economic disaster took extreme action. All of Central and South America, plus the few Caribbean islands that have not been swallowed by the Atlantic, have merged into 2 countries - one for all of the Spanish speaking nations and one for the remaining. A number of Southeast Asian countries, like the Philippines, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand, have agreed to combine with China to avoid complete economic ruin. Russia, whose weather has become more favorable due to climate change, has become the worlds most powerful and wealthy nation, and forcefully took over a number of its neighboring countries, mostly with little to no resistance. Cities that were once bustling with life, like Tokyo, Mumbai, Amsterdam and Dhaka, have become almost entirely submerged underwater. Suffice to say, the warnings passed down from scientists over generations about global warming had clearly proven true, and in most cases, worst than ever predicted.

With the consensus for restoring order on Earth being to halt, and possibly even reverse the damage caused by over-heating their planet, the mission was to search far and wide for a source of energy that can be used back on Earth to sustain life for the 10 billion humans, without also spilling poison into the land, air, and seas. While at first glance, this mission may sound like the equivalent of searching for Bigfoot or Santa Claus, there was actually a chance of success in this endeavor. A few years prior to the Hail Mary Plan being signed, during an excavation study on Enceladus, one of Saturn's moons, there was a remarkable discovery. While digging into the icy surface of Enceladus in search of microscopic life, the astronauts discovered at roughly the three-meter point an iridescent, blueish, rock-like substance, similar looking to an opal stone, only more translucent, and with a cerulean glow.

Upon returning to Earth with samples of their discovery, in-depth research and experimentation uncovered that when burning the substance in replacement of coal, the gas emitted is almost entirely made up of oxygen, as opposed to the harmful elements released from coal combustion such as sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide. The chemical makeup of this extraterrestrial substance, dubbed "anti-coal", completely transformed the way humans approached their battle against climate change and the way energy could be produced across the globe. This groundbreaking discovery triggered a series of events that led to a galaxy-wide search for mass amounts of anti-coal. The first place to look was of course Enceladus, however after a thorough scan of the moon, it was clear that Enceladus could not provide nearly as much anti-coal that was needed back on Earth.

Humans continued to search through their galaxy for any celestial body with a significant amount of anti-coal. Small amounts of anti-coal were found on a few planets, moons and astroids, however due to the massive effort required to extract and transport the anti-coal back to Earth, the mission was to find one singular location that had enough anti-coal to support Earth. At first, this mission was being conducted by each country irrespective of each other. This was initially seen more as a competition between the wealthiest nations, to see which nation can be the first to discover this stockpile of anti-matter and be seen as the saviors of humanity. Some countries were even searching for the anti-matter with the hope of making a profit, by selling the material to other nations.

After some years of searching the galaxy for anti-coal, the political leaders of these wealthy countries realized it was time to rethink their strategy. It became clear that independently searching for anti-coal was far less effective, and far more taxing on each individual country than if they worked together. It was this realization, plus the ghastly state of the planet as a whole, where the Hail Mary Plan came to fruition, sending their astronauts and research machines into the depths of space, into far and distant galaxies. Unfortunately for the inhabitants of our peaceful and flourishing planet, we were in possession of more than enough anti-coal to power Earth for the next hundreds, maybe thousands of years. The only obstacle keeping the humans from bringing back our anti-coal and saving their planet is the fact that our planet would also crumble if we lose it.

As the interplanetary ambassador, I was tasked with greeting the first humans to touch down on our planet. It was around dawn during a relatively warm morning, over 170 degrees Fahrenheit, or 77 degrees Celsius. Though we were the first non-Earthlings that man has ever made contact with, these humans could tell immediately that we did not mean any harm, and were approaching them with a "how can we help you" demeanor, and not a "what do you want" one. After a few minutes of some clumsy gesturing, communication between myself and the humans became easy. Learning to communicate with extra-terrestrial beings has become somewhat second nature for us, as we have gone through this many times before. The humans made sure to make no mention of the current state of Earth, or their mission of discovering and taking our anti-coal. They were, after all, men and women of science, and have seemed to be genuinely interested with the inner works of our ecosystem. I will admit, this deception by the humans had me convinced they were purely here for purposes of research and to create ties between their planet and ours. This naive over-trusting nature was the result of meeting with over a dozen different intelligent extra-terrestrial species, all of whom had only good intentions of equally advancing both planets in harmony. If I had any inkling of what the humans were actually here for and what they were willing to do to obtain it, we would have had them immediately imprisoned and destroyed any communication they had with Earth.

The first few days were spent explaining a number of the advances that we have been able to accomplish, and how we have been able to achieve them. Having done this many times before, I was certain that there was a high probability that our planet was more advanced than that of the humans. Of all the visitors we've had and of all the planets that we have visited, I have learned that our species was an exceptionally evolved group. Because of this, we have taken a great deal of pride in what we have accomplished, and our race feels that collectively, it was our duty to help other beings improve their technologies to the benefit of their species. I made sure to show the humans the artificial vertical farms where we mass produce the food that most of our species consume. We also showed how we ensure the other creatures we share our planet with are all living in a comfortable, safe environment. We even revealed to them the advances we made in space travel, teaching them how they can increase speed, improve stability when exiting and re-entering their atmosphere, and how they can drastically improve their equipment and outfits to allow for easy flow of oxygen in a vastly more comfortable and tailor-fitted space suit, all while maintaining the perfect temperature regardless of extreme climates. In fact, during the entire duration of the humans visit to our planet, they were using these new and improved outfits. In hindsight, the advancement we allowed them to make in space travel is my biggest regret. With this new information, the humans will now be able to commit the same atrocities to other unsuspecting planets and races that they have done to ours.

After the first week of having our new guests over, it seemed like they had finally grown accustom to the shorter days that comes with being on our planet. If you think you've suffered from jet lag, I promise it is nothing like going from a 24-hour day to a 10-hour day, with roughly 7 hours of daylight and 3 hours of darkness per day. The humans were showing great interest in all of our tutelage, asking for more insights for what they can bring back to Earth. In return, the humans had given us some insight into the detail of Earth, although they were sure to not reference anything that would cause someone to mention the anti-coal. For the most part they spoke about things like the geographical landscape of Earth, such as the makeup of the continents and oceans. They also spoke about the different countries that reside on Earth, and told us where each of them were from. There was a man and a woman from the United States of America, who showed much more pride in their country than the others. One woman was from Canada, another man from Russia, and a man from Spain. They all showed great pride in the fact that they were able to collectively, as a multi-national team, travel as far as they did to land on our planet. That part seemed a bit peculiar, as for our species, and all the other species we have met, it is expected to have members of a mission come from all corners of the globe. While I did find it odd, I did not question why it was unnatural for humans to do the same. We eventually sought out to do our own research on Earth, however before we were able to discover the ugly truth, it was too late.

While our people, including myself, were more than happy to oblige with any and every inquiry that came our way, we soon discovered that these astronauts we had been so hospitable to were merely stalling to allow for their hellish army to arrive. Within just a few more days, the skies will be filled with war machines driven not by men and women of science, but by soldiers trained to descend carnage on any and everyone in the way of completing their mission. In this mission especially, where failure to complete being the inevitable end of human life on Earth, there would be absolutely no mercy shown by the vastly superior force of their military. As the first humans to step foot on our planet were concealing their main objective, these humans made their goal overwhelmingly clear from the very beginning - it was going to be us or them.