Christopher Nuttall - The Trojan Horse

What? You can’t think of anything? Neither can your humble servant. We have been told that they will take us to the forbidden barn where we will all board our intergalactic vehicle and head off to new, perfect lives on Blisstonia — well known for its high levels of bliss. And yet… what have they offered to prove their case? And let’s face it. There is nothing to be found in alien speeches to back up the more extreme claims made by the Witnesses. They seem delighted to welcome our new overlords.

What have they actually done? They have provided us with fusion generators — already, there are calls to decommission every remaining fission reactor within the continental United States. Have we forgotten so quickly why we couldn’t give the House of Saud the thermonuclear spanking it deserved? We were dependent upon their control over oil to maintain our economies — and our oilmen in the style to which they had become accustomed. Should we be so quick to become dependent upon them?

At base, we know nothing about them. And that is worrying. What do they want from us?

The basic problem with any government-provided service is that it is, ultimately, beyond accountability. There are thousands of stories about ordinary hard-working Americans who have had their lives ruined through government incompetence and found that they are unable to gain any recompense for what they have suffered. And believe me, there are worse sins carried out against Third World citizens by the so-called disinterested partisans of international aid. They have wrecked local farms by moving in food supplies from the West. They have destroyed local industries by insisting that they source their requirements from politically-favoured industries in the donor countries. And they have carried out the most terrible abuses against the local population — rape, paedophilia, slavery — through ignorance or deliberate malice — and then they have tried to cover them up, hoping to save the tattered shred of decency that they hide behind.

Even if the Snakes have decent motives, should we be so quick to accept their promises of aid? We might find that we had become forever dependent upon them, or discover that we were at the mercy of planners thousands of light years away. How can we trust them when we cannot hold them to account?

Jayne shook her head. It was impossible to escape the sense that the writer had a few good points, and was then burying them under a paranoid fantasy. She knew that many of the charges against the government and the aid agencies were true — one of the many reasons that government agencies hated the BAN was that it put the people in contact with genuinely disinterested experts — but there was no way of knowing if they applied to the Snakes. And yet… it was hard to dismiss the core of his argument out of hand. The Snakes had promised little; their supporters had promised much.

Sighing, she clicked on the rebuttal from another blogger.

There is much to be ashamed of in humanity’s long history. We have never been very kind to our fellow humans and we have treated the environment very badly. How many different kinds of animal have been driven to the verge of extinction — or even over the edge — by humanity? We don’t know. The blunt truth is that the Dodo is far from the only creature to exist only in museums. We tell ourselves that we are aware of the dangers of destroying countless other creatures, yet we do far too little to save them. Every year, rhinos are hunted for their horns, which can be ground down into a folk medicine to boost male stamina in the bedchamber. The fact that such treatments simply don’t work doesn’t seem to stop the trade.

Nor can we excuse our treatment of our fellow humans. We allowed Saddam to rule Iraq for far too long. When we removed him from power, we did very little to protect the Iraqi people from the predicable chaos that emerged in the sudden power vacuum within Iraq. Our measures to remove dictators from Libya and a dozen other nations were half-hearted at best. We consider Saudi Arabia — a state that treats women and minorities worse than Iran, our sworn enemy — a friend and ally, despite the fact that the Saudis fuelled the terror network that eventually smashed the Twin Towers. The record of man’s inhumanity to man, stained in blood, is not one to be proud of.

Now consider yourself an alien looking down on Earth. Would you consider the human race civilised, or would you wonder what might happen if those barbarous savages, too stupid to realise that they’re fouling their own nest, advanced into space? And even if you were optimistic, would you be quick to give those barbarians the technology that would allow them to reach your worlds?

The Galactic Federation doubtless has considerable experience in dealing with new races. Their mere presence in space points to a mature political system, unaffected by wars and dogma that hold us back on Earth. The selfishness that dominates human politics has no place in a multiracial community that has access to the boundless wealth of space. What — exactly — do they have to fight about? There is enough living space to satisfy even Hitler.

We must, I feel, understand and accept that the Galactics will be very careful when it comes to handling our world. They will not trust us to act in our own best interests — because humanity’s record of acting in its own best interests is non-existent. We are children under the gaze of mature adults, too wise to allow their anger to affect their judgement, but unwilling to evade the responsibility to pass judgement. They have promised us that they will help us mature, yet we must accept that this will be a slow process, one that will require the development of trust on both sides. And really — what do they have to gain by waging war on us?

Consider; what are the motives of humans at war? Land — there is an endless supply of land in space. They’re certainly advanced enough to terraform worlds like Mars and turn them into gardens. Given enough time, they could break down an entire solar system and create a Dyson Sphere. Slaves — what could human slaves do for them that machines couldn’t do better, without the threat of a slave rebellion? Breeders — we’re unlikely to be sexually compatible with them. And really; how many humans find a Snake sexually attractive? I ask again; what do they have to gain by waging war on Earth?

I think we will have to accept, right now, that they do know better than us. And I think that we should take this priceless opportunity to learn from a race that is far more politically and socially mature than our own. The concerns of those who fear losing control, or profit, or anything else should be dismissed. We will build a brave new world, one for humans mature enough to live in the Federation as equals. And if there are those who refuse to join us, let them isolate themselves. In the end, they will lose — and they will have no one to blame, but themselves.

The man who called himself Arnie Pie stretched and stood up from the computer monitor. It had been a long day on the internet, where posting a single article on the BAN could generate thousands of responses, ranging from thoughtful rebuttals to angry semi-coherent flames that were rapidly squashed by the site’s moderators. Arnie knew better than to allow himself to be dragged into a flame war — as a listed blogger, he was expected to show a high level of decorum — but there were times when the sheer level of stupidity on the internet drove him insane. Anyone could pose as an expert on the internet and false information was rife. And then flame wars broke out because trolls made it impossible for anyone to back down.

Shaking his head, he started towards the kitchen for a can of soda. It was nearly time for him to leave the computer for the night and go to work in the 7/11. He disliked the job intensely, but it had been the only one he’d been able to get, despite his qualifications and status as an accredited BAN blogger. Personally, he blamed Congress; instead of funding prioritising getting Americans back to work, they rewarded incompetence and bailed out banks that should have been allowed to fail. And hard-working Americans paid the price for their failures, while up on the Hill, Congress debated how to hand the nation over to a force from outer space.