Relevance

"We could have saved the Earth but we were too damned cheap." - Kurt Vonnegut

It's Story Time, kiddies!

It's the terrestrial year 3039 and the remnants of mankind are sailing through the stars in stolen space ships. The Earth, now just a vague dot that fades a little more on the monitors with each passing astronomical unit, is a seething cauldron of super-heated gases, the spitting image of its sister planet, Venus. This is terrestrial year 964 of the journey.

In 2037, long before the atmospheric processes that doomed the Earth began its cataclysmic cascade, a race of aliens visited our planet.

They were not friendly.

From all that analysts could decipher from the alien transmissions the merciless annihilation of 75% of the human population was simply because we were both fun and easy to kill.

The invader's main weapon was a massive orb standing as high as a five-story building. They would land and begin emitting a slowly radiating pulse wave that reduced organic life to sludge. Once their effective range had been reached they ceased their attacks, lifted skyward and moved to new coordinates.

Military strikes against the orbs were effective but they were armored just well enough to complete their function, usually annihilating all terran units in the process.

After the attacks had ceased, and it was clear that the aliens had departed for solar systems anew, the few remaining people discovered thirty-seven slightly-damaged orbs on the ground outside major population areas. To their astonishment they discovered the ships were still operational, even space-worthy apart from an easily-patched hole or two.

The controls for maneuvering were simple enough to comprehend but no one understood how the engines worked. They seemed to tap energy from an unknown source. From all that the scientists could tell these ships flew without fuel. A team of engineers disassembled an engine but the resultant explosion left nothing but a black scar in the Earth for thirty miles in every direction. They did not try a second time.

By 2075 the last few pockets of civilization succumbed to the greenhouse effect. There was no other option but to gather up the last remaining humans in these alien lifeboats and head for the nearest star that might support life.

Seven months later, on the night of the first Christmas Eve, the priests stood before the assembled crowd of refugees and retold the miracle of the Savior's birth, and reminded one and all of their eventual reward in Heaven.

Afterwards, by unanimous assent, the priests were tossed out of the airlock and the few remaining Bibles enthusiastically converted to toilet paper.

=mike=