Alien Threat

 

"Can we and all nations not live in peace? 

 

In our obsession with antagonisms of the moment, we often forget how much unites all the members of humanity. Perhaps we need some outside, universal threat to make us recognize this common bond. 

 

I occasionally think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world. 

 

And yet, I ask you, is not an alien force already among us? What could be more alien to the universal aspirations of our peoples than war and the threat of war?"

 

- President Ronald Reagan in an address to the United Nations General Assembly on September 21, 1987. 

 

Image source unknown but greatly appreciated.

 

 

Saving Earth

For James

 

Prologue

Roswell, NM. July 8, 1947

 

Twenty minutes too late! Can you imagine? The entire area where the spacecraft crashed has been cordoned off. It's like a scene from a late 1930s science fiction movie! Bright lights, cops, military, journalists, suspicious looking men in black suits, suspense. This could have been the greatest story ever told. If only I got a hold of the rancher. But Mac Brazel was nowhere to be found...

 

Moon Base Luna Alpha One.

Mission Commander. Personal logbook. June 29, 2378 (Ancestral Time System).

I am a third generation scientist here on the Moon. There are twenty five thousand of us. We are the only humans in the entire universe, although our ancestors would probably call us "trans-human".

Here on the Moon we outlived the humanity which was obliterated in three consecutive atomic wars in the 2020s.

We can see the earthrise, but the Earth we see is not the blue-green planet our grandparents watched rising when they first came here in the year 2018. The planet we see is a dead, scorched, inhabitable sphere that resembles Mars rather than the image I remember seeing on my father's personal computer.

 

As a child I always wondered what life must have been like on Earth. I visited the Gaia Park as often as I could, but I was never sure that the holographic images we created at the touch of a button were what the Earth was really like before the destruction. You could immerse yourself in any landscape with all its scents and sounds, temperature and precipitation for the most authentic earth experience. And yet, I was never fully satisfied. I always wanted more.

This is why I decided to develop the time travel technology. I wanted to go back to the world my grandparents loved so much.

Like every child at Luna Alpha One I studied the old masters. They had so many interesting concepts, but they seemed to never agree on anything. Out of hubris they would dismiss the truth in order to uphold their own faulty theories. Can you imagine that they would kill those who disagreed with them? And yet, not even one of them ever came close to the Truth. At their evolutionary level none of them would comprehend it anyway.

 

Discord seemed to permeate all aspects of human existence. They were so rich and yet, so poor. Maybe it was their fear of dying that made them so hostile, so belligerent, so hateful.

I remember reading my grandmother's diary. Since the young age she was terrified of getting old. In the 1990s she studied human genetics and the orthomolecular medicine. She hoped to discover the Fountain of Youth. She made some progress when she stumbled upon the telomerase research. With this knowledge she was able to considerably slow down the aging process, but was not fully satisfied. The real breakthrough came when she met my grandfather. They combined her research with his progressive nano-technology. Together they were able to extend the lifespan of existing humans to 140 years, but the embryos they created were immortal. 

 

We are the new humans. We grow older, but we do not really age. Senescence is unknown to us. And we do not die. Those who wish may withdraw from life and enter the state of Permanent Awe, but most of us prefer to remain active for hundreds of years. There is simply too much to do in this vast universe.

We can synthesize our own nutrition accordingly to our individual needs and are able to monitor our somatic processes. Nano robots are mobilized to repair any damage to a tissue or an organ, and we can upload the latest longevity software into our mitochondria.

We live in our trans-human paradise and no one even thinks of changing the way we coexist. We do not use money and consider material possessions meaningless.

The only wealth we care about is our knowledge. Although any of us can upload any information to our brains, the real wealth comes from our ability to use that data. Unlike our human ancestors we use our knowledge to create, not to destroy.

 
It is difficult to imagine that most of them believed they were alone in the universe. Those who considered that there was life in the outer space believed that contact was impossible with the technology they possessed. What they did not understand was that it was their mindset and not the lack of technology that prevented them from making a connection with what they called non-human entities. 

 

I look out and see Earth. It must have been such a lovely planet once. Pity, really. But maybe not all is lost. If my mission is successful we may be able to turn things around and prevent the disaster that destroyed all life there. 

 

Our space-time ship is equipped with a state of the art technology. We have transformed my husband's Vega 123 vehicle. Jim designed it for our honeymoon in outer space. He even received a Moebius Prize for her! An unbelievably clever trick and a state-of-the-art technology prevents molecular disintegration upon the entry into a black hole. We named her Gaia 1, of course, and I cannot wait to board it. 

 

We plan to land on Earth at a place called Los Alamos/35°53′28″N 106°17′52″W moments before the first atomic test on July 16, 1945. I studied the Manhattan Project materials. Some interesting stuff. Clever minds at work. But no one there seemed to understand that there were so many other uses for the nuclear power. 

 

If I could only persuade all those involved to abandon the thoughts of destruction we could alter the flow of events on Earth...

Epilogue

 

Moon Base Luna Alpha One. Mission Control Center. Newsroom. July 7, 2378 (Ancestral Time System).

Something went horribly wrong! The last message that came from Gaia 1 indicated a serious change in space-time coordinates. The craft seemed to have crashed at Roswell/33°23′14″N 104°31′41″W/July 7/1947. Connection was lost after impact. We suspect that the blast at Los Alamos altered Gaia's landing coordinates. A rescue mission is being considered by the Council. Our hearts and minds are with the brave crew. 

 

By Dominique Allmon

Dominique Allmon©2023

 

A Gentleman In Moscow And The Soul Of Russia

"A Gentleman in Moscow" by Amor Towles. I had this book on my bookshelf for more than four years. It was awaiting its turn to be read. The purchase was a result of a serious affliction called tsundoku where a person purchases more books than she or he can ever read and simply lets them sit on a bookshelf. A long intercontinental flight was a perfect occasion to finally read it.

It's a brilliant, very well written, intelligent, witty novel written by a man of great talent and erudition. This is a book you need to savor like a glass of the rarest Bordeaux or a piece of the finest Belgian chocolate. 

The main protagonist, Count Alexander Rostov, reflects on his past and lives through his memories. Like Swan in Proust's novel, Count's memories become vivid at the scent, sound or taste of things past. 

 

In 1922 Rostov, an unrepentant aristocrat, was sentenced by the Bolshevik court to house arrest. For the rest of his life he had to remain confined within the walls of the Hotel Metropol in Moscow. His physical world shrunk considerably, but the confinement opened the door to much richer regions of intellect and emotions.

This book evoked in me memories from the past long gone. Just like the Count, I suddenly remembered things I thought I forgot. Having studied Russian language, literature, and history in the mid 1970s and early 1980s, and having visited Russia, or rather the Soviet Union, for the first time in December of 1980 - a trip that started in Moscow and ended in Kiev but took us with a special permit to the restricted area of Irkutsk in Siberia where I met the descendants of Polish victims of Stalin's forced deportations; a trip to the Baikal Sea on a sunny winter day at -52°F; the Silk Road republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan; Christmas Eve in Baku, Azerbaijan; and Tbilisi in Georgia - I had many memories of my own. 

I was able to recall so much of that Russian soul that permeates every aspect of this book. I remembered the taste of thinly sliced, garlic marinated pork fat I had in Irkutsk, the fragrant lamb dishes in Tashkent, or the Georgian red wine I drank in Tbilisi. I remembered the taste of caviar I ate in Moscow and in Baku. I remembered the Olivier salad I had in Kiev, and of course, all the horrible hotels, restaurants, and airports, the unfriendly waiters and floor ladies in hotels, but also the art and music, and the cordiality and curiosity of Russian intellectuals so eager to find out who we were.  

 

No visitor to the Soviet Union liked the fact of being watched and never free to go wherever one wanted. The tour guide would answer all your questions in accordance with the ideology of the communist party that held the Russians in a very tight grip. And there was always at least one commissar attached to the group, carefully watching the tour guide. No amount of vodka would ever relax his ideological hold he had on that person. 

 

Everything in the Soviet Russia appeared almost surreal. It seemed that people actually believed the nightmarish tale of the "good life" they had in the system that deprived them daily of their dignity. Empty stores, long lines everywhere, overcrowded city buses, bad food and the air so polluted you could not breathe.

Despite all this, the Russians were full of pride and admiration for their own culture, especially their classical music and literature. The Kirov or the Bolshoi ballet companies were the jewels the Soviets displayed proudly. And who in the West did not hear of Tolstoy, Pushkin, or Gogol? 

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the Russians searched for a new identity. The embarrassment of poverty, backwardness and corruption, the loss of territory, the loss of power, came as a shock to a nation that collectively believed in the success of the communist ideology. Dissent existed in the Soviet Union but was squashed and severely punished. The indoctrination wasn't just skin deep. People accepted as true what they were told.

 

Is it a wonder that the search for a new identity produced even more poverty, more corruption, more crime? Is it a wonder that power hungry dictators would rule in an absolutist manner? Is it a wonder that the new Russia wants to reintegrate some of its lost territories and regain the importance it once had?

The tsarist Russia was a dangerous neighbor. So was the Soviet Union and so is the Russia of today. In the past, Russia swallowed and subjugated its neighbors. The Soviet Union did the same to the countries in Eastern Europe. No one in Poland, Czech Republic or Hungary has ever forgotten this. Amid the largest military buildup in Europe since the Cold War, people in these countries are watching the war in Ukraine in fear and disbelief. 

 

The war with Ukraine must be seen not only from the geopolitical perspective, but also from the historical and cultural one. There seems to be no resolution to the conflict as animosities are deeply rooted in the minds and hearts of peoples so similar and yet so different. Diplomacy has failed completely. Neither party is willing to make concessions to the other.

In his monumental "War and Peace" novel, Leo Tolstoy said that "if everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war." But isn't this the very root of the current conflict in which nobody is winning? The belligerent gentleman in Moscow must understand that if he wants to save the Soul of Russia he must end the war. The leadership of Ukraine must be open to compromise if it wants to save the lives of the Ukrainian people.

By Dominique Allmon

Dominique Allmon©2023