'Captain, we're clear for landing on Sisyphus Prime.'

'Roger that. Go ahead, helmsman.'

These phrases are roughly translated, as the crew doesn't speak English and 'karani' has a variety of meanings. We'll stop with the linguistic kibitzing now and give you the gist.

The sleek ship¹ glided (glid? glode?) to an elegant landing. The environmental specialist pronounced the air outside 'fit to breathe, if we don't stay too long,' so the crew stepped out without helmets and surveyed the landscape, such as it was.

It was a sorry sight.

'What did this civilisation die of?' asked the surveying officer.

'Malignant provincialism,' replied the ethnoarchaeologist.

While the surveying officer and her assistant set up the measuring equipment, the environmental specialist kicked disconsolately at a loose brick, earning him a warning look from the ethnoarchaeologist. She continued, 'This planet suffered a Skyfox Horizon Event.'

The security officer looked around cautiously. 'Should we be watching for booby traps?'

'Quite possibly. These people were completely paranoid toward the end – and utterly self-destructive. They'd reached the point where they frankly did not care whether they destroyed their own means of support and rendered the planet uninhabitable for their children, as long as in so doing they also made life impossible for the hated Others.'

'Who were the Others?' asked the security officer. 'Should we set up a perimeter? Maybe they're still out there? Or did they get them, too?'

The ethnoarchaeologist gave a short laugh. 'The 'Others' were just more of their own species. They did the same things. Followed the same professions. Used resources in the same way.'

'What made them the Others, then?' the surveying assistant wanted to know.

'Oh, they had a slightly different theory about the origin of the universe.'

Stares all around.

'You have GOT to be kidding me!'

She shrugged. 'That's how it started. Some basic argument about an abstraction. Then an irritation at the Others' holiday traditions, followed by an objection to their headwear. Pretty soon, nothing the Others could do would satisfy the majority. There was no pleasing them.'

She bent down to examine a shard of pottery. 'Hm, fine enamelwork. The Others wanted to wear their traditional clothing to public events? Suddenly, exactly that style of clothing was troubling to other people. They celebrated a holiday at an odd time of the year? They must be plotting something in their meetinghouses.' She tagged the item and bagged it.

'In other words, if they got a concession it took away from the other people?' asked the surveying officer.

'You guessed it. One group's wedding made the others' less 'meaningful'. If one group wrote, or said, or did something, it was obviously a slight to the others. And of course what one had, the other coveted. This sort of thing is bound to escalate. Until you get. . . ' she gestured sadly at the devastation around them.

The security officer cleared his throat. 'But we've seen societies like that before: clannish, mutually suspicious. . .what made this one go nuclear?'

'Thermonuclear, it looks like from the debris. . . What? Oh, what made the difference was mass communication. Somebody invented a box: one you could write in or talk in, or both. We won't know until we find it, but there should be some among the ruins. Everybody could talk to each other.'

'But,' the surveying assistant raised a tentative finger while knowing that this was a bad idea, 'how does communication make things worse?'

The ethnoarchaeologist looked at him severely. 'Communication doesn't. Commercialised communication does.'

'You mean. . .?'

'Yep. When you're using communication to sell something – meaning to get something valuable in exchange for a trade of some kind – the incentive to lie is practically overwhelming. Our soap works better than all the other soaps, for instance.'

'Our soap will make you more athletic and charming,' suggested the surveying officer.

'Other people's soap causes dreadful diseases,' put in the security officer with dawning comprehension.

'That's it! You've identified the problem. It's a short step from lying to malicious lying. And an even shorter step from other people's soap is bad for you to other people are making bad soap in order to attack our Sacred Way of Life. And that. . .'

'. . .is how wars get started,' concluded the surveying assistant.

For a moment, the team looked at one another and sighed bleakly. Then they continued about their assigned tasks, cataloguing yet another failed experiment in civilisation.

Speeding Car Goes Airborne, Explodes in Accident at Border Crossing: Media Blame Terrorists

Dmitri Gheorgheni

04.12.23 Front Page

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