I feel like my life should be more exciting than sitting in Stockholmhaven, imagining what might happen to sci-fi once we finally make first contact with aliens.
Where would it go, when the fi bit becomes fa? Would there ever be another alien invasion blockbuster? Or would we look to adventure among the stars ourselves? Might be tricky if we’re enslaved by a race of superbeings from the planet Zarg though.
Anyway, here I am, among the beautiful young couples, the noisy kids and the bespectacled millennials with their screenplay of dreams behind their stickered MacBooks.
I’m waiting for Mike. We do tea and a catchup on Wednesdays sometimes, and in a few minutes he’ll be here to cheer me up and we can talk about whatever it is we talk about. I could use the company.
I suppose everything would change if the zargons found us. They might eat us, or keep us as pets. They might even hunt Americans for sport, through vast acres of protected wildernesss, then take photographs of themselves posing over the blood-spattered corpses, with a huge smile and a high powered assault weapon.
Or, they might teach us how to reach the stars, and reignite our sense of science-wonder as we work together to reach the galaxy.
This is in my mind because two Harvard astrophysicists have suggested this week, that a recently observed asteroid might have actually been a light sail from an alien civilisation. Might have. It’s based on the fact that it seemed propelled by the sun on its way out of the solar system, but didn’t appear to be an outgassing comet when it was near us.
No radio signals were detected though, so it seems unlikely that the zargons know we’re here.
That’s got to be a relief, right? I’m not being watched by ‘cool, keen intellects’ across the vast oceans of space, while I sit here, moody in Stockholmhaven? Or in fact, by anybody.
Mike’ll be here in a minute. Probably best stash away my stickered MacBook.
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