BARBARA: There you go Rob. Now, let's get back to business here...
ROBERT: Well, sure, one thing does come to mind, though.
BARBARA: Yes?
ROBERT: Well, it seems that you're telling me that humanity's urge or need for religion isn't a real thing, it's just some sort of byproduct. Am I getting the drift of what you're saying?
BARBARA: Yes, you know I thought we'd moved on...
ROBERT: Yeah, well, hang on a minute, hang on... I'm not a religious man myself, particularly because religion has been and still is used as an excuse, as motive even, for the darkest of humanity's deeds. And what you're telling me now is that you lot are here to 'streamline things a bit' because of our penchant for fanatical self destruction. I find myself beginning to feel like a Cherokee being told that the Christian God will 'streamline' my heathen ways. I don't know what you're offering here, but please tell me you're not planning on brainwashing us with some high tech, industrial strength hokum while you're selling us extraterrestrial corn liquor.
BARBARA: Ummm... Well... the Omnilatrus of the Nine Ages has come all the way to Earth to tell you about...
ROBERT: Oh come on! Really? I mean I'm not the only one who knows about the cargo cults of New Guinea! Arthur C. Clarke pointed out, brilliantly I might add, that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, but that doesn't make it magic!
BARBARA: Woah there Bobby, I'm kidding. There's no Omnilatrus or whatever, I'm totally pulling your chain. You should have seen your face! You were red as baboon's ass! Priceless! No, that isn't why we're here. I don't blame you for thinking that the first alien species to show up on your doorstep might be intergalactic Jehova's Witnesses or Mormons, but, seriously, don't worry.
ROBERT: Well that's a great weight off my mind. If you could be so kind as to elaborate I might be able to get my heart rate down into the low hundreds. Could you hurry on and do that for me?
BARBARA: Oh Robert, you're wonderfully human, your species are so emotiomentatively somatized, it's amazing you've made it this far. Really, you people crack me up. Anyway, we've decided that you are sufficiently advanced in your technological and psycho-noetic evolution that sharing some of our technology with your kind ought to peal back the very hokum you just described.
ROBERT: Oh. Ok. I still feel a bit like a savage being converted right now...
BARBARA: You are a savage! All humans are! You just told me so! All we want to do is help you along a little. Like midwives at a birth. The mother does all the work, but the midwife makes sure that nothing goes wrong. She holds the straining hands of the laboring woman...
ROBERT: Oh Plato, very nice. That actually does help.
BARBARA: I told you we'd tried to intervene before.
ROBERT: You mean Plato was...
BARBARA: Not exactly. Never mind that. Robert, let's get back to the interview.
ROBERT: I'm afraid I've lost track. Where were we again? I asked you about your purpose for coming here, which we've covered, and then... let's see here, oh yes I have a few more points, most of them thoroughly trivial...
BARBARA: Feel free to let fly Bob, ask me anything.
ROBERT: Well, uh, here's one that seems fairly innocuous, shouldn't stir up any trouble. You mind if I smoke?
BARBARA: They're your lungs Robert, go ahead.
ROBERT: Thanks. Right. Why are you green?
BARBARA: Oh I was waiting for this one. Endosymbiosis. We've all done it, even your kind Robert.
ROBERT: Could you remind me? I'm not familiar with...
BARBARA: Endosymbiosis is the process by which a prokaryotic organism is absorbed and incorporated into a larger one. The mitochondria present in the cell of every animal on Earth are the product of a endosymbiotic relationship that started... about four billion years ago. Chloroplasts are the same way, first as bacteria then as algae. Now, my kind have channeled our evolution for a really long time now, and part of that was incorporating chloroplasts into our cellular matrices. So we're all part plant.
ROBERT: Fascinating. So you receive nourishment from light?
BARBARA: Exactly, I mean we can't live off of just sunlight and air for very long. But it does make things easier. You'll all be green someday too.
ROBERT: Huh.
BARBARA: However, there are quite a few steps to learn before we get to that.
ROBERT: Such as?
BARBARA: We're going to start with a collective mimeto-noetic defragmentation, accompanied by a complete neuroempathic spectrum overhaul.
ROBERT: What? I've defragmented my hard drive, and as I recall defragmentation involves taking all of the little individual chunks of data apart and sort of rearranging them... scrubbing out the redundancies and broken bits... hold on... that sounds like brainwashing again.
BARBARA: Well, in the most literal sense, I'm afraid it is. But it's for your own good.
* * *
No comments:
Post a Comment