The Summer Solstice 2023
The huge spacecraft was sedately travelling through the universe. It came upon a right old mismatch of rocks and various debris all rotating around a minor star. Its mission was to tidy up the galaxies which had formed after the calamity which had caused the mayhem in the first place. Captain Erg was in charge of the incredibly boring mission which was actually making good the mess that was left after the big bang when somebody left the particle accelerator running while they went to make a cup of tea. “Bit of a mess down there sir” said lieutenant Go. “What’s the problem exactly Go?” “Well Erg can you see that string of planets around that minor star? They seem to be tipped on all different angles to each other. That means that as they spin around the star the angle will mean that they get cold and hot periods.” “Why would that be a problem to the Federation Go?” “Well from what our instruments tell us, the third one in the line could support life, not as we know it, but life all the same. They will eventually gain enough intelligence to become a threat to the Federation through meddling with things they don’t understand.” Captain Erg contemplated the problem and ran the possibilities through the computer to come up with a long term solution. The suggested course of action was guide the intelligent life by giving them things to marvel at and suggest that they had a guiding force beyond their knowledge. This was of course true. The other suggestion was to dissolve the whole thing and forget it! Erg and Go were compassionate beings and decided to give the planet the best chance that they could. Leaving clues and hints as to the construction of the universe and hope that the life forms would come to the right conclusions. Using tractor beams and nuclear based tools, they quickly shaped and constructed an alignment device which would determine the planets position in relation to the parent star and the other planets. All over the planet there were massive monuments all lined up with the Sun. Once the life forms worked that out they could then be considered to be intelligent enough to be invited to join the Federation. All would be well unless it all went wrong and they went down the self destructive route to oblivion. Having constructed the things which would be called ‘Stonehenge’ or The Pyramids by the life forms in the different areas, they left to continue their mission. The origin of mankind was formed and recorded as the Ergo experiment after its founders. Twenty million years later worrying occurrences were recorded by the Federation that someone or something was upsetting the delicate balance of the universe and a ship was dispatched to investigate. What they found was that one planet was sending craft out into space with no regard where it was headed or what it could collide with. The world that was sending out these renegade machines was finished, having been ravaged of everything that was needed to sustain the life forms that lived there. Now they were searching the universe for another place to live. Federation Headquarters digested the information, deliberated on the problem and issued the instruction. Using the original device now known as Stonehenge it would determine the optimum point of obliteration without upsetting the balance of the other planets in the galaxy, which fulfilled the reason why it was constructed originally. So at 17.57 pm on the 21st of June 2023 the planet was eliminated from the line of rocks orbiting the star known as the Sun. Ergo the experiment was over!
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