12 Plans from Outer Space

“TECHNOLOGICALLY, these humans are centuries behind every known species in the galaxy except in one area.”

“You refer to what they call Mac-n-cheese. I cannot fathom how they get the cheese so creamy.” Although Omron had seen him overindulging many times, the high commander ignored the reply.

“They are masters of warfare and will soon have the means of destroying the entire universe. They have used unimaginable weapons twice in killing hundreds of thousands. They also detonated them over deserts and oceans without killing anyone, perhaps because they make pretty clouds.”

“Yes sir,” Omron agreed with the high commander. Any smart officer always did, even when his ramblings made little sense. “They put all their resources into weapons of mass destruction when many of their people do not have sufficient nourishment or adequate dwellings. They have enough nuclear weapons to destroy their world more than a dozen times. I am almost certain blowing up a planet once is enough to kill everyone. In one earth language they call it over kill.”

Omron immersed himself in two things since joining the Earth mission. One was the record of human warfare. He also loved watching those moving drawings they called cartoons and felt bad for the abuse poor Tom always received from that evil critter called a jerry. He thought if the humans put more resources into fighting those vile jerry creatures they would stop killing each other.

“May I add, sir, we have not encountered another species on any world with such a history of fighting and killing their own kind. Many in the Galactic Union are mighty hunters, but never do they hunt themselves, yet humans do this even for sport. They have games where they punch each other until someone falls down and cannot get up.”

“Why would anyone do such a thing?”

“So people can watch and cheer. They call it boxing, because they put their fallen dead in boxes.”

“Violence for spectator amusement, how barbaric.” The high commander stood and looked at the earth through the round window in the silver room. 

Omron never knew why the interior of their ships was made of the same shiny alloy as the hulls. “Most earthlings carry video devices in their hands. Those people are called followers because they watch their devices closely while they walk and operate vehicles. Short videos on them portray people slapping each other with thin round food called tortillas… and they consider this entertainment.”

“Indeed, Sergeant,” the high commander concurred. “No sentient species comes close to their level of malevolent aggression. Now think, why would a war mongering and violent people stockpile devastating weapons, enough to destroy over a dozen planets, if not to use against us?”

“But they do not accept our existence and they have not left their solar system or learned to communicate beyond it.”

“Yet they send songs into space on primitive wavelengths. Do you know, in the history of our glorious Galactic Union, how many first contacts have been made because an alien species enjoyed a song they heard over interstellar radio and wished to meet the artist?” Omron tilted his head no. “Precisely zero.”

“And they spend millions searching for what they call UFOs but do not detect us in orbit. As far as they know, they are alone.”

“Long before your time, over sixteen lectons ago, earthlings found one of our crashed drones over part of the planet called Nevada. They interpreted the squadron markings as their numbers five and one and created a secret military base around the crash site.”

“Wait… Is that where they got the idea of little green men from outer space, from the picture of the snordvark on our fleet logo?” He chuckled. “They think that wily vermin from our world, with those huge eyes, is… us?”

“The point is, they know they are not alone.”

“The report says before you initiated Plan 9, your squadron leader flew his ships over several cities to reveal our existence to the earthlings. Yet, it concludes by saying the people of Earth refused to accept our existence.” 

“We followed our mission objective, before any of the 12 plans, in the face of imminent threat. These primitives grew their science too quickly and millions on their world died as a result. It started with a firecracker, which to this day claims its victims’ fingers by the hundreds, especially at the start of their North American summer season.”

“They do make pretty light shows in the sky.”

“Indeed. Earthlings progressively increased their explosive power to the atom bomb and hydrogen bomb. We knew the only explosion left was the solaronite, which they would soon discover. Given their ferociousness, we could not allow them to harness the power to explode sunlight, which would spread to every sun in the universe, ending all life.”

Omron quoted from the report, “As long as they can think, we will have our problems with earthlings.”

“But the earth people who can think are so frightened by those who cannot, the dead.”

“That is why, in your infinite wisdom, you tried Plan 9, skipping Plans 1 through 8.”

Omron knew his words were too accusatory. He risked being sent to the home world as a disgraced officer, put on display in the capital city exhibition hall as a lesson on insubordination—hung in the nude until he expired.

“I mean, I am curious to learn the wisdom behind such a strategic decision… so I may learn from it, sir.”

“Because, Sergeant—nice save, by the way—they resisted our landing attempts, leaving us no choice but to destroy them.”

“And of the 12, you chose Plan 9 to avoid that outcome?”

“Do you think we should have started with Plan 1?”

“Your excellency, who am I to question the brilliance of a plan to animate human corpses and march them up to the capitals of each nation of earth to force them to accept our presence?”

“You would be one heck of a better officer than that dimwit Eros who suggested it. We skipped right over eight perfectly good plans… to do that.”

“Sir, I have only the summary report. What went wrong with Plan 9?”