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Option Two: the Edwardian Proposal by Jill Crokett
(copyright 2004, Jillian Victoria Crokett)
Early in 2019 the people of earth were stunned into collective numbness at the epiphany of their first discovery of extraterrestrial life in the universe; and a far superior life at that. At 3:15pm on the afternoon of Tuesday, February 8 th , an unbelievably huge object that would soon become known to all humans as an Edwardian Starship appeared to hover motionless over Ayer's Rock in the hot summer desert sun of central Australia.
As CNN, BBC and FOX all went nonstop and commercial-free 24/7 for the next four months, people all over the world left work, school, and automobile to gather around TV sets in pubs, sports bars, mahjong parlors and coffee shops. Temporarily abandoned vehicles littered the streets of the planet. It was clearly the biggest news story in the history of the human race; bigger than the discoveries of aviation and nuclear science combined, bigger than the entire history of Christianity, bigger than the story of Western Civilization itself. Churches held prayer vigils. Employers set up huge flat-screen TV monitors throughout workplaces to encourage people to return to work. Rather quickly, some began spending their life savings on holidays or draining retirement accounts to fund lavish vacations while others bought guns, horded food, and turned their root-cellars into bunkers.
The Edwardian people that showed up walking the hot outback desert east of Alice Springs that blazingly bright southern hemisphere summer afternoon, looking not unlike bumbling Japanese tourists in their floppy wide-brimmed hats and odd-looking but comfortable off-white cotton clothes, where strangely not all that different-looking from humans. The most distinguishing feature was that the Edo had heads that were about 10% larger than humans. That 10% increase in brain matter was estimated to facilitate a 7,000 percent increase in intelligence over humans. Imagine a single human trying to communicate with 70 people at once. Imagine 70 humans all driving a single bus, or even flying a complicated jet fighter. 95% of them could be asleep and the job performance would still be outstanding. Any way you sliced it, to the Edo, humans were very, very simple-minded creatures.
The Edo were overall slightly smaller than humans, but like humans, their height and weight varied from one to another. Their light cotton clothing, while maybe not in vogue, was certainly not outer-space-like. Their head hair was very fine and short and appeared to be the only hair on their body, but from 50 meters away in was difficult to distinguish the Edo from humans, especially if they had a hat on. There were male and female Edwardians, but their differentiating features were visually ambiguous at a distance of greater than 10 meters. Both sexes tended to dress alike.
On closer visual contact, the Edo had fingers which were slightly longer and thinner than humans. The most notable close-up distinguishing feature was that their hairless, somewhat-Asian-colored skin exuded a somewhat shiny oil which was believed to protect their entire body from the effects of solar and thermonuclear radiation. Very handy if you're traveling a million light years in a matter of minutes.
While the first contacts and initial communications with the Edo were very polite, it was quickly clear that they thought of humans the way humans think of domestic farm animals; part of the scene but not something you intellectually interact with. And yes, although they seemed to have very little to say to one another, each of the visitors had undertaken the courtesy of learning both Basic English and Mandarin Chinese before landing. A two week intensive course they said.
Within three months of initial contact with the aliens the major governments on earth all knew what every human political leader was afraid to say in public. The Edwardians were from a planet whose entire solar system had used up its natural resources, specifically its agricultural resources. They had plenty of technology, but were rapidly running out of sources of food. Their scan of the universe revealed that the planet we know as Earth best matched the atmosphere composition, radiation level, and ambient temperature of their home planet, Edo. They were here for one reason; our natural resources, all of them. But they were willing to work out a deal. "After all, we're reasonable people" their chief representative said in a somewhat squealy voice.
The Edwardians proposed only two options:
Option One; they would immediately begin liquidating all human life on Earth, and simultaneously begin teleporting their population to colonize Earth. But they made it clear that this option was not their first choice. They explained that they were from a place a long, long way away, and they were frank in explaining that their teleporting facilities were not only expensive to operate, but were limited to teleporting about 10,000 objects, or people, a day. At that rate it would take them over 300 years to get their entire population to Earth.
Option Two; Edwardians were not exceptionally huge eaters, so 40 kilos of meat would feed a family of four Edwardians for a month, greatly supplementing their diet, and greatly taking a food resource burden off of their home planet. What the aliens proposed was working in cooperation with Earth authorities to harvest 10,000 humans a day from Earth's bulging eight billion population and teleport them, or their processed carcasses, to Edo for consumption. With this option Earth's population growth might be stabilized and Earth could actually benefit by preserving some of its own resources. The Edwardians would also immediately hire, at well-paying jobs, over 5,000 humans as employees on Earth to help process those harvested.
They went on to explain that the second option plan would exempt the current ruling leaders and their immediate families from being harvested. Exempt persons would have a small microchip injected under the skin designating their special status. In addition, the entire country of New Zealand, because of its ideally isolated location, would become a special harvest-exempt zone. In this way, persons who had received special privilege by either Earth governments or the Edwardians could be sent there, with or without the implanted microchip, knowing they and their families would be safe there forever. Flights into and Immigration into New Zealand would be strictly controlled by the Edwardians. All other nations of the Earth would be subject to random harvesting on a rotating basis. Harvesting frequency would be based on a nation's population. China would give up the equivalent of a small-town every four days. The United States would give up the equivalent of one every three weeks. Canada and Australia would give up the equivalent of a town of 10,000 people once every year. There would be no lottery system; the Edwardians would simply choose a town or a section of a city, seal it off and begin beaming the people to their massive new processing plant they would build in the Australian desert. In the case of live unprocessed meat and slaves, those humans would be beamed directly to Edo. Yes, the Edwardians would reserve the right keep some of the harvested humans as slaves or livestock on their home planet. This was needed for Edo national security, just in case the teleporting facilities were to break down for an extended period.
There was little debate among the leaders on earth. They had no choice but to agree to Option Two of the Edwardian Proposal. They agreed that as little press as possible should be given to the daily harvesting, so as not to overly concerned the earth's populace. After all, the chance of any one person getting harvested on any given day was one in 800,000.
Continued in Chapter Two
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