The Day North America Woke Up Leo the Pirate Vampire King The New Porfiriato Emperor Ted Vojvodina vs. the World The Trillions Superhuman World Superhuman World 2009
Me in the Superhuman World:
Startup Escalation 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 Trillions A Sequel 2010 .

Superhuman World 2009 is a work of fiction. The characters herein and the commentary about them should not be considered "real".

SUPERHUMAN WORLD 2009

The Trillions

September - November 2009

The Trillions

Introduction

Now this might be an alien invasion to get worried about. But right now I'm not sure whether to worry more about the aliens or the people fighting them.

(signed) Wyatt Ferguson.

Talk Back!
September

The Infrared Sunbreaker Choir. Commentator: Wyatt Ferguson.

At the Combine where my fiancee Judy works, they occasionally get messages from outer space - in a more timely manner than the rest of Earth knows. On the 31st of August, a message said, The Infrared Sunbreaker Choir Is Coming.

  • Earthlings do have some friends among the Galaxy, though mostly they seem to be shunning us now.
  • Given the message origin, people at work think it's probably talking about junior Solarians. (Infrared = junior, Sunbreaker = Solarian.) A grown Solarian can break a sun by himself, but smaller ones might need to nest together first.
  • Ted Clark, the chief scientist where Judy works, thinks they might be coming to ignite Jupiter so as to warn aliens away from our solar system's weirdness. Jupiter is almost big enough to turn into a small sun on its own, without help from aliens. Aliens may have ignited it before - as the phenomenon Earthlings call "Star of Bethlehem"!
  • There's some astronomical evidence, the Infrared Sunbreaker Choir has already been to Neptune this year... decoyed from Jupiter. Hey, what do we know about our outer solar system anyway? (6 Jul)
  • The mayor of Milwaukee may deserve to know about this threat. He's descended from the Merovingian kings of France, after all. But then so is half of Europe and North America, if one counts the bastard lineages. Merovingians are in turn said to be descended from Jesus of Nazareth - or at least from his relatives. That gives them an interest in any new Star of Bethlehem. (1 Sep)

RACC High Concept #3 Entry
Talk Back!
September

The Trillions. Commentator: Malcolm Dunevoy.

DUNEVOY LABORATORIES

Press Release

(The following statement is credited to Malcolm Dunevoy, President and CEO of Dunevoy Laboratories.)

As you know, Earth has been under alien occupation since September 8 of this year. On that date, two extraterrestrial ships landed at Manchester, England and Novosibirsk, Siberia. Significantly, these are both sites where giant robots materialized in April of this year.

The ships are roughly two miles long and one-tenth of a mile in cross-section. The ships would therefore fill one American city block - as a skyscraper twenty times as tall as any on Earth. But half that height is buried. Each ship is currently siloed in the ground to a depth of one mile. Their ships' drives were able to hollow out that depth of ground upon landing, through means we are still attempting to analyze.

Radar and spectral analysis says, these ships are hollow - and filled with biological matter of homogeneous characteristics. This indicates, the biomatter is mostly from a single species of extraterrestrials and their foodstuffs. Judging from temperature readings, most of the aliens seem to be in cold storage.

Sources from other extraterrestrial species which have visited Earth agree with this assessment. Names for the aliens on this ship vary, but they are most commonly called "The Trillions". They are considered such a threat to other species, their competitors ignited Jupiter as a warning beacon. This explains some recent spectacular astronomical occurrences.

The standard practice for The Trillions is to keep most of themselves in cold storage, but cover their target planet with their ships. My staff estimates, they would put 420 trillion of themselves on our own planet. If the human population of Earth were that densely packed, it would fit into 4000 square miles - roughly the size of Connecticut.

Indications are, The Trillions have overrun almost all of our Galaxy. To put it in astronomical terms: We own our Sun, and the other extraterrestrials may own the stars you see in the night sky, but The Trillions own the Milky Way.

Our galaxy has at least 100 billion stars. Most of these are said to be occupied by The Trillions. A more proper term for the species is therefore The Septillions. That is to say, the Trillion Trillions.

On September 11, the extraterrestrials in Manchester invited representative humans to tour their ship. Almost all of the ship was off limits, though. The aliens admitted, the ships are filled with living creatures. That would indicate, ten million aliens per ship. That in turn confirms a total species population that just barely starts in the trillions - which the aliens wish to conceal.

The United Kingdom has declined to consider the extraterrestrials a threat. The Russian Federation believes otherwise. Dunevoy Laboratories has therefore completed a contract to neutralize the threat posed by the aliens on Russian soil.

The strength of the aliens seems to be in their population. Our countermeasures were developed to summon a similarly large population against them.

Certain parts of Earth have 125 million mosquitoes per square mile - especially in northern latitudes during the summer. Siberia is about 5 million square miles, which may give it 625 trillion mosquitoes. Dunevoy Laboratories has done research in animal communications, as you know from the cyborg duck I displayed to the public earlier this year. Mosquitoes proved to be a trivial exercise. They mostly say, "Feed me" or "Run!", and they mostly listen to signals that say, "Food this way" or "Run!" Our countermeasure was to deploy transmitters which summoned mosquitoes from throughout a fifty-mile radius against the alien ship. That is to say, eight thousand square miles of mosquitoes, or one trillion mosquitoes.

We expected the exercise to probe the aliens' own countermeasures. But as later analysis would prove, it went better than expected.

With a combination of "Food this way" and "Run!" signals, we were able to coordinate the mosquitoes to hit the ship as one large mass on September 21. The ship's air intake systems were wide open. As we suspected, the ship had come to Earth to harvest our oxygen for their own needs. And it was venting carbon dioxide. Mosquitoes know that carbon dioxide means living prey, so the ship itself acted as a mosquito beacon.

Half the ship was buried beneath the ground, so the mosquitoes were dependent on the ventilation systems to get there. The systems had filters, but we had anticipated that. Alongside the mosquitoes, we deployed some miniaturized flying "borers" capable of penetrating the filters and opening the way for the mosquitoes.

After the infestation, the extraterrestrials attempted several blocking measures. They had airborne chemicals, but these had apparently been tailored to other species and were ineffective at first. They were also unable to seal their systems because the intakes were already clogged. They were able to electrify their corridors and kill some mosquitoes, but not enough to make a difference. Ultimately they were able to jam our transmissions and borers, but by then the mosquitoes were already in place and knew where the food was.

After several hours, the ship went silent. Russian Army biohazard units confirmed, all active humanoids on the ship were dead. Apparently mosquito bites are toxic to them. They may have breeded in such great numbers purely to compensate for their weak biological systems. The aliens who were in cold storage survived and are now under Russian custody.

Side effects to the Russian civilian population were within expectations. The people and animals of the Novosibirsk area were of course affected by the mosquito swarm, but fatalities were minimal. The mosquito population of Siberia decreased by much less than one percent, so ecosystem impact is negligible.

This does not end the alien hazard. Judging from the performance of their robots earlier this year, no countermeasure works against the extraterrestrials more than once. The mosquito-based countermeasure was of course tailored to the Siberian environment; the aliens elsewhere will have compensated for it by now. If the British Government should choose to develop its own countermeasures, the staff of Dunevoy Laboratories is ready to consult.

Commentary by Wyatt Ferguson.

As everyone on Earth already knows, I was one of the visitors on the ship in Manchester on 11 September, alongside my fiancee Judy Kraaco.

  • The ship used an elevator that walked us up the side. Inside, a woman with shining multicolor hair showed us shops. I thereby got the impression, The Trillions live normal lives - at least the ones that aren't in cold storage.
  • The Trillions are six-fingered, but otherwise humanoid. They use base 12 notation, and their holy number is 12 to the power 12 - which is about 9 trillion to us.
  • When Judy asked what the ship is full of, the guide said, "Life. All life is sacred to us."
  • I asked where they plan to put it all, to which she responded, "We will keep it here." Wow, that's like living in a mobile home forever. I'm okay with that, but it's not for everyone. You might say, it's alien. But then, these are aliens.
  • There were some sentries around the ship I visited. I wouldn't have guessed that mosquitos could have harmed them. I wonder if there were some counter-measures that Dunevoy Enterprises kept secret?

There have been a lot of comparisons of the alien landings to the European colonization of America. That colonization didn't always work, as witness the "Croatoan" incident in the lost colony of Roanoke. But that didn't stop the colonies. And America was not colonized overnight, so we have a while to see how this colonization turns out.

Speaking as a member of the Mashantucket Pequot Nation of Connecticut which operates a famous casino, I have to say we can adapt if we really have to. Our choices may be adapt to them, or exterminate them. If we choose extermination, killing and capturing only half of them seems extremely shortsighted and dangerous.

This may be the end of life on Earth, and it comes with suitable apocalyptic signs. People can read books by the light of Jupiter now, and my Indian nation has pointed out this is like the first colonial landings at Jamestown and Plymouth - which is like the Holocaust to them. But it's amazing how normal life is after the landing. I guess life is good at adapting. I guess it always will be.

Talk Back!
October

Dawn of the Trillions. Commentator: Wyatt Ferguson.

Judy and I are driving to California. A high school friend has invited us to "Cookie's Ranch" which he runs at a five-corner intersection in the town of Creston in the southern Coast Range. This'll look good on my map... We get some time to do this, because the next starship of The Trillions is landing there!

On the way, we stop at the California desert town of Essex. Under the circumstances, it's like Happy Days, except the local equivalent of Mr. Cunningham runs the police, the officers carry around sticks of dynamite, and a match can start a riot.

In all fairness to the officers, they're carrying the dynamite because they confiscated it from militiamen. Some people are just not happy about aliens landing in California.

When the riot starts, Judy and I are in a restaurant. When I see the riot starting, I run out. I trust her to follow me, but she's not there!

But then I see something come out of the building - fast. It lands in a heap on the ground. When the dust settles, I see the Hurrier on top of my lady! He says, "You're welcome." Then he runs off. He's as annoying as ever, but he saved her and I didn't. (12 Oct)

The next day, we make it to the ranch in Creston. It's blocked by swarms of construction workers building new houses - and they're The Trillions! A huge development of ranch houses is their guardian troops' way of living like Earth natives.

The aliens have gotten attention, of course. A New Age drive-in church is having services in their honor. And there are dust motes swarming around their ships. I'd guess The Trillions have improved their anti-mosquito defenses since the Siberian landing.

In the nearby country store, I buy two beers. This makes me eligible for massive barter. People are stocking up on survival supplies, and talking about a concentration camp up in Napa, if only they can take enough prisoners to populate it. Yeesh.

Two more high school friends are there, acting rowdy. Judy and I go sleep in the basement.

The next morning, an alien woman comes down and starts pouring water in bowls - but it's really carbolic acid. It's giving off enough carbon dioxide to choke us!

I grab a nearby conch in case I have to conk her. I hope Judy's awake.

But the alien spins around and shoots a green cloud at me! I'm coughing too much to do anything as she targets Judy.

As we both cough, she explains. The cloud contains microorganisms which feed on carbon dioxide and turn it to oxygen. Judy and I are now no longer dependent on environmental oxygen levels. The Trillions gave up that dependence long ago; that's how they deal with lack of vegetation on the planets they colonize.

This is presumably a good thing for our bodies (though we'd best get a second opinion). So, as the acting ambassadors of Earth, all we can do is advise The Trillions not to do that again to Earthlings without warning.

Afterward, we continue to San Francisco to get a sense of public response. I think my mage/militia contact "Black Brady" knows I'm in there, but we studiously ignore each other. I may have mentioned, militiamen don't like me. Good thing I have my wide-brimmed hat. (13 Oct)

Talk Back!
November

Iv. Commentator: Wyatt Ferguson.

People are really proud of what their survival gardens have grown this year. Next year could be rough... (3 Nov)

  • One planet is going to crash into Earth! A big red light looks for it, so Earth can bounce away. (5 Nov)

    Remember when Jupiter caught fire in September? There's fallout... literally. Planetoid-sized fragments are headed toward the inner system.

    The old Superhuman World 1996 had an asteroid threat. We called it Diabolus (= "thrower of stones" in Latin). We've chosen a different name this time: Iv ("sky-god", and son of "Iv Piter", or Jupiter).

    • The planet has broken away from Jupiter. Scientists think it might be a piece of that planet's core.
    • Another piece of Jupiter is headed for Mercury. The Trillions have said, they have a colony ship there and one more on Mars. Their Venus ship came to California instead, which is slightly more habitable for them. Right now as regards Jupiter, Venus is hiding behind Mercury and Mars is behind Earth, so Venus and Mars are not good targets. But the Trillions' other planets are, thanks very much.
    • Our world's finest scientists are forming a group mind to deal with the crisis. This is the sort of hypermind that created the Ellipsis powers. Ellipsis himself is always at the core of the mind, whether he's asleep or not.
    • Ted Clark still has "Emperor Ted" powers. That helps calm Earth's population down. Wow, now I see a purpose for Emperor Ted armor.
    • We're getting some help from The Trillions. Fortunately they have short memories about the Russian takeover of their starcraft. We've gotten Dunevoy Laboratories thrown off the project team, to prevent any more paranoia about people who aren't throwing planets at us.
    • The concept of "emergency" is alien to The Trillions - or at least planning ahead for one is. But they've got great tech, and they're willing to share. Their infrared scanners finally verify the collision course. They have deflection shields and stasis fields too; that combination might save our planet.
    • Stasis fields won't stop earthquakes. Fortunately, now we can talk to North America. No, not the people; the continent itself. It's promised to hold steady and get the other continents to do likewise... we hope. We're boring special comm channels for them to talk.
    • But these are all just damage control plans. Earth's main hope is to phase it into another dimension at the time of collision. Our Superhuman World has one guy who could do that, at least for individuals. He now serves a higher power, but he's been let loose to try to help. Magicians in a group mind at the time of impact will try to improve the odds of moving the whole world.

    I'm mostly zipping around the world in my usual style, trying to hold the plan together. Meanwhile, my fiancee Judy's youngest daughter is on the beach, and it's flooding. Judy wanted to see her family one more time before the end, but she might have cut it too close.

    • Judy forces the water back by breathing deeply... Hmm, is she catching real superhuman powers, perhaps from me? (17 Nov)
    • Judy, like almost all women nowadays, used to have super-strength of mystic origin. Most women have decided to give theirs back, to help save the Earth. Judy's done that too. But when she sees the floods, she finds she still has power.
    • But now Judy's house is flooding! Her daughter was down the beach from there. Judy calls 911 for help, and gets yanked out almost instantly - by her own power. She still flies, when she remembers her own ability. (4 Nov)
    • The flooding is a literal tidal wave - for once. Most "tidal waves" are actually from earthquakes, but this one's from tides from Iv. Those are about the last tides we'll ever see. Even if Earth survives, we don't expect to save the Moon.
    • I wasn't there for Judy's fun beach vacation... People are nasty due to a widespread computer virus. Emperor Ted mind control seems to make people susceptible to that stuff. So I'm going around fixing it and being nice to compensate. (18 Nov)

    Earth is ducking in toward Venus, but it's going to end up out near Mars. The orbital mechanics are pretty impressive. (21 Nov)

    • At impact time, Earth was chasing Mars away from Jupiter, and Venus was chasing Mercury toward it. Earth and Mercury both got impacts. Mercury's is knocking it into the Sun.
    • The chunks from Jupiter didn't go straight to target; thanks to that big gravity well, they swirl in toward the sun. That will probably save the Earth from ending up in the asteroid belt.
    • Earth's new orbit will be at about 95% the distance of the old one in December, and 120% seven months later. If we change the calendar accordingly, 2010 will be seventeen months. But we'll have to change watches too; the days are about 23:45 hours now instead of 24:00.
    • The Moon will not be joining us; it is now a new planet. It was sunward and trailing the Earth when the deflection came, so Iv slammed right into it. Our aquatic brethren will have to learn to live without tides.

    Judy has a cabin in Maine. There the temperature is swinging between 42 and 65 degrees, and the trees are blooming. (21 Nov)

    • During northern summer, Earth will get about two-thirds of the light it used to. This does not doom agriculture, but there might be wheat fields in the tropics soon. The southern hemisphere will have a short but intense growing season, while the north gets a long cold one.
    • The good news is, we finally have a reason to support global warming.

    I'm posing for photos at a charity event in a bar at 2 am, with the sun shining in. The days are already out of sync. (28 Nov)

    • My choir in Michigan is planning to go down to Philadelphia for a national thanksgiving ceremony. We're having a breakfast as a fundraiser for bus fare. Neighborhood churches and neighborhood bars actually help each other, if you pick the right neighborhood. (29 Nov)
    • A former boss of mine is informally teaching about climate change in that same pub. There's certainly interest. I look for a place to pee as we leave at 3 am, but people are jogging. (29 Nov)
    • I have to ask myself, do I want to keep writing comic books now that we've actually had the end of the world - again? (29 Nov)

    We're guessing the Infrared Sunbreaker Choir threw this planet at us, probably to wipe out the nests of The Trillions. They hate The Trillions as much as the Russians do. But I don't think the alien and Earthling enemies of the Trillions will be making common cause soon, if the aliens are going to throw planets at us. I suppose Earth will be assembling a mission of vengeance, and all that good stuff. But for now...

    I'm finishing my job. I put my maniacal roaming and journalling tendencies in the service of Earth this month. I worked hard, with a bunch of people I don't usually get along with. I'm tired. My boss is letting me out of work early today for Second Thanksgiving, but I don't have to be anywhere until tomorrow. Maybe I'll just go home and drink and cry. I feel like we all just want a good cry. (30 Nov)

    • Sequels:

    December

    The Mayas Were Right!

    December

    The Book of Ends, or, What Have We Learned This Year?

    Me in the Superhuman World:
    Startup Escalation 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 Trillions A Sequel 2010 .

    Author's Notes:

    I'd intended The Trillions to be a metaphor for migration and overpopulation. I therefore planned them to be more scary than I've written them. But history shows, population effects are long-term and ultimately solve themselves, even if we don't like the solution. Also, in any sort of world with constant crisis, the current crisis always comes first. Most of my characters know this, even if I don't.

    Starting this year, the Superhuman World website has accepted concepts from the Usenet group rec.arts.comics.creative, and responded with stories in their contests. The "talk to the (mosquito) animals" concept came from Martin Phipps, and tied in with The Trillions which became an entry in Contest #3.

    All characters in this fiction and the phrase "Superhuman World 2009" are copyright © 2009 by Eiler Technical Enterprises. The map of the Superhuman World is based on one from Henry Bottomley's map software which is well worth a visit.

    (signed) Scott Eiler