Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY
IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I
generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family
rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to
write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote,
website, podcast, etc) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will
simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test
or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes
of them.
SF Trope: Humans
are Something Special in the universe
Current Event: http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2010/08/15/interactive-infographic-of-the-worlds-best-countries.html
While this
doesn’t rank HUMANS, it does rank COUNTRIES on Earth. What if there were a list
like this of planets with intelligent civilizations – and Earth was last? It
would explain The Fermi Paradox, wouldn’t it?
Fermi Paradox: “In an
informal discussion in 1950, the physicist Enrico Fermi questioned why, if a
multitude of advanced extraterrestrial civilizations exists in the Milky Way
galaxy, evidence such as spacecraft or probes is not seen.” A clearer
definition would be: “The apparent size and age of the universe suggest that
many technologically advanced extraterrestrial civilizations ought to exist.
However, this hypothesis seems inconsistent with the lack of observational
evidence to support it.”
So, here we go!
Bintou Kogda and
Ouedraogo Ye are both just eighteen and come from the country of Burkina Faso,
which recently came through the Reorganization Wars that redrew the map of the
African Continent. Their small country has encompassed the former nations of
Ghana, Benin and Togo and because of the peaceful nature of its Reorganization,
has risen to prominence.
Both are at Harvard in the United States, ostensibly to
study law and nanotechnology under grant scholarships from their own government
– and as part of a program the US has started to gain a foothold in the New
Africa. They’ve never met – except formally at a reception welcoming all
international students to Harvard.
While they love their fields of study, both are
dissatisfied with the “boring life” they lead. When a small group of students
begins to meet to discuss Extraterrestrial Intelligence, they both show…
“What are you doing here?” Bintou asked in French.
Ouedraogo replied in the same language, leaning closer to
her than he’d ever done to a woman – excepting his mother and sisters – and
said, “The same thing you’re doing here. I’m bored and this sounded exciting.”
Bintou leaned away. She’d managed to maintain her sense
of modesty despite the crazy American obsession with sex. She shook her head.
She should have known that Ouedraogo would want to embrace that insanity.
Even so, she bumped his shoulder as a young man stood at
the front of the room and clapped his hands, saying, “Let’s get this gig
hummin’!”
Bintou puzzled for a few moments. Though she spoke
English as well as anyone who completed high school in Burkina Faso, American
idioms still left her totally confused. Especially when they piled them on top
of each other. She could only deduce that it meant “This meeting will now come
to order!” because others started taking seats. No one sat in ordered rows, it
was more like a vaguely circular blob.
After the chairs were done scraping across the floor, the
young man said, “Hey! My name’s Edgar Bailey and I’ll be the moderator tonight
for this first meeting of the ET Discussion Society. If you’d tell us your name
before you speak, it’ll help us get to know each other. To start things off,
I’d like to toss this out to the group.” The lights dimmed abruptly and a
projector hanging from the ceiling flicked on, projecting a web article.
Ouedraogo groaned. Bintou had managed to sit across the
group from him. She kept her dismay to herself.
Edgar stood on his tiptoes to locate the source of the
groan. He snapped, “What’s wrong with this article?”
Ouedraogo stood up and replied in English. Bintou shook
her head. It was unlikely that his heavily accented English would impress the
people in this room as he said, “First of all, the article is almost twenty
years out of date – the information is patently wrong...”
Edgar cut him off by saying, “The information is
unimportant...”
Ouedraogo fired back, “It’s important to some of us!
You’re perpetuating a stereotype!”
Bintou sighed. So much for keeping a low profile. She
stood up and said, “What Ouedraogo is trying to say is that he and I are from
Burkina Faso and this list places our former country at the very bottom as the
worst country in the world from 2008 to 2009. Unflattering, to say the least.
But what you’re implying by using this is that Earth has somehow gotten on the
bottom of some interstellar ‘worst place to live’ list and that that’s the
explanation of what puzzled Fermi and Hart?”
Edgar blinked slowly, massively as Bintou sat down. A
moment later, there was a crash as Ouedraogo knocked over his chair and stormed
out of the room. Beside her, a young woman with wildly uncontrolled, curly red
hair nudged her and said, “Nice going! I’m glad someone shut down the pompous
windbag before he went on his superior rant about Fermi.” She snorted, “You
even mentioned Hart. Edgar hates it when people know more than he does – and that
they remain polite and pleasant while they’re telling him ‘what for’.” She
raised an eyebrow and added, “You probably made his most-hated person list
today!”
“I didn’t mean...” Bintou began.
“Don’t worry, you just made it on to about sixty people’s
‘OMG, I have absolutely GOT to get to know this woman!’ list. You’re certainly
on mine. I’m Ginny Phleger. What are you doing after the meeting?”
Names: ♀ ; ♂
Both from Burkina Faso 
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