Tag: alien virus

After the Event: first page of a newly completed novel

Photograph by Justice Amoh on Unsplash

I recently completed the final draft of my new science fiction novel, After the Event, which I started writing back in 2021. Actually, apart from the first few chapters, I wrote the entire thing in two months this summer, working flat out after an encouraging response from a Sci-Fi competition judged by a couple of literary agents. Now I’m waiting to hear back on the full manuscript. Some background to the story can be found in my earlier posts in the Sci-Fi category, such as Before the Event; Humanity Version 2; Upgrade Yourself; Trump That; and Why We Love Zombies.

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Chapter One: Before and After

Some cheery philosopher once said, “In the end, we’re all alone” and I used to think to myself, “Yes but some of us are more alone than others”.

Did my sense of isolation make Enlightenment more or less painful? I’m still not sure. My difficulty connecting with others may have made me more resistant to the virus; and for sure it intensified the contrast between before and after. But I also had the mixed blessing of what Terri despairingly called my Mr Spock tendency. Did putting logic ahead of feeling make it easier, or harder?

Not that I have any complaint. I know how lucky I am. So many on both sides didn’t make it and so many more suffered torment, often at the diktat of their leaders.

Thank the Originators, that’s all behind us.

I suspect that despite any social disability, my desperate desire to connect made me more open than some who were more “normal”. The irony of that still makes me smile. It’s as if I jumped clean off the autism spectrum and landed as the best-adjusted person on the planet: a veritable Apostle of Enlightenment.

Of course, my joy is qualified by the knowledge that there are barely half as many people on the planet now as there were before. Evolution can be cruel; and Enlightenment came at a terrible cost.

I know that Terri would go further. She’d say that the price of Enlightenment was giving up a key part of what made us human.

There was no other way, though: not if we were to survive as a species. We can all see that clearly now.

I need to revise my opening statement.

We were all alone; but now we’re all connected.

Yes, that’s better. Despite everything, it’s so much better now.

This is the story of how it came to be.

Trump That

What would happen if some gun-toting Trump supporters encountered an alien? I think we know the answer: they would shoot it.

Later they might ask some questions, like, “That sure is one ugly mother, I wonder what it wanted?” But they’d shoot it first, to be on the safe side and because that’s how they see things.

Why is that? Why is half of humanity so afraid of anything different or “other”? On the flip side, why would the other half so eagerly try to connect with the alien? Why would its otherness provoke fascination more than fear?

Both approaches are risky but the differences go deeper than the rational mind. If you listen to Trump supporters, there is a superficial logic (“they stole the election, we’d won and then all these mystery votes appeared”): but their deep convictions can’t be shaken with facts or rational argument.

Trump’s appeal is based on understanding something that is anathema to rationalists. Most people want to be told that what they feel and believe is right. People want validation of what they really think, deep down. That’s why religion triumphs despite its absurdities. That’s why the religious right support Trump. He shouts out what they believe: and he tells them it’s OK to believe it.

The typical Trump voter, or their equivalent elsewhere, is sick and tired of being told that most of what they feel is wrong. Sick of being labelled racist, sexist, narrow minded, ignorant, prejudiced, obese, irresponsible, stupid.

Trump tells them that they are great. He tells them that they are right to think and feel what they do. He validates them, he empowers them, he makes them feel good about themselves. Make America Great Again really means Make Yourself Feel Great Again. That’s why he doesn’t have to deliver: he already has.

The educated elites just don’t get it. Centrist parties are failing everywhere as a result. They despise half the electorate and it shows.

So how do we make people embrace the alien instead of shooting it? For the purposes of my new novel, the challenge is to figure out what would happen to someone with a closed and fearful mindset, if infected with an alien virus that stimulates rational thought and empathy. Would the conversion be painful or pain-free? Would it drive them mad, or give them a glorious epiphany?

Previously I’d assumed that some would kill at the first signs of infection, rather than face the need to change. Yet why so negative? Religion succeeds by holding out the prospect of redemption, even whilst acknowledging human failings. We need to give people back both the right to forgive themselves and a belief in their ability to improve.

There is something aspirational at the heart of Trump’s message, however cynical he was in creating it. The lesson is that we must learn to love humanity for what it is, warts and all: and if we want to progress, we must hold up a mirror that shows us how great we can be, if only we have faith in ourselves.