Crop Circlers

Whilst there are many conspiracy theories floating around very few people have considered the terrifying consequences if they are all true... Read on, gentle reader, read on.

There had been much debate over whether or not silence was a big enough word to describe the kind of noiselessness found away from planetary atmosphere. Some had maintained that the silence off a world, made up as it was off a cacophony tiny sounds, could never approach the stillness of the vacuum that some other, bigger word was needed. Others said that there was no need for another word, that the universe was mostly silent and the planets were far to noisy. Yet more said that the conversation was a pointless debate over terminology and that everyone should shut up and get on with what they were being paid for. However even those voices would after a few bottles of the local poison admit that out in the black there was something suffocating about the complete stillness of it all. It was this silence that flooded the bay as the shuttle drifted in from the star-flecked blackness.

The awaiting crew felt a faint rumble transmit through the floor as the doors slid shut. Shortly after the room was flooded with rich breathable atmosphere accompanied by a near deafening roar. The shuttle was a rhapsody in gleams and shimmers the occasional strip of lights blinding the unwary viewer. Much has been written on the phallic nature of space-ship design and whilst there have been many wonderful arguments put forward regarding the the overall aerodynamics of such designs. Most of these arguments fall apart in a vacuum. The designer of this particular vessel had either ignored the fact that wind resistance wasn't a factor in effective space-ship design or just really liked penises. Either way it was less than a second on the ground before the ground crew started to swarm all over it like so many pubic lice. It took slightly longer for the an opening to appear in the tip of the craft and ejaculate forth it's passenger.

The man who emerged was eight feet of matt black fury. His hat was a master-class in severity that allowed no room for compromise beneath it two dark red eyes the colour of the blood of betrayed children burned forth with the kind of gaze usually reserved for those who have discovered grammatical errors on the internet. There was no nose and almost no mouth, only a near invisible line in carved from the chiselled onyx that passed for flesh on this strange creature. The rest of his body was a shadow a skin-tight black suit clinging to an aggressively muscular frame all enshrouded in one of those long black coats that the bad-guy always wears. Beneath all of this were a pair of fierce stomping boots that appeared to only meet the ground with extreme displeasure. The figure achieved a kind of stillness akin to the silence mentioned two paragraphs previously. It was the kind of stillness that demanded attention far more than any raging tempest a complete lack of movement that screamed murderous intent. Within seconds a smaller scurrying creature had rushed towards the weapon, for there was no better way describe the recent arrival.

“Grand Prefect” The small beige creature gasped as his small white robes flapped around him in everything about this one screamed bureaucrat he was therefore in his own shallow way infinitely more dangerous than the man who's entire being screamed death and rage. “We weren't expecting you so soon.”

“No it appears not” The Grand Prefect replied in the voice of Alan Rickman... thus making him instantly even more menacing. “Indeed it appears that you weren't expecting a single review of your progress” Here he stopped to remove his gloves in one of those completely unnecessary little touches that none the less made him appear even more deadly.

“If you have any luggage you need depositing...” The small pencil-pusher tried to reply before he withered beneath the intense and deadly gaze.

“I have no intention of staying longer than it takes to rectify this catalogue of failures.” He said pulling a small data-pad from within his coat and casually throwing towards his subordinate. “Now that someone competent is here.” With that he swept towards out of the bay pulling the now extremely flustered beige being behind him like a cork bobbing in his wake.

Every corridor of the ship was half walkway half maintenance corridor half walkway. For reasons that no-one has ever been to reasonably explain designers of larger and more expensive space-ships feel that this kind of look gives a ship such an edgy and dark feel that it complete negates all of the horrible disadvantages. Higher maintenance costs were just a small portion of this. The number of crews that the Grand Prefect sent scattering as he made his way through the ship was truly preposterous. It would have angered the Grand Prefect if he had not already been simmering away at approximately 90% of his maximum rage capacity. He did take time to kick a small repair robot directly at one of slower moving crew. As per standard science fiction protocol all of the repair staff where slovenly blue creatures with New York accents and matching New York attitudes. There was lots of establishing shots and small snatches of banter before the Grand Prefect tore past as is standard for this early in a story of this nature.

The internal doors of the central command were twenty-foot high and ominous, they were literally dripping with om, this was another another cost that could've easily be avoided if the whims of the designers had been ignored in the face of practicality. By the time the doors slid open with a satisfactory shu-thunk word had spread of the Grand Prefects arrival and the senior staff had hastily assembled around the large circular table that all futuristic settings must have due to intergalactic architectural regulations. The Grand Prefect reached the table in two long strides and slammed his fists down on the table with such force that the over end of it flew up and knocked one of the tiny bureaucrats flying across the room.

“Gentlemen.” He yelled. “I am the tyranny. I am the rage. I am the terror that lurks deep in your hearts and I am here to say enough is enough.” He grabbed the nearest subordinate and without even a grunt of effort flung them bodily across the room into a control panel. There was a flicker in the air in the middle of the table which flickered and, with a noise that sounded suspiciously like an old cathode ray tube TV turning on, a hologram of the planet earth appeared, taking the audience massively by surprise. Yeah I know. Well let's stay with this and see where it's going. “This tiny orb has managed to rotate around it's home star fifty times since you arrived and still they have yet to surrender to the might of the Transian Empire.”

“Grand P-P-Prefect” One of the bolder underlings stammered. “We've done everything that standard procedures indicate. The humans refuse to even send a reasonable negotiator.” He continued before quailing beneath the powerful death-stare.

“I've read your reports.” The Grand Perfect sneered. “You've been to earth. You've mutilated the carcasses of their primary food beasts, sending a clear message that we are willing to destroy their very way of life. Following that you have left clear understandable messages in the heart of there arable land. When you attend the meetings to discuss their surrender in place of there leaders the send out a bunch of, what was it...” Here the Prefect stopped and pulled out his pad and glowered at as if it was anger sensitive. “...genetically questionable hill-folk. What hypothesis do you put forward to explain all of this.” He asked with a sweeping gesture around the room and began to pace around the table forcing his subordinates to actively flinch as he passed behind them “What grand ideas do you put forward?” He held the pad into his eye-line. “The humans don't understand our messages. Ha. The humans are not aware of, or open to, the possibility of other intelligent life. Preposterous. Food production is not considered vital by most humans and as such our efforts should be consigned to the more developed urban regions of the planet...” He halted behind one of the bureaucrat who tried his best to sink into his chair. “What sort of drivel is this... I should have each and everyone of you taken to an airlock flung into space and use you as target practice. That way you will at least accomplish one useful thing with your worthless lives.” Where some would have shouted the Grand Prefect's voice never wavered from its Alan Rickman monotone.

“The humans have one of our ships. Due to someone's spectacular incompetence in leaving the wreckage at this...” He glanced at the pad “...Roswell place. They are storing it in... Area 51. Every attempt to negotiate with them has been met with derision. The time for soft words has passed gentlemen. I want a full attack to be launched within the cycle. Wipe that smug rock from the face of the universe.”

eddie <i hope you enjoyed it>

The Psychology of Conspiracy

I’ve spent some of my time recently immersed in the 'whacky' world of conspiracy theorists, because I have more free time than I should, and I’ve noticed a few common threads running through all conspiracies be it the belief that man never landed on the moon, Kennedy was shot by aliens or that organised religion was set up as a method to control the masses… Sorry that last one is actually true.

It doesn't count as a conspiracy when the leader is so obviously evil.

These common themes are fascinating to study because they reveal far more about the psychology of the people who believe in this crap than they do about actual conspiracies. Some come with me on a whacky adventure into the heart of the mind of a conspiracy theorist. First off while some of the conspiracy theories out there are fascinating and plausible, I can easily see why you’d think JFK was shot by someone other than Oswald… I mean you’re wrong but I’ll get to that some other day, for the most part the people who believe these things are what’s known as morons. Now let’s move into the deeper psychology of these fuckwits shall we.

"Is Obama a Socialist?" No Glen... no he's not.

As I briefly touched on here the average conspiracy whack-job has a fundamental misunderstanding of human nature. They operate on the basic belief that the average human being would happily fire their morals out of a big cannon and into the heart of the sun in exchange for a nice suit, a cushy job and a bit of power. Now I’m not foolish enough to pretend that there is no-one in the world for whom this is true, after all we have police, but for the most part it is demonstrably not the case. All over the world people are in prison for fighting regimes they disagree with.

Pictured: Libyan Rebels... I think... I wasn't really paying attention if I'm honest.

If you want to believe that the Burmese Junta never offered Aung San Suu Kyi freedom in exchange for her assistance in quashing the pro-democracy movement then you are an idiot. This all boils down the basic fact that I’m a Doctor Who fan and as such I believe that by and large the human race is inherently good… but not necessarily trustworthy, lying is one of the most important skills we have as a species. Yes there are bad-guys out there but the sheer numbers required for most conspiracies means that someone would’ve realised it was wrong and gone public. It’s almost as if spending your life in your mother’s basement cultivating back-ne is not a reasonable way to formulate a view of the human race.

I've been waiting for months to use this picture

The second major point that the average conspiracy theorist believes is that the Human Race is not special. They don’t say it like this but it manifests in their attempts to rob mankind of its great achievements. Let’s just run through a list of epic things the human race has built/achieved during our brief run at the top of the food chain. The Pyramids, The Easter Island Heads, Stonehenge (to my mind certainly the worlds best henge), Nuclear Power, The Moon Landing and of course The Internet. Now if you were to share that list with the nut-jobs they’d respond thusly; aliens, aliens, aliens, reverse engineered alien technology, fake and reverse engineered alien technology.

Because rock is a huge part of futuristic space-age technology.

The reason behind this is because the average conspiracy theorist suffers from both a superiority and an inferiority complex. The inferiority complex leads to the belief that you are not a good, special or unique, everyone has this to some extent mainly because we all know what we get up to when no-one else is around. However the superiority complex then asserts, that the rest of the human race must be equally feeble “Hey, you may enjoy furry, transgender midget porn but there’s a ton of it on the internet so you’re not alone”.

You don't even want to know the horror's I've just seen

Now if the rest of the human race is as feeble as you are then it means that the very idea of anything great being accomplished by these ape-shaped deviants is ridiculous. This leads to a search for other explanations. So where the average person looks at Stonehenge and says “That, my friend, is some quality hengemanship.” The conspiracy theorist says “That is impossible for me and my fellow apetards to have built… Aliens!.” Then the superiority complex gives them a slap on the back for being smarter than everyone else and they shout upstairs for their mother to fetch them some diabetes laden snack

It's impossible to find pictures of unhealthy food that don't look awesome.

The final key component of the average conspira-tard is that they underestimate small groups. They see something like 9-11 or the JFK assassination as impossible without the support of vast network of conspirators. This is just not true. Watch any Hollywood movie and you’ll see a story of an individual or a small group overcoming overwhelming odds to drop Alan Rickman off of a skyscraper, this motif repeats throughout the entire history of human narrative. This isn’t to say that under most circumstances you’ll succeed against the odds just that it’s possible. That’s the thing about probability sometimes the unlikely thing happens. 9-11 wasn’t a conspiracy it’s just proof that the American security forces can only stop so many threats a year. 9-11 wasn’t actually that difficult to orchestrate we just like to think it was. Look I’m not saying that I could successfully orchestrate a mass terrorist attack… but only because I don’t need that kind of heat on me.

Pictured: The contents of my shed

Look if it ever hits the fan and the british government crosses the line from slightly fascistic to actually, really fascistic then I reckon I could without overstraining myself organise a few attacks, assassinations and other hi-jinks with relative ease. I’d be able to do it because under those circumstances I know exactly who I’d call in to assist me. I know there is a group of people I can rely on in a situation like that. Conspiracy theorists, due to there beliefs feeding a level of paranoia well beyond human-basic cannot except that a small focussed group can rely on each other utterly. It’s a basic fact encoded into the human genome that ‘tribes’ of humans have an incredible capacity to work together. However if you choose to live the life of a cave dwelling troll beast you’d be unaware of that fact.

"Let me tell you about the Illuminati..."

Conspiracy theorists like to see themselves as an cut off from society, somehow isolated from the rest of us by the simple fact that they know the chilling truth, because that is infinitely preferable to the truth. Which is that they’re just lonely… and stupid.

eddie <nothing to see here>