Sir Reginald the Magnificent, dressed in a forest green cloak with a great starched ruffled collar, stood at the top of the red-carpeted stairs; he was pear-shaped with more or less no hair on his head. Trumpets blared, and he began in a high-pitched voice,
“Dearly Beloved Inferior Beings of the Galaxy. Here is our long-awaited proclamation to you. We know how much you have looked forward to our arrival and how anxious you all are to share in the advanced blessings of our superior and exceptional civilization. Let me assure you that we love you, and we will do everything in our power to share all our blessings with you. There are just a few things we must sort out first in order to facilitate the glorious transformation that is about to take place. I know you will all welcome these changes with boundless enthusiasm.
“First, starting immediately, the year 2013 will become the Year One, and will mark the beginning of your supreme civilization, brought, with our help, to earth. All records of anything that may have happened previously will be effaced. There is no need at all for you to remember any primitive, backward culture that you may have had before our arrival. We know this will not be hard for you, since you have forgotten so many previous civilizations – it should pose no problem.
“Secondly, let me assure you that you will be amazed at the rapid rate of progress and evolution that you will now be part of – like a great escalator rolling upwards towards the heavens, all will be progress, progress, and more progress. There will be no looking backwards to the dark, dreary days of the past.
“Thirdly, we have a new mode of thought for you to master. It is called Advanced Rational Galactic Thought. It will replace your former primitive ways of thinking. It goes like this: All that is new, modern, scientific, and approved by the Great Council of Truth is right, correct, and true. All else is subversive and may be subject to punishment.
“All clear? That’s lovely. I knew you would understand. Those rumbling noises that you may be hearing in the distance are just the movements of tanks – I mean Crowd Protection Elements – they are surrounding the stadium where we are standing for your protection. They are there to assure that you are all entirely safe, secure, and comfortable. They can also modify the weather – insuring endlessly sunny days, or even a little rain if you wish.
“Now to continue. We feel a deep pain in our hearts when we see any of you suffer, and we know that sometimes you can have a cold or a sniffle or feel unwell. We are pleased to announce that we have a highly evolved new system of medicine. You can now get rid of all those old bungling medicines and treatments of the past. They can go the way of herbs, healing dances, and witch doctors – which you dispensed with hundreds or thousands of years ago. Our Galactic Transformational Medical System is based entirely on vaccinations. We have a vaccine for everything. And of course all citizens will be required to take the course of vaccines starting at birth, for your protection. With our vaccines, you will never, ever, suffer again. All diseases will be obliterated.
“And by the way, these vaccines have been tested with great scientific precision. I should probably mention, and you might even have noticed,” he said, glancing down at his rather round form, “our species – you might mistakenly call us aliens, but really of course we are the one true advanced species – is descended biologically from a sort of animal that is quite like your mice. We are not really mice, of course, we are greatly evolved from that stage of life – but our very distant ancestors were indeed mice. And certainly we do recognize that the order of mice is the most superior, the most intelligent, and the most advanced of all the animal species, on this, or any other world. Mice are naturally wise – we call them “mighty micy sapiens,” meaning “great wise mice.” Naturally, the mice order is superior and will in due time replace homo sapiens, who are inferior.
“When we test our new vaccines, we will do all testing on homo sapiens, since it would be wrong to use such advanced creatures as mice for testing either drugs or products. I know that you will agree. In any case there is nothing to fear. All testing is painless, and we have never received a single complaint suggesting that anyone has ever suffered any pain from the testing. The testing is for our mutual benefit. The test subjects after the completion of the testing will all be put gently to rest and a proper place in Heaven will await them.
“To continue with the Changes — democracy is the only valid form of government. We all agree on this. To ensure that democratic standards will be met, we will be eliminating all candidates who do not meet the proper democratic standards. This decision will be carried out by the Great Galactic Council of Kindness to ensure complete impartiality and fairness. The eliminated candidates will undergo a process of re-education and will be given vaccines specially designed to cure any false political leanings or tendencies. When they are cured they will be allowed to run for office again.
“You will be glad to hear that we have an update for religion too. This won’t be a surprise to any of you, since you yourselves have done away with innumerable religions in the past – think back to the dark days of paganism, witchcraft, totem poles, tribal dancing, chanting, and magic. Remember the glorious book burnings that you yourselves inflicted on heretical, superstitious belief systems. There will be no more chanting and no more music, since it is unscientific. The false religion that proclaims the divinity of that fellow hung up on the cross will have to go – it is known to be frightening to children. Instead we will all worship the Ascended Scientific Mouse. He has a mythology too, and we will be sending it to you to memorize.
“Since we are all in agreement that the marvelous civilization of the Great Galactic Coalition is, in all ways, infinitely superior, we will be referring all problems, challenges, projects, and plans to the Great Galactic Council of Kindness for their approval. In fact, there won’t really be any need for locally-conceived plans and projects, so you can just forget about them. We will send you your instructions for any programs you need to implement. This will save you a lot of time and headaches and will simplify your lives, so you will be grateful.
“Starting tomorrow, all your children will be shipped off to the Great Galactic Center where they will be indoctrinated, I mean taught, all the enlightened and superior values of the Great Galactic Civilization. What I mean is that in between carrying out their chores and duties, if they have any free time that is, then civilized values will be imparted to them.
“I would especially like to congratulate all of you on the excellent progress you have made in ridding the earth of all that horrid plant and animal life that was cluttering up everything and replacing it with clean and beautiful plastic and concrete constructions. You have done an excellent job, and with the assistance of all our new technologies, we’ll have all those old, ugly species swept away in no time – especially the trees. Down with trees! No more trees! They are a disgusting life form. From this time forward we will have only artificial, clean, and disinfected life forms – nothing dreadful and natural!
“You are all showing great progress, we love you very much, and we’ll soon have you in tip-top shape as appropriate Inferior Citizens of the Galaxy!
“I know change can be a little unnerving sometimes, but believe me there is nothing to fear. If anyone ever does feel just a teeny-weeny touch of anxiety, please do let us know immediately – we have just the right vaccine for you. It will cure any tiny bout of anxiety immediately! And let us all remember, there is no need to worry. We are here to help you, and we are assuming complete control.
“Now may the peace of immortal Scientific Progress be with you always. May you live ever in the Divine Bubble of Progress in Ignorance. May you smile happily always and forever, blessed by the abiding grace of Sublime Unreality.
“Goodby, my friends. May we meet again soon.” He turned and was beamed up into the waiting airship, as the evening sun began to set.
© Sharon St Joan, 2013
Image: © Igor Zakowski | Dreamstime.com