COMMUNICATION FROM ARKAY OF KORENDOR
Date of reception: 21 October 1988
Love and light, my Terran friends. From the light-heartedness of the last message, I must now return to far more serious and sobering discussions. Let me state at this point that what is to follow will in many cases be brutally frank, and it is very possible that it might evoke from you the reaction, "mind your own business, alien."
My friends, you ARE our business! The peril that threatens you threatens us. The "forces of darkness" are the avowed enemies of every one of us.
It does not give us pleasure to find fault with the conditions on your world, but since many of these things are not of your own doing, we must try to bring you into an awareness of the problems, so that you might better appreciate the necessity of the steps required to correct them.
To begin, I will address the most feared and debated hazard of the day, the possibility of nuclear warfare. I cannot emphasize too strongly that your people are not entirely responsible for nuclear weaponry. As I stated before, this capability was the dubious "gift" of the Omegan infiltrators who are in such intimate control of your planet. However, your race's seeming love of battle did nothing to impede the swift adoption of nuclear arms into your own arsenals of war.
The force of the atom is a neutral thing. Of itself it is neither good nor evil. Used for the purposes of peace, nuclear energy can be an enormous power for advancement and abundance. We of the Alliance have long employed what you call "the peaceful atom" to supply unlimited energy to our society.
On Earth, you have exploited both sides of this force. Many nations tap the enormous energy of the nucleus to generate electricity in a manner that, for all its (considerably overplayed) problems, is by far preferable to the prodigious burning of "fossil fuels" with their environmentally disastrous waste products. As I said before, the fission process is by no means the best solution to your energy needs, but it is better than the alternatives until you at last harness the immense power of nuclear fusion.
Unfortunately, you have developed a very efficient application of the fusion process. You have named it the "hydrogen bomb". Here your science was fully culpable. The Omegans provided only the knowledge of the military use of nuclear fission. The H-bomb was your world's "native son". In matters of warfare, you are surely a creative lot.
The principal reason that your scientists have continued to refine these fiercely destructive devices is that the Omegan program is maintaining your world's nations in a constant and unrelenting state of war-readiness. Your invention of the fusion bomb was unanticipated by them, but they found it most encouraging. They would have ultimately provided it themselves, but your ingenuity only reinforced their belief that you are an ideal race to carry out their objectives.
What, then, do we think of your "peace movement"? Sadly, we must say that we cannot agree with their naive solutions to the nuclear issue. It is an unfortunate but inescapable reality that the world's nations are split by fundamental ideological differences.
As long as one of the ideologies employs oppression and tyranny to gain its ends, and that ideology is in the "nuclear club", then those nations that have become the defenders of freedom and democracy must maintain their own ability to respond in kind.
Remember that the Omegans do not create these political or ideological schisms. They merely enhance them. Also be aware that although the Omegans will seek to prevent a major war, they are no longer in a position to absolutely rule out such a conflict.
It is perhaps ironic that the Alliance has in one way fostered this greater potential for nuclear war. By our efforts to wrest control of your world from the Omegan infiltrators, we have reduced their ability to prevent a third world war. However, before you judge us harshly, think well on what this represents.
You have an expression, "the cure is worse than the disease", referring to the sometimes violent reactions of people to medications that treat an illness. Yet, for all that reaction, is there anyone who would suggest that the disease is better left unchecked, to spare the victim the adverse response to the medicines?
The Alliance's medication for the Omegan infection is harsh indeed, and one might well object that there is no value in a treatment that might kill as surely as the illness. To this I say that wherever Omegan control is reduced in the governments of the world powers, Alliance influence is put in its place.
Although we have given your people more control of their own destinies, we are also working to lessen the tensions that the Omegans have used to sustain international distrust and hatred. If we have given your leaders more power to initiate nuclear war, it has been balanced by reducing the incentives for doing that unthinkable thing.
We will wean you away from your millenia of violence and blood-lust. We will give you a just and lasting peace with or without your approval.
However, until the process is far enough advanced that total nuclear disarmament will not invite wholesale adventurism by the enemies of democracy and freedom, the existence of nuclear arsenals is a "necessary evil".
We find this state of affairs to be immensely troubling. Yet, we cannot support unilateral nuclear disarmament on the part of the "Western" nations, because the "other side" will not then respond in kind. Given the intense and long-standing antipathy involved here, it may well embolden "them" to use the arms disparity to launch a pre-emptive "first strike" that would cripple the West's ability to respond. Rest assured that we have seen documentation to that effect. Our support of Western nuclear arms is not without firm foundation.
However, we of the Alliance are at work to eliminate this necessity. One should thoroughly analyze the unique phenomenon of "glasnost", the amazing ability of Mr. Mikhail Gorbachev to do things impossible under past regimes. What is going on in the Soviet Union is unprecedented in Communist history. Why is it happening? HOW is it happening?
Do you believe that the men in the Kremlin have "gotten religion", or have become "jolly good fellows"? The old guard still exists within those walls, yet Comrade Gorbachev is apparently "doing his thing" with impunity. The inescapable conclusion is that he is, as you say, "holding all the aces". It then leads one to wonder who dealt the hand to him, who stacked the deck in his favor. Interesting, is it not?
My second topic is non-political. Although it is far less feared, it is a vastly greater threat than nuclear war, because it is taking its toll of lives every day without a shot being fired.
I speak of the war that you are waging against your own small planet.
Several times I have mentioned the seeming indifference that you have to the wholesale destruction of Earth's environment. Evidence indicates that "the chickens are home to roost". The consequences of your assaults on your fragile eco-system are now manifesting themselves in potentially deadly ways.
We know that these things are the inevitable result of your actions. We have much confidence in this statement. We are not proud of this, but we once did this ugly thing to Korendor.
Without elaborating, I will say that we followed your same general course of events. Profligate burning of hydrocarbon fuels. Rampant destruction of forests. Injudicious waste disposal. We did not pay attention to the warning signs until it became impossible to ignore them any longer.
This happened when nature took those signs and beat us about the head with them. Because of the differences in our worlds, the effect on Korendor was greater yet. The denser atmosphere held higher levels of noxious gases and vapors in suspension, and our lower level of rainfall offered less chance for the air to be "scrubbed" of these toxic pollutants.
You describe your problem as "the greenhouse effect". It is a benign term for a very deadly phenomenon, indeed.
For those unfamiliar with the term or its causes, let me briefly explain. Sunlight consists of a wide range of light wavelengths. A pure atmosphere is essentially transparent to all of these wavelengths. During the day, sunlight pumps immense energy onto a planet, but most of that energy is sent back into space by reflection and radiation, so that a balance is maintained.
When pollution occurs, the air is no longer a transparent shell. At long wavelengths it becomes opaque, and heat energy that formerly radiated outward is reflected back to Earth. This is how a glass greenhouse works, and this is how a pollution-laden atmosphere works. Low infrared wavelengths ("heat rays") emitted by warmed surfaces are trapped, and the planet's ambient temperature slowly increases. Therein lies the formula for an ecological nightmare.
On a world scale, a small increase of temperature might not seem terribly significant, but an average rise of as low as three to five degrees has a very profound effect on weather. This is not the place for a lesson on meteorology or the dynamics of an eco-system, but this information is readily available from your own scientists. Suffice it to say that they will verify what I have presented thusfar.
The single greatest contributor to the greenhouse effect is carbon dioxide gas, created as a byproduct of burning carbon-based fuels. This "burning" may be rapid (combustion), or slow as in living cells. The key chemical reaction is oxidation of carbon. The CO2 gas, once in the atmosphere, is a mirror to long-wave infrared radiation.
In a balanced system, the amount of carbon dioxide is stable because plants convert it back into oxygen via photosynthesis. This occurs both in the air through land vegetation, and in the water by CO2 dissolved in rain that carries it to the rivers, lakes and seas, and thence to aquatic plants. It is a "closed-loop" bio-system that ordinarily regulates itself very well.
Enter the efforts of mankind. The carbon dioxide from natural processes is supplemented by the use of fuels for energy. Simultaneously, the green world is reduced through injudicious cutting, or, as in the Amazon forests, burning. Whether it is for obtaining wood or to clear land, the wholesale destruction of trees drastically reduces nature's ability to collect and convert CO2. Strike one!
Man's burning creates vast amounts of CO2, but also adds nitrogen and sulphur compounds that react with atmospheric water to create rather virulent acids. Rainfall then washes them out as "acid rain", which in turn poisons vegetation and water, further reducing nature's filtration system. Strike two!
By carelessly disposing of waste products in the planet's waters, much aquatic plant-life is killed, and the CO2 conversion factory loses more of it workers. Furthermore, dead vegetation and animal life decays with the release of still more CO2 into the atmosphere. Strikes three and four!
It is not necessary to beat this to death. The point is made. Of all Earth's animals, humans alone are able to destroy the world that they live in. We came very close to doing it. You are doing it right now. From the casual toss of a piece of paper or a drink can out of an automobile window, to the wholesale attack on your ecology that I have just been discussing, your apparent indifference to the health of your planet is truly appalling. We of Korendor are alarmed because in our history we went that same way, but we caught ourselves in time.
The cure must be as fundamental a change for you as it was for us, and it is vital that you begin it at once. The technologies exist that will allow you to break this "vicious circle". Learn of them and demand them. If you join to speak with one voice, your leaders will listen. For your sake and your world's, they MUST BE FORCED to listen. The alternative is the death of Earth!
I have thusfar illuminated the physical aspects of the peril you face. I will now discuss the moral pollution that destroys your souls even as your chemical pollution kills your bodies.
I shall "pull no punches" here. If you would prefer to live in a world of blissful ignorance, then read this no further. Erase the diskette, load a "destroy-the-aliens" game into your computer, and turn your brain off.
If the above applies to you, then what is to come is not for you!
The decision to address the issue of morality places one in a precarious position. The trend of Earth's "modern" society is toward "situational ethics", in which there are no moral absolutes.
In this bizarre, historically indefensible pseudo-philosophy, the morality of any action is judged solely by the circumstances surrounding it. Gone are the ancient and immutable laws of the Infinite One, our God. In their stead are the legal codes of man. The Ten Commandments? Who cares about THEM? This is the Twentieth Century!
Yes, this is the 20'th Century, and you are fast approaching the 21'st. We of other worlds wonder just what you will be by then, if you continue to foresake your moral and religious past.
The Twentieth Century seems to be a license for irresponsibility and amorality, a permission to invert every principle of righteousness, an excuse to reject your Judeo-Christian heritage as outdated. Where is it leading? The omens are very frightening indeed.
This is a time when a nation's courts refuse to permit schoolchildren to offer a prayer to God, but allow them to be exposed to vulgarity and obscenity in the guise of literature; to be taught all the physical facts about their sexual nature, but none of the moral and social responsibility that must accompany it.
This is a time when "comedy" is shouted filth; when a film cannot be successful unless the performers are naked and engaging in sexual acts, this including a depiction of Jesus Christ in that sordid manner; when television programming portrays the use of alcohol and drugs as socially acceptable and indeed very desirable, and teaches that the answer to a person's problems can be found in the firing of a weapon.
This is a time when the champions of "freedom" vigorously espouse the civil rights of criminals, but have no compassion for the rights of the little ones in the womb, whose only "crime" is being inconvenient. This is a time when the sanctity of life is forgotten, and the meanness of spirit that engenders it permits the utterly unthinkable acts of abuse committed against children by their parents and guardians.
This is a time when every known standard of music has been abandoned in favor of dissonant, atonal primitive rhythms; when lyrics directed at your innocent, impressionable young children advocate suicide, drug use, violence, hedonism and utter disregard for every social virtue that makes civilization worthwhile; when the "musicians" are seemingly intent only on competing with others for supremacy in disgusting, tasteless, talentless excess.
This list could go on for several more pages, but it illustrates that the "modern lifestyle" is a moral vacuum. If an enemy of humanity desired to rid Earth of all that is good and noble, that foe could not devise a blueprint for action more effective than your way of life in the Twentieth Century.
A character of your comic strips of several years ago, whose name was "Pogo", wisely observed, "we have met the enemy, and he is us." My friends of Earth, you are, in your misguided quest to achieve a perfect freedom, confusing liberty with license. Freedom entails responsibility and the wisdom to use it to the benefit of all. Perfect freedom is anarchy. There must be limits within which all live, or there is only chaos.
Those limits are defined for all of us in the flawless laws of our God. In denying those laws, your people are inviting their moral death. Despite the errant claims of "modern" teachers and religionists, there are indeed many moral absolutes, unquestionable truths not subject to being interpreted or changed according to humanity's whims and social fashions.
Twentieth Century Earth suffers from an affliction of the spirit. It goes by the name of conceit, and its primary symptom is the delusion that mankind no longer needs to pray to or rely upon God. You, dear friends, are thus infected. You are trying to eject God from your private and public lives, and to convince yourselves that you are too sophisticated and educated to need the old religions. Poor, sad Terrans.
HOW VERY WRONG YOU ARE!!
You will find as you mature in wisdom and knowledge that your need for God increases as you grow. We of other worlds accept this without question. The Alliance, despite its technocracy and science, recognizes the existence and importance of the Infinite One in the lives of its worlds and its people.
As long as you persist in trying to place yourselves on God's level or to dispense with him and set yourselves up as his successor in the world, you are doomed to failure. God gives freely to those who accept and call upon him. Those who believe that they can succeed without him are offered the opportunity to try. God gives of himself, but he will not force himself upon anyone. We all have free will, to use wisely, or or to use foolishly, at our own risk.
Look about you, my friends of Earth. Do you like what you see going on in your nation and your world? Do you not see the unmistakable signs of a nation that has abandoned its God and that has been abandoned in return? If what you see is not to your liking, then it is well past time to take the offensive against the forces of evil.
The Omegans are here, and they are doing their best to destroy your moral codes. However, only you will permit their efforts to be successful.
A character from one of your films said, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore." The merits of that film aside, the attitude is one that Earth had best adopt very soon. We will do our part by ridding you of the Omegan influence, but we cannot bring you back from moral chaos. This must come from within each and all of you.
You must reach within yourselves, and draw out the fortitude and resolve necessary to change your own lives if they are not according to God's laws, and then to take that message of hope and love to those around you.
The "New Age" is a promise of love and light. The word of God IS love and light. THE TWO CANNOT BE SEPARATED! This awareness is the dawning of real knowledge, and the beginning of wisdom.
There is much that I could add to this message. Your little world has problems enough for ten more of them. But, we prefer to open your eyes and let you see the reality for yourselves.
We are here in the capacity of lighthouses along your rocky shoals of life, guiding you to a passage through the treacherous currents so that your world might find a safe harbor. We will give you the light you seek, but in the end it is you that must pilot your ship toward the safety and security of your home port. The wind is now at your backs. Steer well, my Terran friends.
In the next presentation, I shall endeavor to offer a few solutions, a bit of free advice, as it were, from us to you. For now, do consider what has been given to you. Your society, and indeed the survival of your species, may well depend on what you decide.
Va i luce, and peace be yours.
I am ArKay.
© 2008 Robert P. Renaud -- all rights reserved