Greetings, and welcome to the Lightspeed Magazine podcast. Stefan Rodnicki here. Today, for your listening pleasure, we have two astonishing stories. First up is the short shot, Shadows on the Pavement, by R.P. Sand, narrated by Justine Eyre, right after this message. The Warning Woods has haunting horror stories that are sure to linger with you long after listening. I'm Miles Tridel, writer and narrator of The Warning Woods.
Each week, I write an original scary story and share it with you. If you're into scary stories, you need to check out The Warning Woods. Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Just search for the Warning Woods and click play at your own risk. Can you change your personality? How does peer pressure work? Should you ever really trust your gut? These are just a few of the topics we've recently tackled on my podcast, Something You Should Know.
It's a podcast where leading experts give you valuable intel that you can use in your life today. I'm the host, Mike Carruthers, and with over 1,000 episodes and over 4,000 mostly 5-star reviews, I invite you to check out Something You Should Know wherever you listen. And now, Justine Eyre. Shadows on the Pavement by RP Sand You are what blooms between my thoughts, relentless like the roots of a poplar or the mould swelling from neglected corners of a home echoing with silent disharmony.
You slink through my star-ridden veins, haunt my magma gut, occupy the warmth I carry for the denizens that trawl my skin. I cannot shake you, cannot fathom a sunrise without picturing you basking in its crimson glow, cannot relish in an earthquake without pondering how your bones may rattle. I am helpless under your sonorous essence, an untethered leaf wracked by thunderous mountain storms. I wasn't always like this, you know.
They say it took myriads of coincidences for us to assume these forms, myriads for us to exist. How many myriads more for my arrest, this most unlikely of unlikelihoods. When I was given my due, the last thing I expected to happen was you. My due is simple. This homeland, safe harbor among icy cosmos, and, perhaps most important of all, detachment. For life rises and life falls. And there is nothing anyone can do about that. You know.
when the sores fell when woolly mammoth footprints melted from the ice when the chirps of the dusky seaside sparrow dwindled i grieved For I am not of stone, though stone is of me, yet remained detached. With every loss there is birth anew. But then I happened upon a singular wonder. You. I approached you the day your universe upended. Do you remember that day? Of course you do. Untimely death of someone you held close, perhaps.
Or your very first taste of betrayal. Or your first encounter with another snatching away your control. The nature of the incident is irrelevant. What drew me is the surge, the tumult of waves thrashing beneath your skin, because, oh, oh, you do know an ocean courses through your veins, do you not? I felt the vicissitudes of its tides as curiosity propelled me. Had I known my own universe would unravel, then reform around you as nucleus, I would have protected myself.
Detachment. Ha! I saw you from everywhere all at once, from the leaves hanging overhead, from the size of the building's stones, generations worn from your own shadow stretched across the pavement. I saw you when you were that baker in Cairo, when you were that scientist in Oxford, when you were that cobbler's assistant in Taxilla, a mere child, curled under a table, dust and oil in your dream-soft lashes. I saw you in all your prior forms. and then I watched you.
I watched you stumble down a path lined with petals and thorns. shared in your triumphs from the clink of glasses your regrets from the starlight soaking into salt wet cheeks your numb indifference from the cracks in the concrete you stared at for a good few hours on a vapid tuesday And Ceylon, I watched when your husband walked out the door. You a new mother.
In recent months, the words between you had grown strained and glacial, a gulf stretching darker than the one you had once crossed on the Silk Road. The limp, the suckling body you clutched to your chest was the final straw for you both. I saw your bone-dry, sunken eyes from the oil swells and the lamps, from the crackles and the fire, from your shadows stretching forlorn across the walls under the flickering light.
I saw, too, your artist self in Barcelona, chasing pavements until one night you locked eyes with that raven-haired bartender, soul as restless as yours. And later, when your tattoos ride against her sweatshined skin, and later still, when you spilled your fears, head nestled against her chest, I was there in the venules of her window plants, the streaming moonlight, roach patters, the shadows of crumpled clothes on the floor.
How could I not be drawn to you and all the forms you carry in your depths unbeknownst to you? And how then can I not despair, knowing what is to come, knowing the path they embark on leads only to my changing, in such a way I would no longer be hospitable to you. Mine is a primal, throttled fair.
All I will have left would be the ghost of your memory, prowling my thoughts, your last body buried deep within my bones, that you will never rise again to walk on two legs, that she will no longer be mine. You here, in this form, with your soft skin and delicate pairs of limbs, no matter how much you work them, you will never match strengths with the lions or elephants that traipse my African pelts. It would not survive my new face.
They arrogantly assume the world is dying, even as it is they who propel this death. they were their skyscrapers and artificial grounds and yet the truth is the world will prevail i will prevail it is they who will be lost And you? Unacceptable. I resolved to help, to interfere as I had never done before. I speckled my body with gifts, solutions to reverse the changes usurping my sinews. If only they'd paid close enough heed.
But even as they shout for change, they destroy. My gifts turn to ash, some quite literally so, like those in my grand rainforest tendons. I see them gasping and choking as the air thins, as the winds shift and change and grow angry, as the waters rise, as the concrete pools and smothers and think, to what end? They say each great story has a hero, a chosen one, who embarks on a quest to save the world. The world.
but remember it is not i who needs saving my sweet you are the result of myriads of coincidences you are a walking miracle you are the only you in all of me If you peer closely, if you contemplate far within you into the depths where countless lives rest folded, your precious forms, you will find my final gift. The one that may keep me in my current state. Keep me that I remain able to embrace you. This, this is the message I relay to you in all my forms.
Find me in the post-shower mist of your mirror. Find me in a child's laughter, a kitten's purr. And find me in shadows, stretched long and wide, underfoot on the pavement. Find me. And listen. Listen. You have just heard Shadows on the Pavement by R.P. Sand. Narrated by Justine Eyre. R.P. Sand is a theoretical physicist turned scientific advisor for literature and film. science communicator and educator and writer of speculative fiction, whose words have made the Locus recommended reading list.
Cats, coffee, cosplay, and colorful socks are a few of her favorite things. Justine Eyre is a classically trained actress who has narrated many audiobooks, earning the prestigious Audio Award for Best Narration and Numerous Earphones Award. She has appeared on stage and has had starring roles in four films on the indie circuit. Her television credits include Two and a Half Men and Mad Men. Welcome back. Up next, we have Arrthing It Up, an oral history by Gene Doucette.
Narrated by me, Stefan Rudnicki, together with a few close friends, right after this message. Ready to launch your business? Get started with the commerce platform made for entrepreneurs Shopify is specially designed to help you start and grow your business with easy customizable themes that let you build your brand marketing tools that get your products out there integrated shipping solutions that actually save you time
Shopify is made for entrepreneurs like you. Sign up for your $1 a month trial at shopify.com. Buckle up. We're going to light speed. Arthing It Up! An Oral History by Jean Doucette In 23762, the Interstellar Community of Planetary Systems began its campaign to add a new member, a distant, isolated planet called Earth. It would be an understatement to say that the annexation of earth did not go well. In fact, it went so poorly, a popular phrase entered the vernacular almost immediately.
thing up meaning either we're doing everything right but it's all going wrong or we have every intention of screwing up completely The phrase is probably the campaign's most enduring legacy to popular culture. But what really happened on Earth? What made this particular annexation go so wrong compared to all the other planets the ICPS has absorbed? Could it have been handled differently? Or are earthlings just uncommonly difficult?
Looking for answers, I reached out to the Harriens who were there. Some are well-known names. Don Jose, Alabai Anak. But most are the background staffers, the ones tasked with the small decisions that made all the difference, good and bad. And I had a lot to say. What follows is an oral history of the R-Earth campaign, assembled from interviews conducted across the galactic network over the past three stellar years.
Did I get the answers I was looking for? Or did I uncover new questions? You be the judge. 1. They don't have tail. In the 14th quartile of 23762, the ICPS introduction team traveled to Earth for the first time. Led by the legendary Ambassador Don Doze, the ARTH campaign had plenty of experience to draw upon, yet they were surprised at every turn. Mondrosonio Dangot, sociologist.
I've been on my share of challenging campaigns. I was with Zay when we annexed Lexoy 7, and I interned under Handic Zunes on Quad. Things turned out okay with Luxoi in the end, but Quatt was a shitshow from start to finish. Earth was tougher than either of them. And I'll tell you why. It looked like it wasn't going to be hard at all. When it was, well, I guess you could say we were unprepared. Sandley Torm, Xenobiologist.
When you look at someone from a place like Kwat, you know you're in for a time. I mean, ammonia atmosphere, six legs, acidic saliva. It's obviously going to be rough. Luxorians are a challenge, too, and mainly because the dominant sentients on Seven are massive. But Earthlings? Two arms, two legs, one head, two eyes, one mouth. Four fingers with opposable thumbs. No surprises there. Don Doze, Ambassador. They don't have tail.
to the eye, that's the biggest difference. They're clearly an alien species, but seen from a distance, they look harrian. Going military liaison. Primitives. That was my first impression. The lack of tail. Disgusting. Mondrosonio Dangot. At the outset we faced some, I'd say, pretty unique challenges. Just for starters, we couldn't figure out who was in charge. Vicasoft technologist.
buildings. You look for the most ridiculously large, ostentatious structures. That's where you'll usually find the planetary seat of power. Usually. Waistric too. Kleptocracy with a little hierarchical feudalism slash theocracy thrown in. The Royal Hall on Waistrig is by far the largest structure on the planet, and it sits in the center of a city made of platinum and iron.
It's not enough to say it can be seen from space. The center spire nearly reaches space. That's the kind of thing we look for. that didn't have any of that. Well, no, it did, only all over the place. There were too many candidates. This is how this is supposed to work. First, we identify the seat of power. Second, we land our F and T in front of it. F and T stands for Fear and Terror. The ship's entire design purpose is to look magnificently fearsome.
Sadly torn. Oh yeah, the FNT. I don't know if this is a secret or not, but something like half of it is a hologram. It only works on species with stereoscopic vision. Underneath, it's just a shuttle. I don't think there are even any weapons aboard. Don Jose. Third, we step out of the FNT. The initial landing party can vary depending on the planet. But there's usually only five or six of them. It's a mix of ambassador staff and military staff.
I'll occasionally include someone from linguistics, xeno, or socio if we're dealing with a hard-to-understand species. But that wasn't the case on Earth. Once we're out of the F&T, the negotiations begin. It's always a very fluid situation, and it can get really exciting. But the important thing, and I cannot stress this enough, is that you have to land in the right place first. Not sure how we ended up at the Vatican.
Vicka Soft. I've gotten a lot of blowback from this, but the decision made perfect sense at the time. We'd narrowed the list down to six. The Vatican, the Forbidden City, the Taj Mahal, a parliament building in Hungary, Burj Khalifa for the height, and one of those huge English estates, I forget which. A variety of factors led us to conclude that the Vatican was the pick. Which factors? It's complicated. La inglo qua linguist.
It was because of the big hat. Seriously, I think Vicka took one look at the Pope's hat and was like, this is the place. Don't tell them I said that. Don Dosé. Washington was not even under consideration. Vikasov. No, of course, we didn't consider Washington. Why would we have? Lying loquo. I know intelligent language interpolation has turned linguistics into a dying art.
You're probably leveraging ILI for this article, right? Editor's note. The original text for this story was written in Jono Basic for ease of ILI conversion. I get it. ILI is the perfect tool for turning one language into every language. Why hire someone to interpret nuance, right? Just don't plug poetry The problem with ILI is that it sucks for new languages. That's when you need a linguist.
Vicka didn't think it was necessary to have me involved in the site choice, and neither did Don Jose. But they were sure glad to have me after the Vatican screw-up. Don Jose. Flamelos said that, did they? Wow. They're not wrong. But we don't know how matters would have played out had we consulted them in advance. Would a linguist have called out the correct landing spot? I don't know.
I absolutely would have. Look, it's a matter of language dominance, not just total number of speakers. Using that metric alone, I'd probably have recommended landing in the Forbidden City. What I mean is, how many places is a language spoken, and by that measure it would have to be English. That wouldn't point us to the United States necessarily, not by itself. But guess what the dominant currency was planet-wide? Yep, the dollar. I'd take those two data points over buildings and hats any day.
Coin. It's true. Each domain had their own coin. So backward. Vikasov. It's easy for someone not tasked with making the decision to claim after the fact that they would have made the correct one. Don Jose. I can tell you when we did need our linguist. It was when I turned to the first earthling authority figure we encountered and asked them to take us to their leader. We hail from the interstellar community of planetary systems. Take us to your leader.
That's the text Dondo pushed through the ship's intelligent language interpolation tool. The ILI converted that to Italian in real time, but since it was spoken to the proximate heads of a religious order rather than politicians, The also-helpful ILI algorithm used the wrong word for leader. Dando say, call out your god for us. That's what we said. Mondrosonio Dangot. An alien race landed what looked like a warship in the Vatican courtyard and threatened to kill God.
sadly torn. Total panic! Running! Screaming! Dandoze. Then their security force arrived with guns, and I ordered everyone back inside before somebody got hurt. The team returned to orbit, and after identifying the President of the United States as the de facto world leader, cobbled together a makeshift plan for dealing with R-Earthlings, now absent the element of surprise. Don Doze, we lost all credibility with the Vatican screw-up. The entire F&T approach had to be scra-
Mondrosonio Dangot. Never made any sense to me anyway. I get that terrifying a planet on initial introduction has tactical advantages, but it's a diplomatic crapshoot. A species negotiating from a position of fear will be more prepared to accept the ICPS's annexation terms, which is the critical first step in a long process. And the threat of violence is the only kind of diplomacy most of these races understand. Our Earth most definitely included. Adon Jose.
It meant we had to work harder to convince the earthlings that it was in their best interest to agree to our terms, that's all. It should not have been a difficult decision for them. Mondersonio Dango On the White House lawn, the ground team was treated as a hostile force immediately. Dondo sure earned his title that day. Don Jose, it was roughly a dozen earth hours of what I would call shouting over soldiers before I managed to convince them that we actually had peaceful intent.
We were completely surrounded as soon as we landed. and then doubly surrounded. They kept adding more soldiers to the perimeter, as if volume beyond the initial wave would make a substantive difference. Keep in mind, there were only six of us, and we had no obvious weapon. Don Jose. In a situation such as this, it's often what one does not do that makes the difference.
We did not present as aggressors, but we would also not go away. They didn't know what to do, aside from give us what we asked for, which was an audience with their president. Going. It seemed as though we'd finally gotten back on track. Their president heard our usual offer. We, the ICPS, would annex a quarter to one third of the planet in exchange for an equitable trade agreement. technology sharing, entry into the species exchange program, and so on.
I prettyed it up, but it was the boilerplate deal we give to all of our outposts. I thought fusion technology alone would nail it down. Sadly torn. They didn't even have fusion. Never mind. I remember talking to one of their chief scientists before the revolt, who asked how we'd gotten to Earth so quickly. They knew about relative motion and time dilation, all that. but had no concept of the extra-dimensional fold. this was a physicist, Don Jose. But their answer was a firm no when I pressed.
When I laid out how much our technology could improve life on the planet, what I got back was, and who would be in charge. And then I knew I had failed. Going. ICPS annexation means ICPS governing. This is not up for negotiation. Mondrosonio Dangan. It's important to understand how fractured this planet already was when we arrived.
It's true, the United States president was the closest we could get to a world leader. But that president didn't have the kind of power one might expect from, say, an emperor or a global syndicate. They couldn't sign the agreement on behalf of the planet, nor did they command enough power to order the other independent sovereignties of Earth to fall in line.
Laim Loqua, take us to your leader as meaningless when the planet has no leader. Don Doze, it was infuriating because from everything I'd come to understand, They desperately needed a unified governing body. The food to wealth disparity was utterly horrific. General health and well-being was driven by economic considerations. And the energy industry was an Earth century from making the planet completely unlivable for the species actively making it that way. That's just off the top of my head.
Sadly, Tom. They were backwards, no question. Half of their rules were predicated on the notion that a certain set of random characteristics made some of them inferior. I'm talking within their own kind. I'd understand it if they said, hey, you dolphins, you're inferior because you don't have opposable thumbs. It's wrong, but I get it. Lying loquo. I've talked to several dolphins. They're very nice. But all they do is complain about microplastics, which can get exhausting.
Soundly torn. And the rules were totally arbitrary. Color? Gender? What are you doing? Going. The continued dominance of religion as a factor in consequential decision-making was for me the biggest indication that we were dealing with an inferior species. Don Jose, of course we would be running things. The wisdom of such an arrangement should have been obvious. I wasn't in the meeting, but look, if your first move is terrifying them into compliance, and you don't even have a second move,
There had to be a diplomatic way to get them to see the merits of annexation. Something that would get us past the part about having to relocate a few billion earthlings from Central Asia. Dangle a change in the command structure, or offer up a joint governance plan, for goodness sake. It'd be for show, but they didn't have to know that. Pretend this is a negotiation, Don Jose. The president ultimately agreed to take our offer to their United Nations for further consideration.
Cohen, it was transparently another version of no. They just wanted us out of their office. I ain't no claw. That was the first time we'd even heard about the United Nations. Totally my fault. In my defense, the UN doesn't have anything we'd recognize as power. But yeah. If we could erase the trip to the Vatican and the White House and start from scratch, a visit to the General Assembly would have been my recommendation. It wouldn't have worked. But that would have been it.
Don Jose. The problem was that no was not actually an option. The annexation was happening either way. We did our job. I know history hasn't been kind to my team, but it's true. Our role was to prepare the planet for the next phase, and we did that. It just didn't go as well as it usually does. True. But my brood has spawned here since time immemorial.
While Don José's introduction team continued the work of diplomacy, the annexation team had already been dispatched. Headed by Allah by Anak, they arrived to find a planet that was not expecting them. Don Jose. Somehow, nothing I said to the president went beyond the walls of their office. We were closely monitoring their media communications, and there was nothing about why we were actually there.
Sandly torn. The headlines from that time are ridiculous. Aliens are here, but what do they want? Ask the fucking president. Mondrosonio dangot. What we hadn't counted on was that the president might see political merit in being the planet's only contact with us. They were, and this seems difficult to fathom even now, more highly valuing their chances at re-election than a smooth and bloodless transition for the planet as a whole. I did not expect that, and I'm a sociologist.
lying loquo. Meanwhile, something very much resembling an invading force was on its way. Doofap Axion. Engineering Team Security Chief, First Wave. What a monumental fucker. No, we get there. We get there. And there's earthlings still living in the zone. A lot of them. I'm not talking strays here. I expect strays.
Doesn't matter where we set up. First wave's always gonna encounter strays, which is why security's so important. Yeah, you get a lot of, I didn't hear about it, or, but my brood has spawned here since time immemorial. But it's always, these are always outliers. On Earth, it wasn't a case of outliers. It was the entire population of the region. They had no idea we were coming. Nobody told them.
I think it was about annexation day minus seven when we started reaching out to the population directly. Me, lying low and sadly. I don't know if we told Dondo. I didn't. Soundly torn. Dando definitely didn't know. Lame locois. A xenobiologist, a sociologist, and a linguist walk into a bar. Mondrosonio Dangate. Like two-thirds of the planet shared a common communications network. We figured if we got word out there, explained the whole thing, we could turn this around. Lying, La Croix.
We were delivering Dondo's introductory pitch, but to everyone. Maybe if they got an unfiltered version of it. I don't know. Maybe something would happen, and someone would actually take steps to prepare for the first wave. Soundly torn. It didn't work. But it was the only idea we had. Mandersonio Dangot. Literally, nobody believed us. That's number one. Number two, there was already an entire subsection of their internet full of earthlings pretending to be us. We got lost in the noise.
Even if they did believe us, you know how I said two-thirds of the planet was on the network? A whole lot of the other third, which wasn't on the network, lived in Central Asia, which is where the first wave was landing. Helmok Geographer Picking the right location is tricky business. There are dozens of factors to consider. Does the planet spin? How fast? And is the axis off-center? Is it orbiting a sun or another planet? How hot and how cold does it get? And does it have seasons?
How geologically stable is it? Is it rocky? Covered in water? Some mix of the two. You want a build-out zone that isn't going to kill your team within days of touching down. You also want to be nice enough to please the ICPS governor because they'll have to live there, but not so nice that it... You know, the best place because then you'll anger the sentient life forms already on the planet.
We settled on northern Kazakhstan, mostly. A third of the settlement ring was in Russia. Tectonically speaking, the territory wasn't a hundred percent match, but otherwise, we thought it was a good fit. Ailey Dante, Engineer. After the first wave establishes a permanent foothold. Construction begins on the new seat of world government, which is about three quarters prefabricated. The engineering team can usually have it up and running in a few weeks.
We map the city from there, carve out the necessary infrastructure, and drop the prefab living quarters. This is all planned out ahead of time, based on geographic considerations specific to the site, which means we can't just build it anywhere. We couldn't get there and say, oh no, you guys are still here. We'll try somewhere else. Duwab action!
There can't be anybody living in the footprint. When it turns out there is, it's my team's responsibility to clear them out. Yes, it can get violent, but that's the job. I'm just following policy. Mondrosonio Dangot. I guarantee the policy was written assuming most of the inhabitants of the target zone had already left on their own, which was not the case here. No, I don't have an official body count. Fahlgren-Faldeck, military officer.
I was one of the first on the ground that day. We got no resistance from the locals. Pretty sure they weren't expecting us. Yeah, they were mostly unarmed. Some projectile weapons here and there, but nothing like our guns. It was pretty quick work. Blame Locroix, the planet's media sources, set the total dead in the neighborhood of half a million in under ten Earth days. The three of us were horrified. I don't know if anyone else was. Do I feel bad? No. Why would I?
My understanding is that they were given every opportunity to relocate and they did not. And so we had to act. We have a schedule to keep. Being perfectly honest, I think too many Harriens have gotten hung up on how much earthlings look like us. It inculcates an irrational sympathy. I wasn't planetside for any of that. I know this sounds difficult to believe, but I wasn't even aware it was happening as it was happening.
I didn't know anything was wrong at all. Just the security force doing their job, cleaning up the main site, just like every other campaign. The first time I understood this annexation would be different was when the Earthlings retaliated. I'd rotated off planet. Pure like I wasn't there when it happened. Elidanti, we'd just established the first module.
I'm not sure you've ever seen an initial prefab install yourself, but the first phase is a huge structure. It's designed to evoke awe, and it does. It also evokes fear, especially if you don't know exactly what's happening. That is, I understand, again, I'm coming at this after the fact, what the situation was on the ground. But if you're asking whether we should have anticipated it, I didn't, but I'm not paid to. Someone else is. You'll have to ask them.
Doofap Axion. We had never gamed a scenario in which the locals opted to explode a nuclear device at the initial site. The reason we didn't is because that would be fucking crazy. If we can't live here anymore, neither can you. It's the politics of mutual destruction. It's insane, but I get it. Volgrim Valdek. Lost a lot of good Harriens that day. A couple thousand, wasn't it?
Imagine discovering nuclear energy and thinking not free energy, but this would make an excellent bomb. It makes one wonder how the ICPS chose this planet in the first place. Duvap Axion. I'm not sure if the target was us or the building. Not that it ultimately matters. We have to respond to the loss of property the same as we would the loss of life. Haley Danty. The bomb destroyed our first installation and killed a handful of Harriens. To that end it worked, because they stopped our progress.
But the only time the Earthlings bought for themselves was the time it took to fabricate and ship a new starter module, which wasn't long. Don Jose. I don't know if they thought a nuclear bomb would convince us to go away. If so, it was a startlingly shortsighted decision. And they'd rendered a portion of South Central Asia radioactive.
accelerated the negative effects of the global climate change that was already threatening to kill them, and politically destabilized an entire region of the world. all too slightly delay the annexation. Hellmock. The Kazakhstan site had been rendered uninhabitable. We had to select a new site immediately because everything regarding the build-out hinged on a thorough understanding of the local terrain. And now we had to throw in another metric.
What region would they be less willing to attack with a nuclear device? We decided on the southern half of the United States. In the time it took for the ICPS to design and deploy a new first wave structure, Dondo Zay's team and the remnants of a la Bionoc's first annexation team attempted to reason with the Earthling. Dombo say. It was critical that they be made to understand how much resistance was going to imperil them.
In the history of the ICPS, only three planets have offered anything like the pushback we were getting from Earth. Phlegon, Cipro Prime, and Palanith. Cipro Prime no longer exists except as a cautionary tale, and nobody lives on Palinath anymore. Only Phlegon is now a full member of the community, and only because they listened. Allowed by Anok. Annexation team lead. What happened on Cypro wasn't going to happen on Earth.
Earth's natural resources and location guaranteed that. No, the ICPS fully intended to follow through on converting the planet into a hub before a major new trade route. which meant an enormous build-out in the years ahead. Earth's principal sentience could have benefited directly from that build-out. They went another route. Don Doze. My team skipped the president and went directly to the people by broadcasting over their radiophonic signal devices.
We notified them of our new site and offered to assist in the relocation of the local inhabitants. We tried to make it clear that the relocation was mandatory, voluntary or otherwise. Considering they dropped a nuclear bomb on us, I think this was generous on our part. Going All we got back from outreach was bravado and gunfire. Every time we sent a scout drone over the region to assess the evacuation, someone would take a shot at it. Did no damage at all, but that didn't discourage them.
We still had a dozen ships in orbit. It should have been obvious we were going nowhere. A la Bionok. They weren't going to comprehend anything short of overwhelming force. And then the new module arrived, with reinforcements, by which I mean warships. The ICPS wasn't fucking around. Lionel Croix. It was... I'm sorry, I still get upset. Look, everyone's heard the ICPS version of this. We, the upstanding, have no choice but to defend ourselves against them, the savage earthlings.
And yes, sure, fine, they detonated a thermonuclear bomb on their own planet. But from their perspective, they were defending themselves. Soundly torn. You have to wonder if there's someone high up in the ICPS with some sort of conversion charge. How many dead earthlings equal one dead harrian? Like, let's keep in mind we killed a half a million of them before they did anything to us.
Allah by Anak. It was a slaughter. It had to be. You understand? I'm not happy about it. Who would be, but it was necessary. That was great! Those Earthers got schooled! It was a good time, and I was proud to be part of it. I mean, after what those primitives did to us. Yeah, you can quote me. Go ahead. Alabayanak. These are lower life forms. It's alright to be sad about how things turned out, but we absolutely acted appropriately. Mondrosonio Dangot. The word you're looking for is bloodbath.
I don't know how many were killed in the second installation, but the number had to be over a million. Meanwhile, I'm pretty sure I can count the number of Harrion dead on one hand. It was an overwhelming show of force. And if there was any good to come out of it, if there was any justification to be had, it was that once it was over, the earthlings would finally accept out of futility what they had refused to accept when it was a peaceful overture.
And that was the hope. Then came the rebellion. Lying loquo. It wasn't a rebellion. A rebellion is when someone who lives within a system rebels against the rules of that system. But that was what the ICPS called it. Soundly torn. The artlings weren't members of the International Community of Planetary Systems. Yet the regulation used to justify the ICPS's actions was the one drawn up to counter rogue members as a means to prevent a larger war from breaking out.
which incidentally the military only cited after the fact. The subsection of the interplanetary conduct bylaws they used to make their actions legal also included rules of conduct regarding non-combatants and prisoners of war. Which they ignored. The argument there was, this is a primitive species. Okay, so which is it? Are they a rebellious member planet about to trigger an intergalactic war?
or a belligerent subspecies, unworthy of the rights granted other sentience. You can't have it both ways. I say the second install went pretty smoothly, given the circumstances, and not as clean as the Kazakhstan location, but Nobi tried to nuke us again, which was a definite net positive. They did try using nuclear force on us again, although we didn't publicize the fact. Not a surprise. It was the only weapon in their arsenal that had been shown to work.
But their preference for mutual annihilation over acceptance of a vassal planet status was known to us by then? We were prepared. We intercepted the weapon before it was detonated. Then we retaliated as if it had gone off. Again. How else were they going to learn? At some point, the security force decided to expand the area of contention. Strictly speaking, only the main site footprint is supposed to be cleared for the first install. That would have meant evacuating parts of Oklahoma and Texas.
But the circumference of their clear out reached, I think, five other states. It's not policy, but I'm sure they had their reasons. A la Binoc. We were mainly concerned about defending ourselves at the time. That meant concentrating our forces on the main site, which we expanded for safety reasons. We largely ignored what was happening on the rest of the planet outside of how it directly impacted us.
In other words, we didn't care what the locals were doing to one another. Then one of the earthling tribes decided to bomb another earthling tribe. And we were forced to act on a larger scale. Mondrosonio dangot. Yeah. The decision to put New Earth City where they did. That destabilized the global political climate that had been pretty close to outright chaos before we'd even gotten there.
Soundly torn. One half of the planet ended up focusing all its attention on driving out the ICPS, while the other half of the planet had a power vacuum that needed filling. I know we like to say we couldn't have possibly anticipated the Earthlings going to war with each other during all of this. But honestly, we should have. Ailey Danty. I was planetside. working on the new Earth City install, when I heard the news of another bomb. I looked around and was like, well, shit, it's not here.
Lying low claw. I'm still not sure to this day who set off that bomb in northern China. Because I don't know that. I couldn't even begin to understand why they did it. Simply put, we couldn't allow nuclear bomb detonations to keep happening on the planet. Even if it was just them killing each other, eventually they would commit enough damage to render the planet fully uninhabitable to everyone. I made the decision to impose martial law, not just in the New Earth City Hemisphere, but globally.
Don Jose. It was a difficult call. I don't know if I would have made it, but I respect Allah's decision. Soundly, Storm. It's one thing to ask a species to answer to a political appointee like Governor Scans. It's another to demand it by force. Mondrosonio Dangot. I've run out of superlatives to explain how awful it was. Imagine the worst possible conditions for a global population to have to endure. Now double that. Now, double that!
Lying low qualm I guess you could say martial law brought peace It's definitely the leading explanation for the current conditions on the planet. So, if you call what's happening now peace, it did. It also meant about a billion dead. Let's not forget that. 3. They are us. It's been ten stellar years since First Governor Ventric Scans took the stage at the opening of New Earth City.
and declared the planet formally annexed, which was a full seven years after Don José's introduction team first arrived to deliver what they thought was good news. And while pockets of resistance remain, the planet is now largely conflict-free. And thanks to Governor Skanz's aggressive initial build-out, Earth has been transformed into a critical port of call for the ICPS's expanding galactic empire. New Earth City is in many ways the envy of the Quadrant.
The peace has come at a cost. Earthlings remain very much isolated from the rest of the interstellar community. Their species has been granted access to almost none of the technological advances usually shared with the Annex. And as of this writing, there are only seven earthlings living off-world. For comparison, ten years after the annexation of Quat, fully one-third of all Quatreans had established permanent residences on other planets.
Historically, planetary annexations have proven beneficial for both the ICPS and the annexed planet. The same cannot be said here. As a number of Earthling advocacy groups, most notably the Institute for Earth, have argued, perhaps we all would have been better off had the ICPS not annexed Earth in the first place. It's an interesting question. On the one hand, I couldn't be prouder of New Earth City. On the other, I do feel as if there were better ways to arrive at where we are now.
I'm sure this isn't the case, but it seemed like we defaulted to violence over diplomacy after the diplomacy part got too hard. I kept hearing that mistakes were made, like we were talking about the weather. Whose mistake? I don't know. Maybe ours. Maybe theirs. Maybe both. But the Earthlings are the only ones who ended up paying for them. Could be wrong. I don't have all the facts. Alibi Anog. If you want my opinion, there was only one real mistake.
And it was ours, thinking the species we call Earthling, the humans, was who we should have introduced ourselves to at first contact. More than half of Earth is water. And the most intelligent species in the water is the dolphin. They think of humankind as a nuisance at best and a pestilence at worst. Perhaps if we'd started with them? We'd have adopted the same attitude. I know. It's a stretch. Dolphins never went to space, or built great structures, or used tools, and so on, and so on.
We never really would have done that. But the dolphins were right. Dondo say. I truly believe that without our intervention, the Earthlings would have blown themselves up by now. Even after all they've gone through, I think they are better off today than they would have been otherwise. Having said that, I don't agree with how they're being treated. That's why when Mondrosonio and the others set up the Institute for Earth, I agreed to help with fundraising.
I can't sign off on everything the Institute stands for. I don't support a path to full citizenship. But if we don't do something to improve living conditions there, we're just asking for more violence. ICBS's policies are effectively a form of passive extermination, and someone needs to stand up and say that it's wrong. Change is needed. Mondrosonio Dangard.
Earth absolutely would have been better off if the ICPS never came here. But the ICPS did come, and we can't undo it, or pretend it didn't happen, or blame them for our fuck-up. Only after we've owned up to what really happened can we take the steps needed to not fix it, but do what we can to improve earthly lives going forward. And when I say we have to own up, I'm talking about all Harriens and the ICPS as an entity. Not just me, Sandly, and Laimlo. Let's keep that straight.
In a lot of ways, we three are the worst possible voices of protest. When we resigned our commissions, we inadvertently offered ourselves up as scapegoats for the entire mess. And the ICPS didn't miss the opportunity. That's put a stink on everything we attach our names to.
soundly torn. Out of everyone involved in the earth annexation, from Pellmark at the beginning to Dondo to Alabayana, Somehow, in the eyes of the interstellar community, it's us who are to blame for everything that went wrong. At no point were we key decision-makers in the process. Yet Don Doze, who was the team lead, they got to retire with accolades. Nothing against Dondo, but that's bullshit. Mondersonio Dangot. The failure was systemic. We just happened to be in the front row. Soundly torn.
Half of what we do at the Institute is lobby for the betterment of the earthling lives. The other half is to demand that the interstellar community of planetary systems acknowledge that what happened here is everyone's fault. Vikasov, I appreciate that there's some debate now about whether the community should have reached out to Earth at all.
But those arguments always struck me as retrofitted to match a fictitious, rosier outcome. I think any time a backward civilization has provided access to new technologies, it's a step forward, however halting. Someday the earthling species will understand. I don't think we should have gone anywhere near that planet. I don't particularly care about whether they would have been better off or not. We would have been.
Helmok. New Earth City is glorious. On that alone, I'd say the annexation was absolutely worth it. Duvab Axion. Now, just... I'm going to keep saying this. They are an inferior species. They don't deserve the same basic rights as those enjoyed by the in-good-standing members of our galactic community. They have proven this time and again. Questions about would they be better off presupposed that they had any capacity for self-improvement whatsoever.
going. That they look like us is the problem. It's deceptive. They are deceptive. But we shouldn't be fooled. And we definitely shouldn't listen to the Earth Rights Group. The Institute for Earth is an embarrassment. I think we should have wiped them all out. It would have been cleaner. But you know, they're so innately violent, they'll probably kill each other off before long. Same outcome at the end of the day.
The whole problem with the they're just animals argument is that it's bullshit. I'm serious. I've studied the earthling genome extensively. So when I tell you they're not animals in any accepted application of that word, I mean it. In fact, I'll go one step further. Aside from the lack of a tail, they're us. I don't know what kind of cosmic panspermian event had to happen for this to be true.
But harrions and earthlings are so genetically close, we could reproduce. In fact, I'm almost positive we already have. This isn't a secret, you understand. I've shared my findings. The ICPS knows. They just don't want to talk about it. Mondrosonio Dangan. Someday, a hybrid Earthling Harion is going to march up to the gates of New Earth City and demand recognition as a full citizen.
And then they'll have to admit that this inferior species crap is a cover for war crimes. I have no idea what will happen after that, but I sure hope I'm around to find out. You have just heard Earthing It Up, An Oral History by Jean Doucette, narrated by Stefan Rudnicki and a few close friends, and directed by Alison Belle Butte. Jean Doucette is the author of over 25 sci-fi fantasy titles, including the Sorrow Falls series.
The Spaceship Next Door, The Frequency of Aliens, Graffiti on the Wall of the Universe, The Immortal Series, Fixer and Fixer Redux, The Tandem Star Books, and The Apocalypse 7. Gene lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Stefan Rudnicki is a Grammy-winning audiobook producer and an award-winning narrator who has won 17 audio awards, as well as more than 35 earphones awards, and been named one of audiophile's golden voices.
Stefan has been producing Lightspeed Magazine podcasts since 2010, eventually adding Nightmare and Fantasy Magazine, and sharing the Hugo Awards for Best Semi-Prosine in 2014 and 2015. I don't have much time. I am being transported by the ecclesiast vassal Markava to stand trial for heresy of the highest order. But I will not renounce my work.
And to my last breath, I will speak the truth of this plague-ridden world. That ours is not a loving God, and we are not its favored children. The Heresies of Radolf Bundwein, Chapter 2. Now available throughout the known world. Welcome to Gotham, Jimmy. It's not as... DC and Realm present. Our vigilante, or Batman as he's called, possesses extraordinary physical skill. Batman. I shall become... The Dark Knights comic stories.
He's got a motorcycle. Get after him or I'll have you shot. Take him down. Adapted directly for audio for the very first time. Looks like it's just you and me now, Falcon. Hit the floodlight. It's showtime. New episodes every Wednesday. Follow and listen wherever you get your... Batman hasn't attacked anybody. You mean blow up the building. From this moment on. None of yours. DC High Volume. Batman. Available now.
You are now entering Springfield. Where's the body? Off the side of the ditch down there. You know, surrounded by all this crime- My name is John. I'm the new forensic pathologist. I can see you. That's how we'll figure out how you were murdered. He took this away from all of us. 31. male impaled on a construction John. This is about the Case number 1017. A wife blended her husband in a wet vac. Case number zero.
It's okay. It's just you and me now. Who are you talking to? Uh, no one. Let's keep this between us, huh? Listen to How I Died, a full cast, police, and medical procedural with over 40 episodes available now on all podcast apps. These stories were taken from the pages of Lightspeed Magazine, which is edited by John Joseph Adams.
the podcast is produced by skyboat media and the stories and podcast are copyright 2025 post-production was by alex barton at phase shift and our music was composed and performed by I am Stefan Rudnicki. Thank you for listening.