DREAMS of the future to me come. Visions of a time beyond thought, when all things that were alive once, are now the sand in, reposing with the dust as one. But a hope there remains, if only, allow you would, the mist to lift.
In this strange manner would master Yoda to you speak.
But this Jedi master is a kindly spirit. His words (syntax excepted) draw from a wellspring of power, an ancient goodness that permeates the labyrinthine passageways of time and matter in the eternal and ever-expanding universe. If he were to come to Earth, we would have much to gain.
But what if a different form of alien, a vile one, comes to your comfortable home in this land? What tremulous speech will you make before one as dreadful as Darth Vader? A foul spirit who may will your life away, as if it were made merely of clay?
Think about it, dear reader, as Star Wars returns soon to this tiny planet in the Milky Way. If aliens in indescribable vessels land on the Earth at that very moment, how will the story be told in the NST?
For possible answers, we must turn to Hollywood and Japan, and also to a wizard whose understanding of the known universe is beyond the ken of mortals such as us.
This wizard (moderns call him a physicist) is Stephen Hawking. He warns that if extraterrestrials descend on our blue orb, “the outcome could be very much like when Columbus landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach”.
Oh dear. If what he says comes to pass, expect terrifying scenes from Independence Day, War of the Worlds, V, Falling Skies and Ultraman in the place where you live. Cities, rivers and land will be twisted beyond recognition; lives will be broken beyond redemption. Run! Run as fast and as far away as you can into the mountains of the Main Range. Or, if you are in Sarawak, go to the Mulu or Niah caves, and live as the ancients did.
This you must do, for the aliens will have little mercy on us; for sure, no more than what we have shown to weaker creatures among us. Brave men and women will summon the strength to march to these beings from space, meekly bearing the standard of ‘justice’, ‘love’ and ‘compassion’. But will the hungry wolf listen to the pleadings of the hapless sheep?
But I may be mistaken. The aliens may desire only to warn us as they did in The Day The Earth Stood Still. I watched this 1951 movie on an aircraft thousands of feet in the air, and it made me look upon the Earth with unyielding uneasiness. The aliens say they are “impatient with stupidity”, and “have learned to live without it”. But a human character in the tale observes: “I’m afraid my people haven’t. I’m very sorry… I wish it were otherwise.”
Hmmm. If it be only a warning, we may have a chance. Let us lay out before these aliens our long and glorious history, with maybe not much of the episodes most gory. We will ask for space and time to redeem our follies. By good fortune, they will listen to our pleadings.
But if you have read Erich von Daniken and a slew of other books on ‘space gods’, or watched Ancient Aliens on The History Channel, you may be inclined to believe that these aliens had already visited us a very, very long time ago. So they must know our past well enough. Did they attempt to shape our destiny by intervening in the lives of our forebears? Perhaps, but these cunning creatures have left no evidence for our men of science to conclusively test.
The real evidence in this age, though, is money. And, doubtless, Star Wars will make a mountain of it for the producers. But I wager that there will be a mountain of trouble when the real aliens come, or return. Yoda, do you the same, foretell?
The writer is NST executive editor,
production