Until quite recently, Bandi-Casade was inhabited by a race for whom the future meant absolutely nothing, because the task of living in the here and now took all of their ingenuity and resourcefulness. You see, Bandi-Casade is a typical, Type '18', world: it offers just about everything one could possibly need to sustain life, while, at the same time, creating lots of nasties dedicated to exterminating it! The rule for surviving, here, is: you really ought to try and figure out how to kill it before it figures out how to kill you! The carnivores, of course, are the ones with all the weapons!
So, what happened to change things? The Huraz!
The Huraz are an old race. Old enough to have answered most of life's questions and found solutions to most of life's problems. There isn't a whole lot left to do once a civilization has reached that level of accomplishment. It's around that time, that some, if not all such peoples, decide, consciously or otherwise, to share their 'blessings' with other less advanced races, whether they want it, or have asked for it, or not. Maybe with knowledge comes intellectual arrogance; or maybe it's simple impatience - like, 'come on, you guys, do this and you'll save loads of mistakes and lots of suffering'; then again, it could just be a desire to hold out a helping hand to others less fortunate than themselves. Whatever the motivation for the arrival of the Huraz, the result couldn't have been worse.
In every 'first contact' situation, the method of approach adopted by the visitor will have a predictable effect on the visitee. For instance, if you arrive in a blaze of light, descending in your spaceship on a column of fire, or you land and subject the first inhabitants you meet to a display of powerful weaponry, or force of some kind, there's a pretty good chance you'll be thought of as gods of one sort or another. If that's your intention, well, shame on you. Alternatively, you can land somewhere quiet - like in a desert - and sneak up on them. Maybe? Of course, you'll have to lie when you first meet them. Telling them you're from out of town, for instance. You can't tell them where you really come from, of course - like 'up there' - because, yup, you guessed it, they'll think you're gods or something. So, however you approach this situation, they're going to figure you for gods. All you can really determine is whether they see you as gods to be feared or gods to be adored. The first option is problematic, because they'll be scared at first and you'll have to keep being nasty to them to keep them fearing you, or they'll just steal your stuff and use it on you. If you set out to be adored, by helping them, either you'll fail them once, or they'll eventually see you as weak. Either way, they'll wind up stealing your stuff and using it on you.
In both scenarios, the only way to defend yourselves will be to use overwhelming force against the very people you came - ostensibly - to help. Chances are, you'll end up vaporizing the entire planet, and then where will they be? Dead, that's where! So, the golden rule is: when you've attained the highest level of technical, physical and/or mental development and self-awareness you can possibly achieve as a species, do the other species in the universe a favor, and,
KEEP IT TO YOURSELVES!
This advice was not heeded, nor even considered, by the Huraz when they set out on their mission to bring enlightenment to those 'unfortunates' who lived, in astronomical terms, a 'couple of blocks away'. They arrived one bright and sunny afternoon, somewhere in the equatorial region of Bandi-Casade. The above image shows it to be a bleak, dust-blown, region, inhabited by four-legged, long-toothed scavengers and all manner of scurrying creatures, with either spine covered backs, forked tongues, or poison quills - or all three, as in the case of the 'yamayam'. So, here we have your average, native, Bandi-Casade humanoid - green-eyed, gray skinned, hairless, five feet tall and a hundred pounds, soaking wet - scraping in the dry earth with his or her bare hands for a crunchy tuber, or a stringy root. While doing this, they will be scanning the horizon for any sign of activity which might suggest a lucky scavenger has found an unfortunate animal for whom it has all become too much, and which has conveniently, and charitably, turned up its toes so others can live.
Into this scene of 'noble' savagery, we introduce a species of six foot tall bipeds, with blue skin, long blonde hair, red eyes, wearing silver colored, one piece, metallic fabric coveralls and heavy, plastic, hiking boots. Each of them carries enough personal firepower to annihilate every living thing on the planet, and each of them is positively consumed by the desire to bring 'enlightenment' to these poor unfortunates. Sound familiar?
"We mean you no harm," were the first words from the Huraz vocabulary any Bandi-Casadian heard, although, to be fair, he didn't know that was what the very large, strangely dressed person was actually saying. In fact, the first thing the starving Bandi-Casadian most likely thought, was, "Hmmm. Don't tell me meat comes in tins!"
The Huraz weren't stupid. They sized up the situation quickly and arranged for supplies of concentrated rations to be transported to the surface, where grateful Bandi-Casadians fought over them. Six were killed before the Huraz stepped in and zapped a couple more as examples. Peace broke out and the Bandi-Casadians spent the next two days on a food blitz. Unfortunately, Huraz food is highly spiced, and very high in protein, neither of which Bandi-Casadian stomachs have evolved to process. They threw up. Then they threw up again. They were very ill, in fact, and while the four Huraz who had remained on the planet slept, they crept up on them and slaughtered every one. They made very good eating, it seems, and no Bandi-Casadian stomach protested, except for the occasional rumble.
When the other Huraz returned, they found no sign of their colleagues - not even a bone. The scavengers had taken everything the Bandi-Casadians hadn't consumed themselves.
Slowly, very slowly, considering how smart the Huraz were supposed to be, it dawned on them that all was not going well with their mission. They decided to change tack, and try to teach these poor primitives about the interesting things they were missing out on, like, for instance, shopping, the theory of credit ratings, how to improve the responsiveness of mass transit - oh, and of course, time travel. But first they had to teach them to speak 'Huraz'.
The idea of a 'universal translator', as portrayed in 'Star Trek' and other mass entertainment, is an alluring one, because it makes life so easy. Unfortunately, life is never easy and there are no such things as common concepts - apart from name, rank, serial number, I'm hungry, I'm thirsty, wanna hump?, etc.. etc.. (and we already dealt with hunger) - across the broad expanse of the universe. Sorry, but a universal translator won't ever get off the ground. Anyway, the Huraz had to work through every one of their sixty-eight vowels, four hundred and fifty-one consonants and forty-three pronouns before they started in on their highly complex vocabulary. It took months! The six Huraz left got irritated, while the twenty Bandi-Casadian got very fat on concentrated rations, despite its effects on their stomachs - for which they now took medication.
At length, the Bandi-Casadian got the hang of 'Huraz' and there was no stopping them. They wanted to know where the Huraz came from, how they'd traveled to Bandi-Casade, why they'd come..... The list of questions was endless, but the Huraz answered every one. Then, one day, the Huraz let slip the fact that they could tell what was going to happen to the people of Bandi-Casade, way into the future. Well, you could have cut the silence with a knife. Eyes were open wide, and jaws were hanging as the Bandi-Casadians asked for clarification. The Huraz repeated their claim and offered a demonstration, though they would need to go up to their ship, in high orbit, they said, because, unfortunately, the equipment they used was too big to relocate to the surface. Naturally, the Bandi-Casade accepted and nominated two of their group to go with the Huraz to their ship. Everyone boarded the small, orbital shuttle and in a few minutes they were on board the massive Huraz starship.
After being escorted through what seemed like miles of corridors, they were led into a small, spherical chamber, where they were strapped into deeply cushioned chairs and strange looking helmets were placed on their heads. They were terrified by this process, but the Huraz managed to calm them down, assuring them everything would be just fine. Then, they walked out and locked the door.
The Bandi-Casadian started to panic, again. They struggled against their bonds, thinking the Huraz had tricked them. Then, without warning, the little chamber started to shake. A low hum rose until it was a loud whine that threatened to rupture their eardrums. Suddenly, the walls around them began to dissolve, until they fancied they could see the wide-open deserts, plains, tree covered hills and high mountain ranges of their homeland. As they watched, spellbound, small villages grew seamlessly into larger villages, then into small towns, larger towns, cities and finally into fifteen mega-cities, spread across the single continent. People moved around both on the ground and in the air, in strange flying machines. The population, which had stood at ten thousand when the Huraz had arrived, had, six thousand years later, reached eight hundred and forty-seven million. With Huraz technology, they had virtually eradicated child mortality and increased the average lifespan from 'forty-two' to 'one hundred and five'. Most everyone on the planet was fed, clothed and housed. Violent crime was becoming rampant. Drug usage was widespread. Life was no longer a struggle against nature, but a struggle against one another. As the cities grew, so the forests and the wildlife that inhabited them dwindled, until they eventually disappeared - except for those few small areas which had been preserved for 'posterity'.
After what seemed a long time, but was in truth a few minutes, the walls reappeared, the whining and humming stopped, and the Huraz returned to release them.
"You can change things, now you know how they might turn out," the leader of the Huraz, Gau-Zin-Faa, said. He smiled, knowingly. "Trust me, we can help."
When they asked how, the 'Bandi-Casade' were told the Huraz would build them a chamber of their very own, right there on the surface, in a small cave, where it would be safe. By using it to routinely check on how their society was likely to develop, based on the current values of several hundred sociological variables, they would be able to take corrective action and thereby change that future for the better. They would also build in a power generator, they said, capable of running for five thousand years, and back it up with a communications device that could be used to call on the Huraz for help should they ever need it. The Bandi-Casadians were gob-smacked and totally delighted. Work began immediately, and within two months, the chamber was up and running. The Huraz entertained over a thousand of their new friends to a farewell meal the day the chamber was first tested by two volunteers. The following day, the Huraz ship moved out of orbit and headed for the next planetfall, and another opportunity to spread the word.
For sixteen generations, all went fairly well for Bandi-Casade. Dams were built across rivers. The lakes thus created were then stocked with wild fish - to provide a high protein food-source for new, small, but permanent population centers. Large areas of savannah were gradually fenced off, providing another ready supply of meat, safe from predators. Minerals were mined, irrigation projects undertaken, and all the while, the chamber hummed and whined, showing its two occupants how the future was going to turn out. Based on their detailed reports, at a later debriefing, small adjustments to the overall strategy were then made.
Then, one fateful day, one of the occupants of the chamber accidentally moved the control that determined the destination date and propelled the chamber into the distant future, when the planet's star was beginning its slow decline towards becoming a yellow dwarf. The control had never been changed in all the years of the chamber's operation, so no one had ever bothered to record the symbols on the small display. Unaware of their mistake, they faithfully reported their findings to the committee set up to adjudicate changes to the master plan. At first, confusion reigned. How could this happen? What had changed since the last evaluation had taken place to bring about this new and totally unexpected future? After a three week closed session, all of the planners were set the task of working out how to deal with this new, and catastrophic, development.
Now, just four hundred years after the Huraz left, all the good wrought by those earlier volunteers and diligent community leaders has been destroyed. The planet has been laid waste in countless fruitless attempts to prevent this, the last, inevitable event, which is destined for all planetary systems, everywhere, as the star that cherishes and warms them turns against them and destroys itself in one last demonstration of its thermonuclear might.
If there's a moral to this story, its that, maybe, we should always make sure we understand the technology we use - especially when it's given to us by well meaning strangers. It also wouldn't hurt to learn how to read their language, either.
