In The Beginning...

"What the hell was THAT?"

The leader was a very tall, willowy man with shocking blue eyes and a complexion so smooth and white, that it was nearly self-luminescent.  He was still wearing his flight gear, and the helmet made his head look much wider than it was.

"We're still scanning, sir, but it looks like they pulled the trigger," answered another man, very similar looking, but wearing brown instead of white.

"What do we know so far?" Enlil spoke with authority and the force of many centuries as a Supreme One.

Enke responded slowly, trying to grasp the scale of what he was learning from his station.  "It appears that Tiamat is gone, sir."

"Gone?"

"Yes sir.  Long-range scans show a lot of rubble where it should be.  There's a large HD signature in the region.  It looks like Cronus went through with it," his voice cracking with stress, as he struggled to maintain composure.  "From what I can see, Maret is still there, but it's in an erratic orbit, and there appears to be a large gash on one side."

"Is there any communications?"  There was an edge to Enlil's voice, something the others were unaccustomed to hearing.

Ishtar responded, "No, sir.  All channels are completely silent."

There was a long pause.  Everyone kept their eyes on their stations, while Enlil stared at the tactical schematic that was up on the main panel.  Where Tiamat should be, there was a rapidly expanding cloud of thousands of objects.  Even more alarming was a sphere around that, which showed as water ice.  It was already past Maret and moving fast.  It would probably arrive at Terra within a few sidereal months.

"Navagation, what are we looking at here?" Enlil's voice seemed on the verge of panic, which was deeply disturbing to the rest of the crew.

Oshirus paused before speaking, to make sure of what he was about to say.  "Tiamat has been destroyed, sir.  Those objects are fragments.  There is a sphere of water ice from the oceans that is expanding rapidly.  I estimate that it will arrive at Terra in approximately five of the local months.  Maret appears to be intact, but it's orbit is erratic.  I estimate that the entire opposing hemisphere has been buried in rubble approximately 20 kliks deep.  According to calculations, when the ice sphere reaches Terra, it will likely cause a flood of planetary proportions."

Silence again as everyone stared at the display in disbelief.  Cronus and Tiamat had been at war for centuries, but no one every thought it would come to this.  The Cronusites had created a weapon of of such massive destructive power everyone had assumed it would provide sufficient deterrent to open war.

The weapon was capable of drawing unimaginable power from the sub-space aether and was capable of pulverizing entire planets.  The only draw-back is that it would draw every ounce of energy from their entire system to fire it one time.  Everyone assumed that the threat of mutual destruction would be enough to stop them from actually activating it.

Enlil snapped out of his trance.  "Inventory!"

Oshirus spoke first, "We ejected the HD drive before entering the atmosphere.  All systems are online and functioning, except we can't go anywhere."

Ishtar was next, "Communications are fully functional, but we are not receiving any signals from any of the colonies.  None of the automatic nav systems are online anywhere in the helios.  All of the pulsar beacons are still functioning, so long-range navigation is possible."

"If we can get off this world," Enlil said half to himself.  "Oshirus, what is the status of Terra?"

"The Cronus project was nearly completed.  The atmosphere was nearly complete, though the CO2 levels are a bit low compared to Maret.  The gravity roughly six times our normal.  There are multiple species divided into five super classes.  There's a secret species that Tiamat had been developing, sir," he trailed off.

"A what?  What do we know about it?"

The display shifted and a window popped up on the right-hand side.  Two creatures appeared, along with various read-outs on their genetics and abilities.

"They look like us," Enlil said in a hoarse whisper.

"Yes, sir.  That was the reason Cronus attacked.  Tiamat wanted to take over Terra and create a...pleasure world.  The project was called Edun.  Cronus wanted to kill them off because they were an abomination."  Oshirus was uncertain of his own feelings on the matter, as well.  "From the intel we've been able to intercept, Tiamat was engineering a hybrid species as a slave class to mine strategic metals and minerals, as well as for...er...entertainment."

"What?  My cousin!  You're accusing MY family of genetic crime.  Watch your step, mister," Enlil said with genuine anger in his voice.

Oshirus was silent.  Enke and Ishtar turned quickly to their stations, so as not to incur the legendary wrath of Enlil.

Enlil collapsed into his chair and continued to stare at the display.  The entire group appeared to be deep in shock and thought.  Enlil wanted to retch his lungs out at what he was looking at, but he had to maintain composure or EVERYTHING was lost.

After a very long while, Enlil stirred and looked around at the small group that appeared to be the last survivors of Helios.

"We need to survive," he said, as if trying to convince himself.  "Can we breed with those creatures?"

Enke spoke up when no one else did, "According to what I'm seeing here, Tiamatians were already doing that.  Apparently, their city was a massive brothel, to put it mildly."

Rage appeared in Enlil's eyes, but he choked it back painfully.  "Get a team together and get as many breeding pairs as you can find.  Collect DNA from every land species you can.  Don't worry about the water creatures.  What's the story on the water ice?"

Oshirus cleared his throat, "According to calculations, it will reach Terra in roughly five months, eleven days, by local reckoning.  The amount I estimate to reach the surface will inundate all dry land.  It'll be a holocaust by any measure."

"We need help.  Save as many of the chimera species as you can.  We'll re-engineer the land animals after the flooding receeds.  We'll need seed from all the food-bearing plants, as well.  We don't have much time, so hop to it," Enlil said robotically.  He was running on pure instinct at the moment.  "Start designing a power plant using only local .materials.  I don't want to scavenge the ship, if we can possibly help it.  Did we lose anyone in the crash?"

"No, sir.  We have full compliment of 600," Enke reported automatically.

"Step to it, then."
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To be continued...

Why Worry About Facts?

"Do you want to accompany me go to the chruch?" she asks in the standard Englishnesian syntax.

Can't think of anything I would less like to do, frankly. Two hours of hellfire and damnation speeches interspersed with over-loud rock-beat music and people speaking some kind of jibberish sold as 'the language of the angels.' Just doesn't appeal to me, especially since they generally completely mangle the facts.

"But it's Christmas," she protests.

Exactly. One of the most fact-deprived holidays of the christian calendar.

"It's Jesus' birthday. You must go to church," she protests.

Ah, just the opening I was hoping for. I love it when people step in the middle of their own ignorance. She's holding her modern mistranslation of previously mistranslated versions of The Book. I ask if I may see it.

I flip to Matthew. Ah, here it is...the shepherds were tending their flocks in the firlds when angels appeared in the heavens. I avoid the temptation to go into the validity of UFO sightings in biblical times and stick with the facts.

So, Jesus was born on December 25th, right?

"Yes, of course," she confidently replies.

I open Google and search for average weather patterns in Israel, a country which did not exist 2,000 years ago. Just as I suspected. December is the coldest, wettest and windiest month of the year. What damn fool shepherd would be tending his flocks in the fields in the dead of winter? But just to be sure, I look up current weather conditions in Bethlehem, a city which did not exist 2,000 years ago. Hmmm...10C, which is what? 50F, with a chance for rain. Sounds like perfect camp-in-the-field-with-sheep conditions to me.

"Things were different back then," she protests.

Oh, so global warming has made the region colder in the last 2,000 years? A familiar argument. Al Gore's been using it also. I understand. It's difficult when facts get in the way of a good story. So I click over to Roman fastivals, since Rome was around 2,000 years ago.

Would ya look at that...December 25th is the Roman fastival of the Birth of the Invincible Sun God. Gee, do you think there's a connection? After all, every modern christian faction is a break-away from the ROMAN church, which is a vestige of the ROMAN empire, which celebrates its rituals in basilicas, which originally were ROMAN indoor markets.

I'm just sayin'.

She has that blank look on her face that tells me that, like most christians, she has already turned off and tuned out. Most people don't want to hear facts that get in the way of fun fairy tales. But, I'm on a roll here.

So I launch into how Buddha and Mohammad were actual historical figures, whose lives are independently documented. Even Hinduism has evidence that their panteon may be based on actual, historical people and events millions of years ago, though the jury is still out. Christianity, however, requires one to take on faith that there was someone named Yeshua, who was a carpenter by trade, and who, at the age of 30, changed the world, leaving not a single historical trace of his existance.

However, there are remarkable similarieties between his story and a much older one, the story of Osiris, Isis and Horus. It's all there: virgin births through miraculous means, death and resurrections (using trees and 3 days, no less), betrayers (Seth), physical ascentions into heaven, all of it. There's even the strange way that Egypt keeps popping up in the whole Gospel storyline, not to mention numbers like 3, 13, 33 and so on.

It's still early and I haven't had enough coffe yet, so I avoid getting into the whole discussion on the etimological similarities between the names Osiris and Jesus, or the wine and bread rituals used by Egyptians and christians alike.

I really didn't want to get into Amun Ra, the highest of all Egyptian gods, the father Sun, whose name is used by many major religions when imploring the deity for favors. "Amen," "amin," "ohm," nearly everyone says, after they pray fro victory or wealth or another man's stuff. Nor did I want to get into the whole symbolism of the single eye of Amn Ra, or the All-Seeing Eye, or even the Indonesian word for "sun," matahari, which literally means 'eye of the day.'

She was still blankly staring at me, waiting for my response. Facts had completely unphased her. It's always the same argument. You have to make a leap of faith. You have to clear your mind and accept Jesus into your heart. And really, that's the problem. I can't turn off my rational mind and just swallow fairy tales as truth, especially when someone wants my hard-earned money to tell me that I'm a sinner for not following blindly in just the right way.

Nor can I accept religion. To me, it's just pro sports writ large. This team against that team. these players are stronger than those players. Killing millions to prove that this fairy tale is 'mo betta' than that one.

I can't believe that three gods are really just one. I can't believe that peace comes through war. I can't believe that love is proved by hate. I can't believe that law is established through chaos. My mind refuses to accept that black is white. I even have a hard time suspending disbelief at the movies. All I see up there is special effects, actors, lighting, camera angles, propaganda.

A control system is a control system, no matter how benign it purports to be. I do not follow. i do not lead, for that matter. I just present facts, research and think. Then I act on what I find.

I sure as hell don't want to be berated, sung to and babbled at for two hours, then asked to pay for the priviledge.

She was still waiting for my answer, as if my 38 minute diatribe had simply not occured.

OK, if it makes you happy, I'll go with you.

"Good, go take a bath," she ordered.

Now them's fightin' words.