Life On Another Planet

With the news that scientists have found an "Earth like" planet 20 light yrs away, we come ever closer to "first contact". Super Earth found.

I have only one hope for these discoveries, and that is that the first intelligent extra terrestrials we contact say "Religion, what's that? Oh, you mean superstition!" - WOW what a moment that will be, all those beards around the world having to explain to their flocks that "God only exists on Earth", or even, "Well, that's 2,000 yrs wasted!". 

 

In fact lets try and run through a scenario (and this is purely hypothetical for fun):

 

Time Line:

1. The year is 2045. The "War against terror" has turned 'hot' and been raging in the West for 15 yrs, with Islamist regimes from Indonesia to North Africa, (the "Caliphate of the Green Crescent") is attacking "Fortress Europa/Siberia", and counter strikes by the US led "Cross Alliance", under pastor Jed Miguel Bush III, are hitting the Muslim world.


2. US Troops are stationed permanently in Israel and Lebanon, and the "West" is spending most of its money on it's armed forces.


3. The only developed area that is conflict free, is the Pacific rim, under the hegemony of the Nippon/Chinese conglomerate. South America is now in the American Trade & Customs Union, formed in 2030 to counter the Europa/Siberia and Nippon/Chinese conglomerate trade blocks. Africa is a resource client continent to the Nippon/Chinese conglomerate.


4. In 2040, and the NC conglomerate super probe, utilising the new "Quantum Macroscope" technology, is launched to the edge of our solar system and uses "Quantum" beams to broadcast from the edge of the Solar System throughout our local galaxy.


5. In 2045, a reply is beamed back from 20 light years away. A faint star Gliese 581, which is 20.5 light-years away in the constellation Libra, has responded with a signal.


6. Communications are established via translation algorithms, and with the almost instantaneous properties of the "Quantum beams" a regular two way flow of information with only a two month lag develops.

At first the questions are purely scientific, and dominated by the needs and concerns of the NC conglomerate e.g. No, the 'Glieseans' (Or more properly the '*%&*%66"!' - 'Blue skinnys') have not developed interstellar space travel, they too have hit the 'Light speed limits' and in fact have only Fusion powered vehicles, similar to the NC conglomerate vessel that had travelled to the edge of the Sol system.

However, after much communication of a technical nature, the questions move to more historical and philosophical sphere. The history of the Earth, from a NC conglomerate viewpoint are broadcast, and the history of Gliesia (presumably from a 'Blue Skinny' perspective) received. Then comes the bombshell, they have no religion or God, or rather they had had them (but not a monotheistic "Creator" system) in the distant past, but had moved to a scientific/philosophical system of Ethics some hundreds of years ago.

This didn't bother the NC conglomerate because they had no such tradition either, and this vindicated their own systems. At first the rest of the World, engaged as it was in a "Clash of Civilisations" between a Judeo/Christian based morality, and the Ummah Islamic systems, didn't take notice, but then ....

..... they demanded access to the probe, and after some reluctance, the NC conglomerate (who were selling weapons to both sides) allowed it. Teams of theologians representing all the major one god creator religions, had turns sending questions (To a bemused 'Blue Skinny' world), but always the questions were answered the same way "What GOD, who's that? Oh, you mean superstition" .... "We believe in a scientific rational universe".

At last they refused to answer the increasingly more desperate questions, and threatened to break of contacts. The NC conglomerate withdrew the access to the probe. But the answer was out, there was no universal god, no divine creator, no messenger, no prophet, just a lot of men who had been out in the desert sun too long with not enough water. So what were they fighting about?

In the 'Cross Alliance' and its clients, millions turned away from organised religions, and apart from those "diehards" who clung to the old ways, many took up the Confucian/Buddhist/Shinto fusion that was the norm in the JC conglomerate block. In the Caliphate, the news spread less quickly, but in the cities, attendance at the mosques fell away, and violence broke out when mullahs tried to enforce religious observances that had no longer got 'universal divine' backing.

By 2050, the Clash of Civilisations war was over, there just wasn't the will to spill blood over systems that no longer had majority support.....

Well that's how it could go, or maybe not? Alternative scenarios welcome!

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