The day the Al-Ians arrived I was locked away in my cuboffice putting the
finial touches on a new vid-play. Well, new isn’t exactly how I would
describe it, more like adding newness to an otherwise stale rehash.

You see, I was one of 50 content reproducers, for the Global Entertainment
Konzern or geek as we old-timers called it. An inside joke that was all but
lost on the 20 odd Bildung-newbies that were there to carry on after us,
old-timers, finally left.

I was the head content reproducer, which meant that I had the joyless task
of delegating prefab vid-plays for review. On the upside though my name
actually appeared in the credits of all broadcasts, after, of course, the
programmers, consultants, hardware-software guys, etc..

I had been working on the 9th permutation of twilight zone, which the
overseers had promised would be the last. As it was explained to me, the new
digi-synth Rod Serling would make any future editions too contrived, too
artificial, too much like what we had been doing for the past 40 years; of
course, they said the same thing about star-trek TOS.

I had just changed some real time dialect discontinuities, for distribution
to our customer base in greater Macedonia. The ethno-cultural differences in
certain regions still presented a bit of a problem for the studio-AI;
Subsequently, a weekly review of intended broadcasts was a must do for the
overseers. And as it is, this is one of the main tasks of yours truly.

Reconstituting divergent dialog was considered the cream-gem of tasks, as it
did offer some room for creativity. I guess being the head staff writer does
have some perks and well, some responsibility too.

The mission statement-guarantee of G. E. K. 100% Entertainment 100%
Satisfaction or 100% money back, contained a bit of irony that was lost on
most. The nominal 5 euro dollars that each home pays per month falls under
the “Use” clause in the global treaty on trade adopted by the Sengress in
2063. But, normally we don’t invoke this right, it is much easier to just
credit the account for the period of complaint. But, there was this one
incident of course were a Bildung-newbie allowed a docudrama on beef
cultivation to be sent to a Hindi-home.

Needless to say they were not satisfied. Actually, they were able to gather
over a million protestors. The issue was finally settled when G.E.K promised
free Vids for the next 10 generations of the family and free life time Vids
for the rest of the protestors. On the other hand they had to accept our
offer, they really were left with no alternatives you see, we are after all,
a global subsidized monopoly.

As for the Bildung-newbie he was forced to issue a public apology and then
was transferred to the “uncensored” department which specializes in
programming for those customers that like their vids au natural, whatever
that means.

So, as I said, the day the Al-Ians arrived I had been working on some
divergent dialog that the studio AI had missed. I had been watching the last
few seconds of the Vid-play when the Global News Networks Halo-cast replaced
Mr. Serling in mid sentence with a composite image of 32 different
locations: Mostly iconographic landmarks, the bombed-truncated Eiffel tower
(ever a reminder of French defiance during the terror-wars) the Washington
DC memorial nature reserve (another example of political wit, as the 500
square kilometers that it comprised was actually evacuated due to some
weaponized germ, (again a product of the terror-wars) the Sengress building,
standing, phallic as ever in the middle of lake Constantine and so on.

Now I must admit, my first thought was one of my colleges had played a
somewhat intricate joke; but a quick glance around the room proved that it
could not be a joke, as every vid-play had been replaced with the same
disturbing images. Alternating, zipping through every capital, every major
megalopolis: even to the antique floors of the Dumas, The US Senate
Memorial, the Bundestag, the British Parliamentary building.

All these capital images, random or not, were linked together by what seemed
to be two, arbitrary but apparently not, men. Here I use the term “men”
loosely, as the two were not properly speaking, homo-sapiens nor were their
sex even that of the masculine nature.

The first “type” later to be renamed “AL” resembled an extremely tall man at
least 3 meters. It was completely naked outside of the brown fur which
covered the entire body. There had been some sort of bandolier crossing its
chest too, but that was pointed out later when we realized who they were.

The second type, the “Ians” I recognized immediately. Though I must admit my
jaw did do a double take, it was none other then “Kirk” captain from the USS
Challenger. I recognized him right away, because I had been one of the
divergent dialogue editors/ reproducers on the last broadcast of the series.
Incidentally, this was before we changed the term to divergent dialect
editors. We had not been global yet.

Obviously, the sudden appearance of these two characters caused considerable
mayhem. People, our customers, reacted, like a scared herd-Thankfully, the
scared herd did the most safe thing, and that was to rush home to watch
events unfold- (via our network of course). Well, technically, not all of
them tuned in to our network, that is the G.E.K network. Several million
tuned into the Faith network, which, though legally an independent not for
profit, news organization; is heavily staffed with our retired content
reproducers.

It took the Sengress a couple of days to come to terms with what was
happening and what had been demanded; well, I should say, it took the
bureaucracy a couple of days, the Sengress at the same moment as everyone
else, had been spoken to directly, a simple explanation was given for their
sudden appearance; which means that the brightest of our scientists are
still trying to figure out exactly what they meant. And a simple request was
made.

In a coconut-shell, they said that they were emissaries from a higher
dimension , which for lack of a better term, we might call a higher mirrored
dimension. Most of the physical laws were the same, but some of the needs
were radically different; and, some of their desires even more radically so.
An example being what they asked of us, or rather, what they demanded of us.
They wanted a complete archive of all SF that the world had ever produced.
(most of us had to look up the term SF- as we only used the abbreviation SE
which everyone knows is Science Entertainment. Apparently, some time ago-
there had been a term SF- which had stood for Science Fiction, which, I
guess made the difference between “science” and “fiction” as if all science
had not been a fiction of sorts.

Well, these projected representative emissaries from a higher mirrored
dimension, had made their demands, quite politely in retrospect; but as we
all know, there are no boundaries to human conceit.

The First thing the Sengress had done was to declare war against these
Al-Ians The declaration of war lasted all of about 3 hours, until it was
pointed out be the Global Peace Korp, that declaring war against these
emissaries, would be akin to a square declaring war against all cubes, or
perhaps lines; in the end, there just would be no point in the endeavor.

In addition to the apparent absurdity, The Academy of Life Konzern and the
Ministry of Internal Education had been merged in the not so distant past,
to form ALKaMIE; which, goes to say, as with all mergers, there had been
budget restraints, cost cutting measures, redundancies and overhead
optimization. These measures ended up in the dissolution of the theoretical
intermission department. Which of course meant, that there were maybe 50
people left of the planet that could even prove that these Al-Ians even
existed, let alone find a way to go to war with them.

So, the Sengress had been humbled, well, sort of. Leave it up to a
professional oligarchy to bargain with the devil over the temperature in
hell; they managed funnily enough to get some concession out of the AL-Ians.
In exchange for the gathering and transference of all earths SF into a few
hyper-cubes, (by yours truly and the G.E.K team) and sending it with them,
or rather through them; they would give all the “science” they had to us.
(which means, to the Sengress)

The 50 odd theo-scientists were elated, dreams of a new career filled their
minds. However, the question that eluded most of Sengress, and thankfully,
most of our customers, had been the eternal- why? ( We really do not want
our audience to ask why- it makes marketing a lot harder.) -but, well, the
question still remained.

Why would these AL-Ians want all of earths SF? Why would they appear out of
no where, demanding we fill their hyper-cubes with the complete works:
millions upon millions of stories, both short and long, hours upon hours of
viewing (even old formats) and halo-casts. Why would they want all of this?

Well, we got the answer in short order.

It was after we had filled their first hyper-cube with what we had collected
of our “science fiction” that they returned (granted with less pomp, as they
now knew where the seat of power lain) and formally introduced themselves.
It is important to remember, that up until this point, they were referred to
as “them” and not Al-Ians.

The captain Kirk doppelganger introduced “himself” as Ian R. MacLeod, which
at the time meant nothing to the Sengress or to our audience. The fur
covered fellow introduced himself as Alexander Belyayev. Both of these names
were to be discovered later as borrowed from long past “Science Fiction”
writers. (I keep using quotes for Science Fiction writers, as it still seems
such the anachronism and foreign to use.)

After formal introductions they apologized for not being clearer in their
first encounter: as they hadn’t had the means to express themselves
correctly. It was within the first installment of our SF that they had
garnered the correct norms and customs to appear in a more favorable light.
Again, this struck most of as odd: as we hadn’t noticed much in the way of
“weirdness” outside of the simple fact that the Al-Ians had appeared
everywhere at once.

The Kirk like character came to the point after a few more apologies and
said: If we had known, that you were unaware of what you were doing, we
would have come in a more discreet way. (this last statement still bothers
me, as there seems to be something ominous in it)

“You see,” the Kirk like character continued, ” We demanded all of your SF
because we enjoy it and it is a fundamental part of our economy. In fact, if
it weren’t for the myriads of universes that you have created through your
fiction, we would have no place to spend our vacations. We believed,
incorrectly, that you were aware of this and had decided to discontinue the
universe creation process. So, in a measure to save our economy and save
ourselves from immense boredom, we decided to take it upon ourselves to “go
into the business” as I believe you would say. “

At this point in his speech, there was not a face in the world that hadn’t a
look of total bewilderment. Creating universes through our fiction? Uh ?
what was that supposed to mean? Well, to put it simply, (and that is what I
am best at),the crux goes thus: When we create SF we create new universes
pre-populated with what we would call fictional characters, technology,
planets ideas – essentially the whole lot. And of late, because well, why
create when we can rehash, we had stopped creating new universes. Being
multi-dimensional beings, they were avid consumers and subsequently needed
new universes about ever 20 years. And the cessation of creation, was
understood as basically a trade embargo. Which, the Al-Ians were more than
ready to go to war over. (again, the cube declaring war on a circle metaphor
fits here, as we now believe they could no more go to war with us, as we
with them.) As for the “science” that the Sengress had demanded, the Kirk
like character sadly informed the world that the technology would not be of
any use as it was designed and only operated in their mirrored universe.

However, if the Sengress were willing to renegotiate the terms of the
original contract, they would: in exchange for our continued creation of SF
universes return first Lieutenant Felix Moncla and Second Lieutenant Robert
Wilson who had disappeared in 1953 when their United States Air Force F-89
Scorpion was scrambled from Kinross Air Force Base and Glenn Miller the
popular American jazz musician and bandleader, who in 1945 had been en route
from England to France to play for troops in recently liberated Paris. Now,
the first two were easily identified as they had been the subject matter of
a few vid-plays produced in the early teens; however, this Jazz musician,
was a lot harder to track down. It seems, about hundred years ago, there was
a music form called Jazz: and this man had been some kind of leader.
Nowadays, studio AIs produce all music according to a prescribed algorithm;
thus eliminating the need for any human involvement.

Well, the Sengress took this “exchange” as a threat, and quickly agreed to
the terms, without the exchange of these long lost men. (The Al-Ians also
hinted that there were more of these types that could be returned) The
Sengress reasoned that it would be a threat to their power base and the
current world status-quo if these people from long lost ages were to be
returned: Hence, the understanding of “threat” and the acquiescence to the
modified terms.

So, it is with this I a humble state servant and content producer submit a
“truthy” account of the Al-Ians. Under article 194.52 of the Sengress
mandate to resume SF production according to the Global Trade Commission and
Mirrored Universes. It is with great hope, that this first piece of SF to
leave our collective minds fits and entertains our new audiences.

Justin F. Paxton.

Executive Content Producer and Divergent Dialog Editor.