Authors: Bill Diffenderffer
“How long ago was that?” Catherine asked.
“Over three hundred years ago.”
“So where does all our human competitiveness and aggression go?”
“We are an old civilization. Our population is in the millions not the billions. We have no scarcity of resources. We are a world of warriors who don’t fight and philosophers who think they know all the answers – and maybe they do. Our scientists are the only ones actively engaged. Our science is well advanced ahead of yours. They have the universe itself against which to fight their war of wits. The universe surrenders its secrets sparingly.”
Catherine Ozawa listened to Plato tell of a world she could not imagine. “So do you leave it often?”
“For a long time now I have been constantly traveling. I rarely go back for long. I return frequently but still love leaving it more. I still love venturing out. I have traveled across both light-years and across dimensions. And I have found a mission that suits me.”
“And what is that mission?”
Plato refrained from saying the first answer that came to his lips. He found he had already talked to her more than he had intended. It had been a long time since he had talked so freely –and here he was talking unreservedly to a woman he had just met on a beach.
“I think it too soon for me to tell you all. I need to maintain some mystery or you will think too little of me. Let’s just say that like Odysseus I like voyaging under the stars.”
Catherine regarded this tall strong golden haired man with the ancient eyes. “So tell me this. Have you been voyaging long?”
“For some time yes…about 60 years.”
“That is a while. You don’t look old enough for that to be true. How old are you?”
As if consulting an internal clock, he paused then said, “One hundred sixty-three years, eight months and seven days and twelve minutes.”
“Remarkable. You must share with me your secrets to aging gracefully.”
Plato realized it had been a long time since he had felt attracted to a woman; yet here it was. He wondered if he had been seeking it. “Actually, I would like to do that. I’m sure you could, not that you should.”
“We’ll see. But tell me, where were you before you came here?”
Plato stopped walking then, looked at her and then looked out to sea. “Before here I was on a different Earth. An Earth similar to this one – at the same stage of development. I was there for over ten years.”
Catherine could see that Plato’s demeanor had changed – a deep sadness was etched clearly in his face. “Why did you leave?”
“I left because I failed in my mission.” He paused again and continued looking away from her and toward the horizon. “I left because there was no longer a world there. The warring countries blew their world up. Now it will be a centuries-long reclamation project. My heart is too broken to be a part of that.”
Catherine looked closely at Plato and saw past the handsome face to the pain the man carried inside. “I apologize. I have asked too many questions. Let’s just walk.” Without thinking, she took his hand and they walked together. Plato could not remember when last he had walked a beach with a woman hand in hand. He now remembered that he liked it. He was not so old after all.
When later Plato pulled David aside he told him it was important that David be the first one to write what was to appear in the world’s newspapers. He advised David to write up everything he knew immediately. David put his smart phone to record and started asking Plato questions. Plato made no attempt to evade any question or direct how David was to write the article.
When David’s article appeared on the front page of the next day’s Washington Post, it was immediately reprinted across the worldwide news media. The newspapers reprinted his story word for word, but as was the practice, they wrote their own headlines. The Washington Post went for directness.
Other Earths Exist!
By David Randall
[This article is based on an exclusive interview with the Leader of The Object]
The Object is from Earth – just not this one – so says the Leader of The Object. In fact, he says there are many Earths scattered amongst the cosmos. The Leader, who calls himself Plato, says that The Object has come to our Earth on a goodwill and fact finding mission and means us no harm. In fact, Plato says he has come to share with us cultural and technological knowledge that will help us in the future as we learn about and experience a universe that is much more complex and interconnected than our science had led us to believe. We are not only not alone, but we Homo sapiens are spread out into the universe. Our Earth is but one of many Earths which are identical in origin but different in historical development.
After months of silently hovering in the skies of Earth while observing the goings on below, the Leader of The Object came down to the island retreat of Benjamin Planck, the young physicist who previously as reported in this newspaper had been the subject of a worldwide manhunt based on the message from The Object stating it wanted to meet with him. Plato just showed up to meet with Planck and Planck’s guest, Dr. Janus Wheeling, the noted Nobel Prize winning physicist.
When asked why Plato went first to meet with Benjamin Plank and not the leaders of the world’s government, Plato replied, “I will meet with them soon. I wished to first meet with Dr. Planck because it is his work here that led us to this Earth. Plato confirmed that Planck’s work is directionally correct though still rudimentary. Through his work, Planck sent out a ‘calling card’ – so it seemed polite for us to visit him first.” (When asked, Planck stated he had no idea that his work could have such an effect.)
According to Plato, he is from an Earth that developed on a historical timeline that is significantly different from this Earth’s development. Plato’s Earth is no older than our own but its technological and cultural development occurred at a faster pace than that of this world. He pointed out as an example, that on his Earth there was no ‘middle ages’ period where there was almost no technological development for a thousand years. He hastened to add that our Earth is more advanced than some other Earths and that there are other Earths more advanced than his home Earth.
He describes his Earth as one whose historical development was influenced much more by the ancient Greeks of the fourth and fifth Centuries BCE. The cultures of Athens and Sparta thrived far longer on his Earth than on our own. Plato also informed us that the name of the spaceship we call The Object is actually The Bucephalus – named after the horse that carried Alexander the Great to so many victories.
He has come to this Earth, he says, in order to help us get through an era that on other earths has shown to be a particularly deadly period when the destruction of the planet itself is a possibility and the deaths of billions of people a real probability. He points at the recent catastrophic nuclear war in the Koreas as a proof.
He is also here to help us with the myriad challenges imposed by what we will learn to be a very interactive universe. What has thus far seemed to us to be a vast and disinterested universe where we are but a tiny blip of existence, we will learn is actually a universe that invites interconnectedness. Plato says the universe is actually an infinite provider of resources that can empower the growth and prosperity of civilizations. He says Planck’s work is in fact opening the gateway to all that the universe offers.
Plato went on to say that we should expect for representatives of other Earths to soon come calling ….[story continues on page A6]
Back aboard The Bucephalus before his trip to Washington, Plato conferred with Liu Bei, his second in command who had been meeting with China’s senior leaders. The report made by Liu Bei was not heartening though not unexpected. China was the most important of the superpower’s to Plato’s long term strategy but was also thought to be the most intractable. Plato would have liked to take the lead with China himself but reluctantly had agreed that Liu Bei was a better choice because of his common ethnicity. Liu Bei had come from an Earth where their historical line differed from this Earth’s from around the year 1100. In his world China had become transcendent and was the leading geopolitical unit of a model successful Planet.
This China’s historical line was different in significant ways. This China had yet to fulfill what it regarded as its destiny as a nation. For over two thousand years it had out endured all its invaders and learned that its peasant populations would survive any new incursions. The people’s ability to suffer and survive through any chaos was its ineluctable strength. Where its western competitors thought in terms of months and years, China thought in terms of decades and centuries. It had always been patient and now it was confident too.
But the recent annihilation of the two Koreas was very alarming to China’s leaders. Korea was a constant adjunct to all of China’s history and now it was no more. And China knew that it itself had miscalculated and it was bearing the bitter fruits of that miscalculation. Many Chinese had died and more would die from the radioactive fallout. Economic interests were liquidated. The Party itself was in massive reorientation as it dealt with the disaster. The quiet millions of its people were stirring discontentedly.
Liu Bei had selected his name from early Chinese history with the hope that these current Chinese leaders would embrace the subtle compliment, yet it arose no reaction. The Chinese leaders’ focus was so internal and insecure that Liu Bei’s arrival seemed more an inconvenience than an important augury of things to come. He was treated as an unwanted interloper not an ambassador from distant worlds. All of the attention of The Party leaders was on the mighty ocean that was the Chinese People; that ocean was roiled and angry and uncertain. How could the Koreas be gone? What would come next? What new tragedy?
Liu Bei had to report to Plato that he had not succeeded in his mission. He had not even been able to get them to admit that they had discovered the same mentalization as Planck. Worse yet, he reported that in a coming battle, China might well favor the opposing forces. Where they had once thought that China might be their greatest ally, now the opposite might be true. The events that led to the destruction of the Koreas would have societal consequences.
Plato was ushered into the Oval Office by Hank Scarpetti to meet President Morningstar who came out from behind his desk to meet him. In person Plato found the President to be more careworn than what showed in the data library Plato accessed. His posture was not quite as straight and his jet black hair had more than a mere touch of grey. But his smile was warm and engaging even as his eyes seemed restless and uncertain.
The two shook hands and then Plato turned to the other two men in the room, men he recognized as he accessed his data network as the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Then he also saw that General Greene who had brought Plato in to meet Scarpetti had followed him into the office. All the men sat around the small table in front of the large fireplace.
The President spoke first, “I understand that you refer to yourself as Plato. I hope that I may refer to you that way as well. But I’m curious, is that your real name or one you chose for us?”
In the President’s tone as he formed the question Plato saw that it had been rehearsed. It was like moving the king’s pawn in a chess match, a good way to open up the game.
“On my Earth the culture of ancient Greece was far more enduring and admired. Its philosophers are our heroes. My choice of name reflects that. I always find it somewhat disheartening when I find worlds that dismiss philosophy as a mere academic pursuit.”
“And do you find that so on our world?” President Morningstar asked.
Plato demurred, “I am still just learning about your world – and your world has more than one culture. But in your country it does seem to me that your citizens look for self-help in psychology when they would be better served by reexamining their philosophy.”
“I will keep that in mind. And have you been to many Earths, Plato?”
“Yes I have been to many Earths.”
The President paused to reflect on that, then looked at Scarpetti – who nodded. Then he asked, “So why have you come to ours?”
And so it began.
“Mr. President, I presume you have already heard all that I have told General Greene about the risks your world now faces – existential risk.”
The President held up his hand as if talking to one of his staff members. “Yes, I have heard all that you have told General Greene about various probabilities of our Earth’s demise or destruction. With all due respect, I don’t really know how you can determine such things. Yes I know our world is a dangerous place. Even more than my predecessors in this office, I view myself as a caretaker for the world. I do not think it to be in such peril as you do – at least not in so far as the risks originate on this planet. I cannot know as yet what new perils will come to us from other worlds.”