PROMPT: The US military reveals that it's been at war with an advanced alien civilization since the Roswell incident, and its been winning
“That is so much bullshit,” said Freddy, pointing the neck of his beer at the TV hanging behind the bar. CNN was doing its endless around-the-clock coverage trick, a woman anchor dominating the screen above three different scrolling text streams.
The most prominent scroll said, “...United States and its NATO allies today announced victory in a secret war against an alien civiliza...” The TV’s sound was off, the anchor’s words superimposed as captions over the scrolls, the effect one of a good-looking professional woman above a jumble of semi-readable text.
“If it’s a hoax, it’s a pretty good one... I mean, how many people have to be in on it, to make it come off like...” Jimmy, the bartender, was wiping out glasses. It was the middle of the afternoon, and I was pretty sure that Freddy and I were the first customers of the day, just off the morning shift; I wasn’t sure where all the glasses Jimmy was wiping out were coming from; just a nervous tick, maybe.
“Listen,” said Freddy, “I was in the Army for, what...” He looked at me, looking like he was mentally counting on his toes. “Twenty years.” He took a long swig of his beer. “If we were at war with Aliens all that time, like they say, I’d have known it. I mean, I heard of fighting wars and keepin’ it secret from, you know the populace, but how do you fight a war and keep it secret from the Army?”
If there was a secret space war going on, I thought, Freddy is exactly who you wouldn’t tell.
“Way they’re saying it,” said Jimmy, “It’s, like, mostly robots? And what-do-you-call it, cyber warfare? Viruses and shit.”
Freddy banged the beer down on the bar and gestured for another one; Jimmy leaned over and grabbed one out of the cooler, deftly popping the lid off and setting it on the bar.
“That’s what I’m saying,” Freddy said. “That ain’t a war, that’s, like, laser tag, or something. Wasn’t no war, just people fucking around with computers.”
Freddy was a mechanic, made the actual moving-parts bits work on one of the rides at one of the big theme parks, not Disney but one of the other ones. He had the mechanic’s default distrust of silicon; still drove a beater car from the seventies, because he knew how it worked and the knowledge made him more comfortable.
The door opened, quietly, which was a trick in this place: the way the door was situated, in this little gap between buildings, it’d catch the wind and bang open on its own, if you didn’t stop it. Two guys walked in in what looked sort of like Air Force uniforms.
Sort of, but not really: They were almost that same blue, lighter than the navy, almost looked like airline guys. Except that the collars were wrong; the jackets looked like they zipped up; the insignia... were like nothing I’d ever seen before.
They looked around, walked up to the bar; there weren’t that many choices. Jimmy drifted over to stand nearby. One of the guys looked at the other, then leaned close, having some sort of detailed conversation; then...
“Two beers,” he said, holding up two fingers. It looked like he’d learned to order beers in a movie.
“Any particular beer, or...?” Jimmy was already reaching for the Corona, sort of the house beer.
The guy was quick enough to just nod, and Jimmy did his little presentation trick, the lids of the beers somehow disappearing on the journey from cold-storage to the bar top.
“Hey,” I said, “Hey, are you them?” I gestured to the TV with my beer. “The aliens, right?”
The two guys exchanged looks, squared up on me a bit. “We are,” he said, “Rafaelians, yes.” He sounded vaguely Northern European, actually. Swedish, maybe.
“Actually,” the other one said, sounding like “Ectoo-alee,” “We are autonomous software agents, representing the Rafaelian people; our personalities are, ah, simulations, designed to convey... the generalities of Rafaelians, but in a human way...”
“Robots,” said Jimmy.
Finnish space robots, I thought.
“Yes,” said one of the aliens. “Robots.”
“Sound German,” said Freddy. Not one for fine distinctions; all Europeans were either German or French, English people being, in Freddy’s mind, a kind of backwards, pitiable-but-related sort of American.
“We wanted...” The one who’d ordered beer looked past me at Freddy, “We are trying to convey the... foreignness, of who we are, so that we do not seem as though we are trying to... give offense, by pretending to be too... American... but we wanted to be... friendly foreigners. Foreigners that Americans like.”
The pause pattern sounded just like European tourists I’d interacted with, dusting off English they’d learned in high school, fluent but rusty.
“Well,” I said, after a little pause, “Welcome to Earth.” Thinking, they were probably built on Earth, it’s just the software that came from... wherever.
Freddy and me raised our beers in a sort of half-salute, half-toast; after a second, the two alien robots raised theirs in turn.
“What was we fighting about?” Jimmy was back to wiping his glasses.
The aliens both blinked, looking a little surprised.
“Ahm,” I said, “It just made the news yesterday that there even was a war going on, that there were even aliens at all, so... we’re a little bit... in the dark. I mean, you guys seem friendly enough.”
They did, too; they looked like lost tourists.
“It was about trade,” said one of them. “We wished to... to trade, but your Government... did not wish to... to allow the changes, that trade would bring about.” He sounded a little sad about it, like it was just too bad it hadn’t worked out between us.
“Changes?” Jimmy again, looking interested. He would be taking in the alien’s body language, mostly, and just using the words as a way to get them to make more. He liked it when people in his bar interacted, didn’t much care what they said; perfect bartender.
“Ah,” said the alien, “Our economies are not... compatible? Won’t just... plug together, you see? So, there will be, ah, compromise, at first, mechanisms of... of interface? But in the end, the stronger economic system will supplant the, the weaker...”
“And you think yours is stronger.” Freddy, sounding just a tad belligerent about it; he wouldn’t be able to talk about economic strength in any thing but patriotic terms.
“Your government believed it,” said the other alien, “That is why we had a war.”
Freddy was about to say, “Yeah, and you lost, so who’s stronger now?” or something like that, and then the conversation would go off the rails.
“How’s it different?” I said it quickly, getting in before Freddy.
“We have a system based on... on reputation, and information,” said the alien closest to me. He was a little bigger, and a little blonder than his compatriot. He looked pleased not to be talking about strength.
“Reputation,” I said. “Like Reddit, or whatever. Fake Internet points.”
“Like that,” said the bigger alien, “Also, like some of your... your online content sites, where more points are awarded for sharing more? If you are likely to do something interesting, you... can get access to more resources.”
“But you still have points,” I said. “That’s like money. I can just... give someone money, for points, right? And then it’s just money, again.”
“Ahm, it is... more complicated than that.” The smaller alien.
Having recognized the slightly-befuddled-foreigner for the affectation it was, I was finding it a little bit irritating. Felt a little bit proud of that, too, until I wondered if that was a calculated part of the effect.
“If you... trade points for money, everyone will know that you did that, and that will effect your... reputation.” The small alien smiled, looking like he was getting ready to deliver a lecture on a much-beloved subject.
“Everyone will know,” said Freddy. “How?” He was sounding sullen, probably pissed that I headed off his attempt to rah-rah about having won a war he didn’t know he’d been fighting.
“The..” The big alien looked at the smaller alien, and they seemed to communicate for a second. I wondered, remembering that they were robots, whether they were using some sort of radio signals or something, or just the nuance of facial expression.
The big alien looked back at us. “We believe... strongly... in openness? In... everyone knowing what is going on, so that they can make the best decisions? There are... protocols, that enforce this. This is one of the things that we... fought about.”
“We’ve got openness,” said Freddy. “Free press, all that.” He was still sounding like he wanted to get into an argument. I looked up at the TV, the CNN anchor still talking about the suddenly-public victory in a long-secret war.
Jimmy, I noticed, had looked the same direction; so had the Aliens.
Freddy’s face went dark; he thunked his empty bottle on the bar, gave Jimmy a complex look that translated to “I’ll settle up come payday,” and stood. “Welp,” he said, “I’ve got things to do, I’ll see you guys tomorrow.” And off he went, letting the door bang.
“So,” I said, looking back at the aliens, “You guys have sports?”
“That is so much bullshit,” said Freddy, pointing the neck of his beer at the TV hanging behind the bar. CNN was doing its endless around-the-clock coverage trick, a woman anchor dominating the screen above three different scrolling text streams.
The most prominent scroll said, “...United States and its NATO allies today announced victory in a secret war against an alien civiliza...” The TV’s sound was off, the anchor’s words superimposed as captions over the scrolls, the effect one of a good-looking professional woman above a jumble of semi-readable text.
“If it’s a hoax, it’s a pretty good one... I mean, how many people have to be in on it, to make it come off like...” Jimmy, the bartender, was wiping out glasses. It was the middle of the afternoon, and I was pretty sure that Freddy and I were the first customers of the day, just off the morning shift; I wasn’t sure where all the glasses Jimmy was wiping out were coming from; just a nervous tick, maybe.
“Listen,” said Freddy, “I was in the Army for, what...” He looked at me, looking like he was mentally counting on his toes. “Twenty years.” He took a long swig of his beer. “If we were at war with Aliens all that time, like they say, I’d have known it. I mean, I heard of fighting wars and keepin’ it secret from, you know the populace, but how do you fight a war and keep it secret from the Army?”
If there was a secret space war going on, I thought, Freddy is exactly who you wouldn’t tell.
“Way they’re saying it,” said Jimmy, “It’s, like, mostly robots? And what-do-you-call it, cyber warfare? Viruses and shit.”
Freddy banged the beer down on the bar and gestured for another one; Jimmy leaned over and grabbed one out of the cooler, deftly popping the lid off and setting it on the bar.
“That’s what I’m saying,” Freddy said. “That ain’t a war, that’s, like, laser tag, or something. Wasn’t no war, just people fucking around with computers.”
Freddy was a mechanic, made the actual moving-parts bits work on one of the rides at one of the big theme parks, not Disney but one of the other ones. He had the mechanic’s default distrust of silicon; still drove a beater car from the seventies, because he knew how it worked and the knowledge made him more comfortable.
The door opened, quietly, which was a trick in this place: the way the door was situated, in this little gap between buildings, it’d catch the wind and bang open on its own, if you didn’t stop it. Two guys walked in in what looked sort of like Air Force uniforms.
Sort of, but not really: They were almost that same blue, lighter than the navy, almost looked like airline guys. Except that the collars were wrong; the jackets looked like they zipped up; the insignia... were like nothing I’d ever seen before.
They looked around, walked up to the bar; there weren’t that many choices. Jimmy drifted over to stand nearby. One of the guys looked at the other, then leaned close, having some sort of detailed conversation; then...
“Two beers,” he said, holding up two fingers. It looked like he’d learned to order beers in a movie.
“Any particular beer, or...?” Jimmy was already reaching for the Corona, sort of the house beer.
The guy was quick enough to just nod, and Jimmy did his little presentation trick, the lids of the beers somehow disappearing on the journey from cold-storage to the bar top.
“Hey,” I said, “Hey, are you them?” I gestured to the TV with my beer. “The aliens, right?”
The two guys exchanged looks, squared up on me a bit. “We are,” he said, “Rafaelians, yes.” He sounded vaguely Northern European, actually. Swedish, maybe.
“Actually,” the other one said, sounding like “Ectoo-alee,” “We are autonomous software agents, representing the Rafaelian people; our personalities are, ah, simulations, designed to convey... the generalities of Rafaelians, but in a human way...”
“Robots,” said Jimmy.
Finnish space robots, I thought.
“Yes,” said one of the aliens. “Robots.”
“Sound German,” said Freddy. Not one for fine distinctions; all Europeans were either German or French, English people being, in Freddy’s mind, a kind of backwards, pitiable-but-related sort of American.
“We wanted...” The one who’d ordered beer looked past me at Freddy, “We are trying to convey the... foreignness, of who we are, so that we do not seem as though we are trying to... give offense, by pretending to be too... American... but we wanted to be... friendly foreigners. Foreigners that Americans like.”
The pause pattern sounded just like European tourists I’d interacted with, dusting off English they’d learned in high school, fluent but rusty.
“Well,” I said, after a little pause, “Welcome to Earth.” Thinking, they were probably built on Earth, it’s just the software that came from... wherever.
Freddy and me raised our beers in a sort of half-salute, half-toast; after a second, the two alien robots raised theirs in turn.
“What was we fighting about?” Jimmy was back to wiping his glasses.
The aliens both blinked, looking a little surprised.
“Ahm,” I said, “It just made the news yesterday that there even was a war going on, that there were even aliens at all, so... we’re a little bit... in the dark. I mean, you guys seem friendly enough.”
They did, too; they looked like lost tourists.
“It was about trade,” said one of them. “We wished to... to trade, but your Government... did not wish to... to allow the changes, that trade would bring about.” He sounded a little sad about it, like it was just too bad it hadn’t worked out between us.
“Changes?” Jimmy again, looking interested. He would be taking in the alien’s body language, mostly, and just using the words as a way to get them to make more. He liked it when people in his bar interacted, didn’t much care what they said; perfect bartender.
“Ah,” said the alien, “Our economies are not... compatible? Won’t just... plug together, you see? So, there will be, ah, compromise, at first, mechanisms of... of interface? But in the end, the stronger economic system will supplant the, the weaker...”
“And you think yours is stronger.” Freddy, sounding just a tad belligerent about it; he wouldn’t be able to talk about economic strength in any thing but patriotic terms.
“Your government believed it,” said the other alien, “That is why we had a war.”
Freddy was about to say, “Yeah, and you lost, so who’s stronger now?” or something like that, and then the conversation would go off the rails.
“How’s it different?” I said it quickly, getting in before Freddy.
“We have a system based on... on reputation, and information,” said the alien closest to me. He was a little bigger, and a little blonder than his compatriot. He looked pleased not to be talking about strength.
“Reputation,” I said. “Like Reddit, or whatever. Fake Internet points.”
“Like that,” said the bigger alien, “Also, like some of your... your online content sites, where more points are awarded for sharing more? If you are likely to do something interesting, you... can get access to more resources.”
“But you still have points,” I said. “That’s like money. I can just... give someone money, for points, right? And then it’s just money, again.”
“Ahm, it is... more complicated than that.” The smaller alien.
Having recognized the slightly-befuddled-foreigner for the affectation it was, I was finding it a little bit irritating. Felt a little bit proud of that, too, until I wondered if that was a calculated part of the effect.
“If you... trade points for money, everyone will know that you did that, and that will effect your... reputation.” The small alien smiled, looking like he was getting ready to deliver a lecture on a much-beloved subject.
“Everyone will know,” said Freddy. “How?” He was sounding sullen, probably pissed that I headed off his attempt to rah-rah about having won a war he didn’t know he’d been fighting.
“The..” The big alien looked at the smaller alien, and they seemed to communicate for a second. I wondered, remembering that they were robots, whether they were using some sort of radio signals or something, or just the nuance of facial expression.
The big alien looked back at us. “We believe... strongly... in openness? In... everyone knowing what is going on, so that they can make the best decisions? There are... protocols, that enforce this. This is one of the things that we... fought about.”
“We’ve got openness,” said Freddy. “Free press, all that.” He was still sounding like he wanted to get into an argument. I looked up at the TV, the CNN anchor still talking about the suddenly-public victory in a long-secret war.
Jimmy, I noticed, had looked the same direction; so had the Aliens.
Freddy’s face went dark; he thunked his empty bottle on the bar, gave Jimmy a complex look that translated to “I’ll settle up come payday,” and stood. “Welp,” he said, “I’ve got things to do, I’ll see you guys tomorrow.” And off he went, letting the door bang.
“So,” I said, looking back at the aliens, “You guys have sports?”
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