Tevun-Krus #50

Prime Contact - @JJMarmite

While the probe in orbit had done a fine job of analyzing from above, it had been unable to get an up-close look at the natives. The obelisks had no such problems – the first to reach it was dragged screaming into its Interaction Aperture and instantaneously dissected and examined, the fine detail of its body chemistry immediately stored and spread across the network for greater use. Activating in built meme-broadcasters – the kind normally reserved for forcing the unwary and unprepared to purchase products they didn't truly want - the obelisks communicated with the terrified masses before them, speaking directly to their minds with the voice of an angry god.

They told the masses that they demanded tribute, and if they were not obliged then their wrath would be terrible. They told them that they required wood and iron, and in copious amounts. Filled with fear the masses did as they were told, bringing ton upon ton of lumber and iron and heaping it before the obelisks. Of course, their in-built matter-processors could make use of anything, but symbology was important – it heightened drama. Hoovering up the offerings the obelisks sat silent momentarily before spewing out arms and armour in abundance; swords, spears, shields, chainmail, axes, bows and more besides – enough to arm a nation. Speaking again to the minds of the masses, each obelisk gave a clear and clarion command:

"Take up my weapons and go forth to slay all that may oppose you. Kill the followers of the false-obelisks and claim their land for your own. Raze their cities and plunder their riches, until only you, the rightful ones, rule!"

The masses could only obey. And so the wars began.

This was where most of the viewing public back on Earth agreed that the show started to get really good. The sheer amount of cameras meant that every battle could be viewed in glorious detail, with the media-consumer at home able to decide which angle suited their mood best. Most opted for screen-in-screen-in-screen-in-screen; overloading their senses and allowing them to drift happily into a daze. The early battles were bloodied, crazed affairs with each side assured of their victory as favoured servants of a higher power. Once it became clear that no-one side had a clear advantage over the other, things started to slow down slightly and the rather more thoughtful second season could begin.

Years had passed by this point – with many at home dying in front of their screens, refusing work, sleep or food if it meant having to abandon their viewing – and the obelisks had become part of the fabric of life on The Set. Cities had long since sprung up around them, great castles constructed next to them. The obelisks had narrowed their focus down to arbitrarily selected families, creating dynasties that ruled without question and who they would only communicate with.

Every so often the obelisks would start to communicate with other natives, telling them that it was they who were the true leaders chosen to rule over their people, leading to bloody internecine rivalry and warfare that the viewing public lapped up. The politicking was almost as satisfying as the bloodshed that invariably resulted. All the while, the weaponry was churned out, and it was advancing. Already the battlefields of The Set were thick with the smoke of gunpowder as batteries of mighty cannons exchanged fire with one another, ranks of musket-armed soldiers firing and dying in droves.

Meanwhile, hordes of writers deep in the bowels of AEI's extensive Creation Suite toiled endlessly, experimenting with the possibly ways to escalate. They needed bigger and better spectacles to keep the viewers interested and argued ceaselessly over how best to do this. The guns grew bigger and bigger, open battlefields giving way to the churned and muddy hell of trench warfare as enormous howitzers spat shells the size of buses across miles of blasted wasteland, killing scores with each mighty detonation. On Earth, Prime Contact was declared to be an official religion, though no-one could remember asking for it to be.

At the obelisks secret insistence, dissent started to spread through the nation of The Set: rumours that the obelisks were not as benevolent as they purported to be. Those who expressed such sentiments were ruthlessly hunted down and punished, but their numbers were swelling and soon vicious civil war blossomed across the planet, every moment captured in glorious ultra-definition. Someone proposed broadcasting in 3D but was immediately shot through the lungs for making such a barbaric suggestion.

But then tragedy struck! Viewer numbers looked like they might dwindle. Even though it was reported that everyone on the planet was watching Prime Contact at all times – with some having had implants so they could watch it while in their sleep; a measure necessitated by health and safety concerns – it was feared that the audience could not grow anymore. Efforts to get people who had yet to be conceived to watch were proving frustrating, and so it was decided to draw the series to a close. The obelisks – sending out waves of morbid, doom-laden eschatology – started to produce weapons capable of the most untold destruction and the war-addled inhabitants of The Set did not hesitate to use them.

Huge chunks of the formerly pristine planet were blasted with huge blasts of radiation, fused to glass by the heat and rendered uninhabitable. Broadcasts became slightly trickier as the atmosphere was suffused with electromagnetic interference and a nuclear winter descended. The signal was boosted at the cost of many a tumour at AEI Broadcast Central so that the last, tortuous, heart-wrenching moments of life on The Set could be caught on ultra-extreme-close up; the choicest printed on t-shirts for posterity. Soon, there was nothing left to film.

There was pandemonium across earth. It was the end of a three-hundred year institution. The riots tore apart cities and millions were left bereft and gormless, unable to comprehend of a world without Prime Contact. Mr. Red – having been dead for a hundred and fifty years – was hastily dragged back to the land of the living and all the leaders of the world pleaded with him to commission a fresh series. Stroking his fleshless chin with skeletal hands he sat in contemplation for hours before finally nodding.

Yes, they could have first contact again. And this time, it would be even better.