Tabby's Star had drawn the attention of humans with the observation of odd shifts in the pattern of orbiting planetary behaviour too late to realize that it was indeed a civilization in post planetary stage. The megastructures had been a cluster of Interstellar colonization craft docked to a vast dyson-mesh shipyard. They had already launched a thousand colony ships across the great empty with knowledge of every habitable world including earth. They had mastered the technology necessary to harvest stellar hydrogen and three dee print vessels that were of sufficient mass to induce artificial gravity. Gravity Decks were a promising future. Unfortunately what little research had been undertaken was insufficient for human need. We needed to leave with as much as we might carry and abandon our home. Instead we were trapped on an island and the future masters of our domain had been enroute in the sufficiently great time Seven billion idiots had wasted arguing the correct protocol when genuflecting before their already overdue god. It would do no good to argue the point. They were already looking to be enslaved and indoctrinating the next generation into grovelling before their future owner. The loss might even have been considered a tragedy.
But before we advance to the sight of big dumb objects in space showing up in earth orbit to take our stuff lets look at Roland. Roland is a drunk. He was at one point a priest but he had seen the hipocracy of his flock, their loathing for equality, democracy, and the right of others to freedom from their neighbours impositions, and walked out mid morning prayer.
"You are all getting what you deserve." He was quite sure that included himself but wasnt at all interested to much self reflection incase he didnt like what he might see. Slack jawed children gaped at him, mouth open in a confused realization that it probably was the appropriate time to talk in church, but lacking experience or bravery, remained seated and quiet as the drunk priest stumbled past the parishners and out the door.
"Fuck!" The unexpected cry of a man in the last moments of self discovery roused the parishners from their seats and forced them to leave behind the sheltering sweatbox they had with their long suffering loved ones prayed in for decades. They found him at the drivers side door to his car that had been boxed in. His hand held a broken car key that had aparently snapped off in a lock. The realization that the car was boxed in against the church by the cars of a dozen parishners and could go nowhere but through the wall of that church may or may not have gone unnoticed by the Universe.
Roland dropped the keys and walked toward the farm field behind the church and on reaching a drainage ditch, Roland stumbled and fell down. The global warming that somehow wasnt happening was already causing everyone a degree of discomfort that made them regret not having remained in the sweatbox of a church or at least planted a few trees for shade.
A cloud appeared blocking out sunlight and providing some degree of shade.
Roland screamed the bad word again from the ditch before struggling to his feet. A breath in and out calmed him. Roland walked back toward the sweatbox.
"All right. Everyone back in church." Roland walked past his followers waving his hand in the air.
It became immediatly apparent that the sweatbox of a church was now warmer than outside beneath a still darkening sky.
Satisfied that everyone was again seated Roland cleared his throat.
"As I lay in the ditch out back, angry at myself for not having left earlier in that rather terrible heat, I, as one might expect of a man looking for the attention of that ultimate parent as a pissed off child throwing a tantrum on the ground, chanced to look up." Roland looked around at the Parishners. They obviously hadnt seen it.
"I looked up and I saw a great dark thing passing in front of the Sun. I thought it might be an eclipse but it wasnt the Moon. No. It was UFO." Roland paused for a moment. It had definatly grown much darker in the little time they had been within the church. A few of them scowled at him as though they had just realized he was on whatever drug it was that had indeed laid their hypocracy bare at the hands of a drug addled hypocrite. It had however become so dark that the Sun only revealed itself at the horizon. A slight tremor shook the world and did not abate. Roland nodded.
"No...there is no point in getting from your seats and running and hiding. The day has come. I could tell you that God had chosen you to be amongst the few to be spared what is yet to befall us all but that would be a lie...so I will leave you with this: In the early years of this nation, when it became aparent that the natives stood between us and the resources that would build this nation it was deemed, perhaps without some vote, or simple rubber stamp decision, but rather a grim acceptance, neccesary to push aside these peoples and take their land. The day has come and you are the disposessed natives." Roland again descended from his oratory and walked outside. There on the horizon sunlight journied toward the church. He turned and watched as the great discus turned until it loomed as a wheel of a disc plough and dug into the earth in a terrible quake until the wheel buried itself to half its diameter still towered skyward beyond the clouds. A shockwave of debris rolled outward.
Lights began at the edge of the wheel and tumbled down that edge to below the horizon. The lights appeared at the top and fell toward the horizon with increasing repetition.
"Okay." It was moving slowly...but it was definately moving. A big deep trench would now be cut across the world by a big ass wheel. Roland walked toward the back of the church, located the lawnchair in the shade, and took a seat.
The streak of a missile came in from over the horizon and impacted agsinst the edge of the disc. A flash of nuclear fire seemed minuscule against the great alien plough.
Idiots. Roland dug for a beer bottle in the dirt and discovering one, cracked the lid off and drank. It was cool. Roland looked again at the slowly moving alien plough.
The end would take longer than anyone was prepared to tolerate. Roland closed his eyes. He would chance it and get some rest.
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