literature

Will the Real Martian/Venusian Please Stand Up?

Deviation Actions

QuantumBranching's avatar
Published:
5.5K Views

Literature Text

In 2011, things are quite peaceful. Human population growth has leveled off and will probably peak at a bit over six billion. Fusion and solar power have replaced coal and oil. The third world is making great strides towards catching up with the developed nations. There are no wars…


Unknown at the time to humanity, the Earth was invaded by Venusians starting in 1959: equally unknown, a Martian invasion was beaten off by said Venusians in 1961. Able to take on human form (save for their hypnotic third eye, invisible when closed), the Venusians were able to walk unnoticed among humanity (and if anyone noticed them, they after all could just mind-zap them).

Not that from the human point of view it was that bad an invasion: the Venusians had no interest in devouring humans, laying eggs in them, or carrying off their women. They simply wanted a little elbow room: Venus was crowded, after all. And they liked human cuisine, and the quaint, primitive lifestyle. (Also, the Martians planned the utter extermination of humanity, so in some ways the Venusian invasion was a definite plus).

Things like ID or social security cards were hardly a problem: after all, super-hypnosis meant that the humans would be sure they had seen proper ID before. As for money, well, Venusians just got jobs – it wasn’t like any human professions were a serious challenge for Venusians, and usually only required the attention of one of their three brains, so the other two could concentrate on more amusing things or chat telepathically with other Venusians. (Well, there were some exceptions: Venusians avoided jobs involving teaching poetry or designing women’s fashions, for instance).

Early flybys of Venus showed nothing but clouds, of course. However, temperature readings indicated a habitable, if hot, planet.

The Cuban Missile Crisis, as OTL, passed without any nuclear exchanges: the fact that two men sat quietly in the corner of rooms in the White House and Kremlin (everyone was sure they were supposed to be there, although not exactly why) may or may not have had anything to do with it.

In 1965, Mariner 4 abruptly stopped transmitting, still too far from Mars to transmit back clear pictures. Given how many other probes had failed already, nobody was particularly surprised. The similarly abrupt loss of seven more probes, Soviet and US, between then and 1970 did begin to look a bit suspicious.
Venera 3 descended into the Venusian atmosphere: to the disappointment of those receiving its transmissions, the lower atmosphere was highly toxic and the surface apparently barren and lifeless. It would not be much later that people would take note of the brief interruption in signal once the probe entered the atmosphere. Similarly, the discovery of lakes of acid by later probes, geologically improbable as they were, would not be correctly interpreted as a case of overegging the pudding until considerable time was past.

Birthrates dropped off sharply by the late 60s: humans talked about demographic transitions: Venusians just didn’t want the planet to get too crowded. After all, they had come for the elbow room not available to 50 billion Venusians back home.

In May of 1970, astronomers were surprised to see Venus’s atmosphere fluoresce with odd colors, a previously unobserved phenomenon. Debates were still ongoing as to whether this was an electrical phenomenon or something to do with Venus’s innumerable active volcanoes a week later, when the learned debate was quite driven out of people’s minds by Mars blowing up.

(The Venusian-Martian war was a short one).

Many people, noting the previous disappearance of Mars-bound space probes, came to the conclusion that Mars was inhabited by some form of advanced intelligence which had managed to blow itself up through the misuse of atomic power. Many moralizing speeches and tracts were issued by professional bloviators. Others less convinced in either aliens or the wickedness of atomic energy suggested that it was a natural phenomenon, which led the panicky sector to demand from their Congressmen fast action on determining whether the Earth was in any danger of blowing up. The fervently religious interpreted it as a sign of the coming apocalypse, and suggested that other planets might also explode some time soon. The Soviets blamed it on Martian capitalists.

Those who suggested an interplanetary war, noting the odd appearance of Venus and its return to normal after the shattering of Mars, were in most cases considered to be of the “kook” genus.

Fortunately, Mars had not blown up with enough force to throw asteroids across the inner solar system, most of its mass remaining in close proximity by virtue of their mutual gravitational attraction. Enough little bits got away to give earth some spectacular meteor showers over the next few years, although as of 1980 the only person to be killed by a chunk of Mars was one Mr. Rakotomalala of Madagascar, whose humble residence was hit by something the size of a medium briefcase.

There was a bit of a panic of course among those convinced that the explosion of Mars had been the product of alien science: Martian refugees might be among us even now! Flying saucer sightings soared, and several “odd” people suffered violence at the hands of suspicious neighbors. Some Venusians found themselves in sticky situations it took all three brains to get out of (a Venusians’ hypnotic powers will only work on a limited number of people at once) although none were killed or convincingly exposed.

Space travel was given a temporary boost, although since now Mars was a cloud of hot rubble and Venus was toxic and eruption-prone, it was a bit hard to see where to go next now that the Moon had been reached.

Venus had received considerable damage from the Martian Q-Ray attack, losing nearly a third of its population and suffering considerable induced radiation. Large portions of Venus had to be evacuated while decontamination procedures were undertaken: some of the temporary evacuees chose to move to Earth…

As it simply became impossible to keep so many undocumented Venusians going around working, paying taxes, and buying stuff without someone in the government bureaucracy noticing something was very, very wrong with the numbers, the Venusians were forced, initially piecemeal, and eventually in force, to take over the functions of governments. The US census of 1980 was the last one taken by human beings, and to say it was largely fictional is to be polite.

And of course the general public could not help note the increasing numbers of people with bizarre tastes in music, a fondness for greasy food and swimming pools, often obscure antecedents, friendly enough but uninterested in dating outside of their own little circles or in most social activities outside of work: subtle commonalities, but noticeable after a while. Sometimes it seemed oddly difficult to remember when they had moved in, as if they had always been around.

There were the Panics of the 80s, as people with a grasp of What Was Happening tried to alert the general populace by radio or TV or newspaper: unfortunately, there were Venusians on the staff of pretty much every important news service by that time, so such efforts generally ended up being short lived and local. There were a number of local riots and uprisings: largely futile, given the advanced technology available to Venusians as well as their formidable hypnotic abilities (a Venusian portable force-field is proof against any impact or explosive force of less than blockbuster level).

Due to the nature of Soviet society, it had been rather easy for the Venusians to take control simply by maneuvering themselves into positions of power: the US elective system was a bit more of a bother, but the US President in 1990 was convinced to be cooperative when it was convincingly demonstrated to him that not only two of his Cabinet members, but ¼ of the population of the US were Venusians by that point. The only countries which required an overt conquest were some third-world nations too craptastic for Venusians to have settled in (there is quaint, and then there is squalid), and then principally because the Venusian equivalent of the SPCA complained about allowing humans to continue living under such ghastly conditions.

In 2011, things are quite peaceful. Human population growth has leveled off and will probably peak at a bit over six billion. Fusion and solar power have replaced coal and oil. The third world is making great strides towards catching up with the developed nations. There are no wars.

Of course, exactly how many people are in the world is unknown to most: censuses haven’t been available to the general public for quite some time. And what percentage of them are human beings is also unknown.

The air is clean, the electrical cars and trains buzz busily along, and if there are an unprecedented number of swimming pools, water parks, and Turkish baths, nobody can really object. The only real problem for ape-descendants is the music coming from houses and stores, which usually sounds like a diseased calliope or bagpipes created by a brilliant sadist. And a lot of the menu selections in the restaurants are a bit…strange, especially since Venusian foodstuffs began being imported in bulk. (And some of them produced locally. See a large greenhouse, odds are good that if you peek in you will see something bloated and pimply and garishly colored swelling monstrously under the glass). But not to worry: there are still many stores that operate principally for a human clientele. (They may be noted for their bone-dry air and overly bright, UV-rich lighting).

One can usually identify a fair number of humans in the streets: many, defiantly, have come to wear yellow arm-bands or scarves identifying themselves (of course, nothing prevents a Venusian from putting one on as a lark). A really fashionable-looking woman is probably human: Venusian females, even after five decades, still have trouble getting the hang of human fashions. Of course, it is harder to identify Venusians: if one wears no yellow mark, one may simply be desirous of avoiding Venusian attention and “blending in” with the Venusians: if one wears sunglasses on a bright day, one may simply be trying to avoid eye damage rather than been born under a perpetually cloudy sky. Venusians generally maintain human form: their back-home forms aren’t the best adaptation for Earth’s dry, sunny but cool environment, and anyway they don’t want to scare the poor terrestrials too badly. One does occasionally see some young, Earth-born Venusians which haven’t quite settled into their forms yet: blue-skinned, webbed fingers, bald heads, etc. Rarely, some first-time tourists from Venus try to put the wind up the humans a bit by breaking out in orange spots or sprouting head-tentacles: this is considered by long-resident Venusians to be a Dick Move.

Humans do most of the grunt work, from plumbing to electrical engineering, although some Venusians still work at basic labor because they find it amusing or in some way enjoyable: one of the first Venusian scouts is still a short-order cook – he likes the work. A lot of Venusians work in administration, planning, ecological remediation, energy production, etc: others work hard on developing “appropriate technologies” allowing for a comfortable lifestyle without removing the primitive aspects that make Earth living so restful and pleasantly quaint. The police forces are all Venusians nowadays, of course: force-screen protected and able to paralyze a suspect at a glance, they are very good at their jobs, as is the Venusian-monitored Justice system: thanks to Truth Machines, the Law is always just, if not always merciful.

Human resistance exists, of course, but it’s not very effective: terrorist organizations have a great deal of trouble avoiding being infiltrated, especially since a Venusian can simply hypnotize people into thinking he or she has always been a loyal member. When you add in spy-rays and 100% effective interrogation methods, and the sheer difficulty of killing a Venusian, it’s no surprise that what violence takes place is usually of a home-cooked variety, and usually ends up killing mostly human beings. The Venusian-controlled (human) news programs [1] never mention such things. And after all, things are better under Venusian rule: all human beings are now equal, nobody goes hungry, Palestine and Israel are unified, and nobody has to stand in line for goods in the USSR anymore. If it weren’t for the increasing suspicion that humans are becoming a minority…

Creative arts have taken a battering as culture confidence has sagged in the face of conquest and an alien culture barely comprehensible. Venusians tend to take a somewhat condescending attitude towards most human culture (although they are fond of Warner Brothers cartoons and the work of Marc Chagall), and downright dislike human music, the performance of which has taken a serious hit. Many public venues have been taken over for Venusian music and other entertainments, simply because Venusians spend more, while playing human music loud in public tends to be illegal under “nuisance” statutes.
Human artists struggle to master Venusian visual arts, but the Venusians tell them they really can’t do it without another eye and four-dimensional sight. Venusian “books”, usually with three interconnected simultaneous plots for each brain, are worse, and human writers have pretty much given up on capturing any of the Venusian market. Cities are increasingly full of buildings where things go on that make humans dizzy, sick or simply utterly befuddled. Human movies about resistance to alien conquerors and overlords do well, though: the audience is usually full of highly amused Venusians.

Few humans go to Venus: if you can afford a ticket, humans are allowed to take passage to Venus, but there’s not much there for them to do, and they tend to sicken in the dense, humid, hot atmosphere, and sometimes get eaten by molds. Many are there, of course, to spy out the secrets of Venusian science. (Many Venusians are aware of this, and find it hilarious).

Few if any Venusians venture into such areas as the Atacama or the Sahara or the Arabian Desert: too dry. Various human communities live there essentially cut off from modern civilization, and therefore from Venusian control: they consider themselves free. They usually don’t cotton on to the fact that what they have can be described as a “reservation” or “protected wilderness.”

For those who prefer the home planet lifestyle and environment visiting Earth, there are now a number of great domed cities, filled with misty cloud and huge, vaguely organic-looking buildings (care was taken to avoid displacing too many humans, and they were generously compensated, including those who had to be rendered unconscious to make them leave. I mean, for instance, Venice was sort of a dump, no?). Humans do not enter these cities, but its inhabitants can sometimes be glimpsed swimming in nearby bodies of water, in their full slimy purple, tentacle-backed, web-footed glory.

Humans of course have tried persuasion and legal approaches to convince Venusians to leave or at least cede them some part of the planet for their own control. Various Venusians have developed some sympathy for their pleas, and there is talk in some quarters of granting them some territory of their own where they can create some sort of civilized society of their own, if it is within their capabilities. Not on Earth, of course: too many Venusians already inhabiting the good bits. The most recent suggestions have been re the Moons of Jupiter: chilly, true, but with some technological help a couple of them would make decent fixer-uppers. The problem is getting the government to move on the issue…

In the meantime, many Venusians are getting a bit tired of Earth. It’s getting crowded, and there are far too many tedious tourists from the home planet pushing to get it “fixed up” and “modernized.” There are the Oceans, of course, which are still thinly settled, but much of it is too deep, too cold, and too high in pressure to make a comfortable home. No, some other planet, perhaps. Mercury is just too hot – perhaps the Moons of Jupiter?

Deep beneath the Mohave, project PHOENIX continues to struggle to develop a means of fighting the Venusians, with limited resources and limited staff. Recruitment is difficult, but it is easier to spot actual humans now – there are things that humans will do that Venusians won’t: if they’ll stay in a bone-dry restaurant until their lips chap, they’re not Venusians. And they’ve developed a defense against Venusian hypnosis, but it’s not too useful outside of the Southwest: the gadget on the top of one’s head requires a ten-gallon hat to conceal…

Somewhere beneath the sands of the Karakum, the SMERVE organization (Death to Venusians) is struggling with its own projects. It would be doing better if human psychics weren't rarer than hens teeth...

Hidden deep under the ice of Pluto’s Moon, the survivors of the Martian Space Forces continue to plot their revenge…

And the Jovians have been watching the wee little planets with rather more interest since the smallest one blew up...

[1] The Venusians have much more effective sources of information.
Based on the Twilight Zone episode: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_the…
© 2013 - 2024 QuantumBranching
Comments2
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
Leopold002's avatar
Was reminded, in part, of a certain movie... with Roddy Piper!