A Cautionary Tale

“Any fool with a decent internet connection can bring society to it’s knees”
- Oscar Wilde

In a basement somewhere in London a flurry of typing came to an end. Sat in the dark room, with only the light of the monitor a strange looking, green tinged man lit a cigarette, then got up and left – never to be seen again.

Weeks later.
Around Britain many families were sitting down to dinner. In other parts of the world they were doing whatever they did at dinnertime in Britain. Some of these families had turned on the television and some who did that had also tuned in to a news programme.

This is what one news programme said:
“Historians have uncovered evidence that the man heralded as the father of modern physics, Sir Isaac Newton, may in fact have been a wizard. Furthermore, it has been speculated that gravity may not be real and that which we take for gravity may simply be an echo of a vast spell conjured by Sir Isaac hundred of years ago. Historians have expressed concern about the coming of a time when Sir Isaac’s spell wears off and physics disintegrates into what they are calling ‘fib-matter’…”

At this point all televisions stopped working and the world went very silent. This, to many, was excessively eerie, but when this absence of noise was replaced by a growing rumbling all around the world, people began wishing that the silence would come back. Observant onlookers noticed black shapes in the sky.

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Here’s how it happened.

Weeks earlier a boy, a gullible fool named Francis Sandwich, had been researching a science assignment. Now (this is something I say when I am going to instruct you on things you already know). In Francis’ day, in this day – in our day, the internet was a prime source of flawed yet easy to retrieve information. Whilst most researchers worth their salt would opt for more reliable sources, Francis was neither a researcher nor worth his salt. Whilst researching famous physicists Francis uncovered a detail about our dear Sir Isaac that he was previously unaware of. It was such a thrilling detail – or fact as he erroneously renamed it – that it immediately went into his presentation and he wasted no time informing his friends. Anyone who disputed him – and many did – he referred to the internet, because the internet didn’t lie.

By the end of the day this information had reached The London Gale newspaper. Now The London Gale was no penny-dreadful, it was a respected publication, and so, for once, it decided to corroborate its exciting story – and it called a historian.

Professor Wilbur Snelton answered the phone. Now. People are greedy. Professor Snelton was a person and he was greedy, and when he heard of this new groundbreaking discovery he was very eager to claim prior knowledge of it.

“Isaac Newton? A wizard? Yes, I had heard of this. Believe it or not it was me and my people who made this discovery. And, I can give you something which’ll give you an edge over the rags as well!” Snivelled Snelton, thinking on his feet, “What the other papers won’t know is that Sir Isaac liked his closer, wizarding friends to call him Necromancer ‘Doom’ Newton.”

“Get this into the morning edition!” Cried the editor.

Quarter of an hour later an assistant of Professor Snelton, Phillip Catchworth was running along Pleat Street in the winter evening darkness to the offices of The Anchor, a terrible paper with a curiously large readership that would pay for any old rubbish. Now.

The next morning the shelves of England’s newsagents were awash with papers proclaiming that gravity was to fail in ten years once Necromancer ‘Doom’ Newton’s (and in the case of The Daily Vanguard – ‘Newcram Answer Newstock’) magic had run out. The London Gale itself had wasted no time embellishing the story with details (or facts) about Newton’s middle eastern heritage and perverse sexual preference.

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The rumbling continued. It was then replaced by a roaring, then a groaning, then a grumbling and then finally silence. As all these curious noises had been happening, a fleet of great grey spaceships had been landing around the world. Soon humanoid but distinctly alien aliens had begun marching in tens of thousands out of the ships. Expertly and peacefully they made their way through the towns and cities to the centres of government and began the well-planned takeover. They met little resistance, just astonishment – which, in times of great and absolutely astounding crisis was mankind’s default setting.

In the House of Commons a parliamentary aide approached one of the newly installed alien guards.

“Excuse me.”

“Yes?”

“Oh, are you using a translation device?”

“No, I have learnt English. We’ve had enough time.”

“Ah. I see.”

“Yes, you most likely do. I did explain.”

“It’s a human phrase expressing comprehension.”

“I know, but I’m a pedant.” Laughed the alien.

There were a number of exchanges like this going on around the world. In all of them the new rulers of Earth were displaying the same carefree sarcasm and unflappable nature. In the face of such calm and collected beings, frightened and irrational mankind stood no chance.

“So how did you get us?” Asked the plucky aide.

“We were always going to get you. We’ve been loitering for some time – watching, waiting.”

“Where?”

“Mostly around the hubble telescope. We liked flying in front of it and avoiding getting snapped. But you asked how did we get you? Well, as I said, we were always going to, we were just waiting until the time was ripe.

“And how did you know when it was.”

“When you were so cocky and stupid you’d believe anything you were told. In every one of your past generations there has been someone to challenge supposed ‘knowledge’, someone to question. These days, you’ve become too confident – too obsessed with congratulating yourselves. We’ve been setting you little tests and you finally failed.”

Somewhere in a semi-detached suburban home someone said:

“If only Newton were around now.”

Now…