Hidden Reality

 

Now that we know, it should have been obvious all along.  The leaders of the Greater Galaxy, meaning the Milky Way - a remote isolated sector of one of the smaller arms in which our Solar system is buried - and also meaning the representatives of the greater Culture that has gained hegemony over the millennia, has decided a few thousand years ago to place this planet of primitive, dangerous mammals under close surveillance, within the restrictions imposed by the Prime Directive of non-interference.

That decision has been proven correct over and over again as the human race gained in technical sophistication without managing to leave behind all their primitive beliefs and clannish behaviors and the religions they manufactured to support those beliefs and justify those behaviors.  There is an ongoing argument among the professionals in the Oversight department whether we will kill ourselves along with most of the other species on Earth before we wise up to reality and start cleaning up the messes we’ve made.

One side says that, in order to be scientifically pure and rigorous in the experiment, we should be allowed to go extinct as a result of our decisions, and a new and interesting species of being will take our place.

The other side says that, even though things are going bad fast, it is also true that the majority of people are not in a position to do much about it other than vote in the next election, though it must be admitted that less than half of us bother to do that, and an even smaller amount tries to work on the issues and for their solutions.  Because of them, it is pointed out, we are worth saving, and someone should step in and put a stop to our insanity before we blow the whole world up.  Not to mention that the rest of the planetary biodiversity has not been given a chance to weigh in on the situation.

The argument continues, and the betting line on the outcome has a life of its own.

And of course, in any society, even one as vast and complicated as one that spans a galaxy, there are always the outsiders, the pirates, the negative side of the equation, always working in the dark, quick to run for cover when the cops show up.

It is also true that there is one thing that a vast, complicated society loves to share among it’s elite members, that of succulent and tasty comestibles from all the remote parts of the galaxy, the more obscure the better.  A good red wine from certain areas of France, or California, is worth enough per bottle on Altair VI to buy the whole vineyard that produced it, and don’t even get them started on the idea of chocolate!

That is why, for thousands of years, especially over the last few hundreds as our culinary output grew in sophistication, the demand for Earth-made products has ensured a steady supply of smugglers and agents all scouring the planet for the next great find.  Our current economic system supports all this activity nicely.  Just try to think about how many anonymous warehouses exist all over the world into which things can go and never come back out, since they got transported aboard the cloaked vessel orbiting the planet.

This interest has also been spreading into jewelry and musical instruments.  Think about it:  We have been digging up diamonds for hundreds of years, yet the price is still so high!  Some of them are just not accountable for.  Like a ’59 Gibson Les Paul sunburst guitar, some have just disappeared, and nobody knows where they went.  Nobody on this world, anyway.

Many choice items are so highly valued, like Vincent motorcycles, Bugatti automobiles or antique firearms, that people maintain lists of every known example of the marque and speculate endlessly on the fate of the missing ones.  It should be clear that those have all disappeared off-planet.

It also tends to explain all the stories we have heard, from biblical days forward, about contact between humans and God, or Gods, or any of their related Angels and Demons.  It also explains the UFO stories, Area 51, and the rest.  No surveillance can be perfect, and crashes do happen.

So how do I know all of this, you ask?  Easy.  I made it up.  There are several layers of reality, you know.  You have Facts.  Then you have Facts disguised as Fiction, along with Fiction masquerading as Fact, quite common on Facebook.

And then, thanks to the efforts of Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson in the Illuminatus Trilogy, you have facts disguised as fiction disguised as facts, masquerading as the Truth.  Only you can decide which is which, and don’t ask me to point you in the right direction.  I’ll just make something up.  :-{)}