Overturned E-Book

Rothilda von Rotortod

• Herausgeber: LiteraturPlanet
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

After the invention of a rejuvenation pill, space and resources threaten to become scarce on planet Kadohan. The only way out is the search for a re¬placement planet. The choice is made for the planet "Earth". The landing pillars needed for the invasion are disguised to the "Earthlings" as installations for generating wind power. Thus, the novel captures the feeling of alienation from nature resulting from the progressive disap¬pearance of landscape behind wind turbines in the image of mankind being overwhelmed by extraterrestrials

Leseprobe

Rothilda von Rotortod

OVERTURNED

How Aliens Tried to Conquer the Earth with Wind Turbines

Novel

Imprint

© LiteraturPlanet,

Im Borrech 14

D-66606 St. Wendel

revised edition 2022; first published in 2020

About this book:

After the invention of a rejuvenation pill, space and resources threaten to become scarce on planet Kadohan. The only way out is the search for a replacement planet. The choice is made for the planet "Earth".

The landing pillars needed for the invasion are disguised to the "Earthlings" as installations for generating wind power. Thus, the novel captures the feeling of alienation from nature resulting from the progressive disappearance of landscape behind wind turbines in the image of mankind being overwhelmed by extraterrestrials.

About the author:

Rothilda von Rotortod lives together with her brother Rother Baron in a glass blog hut. At the address rotherbaron.com everyone can see what the two of them are currently working on. In addition to an interview with the author, information about another brother of Rothilda, who is said to be at home in the analogue world, can be found there.

Cover picture: Public Domain Pictures: Swirl, Fractal (Pixabay)

I. In the Sights of the Aliens

1. The Rejuvenation Pill

After the invention of a rejuvenating pill, space and resources threaten to become scarce on planet Kadohan. The only way out is the search for a replacement planet. The choice is made for the planet "Earth". Unfortunately, intelligent life already exists there.

Search for a Replacement Planet

When the rejuvenation pill was launched on the planet Kadohan, it was foreseeable that resources would no longer be sufficient for everyone in the near future. Admittedly, a law regulating reproduction was passed immediately and procreation was completely switched over to artificial insemination. Nevertheless, it was clear that in the years to come – if reproduction was not to be completely abolished – a replacement planet for the coming generations would have to be found.

As a result of extensive cosmic explorations, the choice finally fell on the planet Earth. Firstly, it was relatively easy to reach for the Kadohanian spaceships. And secondly, the planet had interesting raw material deposits and also offered ideal conditions for permanent settlement.

The only problem was: Planet Earth was already populated. If the Kadohanians wanted to use it for their own population, they either had to reach an agreement with the dominant species or displace them.

As a result of a reconnaissance mission that was conducted undercover on Earth, the first alternative was classified as unrealistic. The Earthlings, the members of the exploration team unanimously reported, were an extremely aggressive species that would rather destroy their own planet than share it with others. In addition, the Earthlings themselves were said to be quickly-multiplying and to overstress the colonisation capacities of their planet.

So for the Kadohanians, the very thing that made Earth attractive to them became a problem. Just because the planet offered ideal living conditions for them, the dominant species there was very similar to them in constitution and temperament. Living together and sharing resources proved to be difficult or even impossible.

In the end, therefore, only the second, invasive approach remained. This, however, was associated with logistical problems that could not easily be solved either. As the fact-finding mission had shown, the Earthlings had an extremely effective arsenal of destructive weapons at their disposal. Even if the Kadohanians' own protective shield would neutralise this deadly potential, there was still the danger that the Earthlings could be driven to extremes by the attack and render the planet permanently uninhabitable with their weapons.

The only way to stop the Earthlings from this self-destructive act was to prepare the invasion long in advance and then implement it so quickly and effectively that the attacked would have no time to fight back.

However, the Kadohanian fleet of spacecraft could hardly pass unnoticed through the radar screen that the exploratory mission had detected around Earth. The stealth mode, which worked tolerably for a single small space glider, reached its limits here. At the latest during the landing approach, the existence of the spaceships could no longer be concealed – and would then provoke the feared counterattack.

To make matters worse, the spaceships had to land in very specific, strategically favourable places to nip the Earthlings' resistance in the bud – namely in the vicinity of the more densely populated areas where the landing maneuver was particularly difficult to manage. Therefore the landing sites had to be marked accordingly. Thus towers with an altitude of at least 100 meters were needed, in order to indicate the landing sites by strong flashing signals.

The exploratory mission had also revealed that the engines of the large transport spaceships would heat up excessively on entering the Earth's atmosphere. In order to minimise the risk of explosion during the landing process, it was decided to cool the engines beforehand. For this purpose, giant propellers should rotate at the top of the towers. They were also expected to have an antiiconographic function, so that the spaceships would look like a swarm of meteorites from Earth.

Camouflage Stories

The crucial question now was how this preliminary work could be carried out without arousing the mistrust of the Earthlings. In the Future Commission, where all issues essential to the planet were debated, it was quickly agreed that this would only be possible with the help of infiltrated pseudo-Earthlings who would conceal the true purpose of the construction sites. But with what kind of story should the actual function of the concrete towers be disguised?

The first to speak was the commissioner for the inner dynamics of cosmic events. His skull, which was bald as with all Kadohanians, was decorated with blue shimmering concentric circles. "What would it be like," he asked, "if we were to openly take up the mysterious, incomprehensible aspects of the structures – if we were to declare the concrete pillars to be sacred buildings?"

"I hardly think that would be a good idea," replied a Kadohanian woman who herself had taken part in the exploratory mission on Earth. Her dainty body almost seemed to sink into the puffy robe that was common on Kadohan. "Firstly, we need far more landing pillars than there are sacred buildings on Earth. And secondly, our reconnaissance mission has just shown that the importance of such buildings among Earthlings tends to decline. Additional sacred buildings would be very difficult to communicate to them."

"And if we label the landing towers as residential buildings?" pondered one who had been appointed to the Future Commission as a member of the construction team. His browless eyes gleamed full of energy.

"This is not a very realistic scenario either," replied the Kadohanian woman with the delicate figure. "The Earthlings live either all by themselves or in apartment blocks very close to one another. Single standing residential towers would contradict their everyday habits. And besides, how could we then explain the rotor blades we want to mount on the towers?"

"Exactly!" another commissioner agreed with her. "Landing towers as residential buildings – that wouldn't work. We would then be inviting the Earthlings to the landing sites ourselves, so to speak. In this case we wouldn't have to go through all the trouble of disguising ourselves!"

"We could explain the whole thing to the Earthlings as a power generation project," one of them finally suggested. "Energy seems to be a scarce resource for Earthlings, too."

"Let's just work it out with the simulator," suggested another. "Then we'll see whether this narrative has enough persuasive power."

So the simulator in the corner of the meeting room was fed with the data that would support the fiction "power generation by rotor blades at high altitude". The result was extremely sobering: high energy expenditure in the manufacturing of the turbines, uncertain, fluctuating energy generation, high costs for the later cumbersome disposal of the material, plus follow-up costs due to infrasound-induced health damage as well as soil compaction and the loss of green spaces. The narrative therefore hardly seemed to be suitable as a justification scheme for covering entire areas with gigantic concrete towers.

"Too bad – that was probably the wrong idea," even the person who had introduced the proposal had to admit.

At this point the head of the fact-finding mission, who had so far stayed out of the discussion, joined the conversation. "Now, wait a minute. I don't think the proposal is completely far-fetched," he contradicted the general assessment. On his skull he had drawn a window-like rectangle – perhaps a symbol for the view into distant worlds.

Everyone looked at him in astonishment. The expedition leader seemed to enjoy their amazement. He had a youthful appearance, but this was mainly due to the fact that he had only recently taken a rejuvenation pill. In truth, he was one of the most experienced experts in the group. After all, he had been head of the Department of Extrastellar Exploration for over 100 years.

"But even small children don't fall for this fairy tale," disagreed a Kadohanian woman with a particularly wide robe. It was waving like a stormy sea when she gesticulated mockingly.

"Maybe not on our planet," admitted the expedition leader. "We must not forget, however, that although we resemble Earthlings on the outside, we differ greatly from them in our brain structure. While in our case the processing of emotions and analytical operations take place in two independent brains, the Earthlings have only one organ for both. Therefore, the thought processes can directly be influenced by strong emotions."

"Very interesting," interfered another commissioner. "But how can we benefit from that?"

The expedition leader smiled mischievously – with the left side of his face, the one where his emotional brain was located. "Well," he explained, "all we have to do is create a catastrophe that demonstrates to Earthlings the unreliability of another energy source they depend on. The resulting feelings of fear will automatically increase the willingness to believe in our wind power story."

The Earthling's Brain

The others still looked at him skeptically. "And what kind of catastrophe could this be?" a commissioner sitting opposite him asked.

"Well, I was thinking of an accident in a nuclear power station," replied the expedition leader.

"But nuclear power is completely harmless," someone objected.

"For us it is," the expedition leader admitted. "We are immune to the radiation it produces. But for the Earthlings, it poses a deadly threat. And because this threat is invisible and persists for centuries after the use of the required material, there is something very sinister about it. So all we have to do is activate and intensify an already existing sense of threat in order to achieve our goals."

The colleague opposite him shook his head. "Wait, I don't understand. Why should the Earthlings approve of an ineffective form of energy production just because they have recognised another form as harmful to them? After all, for us it was no problem to reject the idea either. All we had to do was take a quick look at our simulator!"

"The Earthlings don't have real simulators at their disposal," the expedition leader explained. "Instead, they make complicated calculations, which often lead to contradictory results and are easy to manipulate. Besides, the Earthlings find thinking exhausting – their brains are simply not as far developed as ours. Therefore, they prefer to adopt the opinions of others rather than drawing their own conclusions from the facts. This suits us insofar as we only have to get the key opinion leaders on our side to steer the Earthlings in the direction we want them to take."

"Do you already have a clear idea of who these opinion leaders are?" someone asked.

The expedition leader nodded. "I think we should mainly get the representatives of the environmental movement on our side."

As he saw the uncomprehending looks of the others, he added: "The Earthlings do not see themselves as part of a whole, but as something that is opposed to the rest of what exists on their planet. Therefore they call everything they do not feel as an immediate part of their own world – the Earthling world in the narrower sense – 'environment', which means 'surrounding world'. This part of their world has primarily a serving function for the Earthlings and is exploited by them to satisfy their needs.

Those who see themselves as 'environmentalists' advocate a more careful treatment of the environment – either because they consider it to have an intrinsic value, or because they fear health risks for their own species. If we succeed in finding supporters for our fictional project in this group, we will give it a clean, 'green' appearance and thus generally increase its credibility potential."

"And how is this to be done?" asked a commissioner who had been frowning all along. "I thought our simulator predicted negative effects on what Earthlings call the 'environment' for our make-believe project, especially on creatures that move through the air."

"As already mentioned – the thinking of the Earthlings is not independent of their feelings," the expedition leader reminded. "If the catastrophe I spoke of is strong enough to release the desired emotions, it will remove all doubts about our wind power narrative."

Magic Numbers

"But that won't last forever," another critic remarked. "At some point, the negative effects of the power generation fiction will become obvious."

The expedition leader showed his half smile again. "That may well be – which is why we must use the initial fears to set in motion a self-reinforcing process. The original, primary interests in the new form of power generation will thus be supplemented by other, secondary interests".

"And what kind of interests are these?" the critic wanted to know.

"Well, I primarily thought of financial interests," explained the expedition leader. "As the Earthlings say: 'Money makes the world go round'."

The others looked at him irritated. "Money?" someone finally asked. "What's that?"

The expedition leader smiled, which means: The right corner of his mouth, the side where his thinking brain was located, twitched slightly. "Well, how can I explain this? In the end it is a kind of magic numbers. They exist in both material form – as tiny metal plates or paper notes – and immaterial form. In the latter case, they are no more than columns of numbers on a monitor. Everyone needs a minimum of them to satisfy their basic needs. Anything beyond that can be used to fulfill all kinds of dreams."

"What nonsense!" exclaimed the commissioner who had just expressed his skepticism. "Everyone knows that it is the very nature of dreams that they can't be fulfilled!"

"That's right," admitted the expedition leader. "But for the Earthlings it doesn't matter at all whether they really try to fulfill their dreams with the money or only imagine it – the numbers have an electrifying effect on them either way. They are really crazy about them.

Therefore, if we link the emotions associated with these magic numbers to our wind power story, we will be able to stop critical enquiries for a long time. Even those who see themselves as environmentalists might, under these circumstances, see what is harmful to the environment as beneficial to it. Maybe this could even be a way to make the Earthlings see our landing pillars as sacred buildings in the end. This would make our narrative practically unassailable."

Despite all these explanations, skepticism still prevailed among the commissioners. The customs of the Earthlings simply seemed too strange to most of them. However, for lack of alternatives, it was decided to implement the project. Perhaps things would turn out to be easier than they seemed at the moment.

2. A Therapy Session

Alfons Heimenross, a well-known environmental politician, is in an identity crisis: he has become a stranger to himself.

Mrs Andrews, an experienced therapist, looked attentively at her client. Her consulting room looked a little like a cave from childhood. Ceiling floodlights produced a subdued light that was only weakly reflected by the terracotta-coloured walls. The smooth carpet swallowed every superfluous noise, so that the sound of the voice could spread undisturbed.

The best conditions for a journey of the soul were also offered by the various seating arrangements. Apart from a computer table with guest chairs and a classic Sigmund Freud couch, there was also a seating group with blue armchairs. These were so soft that they surrounded the lost and searching souls like a mother holding a crying child in her arms. Those who sank into them got a physical impression of what was in store for their soul: the sinking into their own self.

After initial hesitation, Alfons Heimenross had made himself comfortable on the Sigmund Freud couch. The main reason for this choice was that he felt infinitely tired this morning, as he had for several weeks. Furthermore, he hated soft armchairs. They always reminded him of a very unpleasant experience from his childhood, when he had almost drowned in a swamp – and he didn't want to start the journey of the soul right at the beginning of his earliest traumas.

What made things worse was that he had never been to a therapist before. He had never thought he would see one either. But the events of the last few weeks had worried him so much that he just couldn't help himself anymore.

After his first words Heimenross had fallen into a sullen silence. It almost seemed as if he was half asleep. So the therapist asked in a lullaby voice: "You said you have the impression of being a stranger to yourself?"

Heimenross flinched abruptly. It startled him to hear what he had said about himself from another mouth. "I know … it ... it sounds kind of ridiculous. Maybe I'm expressing myself wrong – I'm not very good at this kind of conversation."

The therapist smiled indulgently. With her rimless glasses and the notepad in her hand, she looked more like a teacher taking notes for the next report card. This was another reason why Heimenross avoided looking her in the face – although the woman, all psychologist, did everything she could to facilitate his confession.

"There is nothing ridiculous or wrong here," she encouraged her client. "Just give free rein to your feelings and thoughts. Think of a dream journey: Everything comes as it comes, nothing is forbidden. Every feeling is allowed to find itself a picture."

Since Heimenross nevertheless remained stubbornly silent, the therapist built him another bridge: "Just describe a situation in which you are haunted by these feelings of strangeness."

Heimenross' eyelids twitched. "Well," he explained haltingly, "for example in the morning, in front of the mirror, when I look into my face, I ... I often have the feeling that I am not the one looking at myself from the mirror. Those pale lips, the unkempt hair, the deep rings under my eyes ... It's not like me at all."

The therapist smiled. "These feelings sound quite familiar to me."

A slight redness shimmered on Heimenross' cheeks. "See what I mean? That all sounds kind of stupid. Midlife crisis, you could say, the hair is not so strong anymore, I could cut it back, half-length is not ideal for a politician anyway. And the rings under the eyes: not enough sleep, the typical problem of all workaholics. Take a break, Heimenross, I could say to myself, just go to the seaside for two weeks, then you can start off again."

The therapist scribbled something in her notebook. "Wouldn't that be a good idea? Why don't you just give in to this desire?"

"That's exactly the problem!" Heimenross exclaimed, almost like in one of his parliamentary speeches. "I've already tried to take more time for myself. I've been to the sauna again and have chilled out with friends in the evening, like I used to when I didn't have so many obligations. But none of that helps. I just can't get rid of this damned feeling of not being myself anymore! I'm already getting all fidgety about it."

The therapist looked up from her notepad. "Could it be that you are suffering from insomnia?"

"I can't rule it out," Heimenross admitted. "But the opposite can be true as well. In any case, I rather have the feeling of sleeping too soundly. Lately I've been having very intense dreams that I can remember quite clearly in the morning. I almost have the impression that the dreams are real."

The therapist bent over slightly. Carefully, as if she feared to destroy the precious confession, she asked: "And what kind of dreams are these?"

Heimenross sighed. "Above all, there is one dream that keeps coming back. A certain image that I just can't get rid of: I wake up in the morning – I mean: I dream that I wake up – and the whole world is covered with huge reinforced concrete towers. I walk through an endless forest of concrete trees, I run and run and run, on and on I run, I run and run ..."

The therapist's ballpoint pen scurried busily over the pages of her notebook. "And in the morning you feel shattered by these nightmares?"

Heimenross shook his head violently. "That's just what is so strange about it!" he clarified. "The dreams are no nightmares to me at all. That's what I mean when I say: I am becoming a stranger to myself. The walks through the concrete forest are quite pleasant for me. I enjoy stroking with my hand over the smooth steel trunks that are not threatened by decay. I have even caught myself stopping in front of highway bridges and admiring their powerful concrete pillars. Yet in the past I used to chain myself to every tree that was to be chopped down for a road!"

The therapist threw a worried look at Heimenross. Hectic spots glowed on his face, the corners of his mouth twitched uncontrollably. In an emphatically calm tone she suggested: "Try to admit your feelings! Steel and concrete are the building materials of our time. Perhaps you should simply not resist to that fact and acknowledge it instead."

Heimenross frowned. For a while he fell back into a brooding silence. "If it were only these dreams ... these silly dreams," he murmured monotonously, as if he was talking to himself. "What worries me most is ... Even when dealing with others, I have the impression of looking at me from the outside ..."

The therapist adjusted her glasses. "And how does that manifest itself?" she asked, lowering her voice sensitively.

Heimenross scratched first his right ear, then his left. Restlessly he slid around on the couch. "Well," he explained, "for example, I have had a constant craving for pizza for some time now. Every evening I order one from the pizza service around the corner – but the next morning I can't remember the taste of the pizza or the face of the pizza delivery boy.

---ENDE DER LESEPROBE---