Impending doom

On the way home from school, while fiddling with radio frequencies in my car, I came upon a strange broadcast. There were no words being spoken per se, but there was an instantaneous and intense comprehension of all that was being transmitted. I rushed home to record all of the implanted thoughts I had received, but sadly I could recollect but a few of them. Pertaining to their subject matter, I can only assume that these thoughts originated with a transcendental being who was (will be) charged with the task of reviewing the future destruction of our species. Since non-corporeal beings do not exist on a plane where time is strictly linear, the broadcast has been received in 2007. Here are the fragments of the transmitted thoughts.

The sun, which the locals unimaginatively call “the sun,” is a medium-sized star. I came here with the usual assumptions about mid-level apocalypses, namely that they do they best they can with what they have. I am sad to report that the destruction of the inhabitants of the planet Earth is nothing spectacular.

At least they have entertainment value. The inhabitants of Earth are a colourful bunch. The population of Earth is a meagre 13 trillion and Earth’s inhabitants have not achieved much of anything in the past six billion years. They call themselves “human,” although their simple consciousnesses can hardly be attributed with self-awareness. They are also not aware that their sun is in fact alive and quite irritated with them. They seem oblivious to the fact that their sun is a chartered accountant for the Figgleblops of the Ratchport system. How this fact could have escaped them is beyond me.

***SPOILER ALERT!***

The extinction of the human race does not occur because of a supernova. This is not a typical big budget apocalypse. Instead of a supernova, the star rapidly expands, causing the orbit of Earth to be pushed into wider and wider ellipses. This small twist is not enough to counteract the terrible production value.

***END SPOILER***

What occurs is a slow-building, suspenseful, ponderous, and somewhat pretentious apocalypse. The results of the “end of the world,” as the locals with delusions of grandeur call it, are uninspiring, and the comical nature of the situation dissolves the austere buildup.

By far the most entertaining part of the process is the scene in which the inhabitants of Earth discover what is happening to them. Their urban centres become hotbeds for crime and chaos. It must be noted that by our standards, Earth would be lavish cottage-country, but given their population, their cities can be called “urban.” Many of them invoke various transcendental beings, me included, so the audience participation is an additional treat.

***MAJOR SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!***

The humans, in a fit of stupidity, proceed to kill each other maliciously, as if that would relieve them of their fate. Their most advanced weaponry is put to use as the humans extinguish themselves. They reduce their landscape to uninhabitable wasteland and within a hundred Earth years, the entire population is dead. The sun then rapidly contracts and resumes his accounting duties, relieved of the human annoyance. This major twist seems tacked on and contrived, but the performance of the sun saves this scene from obscurity. The surprise is welcome, but it does not reach the magnitude and comedic value of the Arcus IV incident.

***END SPOILER***

While entertaining, the extinction of the human race is nothing profound. The characters are one-dimensional, with the exception of the charming sun. For those looking for something to do on a Gropsday night, they might want to consider temporally shifting down to Earth, but they shouldn’t expect much. If the apocalypse could have committed to being strictly a comedy, without the dramatic adornment, it would have received a much higher rating.