Far Kinnell

by

Astyages

The solar system YD-437, in the omega sector of the eastern spiral arm of the galaxy is the most rimward-flung inhabited system in the galaxy; and though there is some suspicion of life on a few of the other planets in that solar system; and even on some of their moons; it is the third planet from the sun with which we are primarily interested.

Although some preliminary contact has been made with its inhabitants, the latter are deemed far too uncivilized for any serious engagement with galactic society; indeed, they are so aggressive a species that they constantly threaten to exterminate themselves, quite possibly along with all life on their own planet, in a nuclear conflagration, or by ignoring their effects on their environment, or by poisoning their own food and water, or even by stuffing up their own atomsphere! They seem to have survived thus far only by a combination of sheer luck and Loki’s own perversity.

Having little imagination, their various societies give their planet various names, the general semantic content of which is invariably ‘Dirt’, or ‘Soil’ or some-such… they also give their sun equally meaningless names, most of which simply mean ‘sun’; apparently they do not even know its proper name, or, I strongly suspect, even the fact that it has one. Of course, we citizens of the Galactic Federation know this primitive planet by the name of its discoverer, the legendary explorer of both the alpha and omega quadrants of the galaxy: James T. Kinnell; and of course, its distance from the galactic hub has earned it the well-deserved adjectival qualification of ‘Far’; so in the Federation’s star-charts this planet goes by the legendary name of: Far Kinnell.

On this planet, instead of using resources wisely and ensuring that everyone gets what they need, the inhabitants engage in the most ridiculous forms of the most stupid status games, for example, the competitive consumption of even their most scarce and valuable resources which often, and quite deliberately, creates artificial shortages so that a handful of their species can become enormously wealthy whilst the vast majority of them either starve or else live a hand-to-mouth existence in an unplanned and unregulated economy; little more than beasts of burden; and many, many more starve to death.

They are barbarous indeed; a most murderous and bloodthirsty species; yet each section of this species; each race, each country, each province or county, right down to each town, village or even locality, each street and each household, feels itself, both as a community, and as individuals, to be ‘god’s gift’ to the universe; ‘god’ being the fictional character on whom they choose to blame all their faults – on those rare occasions that these become actually ‘undeniable’ and not, as they usually are, verbally transformed into some kind of weird ‘virtue’; otherwise the inhabitants of Far Kinnell admit to no flaws whatsoever; yet by way of excusing themselves and each other, are frequently, and with an entirely unintended irony, known to resort to the phrase, “Nobody’s perfect!”

Anyone who dares to even suggest, however remotely, to any of their members, that any of the various societies created by this peculiar species might have even the slightest flaw in either its constitution, or in that constitution’s practical application, is severely – and socially – discredited and marginalized, while worse offenders simply ‘disappear’, never to be heard of again; consequently the brutal and totalitarian nature of their societies goes from bad to worse; with little or no effort being made at improving matters. The population are generally very supportive of their leaders and cheer very enthusiastically at all public ceremonies; knowing they dare not do otherwise, whilst public officials are praised regardless of their stupidity and incompetence and are actually rewarded for their corruption, whilst at the same time being told only those things their ‘underlings’ in the ironically named ‘public service’ feel they ‘need to know’… Though this, of course, effectively makes them little more than the puppets of various vested interest groups, they invariably fail to see this, or to recognize any conflict of interest, and insist on thinking of themselves as ‘leaders’.

Indeed, they think of themselves as having somehow been ‘Chosen’ for the job (by ‘god’ of course!) One might be forgiven for imagining that in societies which often call themselves ‘democracies’, that they are chosen by the people, because much use is made of that word; however, whilst elections on Kinnell are often are very expensive theatre productions, they appear to make little or no difference to policies, which are usually decided by the faceless monied interests who operate behind the politicians, pulling their strings by the simple and expedient means of funding both major political parties.

‘Leaders’, then, are usually chosen by ‘party’ members in ‘pre-selection’ committees, for their gullibility and manipulability, rather than for any leadership skills as such. As long as they know how to avoid responsibility and how to find suitable scapegoats for any damage they may do to their society and/or it’s economy and as long as they know how to deceive whilst telling the apparent truth in the weasel-words given to them by their faceless monied masters, they are likely to do well… for themselves, at least; and possibly their parties too, to some extent, anyway! These ‘leaders’, however, often do enormous damage to their world and even to their own societies, all for the sake of the elevated income and social prestige their public office gives them, and, having been chosen for their crookedness, they are often praised for so doing… such is the insanity of this race!

I, Zebulon Sprokkit, have been charged by the High Council of the Galactic Federation, in the wake of the recent frightening attack on our city at the South Pole, with the task of observing and reporting on the activities of this strange and frightening species. As they have recently discovered computers and evolved an e-space network called the ‘internet’, which gives one access to global news regardless of where one is on the planet, I have decided that, rather than take up residence in a major population centre, like the continents of Murka, Uropp or Aysha where it could be all too easy to end up being forced to choose sides in their politics (and, maybe, even forced to choose the wrong side!), that I should get a more objective perspective by living in a relative cultural and political backwater… For these reasons I have decided to live on the continent known by the locals as ‘Straya’, in the state of South Oz, in the deceptively pretty capital city of Madeleine.

My saucer was stolen in the unprecedented and devastating raid by only two primitives on the secret underground city we had established at the South Pole for wealthy intergalactic tourists who wish to ‘explore’ such a primitive planet. Many of these tourists appear, more often than not, to forget the ‘no de-cloaking in front of the Kinnellers’ rule, I might add! If it keeps up it will be extremely hard to keep the existence of the Galactic Federation a secret, as ordered! Our mind-control staff are working flat out convincing people the UFOs everyone keeps seeing aren’t real!

It would also make my job immeasurably more difficult if the indigenes should ever get wind that I’m not really a Kinneller, who, of course, call themselves, ‘Earthlings’. Although we still have many of their leaders under our control, and the vast majority of the Earthlings are still convinced by the propaganda we’ve been subliminally feeding them for the past few centuries (local time), there are some Earthlings out there who have discovered that they can avoid our brain-programming rays by wearing hats made out of tin-foil, who are starting to become problematic. Whilst there is little they can do at present because they are still too easily dismissed as ‘loonies’ the number is fast growing of trained observers in positions of great responsibility who now also claim to have seen ‘Unidentified Flying Objects’ and who are beginning to wear tinfoil hats…

I would appreciate a strongly-worded directive from the Ministry of Galactic Tourism to those tour operators who have not been observing proper cloaking protocols, that they either commence to do so, or face having their operator’s licences revoked; we can’t risk the humans realising our actual presence just yet… Should it start to be believed that we are here, it is likely to trigger off the nuclear conflagration dreaded by both Earthlings themselves, and, I’m sure I don’t have to remind you, our own Galactic Federation.

Zebulon Sprokkit, Reporting from Madeleine, South Oz. Star-date: 020120013

Over and out!