Bleeding newbie poster
Posts: 7
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Okay, this story has at least three secrets hidden in it. HINT: Pay attention to the proper names.
The Coliseum
by
hey_sexy
3/23/2098 1:25 PM MST
Memo: RE: Trespassing in Restricted Areas
To: Office of the Director, Hoover Building
From: Special Agent Eliot O’Neill, Phoenix Field Office
CC: Chief of Security, Los Padres Air Force Base
Director Ignatius, in response to your query, we have noted in the following article some evidence of civilian trespassing at Los Padres AFB. Please advise as to the appropriate action you would like taken in this case.
***
Clipping from Arizona Paranormal News, Editorial Section
March 15, 2098
Beware the Ides of Mars!
Field researcher thinks today’s “aliens” have been here before
by
Ann Archibald
We came around a bend in the path on the side of the mountain, and then we saw it all as clear as the desert sky that framed it. After our days-long journey through the cave system into the restricted area of the military reservation, we were still enjoying the sunshine. The parched valley stretched out before us, dotted with saguaro and sagebrush, and we instantly knew where we were: the Place of First Contact. Way out there, we could actually see, for the first time, the gigantic arch-shaped spaceship, right where it had been situated in the leaked photos we got off the internet. Standing bleakly and silently on twin bases, the arch was at least fifty feet tall. But also, surprisingly, in the middle of the valley and not far from the arch, stood another, larger building that we had never seen in the photos. They seemed to have been digitally retouched to cut out the heretofore unknown structure. The larger building was a squat, yet immense, oval-cylindrical edifice of metal. When we looked through the binoculars from our high vantage point, we could see that the cylindrical building opened up inside, with stepped levels circling a deep central hole that dropped down below ground level. On the outside walls, there were three ascending levels of classically-derived columns in relief - Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian columns. And, perhaps not surprisingly, hovering and slowly descending a fair distance above the building’s oval rim, was what appeared to be a small spacecraft, shaped like a discus. It had a blue glow underneath and lighted windows all around the sides, and it looked just about ready to go down into the central opening.
Well, I’m not sure about the others, but as for me, when I finally saw the whole scene, I knew who we were dealing with just as surely as if I had been given an intelligence briefing. I knew the purpose of the arches that had landed one by one in various countries a decade ago today: they were just triumphal monuments sent here to show us how talented their builders were. But I also knew that. despite the craft above it, the strange oval building was not just a secret launchpad or spaceport; it was a classical amphitheater. It was a Coliseum. And I remembered enough art history to know that if these beings undertook the effort and expense to build a Coliseum out here in total secrecy on a military base, they must have had a serious affection for classical architecture. That alone didn’t speak very highly of them as a culture, considering the way those classical civilizations treated their neighbors.
But that Coliseum could just have been a case of culturally-obsessed aliens. Do you want to know why I never trusted those humble and pious Reseac? Do you wonder why I hate those beings who walked out of the arch there in the Place of First Contact a decade ago? I never thought they were aliens in the first place. The Reseac are posthumans, the descendents of humans from Earth. And seeing this Coliseum out there with a spacecraft hovering over it was just the icing on the wedding cake.
The Reseac’s ancestors left Earth long ago, I was now convinced from seeing this launchpad, and they probably embarked from the city that built the first Coliseum. Maybe they blasted off from the first Coliseum itself. Who knew what exactly went on back then? All the ancients left were scanty literary records that could have been forged anyway, right? Then a millenium or two passed, and the ancients finally revealed themselves again, much changed, in America, as reverent little missionaries with a seemingly peaceful religion and advanced technology to share. What we didn’t know is they were actually a posthuman army returning from an empire of planets that they had invaded, subjugated, and left to carefully monitored colonial rule. What’s more, all those years that they built their empire abroad on other planets, we stayed behind and tore it down on Earth. They knew we had proven ourselves incapable of respecting their sovereignty while they were away. Gauls, Goths, Visigoths, Vandals, Americans: we all overran their eternal city while they watched and waited.
But no more.
You could call me an alarmist, and you wouldn’t be the first. Yes, we all saw the news reports: overtures have been made, treaties have been signed, alliances have been cemented, and all the pretenses of friendship and independence have been put in place. And how considerate of us over the past centuries to have adopted their alphabet and so many of their words and laws as the foundation of Western civilization! There are no strange hieroglyphs or bizarre customs for them to decipher here as they had to in other galaxies. We are so much like them, so we have strewn rose petals at their feet, and they have brought us into a future we never knew could exist.
But something is different on this planet. They’ve been here before, and they’ve done this before. For you malcontents grumbling about imperialism and tyranny, don’t take it to the streets just yet. For you survivalists reaching for your assault rifles, you might want to think twice about that. Things will be run tightly here, and you shouldn’t expect much resistance or insurrection to succeed anymore. Because this is the homeworld, so this is the seat of power. There never was an empire without a throne. Well, this planet is the throne. This planet is Rome. And an entrance is being prepared for our emperor.
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