The Ant Farm

They were far away; so far away that their giant luminescent eyes were but specks against the infinitesimal night-sky black.  They were wise, old, and for the most part salutary.  They contented themselves with the most trivial of things, watching the growth of their favorite pets.  They saw the ants swarm all over their discarded apples and as the insects grew older and died and repopulated, they watched the bands of blind workers follow the pheromone scent-trails and the patterns in the chaos emerge.

         These nameless, faceless elders were of course the alien beings.  They were lodged on some desolate rock, halfway across the universe.  They had conquered age and disposed of reproduction forever.  They just sat there, stagnating, trying not to kill so many of their rock-mates so that the messy institution of reproduction would have to be reinstated.
         They were students of cosmic physics.  Their giant eyes could peer across the galaxy, and for a small fee, anyone could contemplate the hydrogen atoms on any known sun.  It was great fun for them, for a time.
         I would like to clarify one thing.  These beasts of an unknown breed were actually not dissimilar to humans.  They possessed a finite number of limbs, and had grasping, bony fingers.  Their faces were filled with empty, sucking orifices which knew often the luxuries of oxygen and water.  They lived on a rock with a relatively temperate climate.  They were essentially as we are, except in an advanced state of evolution.
         Being similar to the humanity which we are so familiar with, they had a taste for both comedy and the absurd.  Their entertainment was often cruel and brutal, but not violent, for they had discovered that such aggression only bred warfare.  The brutality of their humor was confined to the mind. 
         In one case, they collected a number of sentient life-forms from the galaxy.  After selecting the most intelligent, they decided to play a game.  The object of the game was to convince the life-form that they did not exist. 
         Now, one might assume that inducing an existential crisis would not be overly entertaining.  It’s a lot of thinking, and watching some think can rapidly grow old.  But no.  They had devised a brilliant way of projecting brainwaves of the life-forms into audio, and translating them into intelligible discourse.  The result was, to the inhabitants of that rock, very entertaining.
         These life-forms were placed into environments in absolute sensory deprivation.  They were, of course, supplied sustenance, or the games would be over far too quickly.  The brains of the participants were stimulated occasionally, with abstract suggestions:
         “Where is here?”
         “Why?”
         And the life-forms would stutter and ramble on in response, rarely making sense:
         “I am where this is who is that are you here too I can’t see you”

         For the highly logical and vindictive rock-dwellers, this auto-discourse was highly amusing.  As each of the members of the rock had outlived the most nascent of planets, each was highly educated in everything that is, and the concept of such psychological distress was farcical. 
         However, as this entertainment aged a few centuries, it was soon discarded as dated and trite.  A new game was born, more ridiculous than the last.
         Some context: A new technology was born as well – a noteworthy fact, because in such advanced times, new technology was rare.  This new technology was the science of “planet building”.  In this technological advance, two meteors, loaded with the correct cocktail of minerals and gases, were fired at each other in the presence of a unifying solar body. The result would be a gravitational body, tailored to the exact specifications of the creator’s choosing.  The creatures clinging to the rock had compiled enough information from the observations of surrounding planets that they could predict with reasonable accuracy what would happen under any conditions.  With the variables under the bony fingertips of the planet-engineers, they could make any planet with any atmosphere-composition in any solar system.
         A new game was born with this new science.  Create a planet.  Supply it with a bountiful atmosphere and water supply.  Watch as intelligent life grows and prospers.  An ant farm.  Give them no clue of their creator’s existence.  At least at first.
         The game is this:
Slowly introduce yourselves to the creatures populating the other rock.  Tell them ridiculous things.  Their planet was created in seven rotations.  Their females were spawned from the ribs of the males.  Knowledge is sin.  Reproduction is sin.  Sin is punishable forever.  Blind, blissful belief is rewarded in a utopia far removed from temptation.  When we return, the faithful will be saved, and the final battle between good and evil will occur.
         This was just one web of falsehood that was spun.  A different web encompassed each continental region.  Give them all very different renditions of the same story; change the characters, but not the plot.
         Give them only cryptic, vague transmissions and simplistic morality tales.  If they believe, maintain the planet until they do not any longer or watch as they destroy it with their ravenous mouths and pollutant fingers. 
         Alas, the ants played right along with the game.  The believers traversed the earth, splitting into individualized hordes, each attempting to destroy other differently-disposed hordes.  Those who did not believe in anything were forced into submission by the pincers of the hordes, or eradicated entirely.
         Things continued in this fashion for quite a while, until the engines of progress began whirring.  The minds of the ants were always active, but they were primarily concerned with survival, warfare, artwork, and deity-worship.  As the centuries turned, like cogs in the clockwork of humanity and insectitude, new sciences evolved.  When these technologies were in opposition to the great god-machine, they were suppressed.  When they affirmed its tenets or lent it power, they were fostered.
         However, as the sciences failed to prove or falsify religion, skeptics were bred.  Feeling alienated from the dogmatic beliefs of the elders ants; they turned to science and their own existence as a more accurate belief system.  The morality tales were insufficient in providing answers for the complexities of the present.  Believers waited for their saviors to return and plodded on with methodical tenacity.
         The beings on the rock relished the results.  The cruel logicians sneered and chuckled simultaneously at the piteous life forms they had created.  As readouts of the planet revealed, they were slowly destroying their own home.  The industries of comfort and luxury were polluting the luxuriant oceans, and the once-comfortable climate began to scald the feet of the ants.
         It was time for intervention.
         This intervention came in the guise of a considerably more explicit transmission.
         “We are your deities.  Fooled you, silly ants,” was the general idea.
What was actually transmitted is ultimately irrelevant.  The meaning was not audible under the stricken cries of the ants.
         There was panic.  In an instant tide of moral degradation, the tenets of the last few millennia were abandoned; chaos seeped from the recesses of the psyches of the weak minded.  The believers, seeing the transmission as a malicious ruse of a deviant deity, stood as morally righteous dams to withhold the floodwaters of evil.  Both the righteous and unholy were destroyed in the struggle.
         Those non-believers, hiding in the bunkers and caves, disinterested in looting and raping and pillaging, were discovered by the creators and given deliverance.  This was the object of the game, the central prize that made the whole venture worthwhile.
         The rules were as such:
If they do not believe, they are of superior logical capacity.  These life forms, as they were made in the images of their creators, should be transported to that rock on the edge of the cosmos and nurtured into full intelligence and realization of being.
I suppose I was one of those survivors.  That’s why I’m writing this.  I don’t condone the actions of those beings on that rock where I now reside.  However, you have to admire their sense of humor.