The Aliens are Watching!
The most viewed reality television series in galactic history, Caution Earth, is in trouble. Ratings are a disaster.The humans sit at civilization's tipping point locked on a collision course.
Technology, citizen apathy and manufactured global chaos are driving the planet to unavoidable self-destruction. Can a misfit group of aliens save the planet Earth and their beloved television show?
Save the Earthlings
Evolve
The Aliens are Watching!
The most viewed reality television series in galactic history, Caution Earth, is in trouble. Ratings are a disaster.The humans sit at civilization's tipping point locked on a collision course.
Technology, citizen apathy and manufactured global chaos are driving the planet to unavoidable self-destruction. Can a misfit group of aliens save the planet Earth and their beloved television show?
Save the Earthlings
Evolve
Another humdrum day meandered along as the Earth spun about its axis and crept through a mundane annual cycle around its single yellow sun.
The Earthlings went through their routines, living in the apathy of late-stage civilization. The only two beings on Earth who realized the full extent of Earth’s dire consequences were an ill-tempered goose, alien to the planet, and a kooky old man from Arkansas who far outlived the average human lifespan.
Only one being knew the Earth’s unevolved population starred in the 8,000-year-old hit reality television series Caution Earth, and that was the goose. How could Earthlings understand over 30 billion advanced alien viewers watched the tragic, comedic documentary on the evolution of their species each week?
No Earthling bothered to order a subscription to galactic cable. Not one human streamed the show from the MM1 entertainment corporation located a short 108 light-years away on planet Durnita.
The problem with problems is oftentimes the individual or society experiencing them is the last to realize they exist. Thirty billion regular viewers of Caution Earth spread across the Milky Way galaxy knew of Earth’s dilemma. Galactic broadcast executives at the MM1 network understood the obstacle with vital clarity. The show lost 300 million viewers a month for the past year, tanking ratings and putting management bonuses and livelihoods at risk.
Even the dimwitted Waddow species from the planet Waddle understood the problem, and they still struggled with the concept of the wheel, opting to pull their wagons with triangular shaped objects attached to their axles. But they had galactic cable. Much can be said for a planet’s population who has their priorities straight.
To quote the somewhat famous philosopher Douchious,
“Evolve or perish.”
Douchious later became exiled from society for promoting and disseminating low-quality philosophy. His civilization was known for cut rate spirituality, but even they had standards.
Although prevalent on Earth, the humans had problems well beyond kindergarten level emotional platitudes disguised as philosophical deductions. Earth’s civilization drowned in ignorance, with no life raft of enlightenment in sight. They got up each day happily marching themselves off to self-destruction, too busy and self-important to notice their planet existed as a massive tinder box just waiting for someone to throw a match on it.
Earthlings lived in abject misery, and had been unhappy since they invented language, providing them the ability to better communicate. Early on, the deeper thinkers thought vocal communication was a mistake, so they moved to the forests to live in isolation. They eventually starved to death, forgetting to ask the hunters and farmers how to produce food.
Earth’s people tried everything to relieve their misery, except the very solution that would resolve the problem. Fortunately, a television producer with a greed streak was about to provide Earth a much-needed kick in the ass.
This broadcast executive now sat in a restaurant named Indigo on the planet Gastrin, 100 light-years from Earth. He pondered why the Earthlings refused to evolve. They did, after all, star on a television series created for the sole purpose of documenting evolution. The Earth’s civilization existed no better off today than when they lived in caves 8,000 years ago when the hit TV show began.
Sure, they made technological advancements, but Earthlings still practiced the same malice and idiocy of their prior caveman selves. Of late, they seemed to digress.
Perhaps the technology contributed to their devolution. Earth’s ruling class certainly did.
To take the edge off this line of thinking, the executive producer of Caution Earth sampled the galaxy’s finest lobster bisque, paired with an exquisite merlot while he waited for the rest of his party to arrive. They would discuss the ratings jam of their beloved reality television series and decide if the planet and its unevolved species were worth saving.
Caution Earth is a new science fiction novel by Gary R. Beebe, Jr., but it is also a very funny social commentary and political satire revealing basic truths that serve as a cautionary tale.
Qunot is the executive producer of the most popular and only true reality television show on the galactic stage called Caution Earth. However, after eight successful seasons, early cancellation looms as viewer ennui is setting in with the lack of forward progress in character development. To save his job and lavish lifestyle, he’s got to stimulate the show’s story arc. He’s got two seasons left in the show’s contract, and with Earth on a short approach to societal and environmental collapse, he’s not going to fulfill his obligation. Additionally, galactic laws prevent his direct intervention (think Star Trek’s Prime Directive); Earthlings don’t know they’re the subject of the once-popular reality show or even that intelligent life exists. Qunot is caught between a rock and a hard place until he identifies the perfect patsies to put his rescue plan into effect.
The description of the planet Durnita’s entertainment industry, its movers and shakers, and their sycophants are reflective of how readers have come to view Hollywood, as are the laser-hewn images of politics and the mainstream media. Earth is characterized as having advanced its technological capabilities beyond its evolutionary development, poised on the brink of self-destruction.
The story is well-told, with insight and unceasing humor. I laughed out loud at the description of a politically manipulated cause-righteous Earthside agitator as “a douche canoe environmentalist” appropriately named “Douchious.” The aliens’ super-secret spacecraft, the Wingate, is supported by Olsen, the ship’s drama queen AI, who provides many of the funniest bits of dialogue. Geese, it turns out, are alien beings Qunot stranded on Earth centuries earlier to serve as his eyes, ears, and informants, to point him and his television crew to the most show-worthy filming opportunities, and their leader, Mr. Goose, is beyond over it. I enjoyed the author’s play on cultural references, such as the mention of George Orwell being an alien, and was intrigued by the appearance of “angel” numbers; I had to look that up. On the other hand, while the narrative is consistently clever and entertaining, there is a lot of repetition of the state of politics or the human condition, which seemed to overdo driving the plot points home, at least for me, and really slowed the story down.
I recommend CAUTION EARTH to readers of science fiction, political satire, and social commentary.