Would you be willing to become the herald of the Devourer of Worlds?

In My Humble Opinion
1

So I have good news and bad news.

The good news is that Gene Roddenberry was right. The universe is chock-full extraterrestrial civilizations, a fraction of which have faster-than-light travel; an even smaller fraction of which have carved out sizable interstellar empires. In our own galaxy there’s a statistical likelikehood of 3 million worlds with sapient species, and 100 times that many worlds that could support such life but are currently without it; the other galaxies in the local group are proportionately blessed. Many of the galaxy’s sentient species are more-or-less visually and psychologically similar to humans – think Vulcans, Kree, Nabooans, etc. Nobody has a map to all these worlds, by the way.

The bad news is that Stan Lee was also right. There’s a entity out there – let’s call her Sutcalag – who derives her sustenance from the mystical life-energy of the aforementioned worlds, a process that destroys all life on the planet in question. Sutcalag is unimaginably powerful–none of the interstellar empires have any weapon, ship, or fleet capable of harming her–and optimally feeds about at least a year, though she’s gone longer. She’s just appeared in Earth orbit, announced her intentions to chow down on Earth in 48 hours, and advised us all to make peace with whatever we worship. Naturally the US and every other technologically advanced nation tries to stop Sutcalag; all efforts fail.

With twelve hours to go, you, personally, get a message from Sutcalag. She has been scanning Earth’s inhabitants, and it turns out that you possess the rare genetic quirk that will permit you to be given a fraction of the Power Cosmic that is her birthright; you’re the only person on Earth of whom this is true. If you agree, Sutcalag will give you a fraction of her power and make you her herald, with the ability to survive in outer space, fly far faster than light, and so forth–the whole Silver Surfer package. You’ll be charged with scouring the universe for planets she can consume. You will have to serve for 1000 years. Earth will be spared during your time of service, and if you complete it that term faithfully, it will be spared in perpetuity. At least once a year you will have to provide Sutcalag with a planet to consume. Fail, and she’ll return to Earth and consume it, then track you down and kill you. If any of the interstellar empires moves against Earth in vengeance for your complicity in Sutcalag’s genocide, you will be granted leave from your duties to defend your homeworld.

Over the last million years, Sutcalag has had about 1000 heralds, about two-thirds of whom remained faithful through their terms, the rest of whom eventually betrayed her to their sorrow and their world’s destruction. Several of them had to defend their home world’s against vengeful alien fleets. In every single case, the heralds won.

Do you agree to become Sutcalag’s herald?

2

Why is this even up for debate? Let’s do this, right now! I’m ready! take me!

:slight_smile:

Seriously, what do we imagine to be the downside?

3

No poll?

Sure, I’ll take one for the team. It won’t be easy choosing planets to die, but my planet is safe and some planets will die anyway regardless of what I do.

4

Yeah. This is totally not a problem.

Didn’t Silver Surfer try to scout out planets without intelligent life anyhow? Even if that’s not a possibility, it’s not a deal breaker. I’d save my Earth at the cost of a thousand other jerkwad planets I don’t even know about.

5

In a heartbeat. I’d say a very tearful goodbye to the other Pepperwinkles, use the power cosmic to provide for them, and then, off to save the Earth and explore the universe.

6

Wouldn’t even give it a second thought. The Power Cosmic and the ability to fulfill my hero complex? Sir, I am all over that.

7

Hang ten!

8

Heroes don’t assist genocidal monsters in their genocide. Says so in the hero manual.

On review, though, the “dilemma” would be more arch if I hadn’t tilted the numbers so far on the inhabited/uninhabted planet scale, not to mention the win-loss record of heralds-versus-vengeful ETs. My bad.

9

Put a sealed petri dish on Mars each year, direct that Mars should be consumed, problem solved!

10

Yes, but anti-heroes are much more interesting and they don’t need no stinking manual.

That said, I’m not sure what I’d do. 1000 years of scouring the universe looking for things to destroy doesn’t sound like a good time. I’m not sure Earth will even make it for 1000 years on its own and if I also have to save Earth from itself… I’m not sure I have that kind of patience.

11

What makes you think Earth is in danger of destroying itself? Or that life on Earth is in danger of destruction?

Humanity may destroy ITSELF, but not the Earth. Not even life on Earth. Sutcalag, on the other hand…

Also, is there no one on this planet you love? Mother, father, spouse, children, Taye Diggs?

Sutcalag wants the mystical life energy. I’ll bet that Mars doesn’t have it. And, even if it does have it, she’ll consume it before she leaves the system anyway, then come back to Earth in a year if you piss her off.

12

I’d take it that previously lifeless worlds that have been terraformed and repurposed as colonies by alien empires would be an appropriate target; why is Mars with a petri dish of bacteria any different? Space-Cthulhu didn’t specify the amount of life on a planet that should be targeted to spare Earth. Maybe I could combat it with something more terrifying than all the galaxy’s armadas united; lawyers! Tie it up with litigation for breach of contract.

13

It’s hard to see how humanity could even destroy itself. I think of all the remote islands and crags and extreme climates that our prehistoric ancestors inhabited, or think of the bubonic plague repeatedly decimating Europe in the middle of the last millennium, and think: enough members of our race will survive whatever the worst is that we can throw at ourselves. It might not be pretty, but billions will survive climate change (and the reduction in our population will eventually reverse it), many millions will survive nuclear winter, and many millions will survive whatever plague our scientists have bottled up in well-guarded laboratories to use as a (not quite) ultimate weapon.

Anyhow, I’m game. Sutcalag will have her prey no matter what; I’ll help her choose which sentient-inhabited planets she’ll chow down on. But Earth won’t be one of them. I agree that I won’t be a hero, but I can live with that. I have a soft spot in my heart for Earth, and for the human race. The Vulcans, etc., not so much.

14

To boil it a bit down: a world is going to get eaten once a year. You can have a choice in what world it is, or you cannot. If you don’t, you and all your family are killed (presumably unpleasantly).

If you take the heraldship, you could try to direct your liege away from worlds you deem worthy (however fraught with ethical peril that is), and save your family. NOT taking this would be downright evil (although I would understand feelings of guilt somewhere around world #17 to be killed).

While you do say that these intergalactic empires have no shot at stopping Sutcalag, more accurately I think that would be no shot at stopping Sutcalag yet. Depending on how close of tabs she keeps, you could put some of the more advanced civilizations in touch with each other, in between finding medieval age worlds for consumption. And pray to whatever deity you believe in that those advanced empires come up with something that would stop the scourge of the galaxy.

15

I’m not actually talking about the planet being destroyed, just people and/or civilization. There are natural disasters that could do it - asteroids, Yellowstone, etc. Then there’s the possibility of war, disease, famine, etc. I mean, imagine that I’m out scouting for worlds to destroy and I get back to find out that Captain Trips is loose and Randall Flagg has got everyone holed up in Vegas? In that scenario, I’m thinking I got screwed.

There are certainly people that I love and would like to protect. The question is whether I should do something bad to protect people. After all, everyone dies eventually. We’re just discussing timing. How much of your moral character do you sacrifice for a few extra years? (A different context might make my thinking clearer: your wife needs a heart transplant. Your neighbor has a heart that would match. Do you tell the local gangster to kill your neighbor so that your wife can live?)

Besides, it’d totally throw the comics fan-boys for a loop. Spend two whole issues on my back story like I’m the new Herald… then have me say no and destroy the Earth in issue three. Who would see that coming? (You can always do an alternate-history reboot in issue four and pick someone else).

16

Well, it’s not like I’m in a position to turn down a job offer at the moment, and it beats working in customer service, so…

17

Yeah, this comes out pretty one-sided as originally stated. Yes, you end up assisting an mundicidal monster, but:

  1. You save your world, including your family and friends, at least in the near term. Maybe even give the world time, in the face of utter destruction, to get its collective shit together and start colonizing other worlds in case you fail.

  2. You gain a chance to at least mitigate the monster’s rampage by directing it to worlds without sapient life.

  3. With your new abilities, you might be able to seed new life on barren worlds; presumably the monster leaves behind a wake of lifeless worlds that are perfectly capable of sustaining life. Seed enough of those and you might be able to create a sustainable feeding cycle, thereby possibly saving countless worlds in the future.

  4. There’s the “And the horse may learn to sing” gambit. You’ve got up to a thousand years with a fragment of the monster’s power and presumably a fair number of technologically advanced civilizations that would really like for it to be dead. There’s an off-chance that among you, you might come up with a way to kill it. You could perhaps even arrange for others to stage fake attacks on Earth to create testing opportunities.

18

Could I convince her to just take a bit out of the moon instead? :wink:

19

Points 1 & 2 are entirely correct.

I’ll debate point 3, though. It’s not in the OP so it’s not established for this silly discussion, but I’d suspect that the world’s Sutcalag consumes, being raped of all their mystical life energy, are forever barren. If not, Sutcalag could as easily seed them again herself – not out of mercy, but simply from practicality. It clearly takes more time for her to scout out possible world’s than she desires to spend. If it were possible to re-seed worlds, she’d already be doing that, I think.

My impulse is to say that the plan in point four wouldn’t work, but as I think on it, it has possibilities. Sutcalag can’t have the ability to monitor her distant heralds that closely; if she did, she wouldn’t need them to scout for her in the first place. So yes, the herald may be able to make deals with the interstellar empires and try to turn against her.

The problem there, of course, is there’s no margin for error. If Sutcalag decides you’re screwing with her, Earth is the first planet on her plate, and the homeworlds of whatever empires you’ve chosen as allies are next. They may not be willing to take that chance.

20

But I’ve got a pretty big stick to use to get them to sign up - do it, or your planet is the next snack.

Which at some level makes me closer to being Sutcalag than I’d like - but presumably after the Klingons get eaten, it’ll be easier to get the Vulcans, Romulans and Arisians to work together.