Bog scene 1
Once upon a time, on a foggy spring morning, a milky green cube, roughly the size of a dishwasher, floated down into a potato field in Iowa. The ground quietly puffed a small cloud of dirt as the cube landed. The strange cube lacked a distinguishable texture, completely uniform in color and appearance, but looked like a typical cube, similar to what you’d see in Egypt or Mexico; you know, the Cubes of Giza or the Mayan Cubes. But, the spacecraft cube had traveled much further than Central Europe or deep South America; no, the cube had arrived from outer space.
The potato field stretched for miles in every direction and the heavy blanket of fog hid any announcement of arrival to the outside world. The morning silence was broken by a subtle shifting sound from within the cube. On the west-facing side of the cube, a window slid open. Then, balls of amoeba, also milky green in color, hovered out the portal, and down the short distance to the ground. The amoeba were about the same size as Whoppers, the planet’s most popular fruit according to the latest intel reports. The amoeba arranged themselves in eight rows of sixteen, equally distanced, for a total of 126 with two missing spots.
The remaining two amoeba remained at the exit of the cube. Then, General Og-A addressed the troops in a commanding telepathic frequency. “Four score, and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all Bogs are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure…”
General Og-A continued with his plagiarized speech, while his younger brother, Cultural Expert Og-B, listened at his side. The original speech, which had been presented at the pre-invasion council brunch last Tuesday, was given by the planet’s mightiest warrior, Abraham Lincoln, some time in the past. Apparently the General had been listening at that brunch, contrasting his typical m.o. of sleeping through meetings. The General had never respected cultural considerations in a global annihilation. In fact, when Og-B originally announced his profession at the careers ceremony, his immensely disappointed brother had shunned him for an entire copy cycle.
As inapplicable and as stolen as the speech was, the words inspired the troops. Many of them reverberated war cheers after each declaration. Cultural Expert Og-B, couldn’t but feel inspired himself. His brother had an allure with words. The species of Bogs, floating small in the potato field, didn’t have the numbers yet, but they would. And, despite the numerous times Og-A and Og-B butted heads, they were on the same page, which was rare for any species. The collective of Bogs would fight together for their survival, to the victory or to the death. They were going to conquer the earth.
***
What if an alien race invades the earth, but they’re essentially harmless? I came up with the story idea on the bus and thought it would be fun to occasionally work on. The story is from the point of the Cultural Expert; only, he sucks at his job and gets all the facts wrong. The first fourth of the story will be a buildup until the first plot point where the aliens decide to launch an attack, which goes incredibly poorly for them, as they release they’re powerless against the humans. The alien’s attack technique only inflicts a mild amount of pain, similar to a welt from a paintball gun. At the midpoint, the alien mothership is destroyed and any hope of retreat off the planet is made impossible, leaving them stranded on earth against a foe they can’t beat.
I may change the direction later, but that’s what I got for now.
