{"id":137,"date":"1986-01-01T23:08:00","date_gmt":"1986-01-02T04:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/?p=137"},"modified":"2024-03-30T15:57:54","modified_gmt":"2024-03-30T20:57:54","slug":"the-valinor-and-ted-koppel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/?p=137","title":{"rendered":"The Valinor and Ted Koppel"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Portrait<\/a>
Portrait of the geek as a young man: Author Robert Gillis hard at work writing a story on his trusty TI-99 4\/a computer, 1985.<\/figcaption><\/figure>by Robert Gillis, 1985<\/p>\n

An excerpt from one of my earliest stories, “The Abucs Scenario.” (1986) So if John Matthews really was, as he claimed, a member of an advanced extraterrestrial race bent on conquering Earth, what would he do? Well, go on “Nightline,” of course! <\/em><\/p>\n

\n

AND NOW, NIGHTLINE WITH TED KOPPEL IN WASHINGTON<\/strong><\/p>\n

“Good evening. Tonight, live from the Hidatios Prime, the mother ship of his battle fleet, we have the newly self crowned ruler of Earth, John Matthews.”<\/p>\n

“Die, humanoid scum! Whoop! Whoop! Dive! Dive! Gadzooks! I’m in the state, state of CON- FUSION!<\/p>\n

“It appears we have him. Mr. Matthews?”<\/p>\n

“Hello, Koppel Lifeform.”<\/p>\n

“Mr. Matthews, how can we address you?”<\/p>\n

“Hmmmm. Well, my official title is Humanti Valinor of the Third Circle, Tricommander, and Praetor of the Terran Star Cluster. Call me Almighty.”<\/p>\n

“Mr. Matthews, let’s start with some simple questions. Why have you chosen to take over Earth at this time?”<\/p>\n

“I was bored. School’s a drag, y’know, and the chicks are so — ”<\/p>\n

“Where are you from? Is it a planet near here, or another galaxy?” Koppel asked.<\/p>\n

John snorted. “What a stupid question. It’s far, Koppel. Really far. You might even say infinitely far.”<\/p>\n

“Are you saying that you can travel faster than the speed of light? According to Einstein that is impossible.”<\/p>\n

“I do not worship your god of relativity.”<\/p>\n

“I understand you claim you’re immortal — ”<\/p>\n

“CLAIM? Watch it, human! I’ll destroy you. Well, yeah. I’m immortal by YOUR primitive standards.”<\/p>\n

“Mr. Matthews, you are the first contact Earth has had with extraterrestrial life! Surely there are better ways to communicate than a military takeover! We could learn so much from each other!”<\/p>\n

“Like what?”<\/p>\n

“Well, an exchange of knowledge. A cure for heart disease?”<\/p>\n

“No, thanks. The Valinorian Empire already has one. You humans are all alike. Don’t you think I watch “V” every week? Sure. Get all the knowledge you can from the silly alien and send him packing with the red dust. No way.”<\/p>\n

“Now, joining us live in New York, we have Cornell astronomer Doctor Carl Sagan, author of COSMOS. He’d like to ask you a few questions, Mr. Matthews.”<\/p>\n

“New York? New York. Oh! That big city near Canada that I wasted before we went on the air!”<\/p>\n

Koppel sighed. “Mr. Matthews — you are a rather unique guest. Well, in Boston we have secretary of defense Caspar Weinberger.”<\/p>\n

“Boston’s gone, Koppel. I tested my particle accelerator ray on it during the DRAINO commercial.”<\/p>\n

“Just a message to our affiliates: We’ll be running a bit late. Now, Mr. Matthews: It amazes me… And don’t think I’m trying to goad you into an argument, but it amazes me that for a so called superior extraterrestrial, your…”<\/p>\n

“Spit it out, Earthling.”<\/p>\n

“Your attitude, Mr. Matthews. It’s rather childlike.”<\/p>\n

“Ah! You noticed that! Well, there is a reason for that.”<\/p>\n

“And would you care to share it with us?”<\/p>\n

“Don’t condescend, Koppel. Yes, I’ll share it. The babes love it. They want me.”<\/p>\n

“Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve just been informed that ABC has lost control over this broadcast, but nonetheless I’d like to apologize for Mr. Matthews’s language.”<\/p>\n

“Oh, really, Ted. Your planet is about to be destroyed, and you’re worried about a PG 13 rating.”<\/p>\n

“So I’m to understand that your childlike attitude — ”<\/p>\n

“Is to get the babes? You got it!”<\/p>\n

“This has gone on long enough. The people of Earth will not allow you to continue this insane rampage. We have fought and resisted oppression before — ”<\/p>\n

“Two fighting colonies of ants. Big deal.”<\/p>\n

” — and we will again. You can’t do this.”<\/p>\n

“Sure I can.”<\/p>\n

“What about nuclear weapons? Many countries have the power to shoot you out of the sky even as we speak.”<\/p>\n

“What a funny idea. That primitive nuclear toys could possibly be a threat to me.”<\/p>\n

“Let’s get back to square one.”<\/p>\n

“I’d rather get back to Regulus 6.”<\/p>\n

“Look. Your ships are devastating the planet. You feel no guilt at all?”<\/p>\n

“Nope.”<\/p>\n

“I’ll repeat the question. Your ships are devastating the planet. You feel no guilt at all?”<\/p>\n

“Look, Ted. We’re talking about HUMANS here! Earth people! It’s not like we’re discussing intelligent life<\/em> or something!”<\/p>\n

“Well, we’re out of time. Mr. Matthews, in the next thirty seconds can you sum up what you want to say to the people of Earth?”<\/p>\n

“Sure. Thirty seconds, huh?”<\/p>\n

“Well, twenty, actually.”<\/p>\n

“That’s enough. Computer, begin twenty second countdown to detonation.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Robert Gillis, 1985 An excerpt from one of my earliest stories, “The Abucs Scenario.” (1986) So if John Matthews really was, as he claimed, a member of an advanced extraterrestrial race bent on conquering Earth, what would he do? Well, go on “Nightline,” of course! AND NOW, NIGHTLINE WITH TED KOPPEL IN WASHINGTON “Good […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-fiction"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=137"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7450,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137\/revisions\/7450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}