Translated transcript found in Fnord Ship 7.14:
“Human beings are interesting creatures; they
find meaning behind every rock. A mystery
behind every sentence. A monster behind the
simplest words. If we could manage to
understand the evolutionary factors driving
this biological process…
…we may have a better understanding of
how The Singularity functions,”
“We are the Fnord, seekers of Ultimate
Answers. The Soon-To-Be-Enlightened Ones. We
have traveled across 700 trillion galaxies to
be here. Please help yourself to some snacks;
you’re going to be here for a while,”
“We came here to learn why human beings apply
meaning to the meaningless, and how it
benefits them to create fears for themselves
even when unnecessary. We have been led to
believe by reputable sources that the reason
is heavily linked to an informational anomaly
in the space-time continuum. For all intents
and purposes we shall in future refer to it as
The Singularity.
But first, let us bore you with our history.
The Fnord is a bipedal Reptilian organization
of source-seekers and data-miners with
outposts across the universe. We are what the
native inhabitants of this land would call
‘Aliens’, or ‘extra-terrestrials,’.
Many humans believe The Fnord to be an evil
organization that has control over the entire
world. We encourage these delusions.
It is better for us all if we are believed to
be nothing more than moustache-twirling
villains bent on World Domination and evil
cackling.
We are much more interested in the reasons why
Humans believe in some diabolical conspiracy
that controls the world. How does it benefit
humanity to think that the universe is more
than a screaming, uncaring mostly-empty void
of chaos and darkness? These are the questions we have set out to answer,”
“We found a nearby village; the natives call
it ‘Trouble Valley’. Population of around
twenty-five humans.
We stole one of the inhabitants; a human child
named Sunil Yohannan. We subjected him to our
experiments, hoping to learn more about the
human psyche. What follows are our findings,”
The transcript ends here.
It was a nice day in Trouble Valley and some of the kids were having a rugby game in the fields nearby the Schoolhouse.
There was Jack, there was Goldie and Libby, there was Tipene and Luke.
The ball flew this way and that as Luke kicked it this way, Tipene kicked it that way, and everyone was simply having a most gay old time.
But then the unthinkable happened. Goldie went for a big, long kick and the ball flew high, high into the air, higher than any rugby ball the villagers of Trouble Valley had ever seen or heard of, and off it went, flying higher and higher, traveling into the distance. Then it fell down and, by the time it was about twenty feet in the air, the kids gasped for they saw where it was headed. The dreaded gulch.
Behind that bush was a massive drop, at least 200 feet down in a completely vertical direction.
Nobody was brave enough to go anywhere near that cliff edge, for they knew that one false move would mean almost certain death.
“Wow, that’s one heck of a drop,” Libby said.
“Yeah,” Goldie agreed.
“I wonder how far down it goes,” Luke wondered.
“Probably right into the centre of the earth!” Tipene said.
“Ooh noo,” Luke squirmed.
“Hey guys, what’s up?” Jack asked, bringing along some fresh lemonades from the Wolf Down Inn that the rest had
requested of him earlier.
“We dropped our ball down this terrifyingly immense cliff,”
Libby explained.
“Oh, well that’s too bad. Would you like me to run off and buy another one?” Jack asked.
“Actually, we had a better idea; maybe you could climb down,”
Goldie said.
“Yeah. You’re not a wimp or something, right? Come on, be a real man!” Tipene said.
“So a real man is someone who does whatever he’s told to gain approval from others? Yeah, that makes sense!” Jack said happily.
And so off Jack went as he slowly walked down the cliff edge.
“Are you mental, Goldie?? You could get Jack killed!” Tipene yelled.
“You were the one encouraging him! I was just making a suggestion,” Goldie said.
“I only said that because of what you said!” Tipene said.
“None of this is really helping the fact that Jack is already gone…” Luke pointed out.
Meanwhile, Andrew, Julia, Monica and Matt decided to go to Trouble Valley Park.
“So has Eve managed to get back to her home planet yet?”
Matt asked.
“No, she‘s still staying out there in the stable,” Monica said.
“Yes, that‘s right, but we shouldn‘t talk about this kind of thing out in the open, it‘s not safe,” Andrew said.
“Why not? They‘ll just think we‘re crazy, like Sunil. And what about all the weird stuff that‘s been happening in this village anyway? How are people explaining that rock-monster attack we stopped the other week?” Matt asked.
“They think he was an escaped circus freak,” Andrew answered.
“Hmph. Fine, then. What do normal kids talk about on their days off?” Matt wondered aloud.
“Oh, I‘ve got this great joke! It‘s about a Doctor and a Clown; I don‘t remember how it goes, but the punchline is that the Doctor is unmarried!” Julia said.
“Har, har, har,” Matt said sarcastically.
“Um, nice weather we‘re having,” Monica said.
"Indeed," Andrew replied.
"I heard your cat Robby died last night," Matt said.
"Oh, um, yes he did, but he was quite old. We were expecting him to pass away for quite some time," Monica said.
"Hey, what‘s one thing you‘d bring with you to a deserted island?" Julia asked.
"A boat," said Matt.
"You‘re no fun," said Julia, disappointed.
The five of them stood on the picnic benches for a while.
"Has anyone been to any good opera houses lately?" Andrew asked.
"No," Monica mumbled.
"Me neither," Andrew said.
"I tried to make a birdhouse yesterday," Julia said.
"I could really go for a cup of tea right now," Andrew said.
"I‘ve always preferred a cup of hot chocolate, myself," Monica said.
"Hm, nothing beats having a hot cup of cocoa filled with marshmallows resting by the fireplace,” Julia said.
"Personally, I‘d prefer a hot naked lady resting by my fireplace," Matt said.
"We should have a puppet show sometime," Julia suggested.
"No," Matt said flatly.
"I once saw a puppet show with dinosaurs," Monica said.
"Can we please go over to the Stable now? So we can talk about aliens and stuff???" Matt asked in an annoyed tone.
And so Andrew, Monica, Julia and Matt all stood up and walked over to the abandoned stable.
Eve was there waiting for them.
"So, you still haven‘t gotten a response to your distress signal, huh, Eve?" Matt asked.
"Actually, she did get a response!" Monica said.
Everyone turned to Monica in surprise.
"Last night, I had to stop this strange cosmic salesman who tried to kidnap my father and sell off Earth; his name was Olorhleng; he was very powerful," Monica said.
"Monica, why didn‘t you wake me up when this happened?? I could have helped you," Eve said.
"I didn‘t want to be a bother," Monica said.
"And you didn‘t tell us any of this until just now?" Andrew asked.
"You told us not to mention alien stuff in public," Monica explained, "But anyway, Olorhleng didn‘t care about rescuing Eve; he just cared about something he called “The
Singularity“. He said there was some kind of rival group that was studying it. Oh! Oh, my, I just remembered something else,"
"What is it?" Julia asked.
"He said that this rival group had done something weird with Sunil Yohannan‘s head. Some kind of monitoring station or something, I don‘t know. But this group did all this because it was interested in learning more about “The Singularity‘,"
Monica said.
"He never said what, exactly, The Singularity was?" Andrew asked.
"No," Monica admitted glumly.
"It may have something to do with the Impenetrable Cavern, and that group of kids that were guarding the place," Matt suggested.
"Indeed. But first, we need to figure out how to get this thing out of Sunil‘s head. It‘s obvious that this thing is what‘s making Sunil act so crazy all the time!" Andrew said.
"Andrew‘s right; this is a serious breach of Sunil‘s freedom and privacy!" Julia said aggressively.
"I don‘t care about 'rights‘; I‘ll just do whatever it takes to get that chatterbox to chill out!" Matt said.
"And there may be other dangers present. We don‘t know this things‘ intentions, whether it‘s noble or evil. For starters, I think we should sneak into Sunil‘s room and find out what we can,"
Said Andrew.
"Sounds good," Julia said.
"But Julia, you were just talking about how it‘s wrong to breach someone‘s privacy, and now you‘re talking about breaking into someone‘s room?" Monica asked, aghast.
"But it‘s for a good cause!" Julia said.
"The ends justify the means," Matt insisted.
"Couldn‘t we just tell him?" Monica asked innocently.
"He‘d never trust us! He thinks we‘re behind some kind of secret conspiracy to keep all alien life a secret from him!" Matt exclaimed.
"We kind of are, in a way," Eve said, "After all, I‘m an alien, and you‘re keeping me a secret from him,"
"Ok yeah, but not in the way he‘s saying! This guy is a nutter!
He thinks there‘s something diabolical behind everything!"
Matt exclaimed.
"Makes you wonder how he‘d behave if he didn‘t have that thing inside his head," said Andrew.
"We could make him normal," Matt said with a grin.
"We should take out this satellite or whatever it is before he harms either himself or others. Of course, I‘ll need to stay here whilst you break into Sunil‘s room," Eve said.
"Well, time‘s a wastin‘; come on, guys." Andrew said, and led them off to Sunil‘s house.
And so they carefully broke into Sunil‘s bedroom. They saw some strange things.
They saw a star map highlighting the Sirius star; they saw the words ATLANTIS printed above a picture of a dodgy London street, the words LIATRIS printed above a picture of the ocean. There were also many sci-fi comic books littering the ground.
"There doesn‘t seem to be anything too off-kilter," Andrew remarked.
"Hmm. I wonder what an alien control device would even look like?" Monica wondered.
"Maybe it‘s the hat," Matt said.
"What do you mean?" Andrew asked.
"We‘ve never seen Sunil with his hat off. Like, ever. Not once.
He was even willing to be chased by the villagers rather than take his hat off. So what if that hat is the satellite? What if that hat is what‘s filling his head with all these strange messages that make him behave so strangely?" Matt asked.
"That‘s a clever idea, Matt. Cunning, even," Julia said cheekily.
"Don‘t be meshugana, Julia, or my Reptilian Masters will eat you," Matt said with a smile.
"So we have to get his hat off? But how?" Monica asked.
"You‘re not touching my hat!" Sunil said. Everyone turned around to see Sunil standing in the doorway.
"Uh oh," Said Julia.
"Uh, Sunil, you‘re probably wondering why we‘ve broken into your room," Andrew said.
"I already know! You received your marching orders from the Reptilian Mother-ship!!" Sunil exclaimed.
"Look, Sunil, we think there might be something wrong with your hat," Andrew said.
"Nonsense! It protects me from the aliens reading my thoughts!" Sunil said.
"But maybe it‘s actually being used so the aliens can read your thoughts!" Monica said.
"Oh, so now you‘re making fun of my beliefs, huh?" Sunil picked up a comic book. "These stories give me solace, so just go away!"
"But what if it‘s not just stories, Sunil?
What if there‘s something out there that‘s a lot weirder and cooler than all these things you‘ve tricked yourself into believing in? You could find those things, Sunil. Just take that hat off, and we can show you incredible things.
We can show you a real, live alien; not just some made-up story somebody thought up to make people feel better!" Julia said.
"I haven‘t taken this hat off for five years. Anything could happen if I take it off.
If I start acting weird, I mean, weirder than usual, like it seems like the Fnord‘s taken over my mind, then you have to kill me,"
Sunil said gravely.
"Gladly," Matt said sardonically. Meanwhile, Jack was busy hurtling off the edge of the cliff hoping against hopes that he would survive his fall.
Jack did not pray, however, because in his personal opinion and not necessarily anybody else’s, it was quite selfish to pray, to ask the powers that be that the rules of the universe be temporarily twisted in one’s own personal favor.
But whether or not he was right or wrong about this, Jack continued to fall down the cliff. Looking to the rocky cliff face to his left, it appeared some stone mason had chiseled the verse
“REVELATION 7.14. ” in the rock in big, blocky letters.
To his right, there was nothing but bright blue skies. A dove with an olive branch in his beak flew by indifferently.
And still Jack fell. But, luckily, Jack did not die, did Jack. The Fall of Jack was broken by a big, muddy bog full of icky, slimy mud. Jack did not enjoy being dirty and covered in filth, being the kind of guy who always took pride in his personal hygiene, taking a shower at least thrice a week, which was quite an extravagant endeavour back in those days, particularly for a low-income family like the Lawrence Family.
Nevertheless, Jack had fallen into this big pile of mud, and this was what had broken his fall, and it is certainly much better to be messy than it is to be dead, so instead of complaining about this rotten circumstance he found himself in, he looked around his surroundings, and was surprised to find a skeleton nearby!
Of course, Jack knew about life and death and had seen plenty of sheep skulls in his time, having lived in that small agricultural village we all know and love (You may have heard of it; it’s called Trouble Valley…), but this skeleton was different. The head was like that of a lizard, but the body was like that of a human’s. It looked to be at least six feet tall. It looked like it had been here for a very, very long time. Nearby, he found another Reptilian skeleton.
This was already quite strange enough, and if Jack were a boy of less caliber, he would have by now been running off screaming.
And then his gaze shifted northwards, and he came across what must have been the strangest sight so far that Jack had seen that day.
It was an enormous alien-looking laboratory, fallen apart and in disrepair. Half of it had been reclaimed by the forest, overgrown with weeds and branches.
This same half had been pushed up against the cliff and was now on an angle. It creaked and made odd groaning sounds.
Jack’s curiosity was piqued, and since he could see no way to get home anyway, he thought to himself that he may as well go exploring.
And so, Jack journeyed valiantly onwards towards this strange alien laboratory. He entered through a crack in the western quadrant. Instantly he found himself overwhelmed with the smell of sulfur.
All around him, Jack could see highly-advanced technological devices. Most of them were broken, leaking strange black liquids that Jack nearly tripped over once or twice. Many of them had buttons and small lights all over them, the likes of which Jack had never seen ever before.
There were little red lights, little blue lights, and little green lights, all broken up into little tiny pieces.
None of them were lit up. Not one.
Then there were all the little buttons; red, green, yellow, blue, purple, indigo, but though Jack pushed these buttons, not one of them would work. Not one.
It was all a bunch of broken-down junk, all of it beyond any repair, even that of the most advanced alien scientists.
And then Jack saw a faint red glow in the distance.
At first Jack thought it was but a figment of his imagination, but it grew larger, and emitted a loud buzzing sound as he approached.
He entered a dark room and came upon an enormous monitor ten times his size.
There was a big, shiny red button underneath it, and underneath that, the faint glow of the little red light that Jack had seen when he had been in the other room that was not this one but was in fact the other room that he had been in before he had been in this room.
And now this room which was not the other room which Jack was in before which was the other room that Jack had been in before and from Jack’s point of view the room he was now in was the other room and not the other room as the other room was the room he had been in when this room was the other room and the other room was the room Jack had been in which was not this room, but the other room, this room stood before Jack in all its glory with the big, tempting red button just begging to be pushed.
And so, Jack took a risk and threw caution to the wind, and pushed the big red button.
BRRRREEEWWWWZZAAAAUUUURRRRRZZAAAAAAAAAB
UURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
The monitor came to life, and Jack was momentarily
overcome by its bright, powerful white glare. After a few seconds, he squinted his eyes open and saw something most surprising.
It was two tall Reptilian creatures in lab coats, talking in plain English. Jack sat down in the seat behind him and began to listen.
“…the human subject 0-1-3 has grown restless since we have installed the device,”
“This simple contraption makes it so that millions of meaningless words, phrases, verses and images pass by in the human subject’s brain in an endless loop,”
The film then showed off a short portion of these. Random words buzzed across the screen. 13! 27! 26! TURN! SPOON!
DOGWIT! 5! 55! 555! Jack was overwhelmed and confused by the flashing text. He thought he might very well have a seizure. He began to feel faint. But then the screen cut back to the two Reptilian Creatures in lab coats.
“None of these terms have any inherent meaning to them whatsoever. We have also inserted random phrases and philosophies, some that hold meaning to certain human religious systems, others completely computer-generated,”
The Monitor then showed off the following message in big, bold type:
“The Move-Takers Create History,
The Movie-Makers Create Mystery,”
“We are interested in learning what this primitive simian mind attributes to this meaningless computer-generated phrase,”
The image of the Eye of Horus showed up on the screen.
“This image in particular inspires great fear in the human subject. It grows increasingly paranoid just at the mere physical depiction of the single eye.
We wonder why this is.
We know that many cultures believe in the deadly ‘evil eye’, an apparent ability to kill others with nothing more than a stare.
Perhaps the eye represents the Forbidden Fruit, as spoken of in the ancient Earth tale of ‘ Adam and Eve’, in which a snake offers the first humans knowledge of the difference between Good and Evil. This knowledge ruins their idyllic, utopian blissful state in the so-called Garden of Eden.
Perhaps it is not so much knowledge that humans fear as much as it is the consequences of holding that knowledge.
The human subject attributes to this eye incredible power, believing that its presence is proof of an evil conspiracy,”
Another loop of their strange video began to play. There was a picture of an apple suspended in outer space, then an image of some city in America.
Then the words ‘WE CREATE MEANING’ flashed over the images as it played over and over in a loop, getting faster with each repetition.
“Results are going well. The human has created elaborate theories to explain the chaos of the words and imagery shown.
The human subject has successfully managed to create information out of nothing. Apples,”
The screen went abruptly blank.
Then, the number ‘9’ appeared on the screen for a few seconds.
Then, it went blank again.
Then it came back to the two reptilians, only one was naked and without his lab coat. It didn’t seem to make much difference. Jack couldn’t make out any naughty bits. Clearly the lab coat was just for show.
“We apologise for the lack of updates. The human subject is growing more irritable. We think we should remove the device before something terrible happens. Though we only have trace amounts of information, they may be enough to helping us understand the true nature of the singularity,”
“It is imperative that we remove the device before it is too late,”
Then, on the screen, the image of a bucket hat appeared.
“We no longer care for the singularity; we now understand THE TRUTH! The answer is spoon. 13. My soul contains ingrown hairs. The mattress is the key! Apples apples apples apples apples apples!!”
The screen went black for a second, then came back to the reptilians, clearly disheveled.
“Mission is a failure. All resources have failed. Human subject has escaped the compound with the device still firmly implanted on head. We do not know what long-time exposure to the device will do to a normal human mind. It makes no difference. The noodles are inside my skin! The One approaches. We must ready ourselves. Abstain from all food.
All water. All clothes. All contact. Very soon now. All we have to do is wait. He will come for us.
He must come for us.
Mustn’t he?”
“The lemon squash must never comprehend his--”
And then the film went blank and the red light died out.
Jack slowly began to back away from the monitor, trying to wrap his head around what he had just seen.
He hit the back of his head on a glass display, and he was shocked as to what he saw as he turned around.
It was a huge display of hundreds upon hundreds of robin-blue bucket hats. They looked exactly like the hat that Sunil wore all the time.
The devices whirred menacingly.
Jack screamed and rushed out of the alien laboratory as fast as he could, only to find himself lost within the confines of Nevermore Forest. Now Jack was scared. He may never be able to make his way home.
Would Jack have to live the rest of his life in the Nevermore Forest?
Then Jack heard a distant voice in the distance.
“You sure you know the way?” the voice spoke. It was the voice of Andrew.
“Yeah, if he’s alive, he must be over here!” Spoke the voice of Sunil.
Jack was most surprised to hear the voice of Sunil, but very thankful when around the corner came all his friends; Andrew, Monica, Julia and Matt.
Later, they all rendezvoused outside the broken-down alien laboratory and explained everything that had just happened.
Andrew, Monica, Julia and Matt had managed to convince Sunil to take off his hat, returning him to normal. He no longer made mad statements about alien conspiracies nor did he engage in any crazy shenanigans. All was well once again.