The Pill

Don't take it.

It's a miracle and a glory and the greatest thing to ever happen, so they say, and it'll probably become the law soon that you have to take it. They'll have you swallow a little capsule when you're still a baby; probably at the same time you're getting your inoculations. The piece of the thing in there weighs only a few grams and will be plucked out of a little pool that will probably be installed in every hospital soon.

Those couple grams are more than enough for it to happen. Sure, you'll never get cancer. You'll live until a hundred and fifty. You'll have stronger bones and a more resilient immune system. You'll probably never need glasses or a hearing aid. If you lose something small like a finger, in half a year you'll have it back. If you lose a whole arm, in two years you'll have it back with nearly full functionality. It's the sort of miracle that's believable enough to catch on. It won't solve all our problems, and it'll even create a few more. Like overpopulation like we'd never saw coming. But it works and it's cheap and it's plentiful and that's all we need. Sure they can't quite explain how the thing actually manages to rewrite our genetic code after we swallow a few grams; but they promise the answers will come someday and that there are no ill side effects.

It's from a 'previously unknown variety of starfish; but they won't even tell you that on the news. I think the story right now is that it's something they're growing artificially. These starfish live in the deepest, darkest places in the ocean and they aren't very big or interesting looking. Honestly, we've probably seen them down there before a thousand times and just looked them over. It just so happened that prick with the show about eating weird foods got ahold of one, god knows how, and thought it was a different kind of starfish and ate part of it and a year later he had that foot he lost back. I'm sure they tore apart his house and tested gallons of his blood and interrogated everyone he ever spoke to, but somehow they figured out just when the regeneration happened and eventually found the fucking thing. It had been alive when he ate one of its arms and I guess he took a pity on it and let the thing live in a tank in his house. Well, this led to that and eventually they brought up a ton of the suckers.

But here's the thing. Think about or technology and innovations; think about what they're for. Mostly it's to keep us alive longer, make us healthier, help us communicate better. What if, as a race, we'd already had the ability to communicate via thought? What if we were naturally incredibly hardy and long-lived? What if we started out having everything we needed without having to do a bit of work? Our goals would turn to keeping our world the way it was and simply enjoying things. With a mind so powerful it can transmit and receive thoughts with no effort, it stands to reason other amazing things are possible too. With that mind staying completely intact in even the smallest sliver of the creature, one has to wonder just what else that mind can do..

So now here's the question. If you'd survived all this time just sitting around on the bottom of the ocean with this incredible intellect, how would you amuse yourself? What if that mind can wander and roam freely if it can just find something to carry it? What if as a race we made ourselves the bottom of the food chain just to ensure we'd constantly be taken into new creatures and allowed to see the world through their eyes? Is it really such a leap to think that such powerful minds could overtake smaller, lesser ones? No. Nor is it unusual to think that if such a race of powerful minds was endangered; they would use this ability to dominate the minds to defend themselves. That they'd patiently wait until their enemies devoured them, then simply displace the minds of those enemies and solve the conflict? I don't think it's crazy at all, and I don't think it's crazy that there's suddenly a lot more war all over the world. A lot research put into birth control and the 'accidental' release of that superbug that makes men sterile. We should be enjoying world peace but instead we're killing each other faster than ever before.

Maybe they're not even threatened, maybe we're just a game to them. Maybe we're the hundredth race of beings these things have done this with. All I know is they don't turn you into some zombie from a cheesey old sci-fi flick...they let you think you're still in control; that what they want you to do is actually what you want to do. It all seems so natural, so right. Then we're in World War III and the only thing the bombs won't scorch clean is the floor of the ocean.

Don't ask me how I know all of this, and don't take that pill.