Von Neumann’s War

“The worst part, General, is that such automatons would be driven by one of those two goals — replication for further interstellar movement or preparing the new system for colonization. In either case, then we can only assume that Mars is not where they will stop. The Von Neumann probes would use every in-situ resource within a solar system for either goal. The point here being, whether they intend to colonize or simply are ‘passing through,’ there is no indication that they will not do the same thing to Earth that they have done to Mars. Whether their intentions are hostile or simply… uncaring, the damage to the Earth will not be survivable by the human race.

“We suggest tasking the Hubble Space Telescope to look at the spectra and albedos of the outer planets and possibly Kuiper Belt Objects to determine if Mars is the only planet within the Sol system being transformed.

“We also suggest that we begin to prepare for an invasion that could occur at any time. We have no way of knowing or understanding the alien devices’ motivation or timeline. What is the critical mass required before they move to the next target planet? Perhaps the Hubble experiment will give us some insight. Or perhaps they will move from Mars to the Moon first, if we’re lucky. Who knows? We’re not certain of any of these things, but we’re certain that these are aliens. We’re also pretty certain of the Von Neumann probe theory although it could be some sort of biological equivalent. And finally, several of our team members concur with the Chairman: Nuke Mars Now. However, given the scale of the change and the fact that our probe was intercepted well outside of any reasonable engagement range it’s unlikely that we can, in fact, get a nuke onto the ground. Or that any number of nuclear devices would, in fact, help.”

“In other words,” the President said, sighing. “We’re too late.”

* * *

“Sorry I’m late,” Roger said, sitting down at the table in Hooters with a sigh. “Ronny called. He wants us to start using the Hubble to look for more traces in the system.”

“We’re systems engineers,” Alan said, frowning. “Why us?”

“Not we three in particular,” Roger corrected, looking over at Tom with a raised eyebrow. “He wants the group that’s doing it reporting to us. Then I report to Ronny and he sends it on. And we just got Asymmetric Soldier dumped on us, too.”

Project Asymmetric Soldier, from the perspective of the team, might be the critical linchpin of the defense of the world.

Project Asymmetric Soldier was put into play because it was decided that any invasion from space by the phenomenon would be extremely one-sided in the invaders’ favor. Asymmetric Soldier was based on the concept of “asymmetric warfare.” The general idea was to try to fight battles using your strengths against an enemy’s weakness. The concept was much touted by groups that had fought the United States over the years. The known problem with asymmetric warfare was that it rarely worked. The project was already notorious for being referred to by its acronym — AS, pronounced like the name for a male donkey — and various variations.

Asymmetric Soldier was a research, development, and engineering as well as strategic and tactical investigation into how to prepare for the invasion, begin preparations, and search for fast turn-around technologies that could be used against an invasion on a planet-wide scale. While it was probably the only hope of survival of the human race, no one involved, especially given the CASTFOREM data, gave it more than the chance of a snowflake in hell. However, every bit of data they could gather would refine and improve AS’s chance of working.

“Why are you giving me the fish-eye?” Tom asked, frowning. He picked up a wing and tried to get the bone to fall out with a twist, ending up with mashed chicken mess. “I will succeed in this endeavor. As GOD IS MY WITNESS, I WILL FIGURE OUT THE CHICKEN TRICK! If I can figure out the chicken trick, maybe I can figure out… the rest…” he ended with a sigh.

“We’re going to need planetary guys, astrophysicists…You’re from CalTech, you know all those types,” Roger ended with a shrug. He picked up a wing, expertly stripped out the chicken and double-dipped.

“I seriously need a beer,” Alan said, sighing and reaching for the pitcher. “I thought we could chill for a while. And now we need asshole physicists—”

“My job,” Traci said, slapping his hand away and picking up the pitcher. “And quit bad-mouthin’ my future career. Besides, why do you need an astrophysicist? You guys are systems engineers. What the hell do you know about stars and planets? Nothing, that’s what. You had to get me to convince you the albedo of Mars was changing! Hah. Rocket scientists couldn’t even tell that Mars was changing color until a Hooters girl pointed it out!”

“Funny. But Roger here is really more of a telescope designer than a rocket scientist, although he plays one on TV,” Alan said, giving her a forced smile as he picked up the refilled pitcher.