Three thousand galactan years have passed since the extinction of Earth- a small planet with low-level forms of civilisation- and Hes, a student of the prestigious Intergalactic Institute of Greatness would like nothing more than his tedious assignment of the planet to disappear. Procrastination, palaver, and plagiarised perspectives were Hes’ newfound life principles.
$%^@*(loosely translates to Hes) hated their life. Being a university student at the prestigious Intergalactic Institute of Greatness had its perks-guaranteed success for their first regeneration cycle and a permanent path for future ventures into amassing great fortunes-however, their patience was wearing thin today. Today, their sadistic, downright horrible excuse for a professor decided to assign an assignment worth 20 percent of their final grade-ultimately of paramount importance. The overall topic was simple and general enough- an essay on the downfall of a planet with no extant sentient species. Simple enough. The list of planets to be assigned was displayed on the Galactan-board, where Hes’ eyes skimmed over until they stopped. You see, the planet of choice for this class depended greatly on pure luck, and when it came to that, Hes was just hopeless. When they picked up the galacto-signal from the assessment station, they had their antenna wiggle with despair as they scanned it over and over again. “Earth”.
Maybe if Hes stared at the word long enough, it would make it disappear? It did not work. Hes opted for another method. Perhaps banging their head repeatedly against the desk would will the task away. Alas, to no avail. It only left them with a throbbing headache and an angry red bump ordaining their forehead. There was only one solution remaining. To procrastinate. Deeming that to be a suitable alternative, Hes successfully evaded all responsibility for the task ahead of them.
Two millennia passed by at the speed of light. How unfortunate indeed. Hes now had precisely 32 galactan-hours remaining until their essay was due. To put it lightly, they were royally screwed. You see, the knowledge on Earth was minimal, and Hes frankly did not have the time or energy to open and read a book from the tremendous Intergalactic Library of Knowledge. Hes decided it was time to put the notorious phrase to use, “fake it till you make it”. They opened their galactop and began.
Planet AQ972 of Universe-354, known colloquially by its past inhabitants as “Earth”, is a primitive planet with low levels of civilisation. The planet was considered minuscule compared to other similar planets in the Milky-way galaxy. Its inhabitants (predominantly a considerably higher level species known as “humans”) are recorded to be microscopic, varying between 0.4 to 0.7 standard microgalactometers in height. While other forms of Earthian life existed near the end of the planet, few ceased to exist except for the aforementioned humans.
Perfect- Hes thought. The first paragraph was over, with only 1700 more words to go. Brilliant. That was all Hes knew about Earth, everything they could remember from their elementary school education. With little time left to spare, Hes opened the Galactopedia on their Galactop, and while it wasn’t the most trusted source to exist, they were sure they could get at least bits and pieces of information to aid them in writing. The rest…was a fill-in-the-blanks problem.
According to Galactopedia, Hes’ only source of salvation at this point, the calamity that brought the end to civilisation on Earth, was...a nuclear bomb? What on earth was that? After extensive searching on galactoogle, Hes found that it was an explosive device that released precisely 300 galocalories of energy. That barely covered one-third of Hes’ hourly energy requirements. So clearly, this nuclear bomb thingy was simply breakfast- a small, non-filling breakfast. Interesting…breakfast killed the human people. A critical point to be noted indeed, Hes made sure to include this finding in his essay.
The human creatures also seemed to fight in recreations known as ‘wars’. According to Galactopedia, wars were games held between divisions of the planet, known as countries and frequently occurred as a game of jest and sportsmanship. How very peculiar…Hes thought to themselves. As a matter of fact, Hes concluded that this nuclear bomb contraption was used in one of these game war events, effectively killing everyone. Earth was proving to be as finicky of a planet as he initially thought it would be…troublesome indeed. Clearly, low-level civilisations should stay away from activities, for they had such dire consequences- Hes decided.
However, when Hes searched for the origin of the civilisation of the Aliens from Earth and their mannerisms, they encountered a roadblock. There was simply no information to be found. Yet, their professor had demanded that this segment exists in the essay-that was when Hes thought of an easy way out of this predicament: they would simply have to plot murder. Against their professor. For the next twelve galactan-hours, Hes extensively researched methods to kill and bury a body without raising suspicion. It was a productive time spent, indeed. Until it wasn’t. Hes blinked up at the clock and felt their stomach drop. Only 5 galactan-hours remained until their essay was due, and they still hadn’t found an effective way to discard their abhorrent professor or finish their essay. Hes proceeded to bang their head on his desk once more. This wasn’t proving to be very effective. The time had come for Hes to charm their way out of this nonsense.
When Hes started getting back into it, they noticed something odd. Earth’s last major extinction event though quick, had been building up for over a century. Something changed suddenly in the “wars”. As they called it, a significant change in climate was plaguing the planet’s atmosphere. All the information on earth was extracted from their propaganda machines, which had all the data uploaded to the archives. There were rudimentary translations, but the interpretation was difficult, even for elite Alien relations and communications researchers. The roadblock they faced was discrepancies in the data presented and decisions taken. Hes scanned the data multiple times, hoping to find a galacto-nugget of truth. Then the realisation hit them like a cargo ship. They were overestimating the capability of these aliens.
Hes took cognition boosters and worked on their assignment. The humans knew the anomalies in their ecology but pushed them aside and focussed more on their petty quarrels.
They could’ve stopped their extinction if only they had decided to take action, Hes couldn’t comprehend the low level of critical and logical cognitive capabilities these primitives possessed. After the incomprehensible time that went into the gruelling task of researching and finally finishing the assignment, Hes was horrified to see that he had missed the deadline. Hes was ready to step out of the station and lose consciousness, drifting eternally in space. But they still wanted to present their discovery to the professor.
After Hes’ presentation to the professor in the Scientific conference ship, they expected proud feelings and encouraging remarks, but all they got was a laugh and a backhanded compliment.” Only you could estimate the level of procrastination these aliens possessed,” The professor communicated. “You are still getting a Galacto-Backlog, though.”