The half hour had gone by. I was standing in a Pentagon briefing room waiting for my audience to arrive. I had gone over in my mind what to say and when to say it several times, but I couldn’t keep it straight. Suddenly, the door opened, and in they walked. 2 each of the Joint Chiefs sat down on each side of the long table, and the President at the head. General Johnson sat in a chair off to the side. Boy, was I ever glad I had some water. I don’t think there was any way I could have talked to them if there had not been.
“Good afternoon. I’m proud to be here helping my country. Before I begin, I would like to apologize for two things. Number one, my appearance. Before I left home, I was not informed that I would be briefing anyone nearly as high in the government as you gentlemen, otherwise, I would have packed at least a dress-shirt and slacks. Number two, I do not know how much of the situation you know about, so if I cover something you have already been told, bear with me.”
I took a sip of my water.
“At 2034 hours, 4 days ago, United States surveillance satellites detected a massive energy signature. It was not familiar to any of the scientists that studied it and it appeared to be emanating from somewhere off the planet. It wasn’t until about 30 hours later that your people were able to get a reasonable estimate on the location of the power source. They steered several large telescopes to search the area. It took them the next 72 hours to find, and confirm the exact location of the power. We have been monitoring the source, the triangular objects you can see in your copies of the photos, and they do appear to be moving towards Earth. Very early this morning, the ships were closing in on Jupiter’s orbit. At the speed they are moving, they should be orbiting the Earth in the next 32 to 44 hours.”
I paused for a moment.
“Now, you may be asking yourself, who am I, and why was I brought in on this. Last night, I was watching the local news when I saw one of these pictures. I immediately called the Pentagon, because I know what they are. At first, I was not believed. It was not until I told General Johnson on the phone that these ships were 1600M long, a detail I knew that had not been released to the public, that they showed interest, but when I was refused further information that might help me provide more information, I hung up. To cut out a lot of extra story, let’s just say that when I got up this morning, I found I was keeping the good General waiting. After making a deal for my information, I was brought here to Washington D.C.”
I paused again. This time I was asked a question.
“How DID you know the length of the ship? You didn’t explain that.” Said one of the Joint Chiefs.
“Excellent question, and something I was going to get to right now. Now, why no one else called the Pentagon, I don’t know, but I am not the only person that could have seen this. Do any of you have memory of seeing the 1977 motion picture Star Wars?”
There was nothing but blank stares. I found it a surprising, but not an entirely unexpected reaction.
“Alright. Well, included in your little packs of information we provided you, is a screenshot from this movie of a warship called a Star Destroyer. If you view this image along side a picture from the surveillance satellites, you should see the same striking resemblance that I did.”
Another of the J.C. spoke up “This could just be a simple coincidence.”
“I beg to differ.” I replied. “Please dim the lights and turn on the projector. This image was taken not 5 minutes before you walked in. As you can see, it shows not one, but 6 virtually identical outlines of the same ship class. Could that be a coincidence? And what about these smaller outlines? I have personally analyzed this image top-to-bottom, left-to-right. I can identify 18 unique ships with designs comparable to those used in the Star Wars Expanded Universe, that meaning including comic books, novels, and short stories. Each of these ships is a warship in its own respects.”
“Excuse me.” A new voice came through the room.
“Yes? Oh, Mr. President. What’s your question?” I said with some jubilance in my voice. I was talking with the most powerful man on Earth.
“So, your are telling us that the warships from a 25 year old movie have appeared in our solar system, and about a day and a half away from Earth?” asked the President.
“Yes. It does appear that way. I cannot provide any explanation as to how. I would say the odds are incalculable.”
The Air Force representative of the Joint Chiefs spoke up “Provided you are correct about this, how do we know they intend to stop here? They could just be passing through the solar system.”
“Again, a very good question. I have 2 reasons. Number 1, Imperial fleets do not just fly through a solar system at sublight speeds without a reason. If they are going somewhere outside of our solar system, they would have had no reason to come. Number 2, these ships have very advanced sensor systems. No doubt they detected our being here before they even arrived in our solar system. This being the case, even if they are passing through, they have or will detect us.”
“Since I expect this question will be next, let me jump the gun and answer it. You’re probably thinking, “What do we do now?” Well, It is my opinion that we should wait. I do not believe that they would attack right off the bat. More than likely, the first move will be to send a small ship down, to give them a better idea of who we are. If these people are the Galactic Empire, then they are a xenophobic group, very pro-human, and should accept us as another planet full of humans. I don’t see any problems.”
“I also want to add something very important. If I am correct, we may have a problem on our hands. You see, with all the media that has been created concerning Star Wars, the novels, the comic books, the video games and more, we may have some limited insight into the future of our own galaxy. This kind of knowledge makes us either valuable enough for the Empire to keep a hold of, or valuable enough to be completely destroyed. Neither option would be pleasant.”
“How so?” I was asked.
“The Empire is a cruel political machine. It rules through fear. It is not unlike many of the oppressive countries we’ve had here on Earth.”
“Imagine if Hitler had gotten nuclear power in 1940. That is probably what the world could be like if they came and took control. We could resist, but they can also destroy every major city on Earth in a couple hours.”
When I stopped, I could see that several people were sweating.
“If there are no more questions, I think it is safe to consider this briefing over. If anything major occurs, we can reconvene later.”
After a pause, the five men leaned towards each other to discuss something. I couldn’t hear what they were saying. After a few moments, the Army representative of the Joint Chiefs turned to me and said, “We have no more questions. We also wish that nothing be revealed to the public at this time. Even if your description of the Empire is exaggerated, it is well beyond what we wish to do to this world. Some leaders around the world will be notified of the discovery. If there is to be hostilities, the Armed Forces of the United States will not be enough to stop it.”
With that, everyone left. I returned to my hotel for the night.