The Ill-Fated Earthlings

By Steve Sonntag

"The Ill-Fated Earthlings" by Steve Sonntag is a compelling, science-fiction piece that critically explores the possible long-term ramifications of a self-indulgent, materialistic, and wasteful society. At the center of the story are three generations of a family that live through the deterioration of the Planet Earth -- from start to finish, as well as the unavoidable travels to new planets as a result.
Shawn is a reflective historian who writes about the Martinson family in the future, with the husband Spencer busily involved in advancing technology more than loving and supporting his family ideally, his wife Therese attempting to balance her organic style of living with family matters, their daughter Amanda excelling in school and pleasing her parents, and their rebellious son Victor who will change the entire family dynamics with his devious actions. Indeed, while others falsely believe the Martinson family has an ideal life, there truly is a lot of dysfunction. They are living in denial, very similar to how most of the Earthlings are living.
Shawn also relates how his global society creates their own fate, even though there are some people who are very cognizant of wanting to improve their living conditions. Nevertheless, there are inevitable, devastating results due to their own human frailties.
Eventually, due to a variety of interventions, their attempts to save their beloved planet fail, and an alien race by the name of the Tu-bearians become instrumental to saving some of the Earthlings from themselves while many will perish with the complete obliteration of their home planet due to a seemingly wayward sun.
After fleeing their home planet, they finally arrive at the Tu-bearians’ home planet to encounter another alien race by the name of the Shemos. There is a long period of adjustment with one another with everybody learning from one another about their new environment.
While the surviving Earthlings do their best to learn from their previous mistakes, there are some who resort to repeating their actions, only to create more problems for themselves with many strange occurrences on this new planet.
All of these inhabitants eventually encounter and battle former prisoners from Earth who were exiled to another planet.
Eventually, the Earthlings are obliged to leave this new planet to venture forth to another planet, but much wiser than beforehand.
While "The Ill-Fated Earthlings" by Steve Sonntag contains satirical, futuristic elements, its primary focuses are for the readers to be reflective of their personal, interpersonal, societal, and environmental responsibilities with the final goal of improving the human condition today and in the future.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Steve Sonntag
• Release date: Apr 9, 2012

Steve Sonntag

Steve Sonntag is a retired teacher after having taught 32 years full-time at the high school level in California, 16 years part-time at the community or junior college in California, and 2 years part-time at the university level in California. He taught Spanish, German, Latin, English, and the Academic Decathlon. He was the high school teacher of the year in his district along with being a mentor teacher for 15 years. Since retiring in 2002, he has written "Teaching, The Hardest Job You'll Ever Love!" for teachers, "Learning, The Hardest Job You'll Ever Love!" for families, and now a sci-fi ebook "The Ill-Fated Earthlings". He is keenly aware of the strengths and the concerns of society, and that is why he has written all 3 of these books so far in order to address these challenges and to promote improvement. He hopes you enjoy his books as well as learn from them--yes, even from the sci-fi ebook which contains elements of the future laden dramatically with the issues of the present.

Book preview

The Ill-Fated Earthlings

By

Steve Sonntag

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2012 Steve Sonntag

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and events are the work of the author’s imagination.

Any resemblance to real persons, places, or events is coincidental.

It is an honor to dedicate The Ill-Fated Earthlings to the following

people who have been very helpful throughout my life: my loving

parents Lewis L. Sonntag and Natalie R. Sonntag, my dear

grandmother Rebecca Yaspan, my fabulous Aunt Ethel Adler, the

rest of my dear relatives in Cleveland, OH, my dedicated first and

second families, my Shalom community friends, and my great

friends Tu Bears, Mike Forman, Arlene Krauss, and Michelle

Mercurio. Also, my thanks go to Arlene and Michelle for

contributing their poetry in this book. My deepest, heartfelt thank

you goes to all of the above-mentioned individuals. - Steve

Sonntag

You make the future one child at a time. – Steve Sonntag

Table Of Contents

Prologue

Chapter I – Shawn’s Dubious Past

Chapter II – Our Ancestors’ Provocative Lives

Part I – Earth’s Desperate Years

Chapter III – Ten Challenging Years To Go (2647)

Chapter IV - Nine Gloomy Years To Go (2648)

Chapter V – Eight Horrifying Years To Go (2649)

Chapter VI - Seven Terrifying Years To Go (2650)

Chapter VII - Six Intolerable Years To Go (2651)

Chapter VIII - Five Troubling Years To Go (2652)

Chapter IX - Four Excruciating Years To Go (2653)

Chapter X - Three Traumatic Years To Go (2654)

Chapter XI – Two Insane Years To Go (2655)

Chapter XII - One Frantic Year To Go (2656)

Chapter XIII – Darting Towards Earth’s End (2657)

Part II – Orgatopia’s Hopes And Challenges

Chapter XIV – The Endless Flight To A Possible Home (2657 To 2660)

Chapter XV — The Transitional Period (2661)

Chapter XVI — The Ascending And Conceptual Dilemmas (2675)

Chapter XVII — More Complications On The Utopian Planet (2690)

Chapter XVIII — Revelations AndThe Shemos’ Generous Offer (2700)

Chapter XIX — Attitudinal Adjustment And Distasteful Times (2717)

Chapter XX – In The Eye Of The Planet’s Storm (2725)

Chapter XXI — The Unexpected Confrontation (2737)

Chapter XXII — Turning Life Upside Down (2743)

Chapter XXIII — The Culminating Crises (2763)

Epilogue – The Conclusion Of Our Arduous Ordeals (2767)

Glossary

Suggested Resources

Prologue

Chapter I

Shawn’s Dubious Past

My name is Shawn Buckman, and I am steadily declining at the age of eighty-three. I am a frail man who barely stands five foot seven inches tall. The accumulated wrinkles that a person is marked with at my age are branded all over my face. My body is lurched over, wanting to fall down, as if I were on the edge of a cliff descending to the ocean on a gusty day. Yet, I stand with debilitating determination with my need to survive as well as can be expected.

I have experienced a lot of joy from my loving family and from my insuperable friends; however, the physical and emotional trauma has become so overpowering, so engrossing, that it makes it difficult for me to feel as if we have enjoyed a fulfilled life.

Along with gaining the knowledge for the technological advancements that we desperately needed, I am extremely interested in the history of our dearly departed Earth, even though I had never experienced life there whatsoever. I am a descendant of this planet, and I have acquired much historical information from Amanda Buckman and from Victor Martinson Jr., both of whom are my relatives.

I feel plenty of guilt and a tremendous amount of shame, although these emotions do not belong to me realistically. I did not cause our problems. There have been multitudes of generations who have surprisingly withstood our incessant tests of typical living along with contending with our unique and horrible circumstances, which truly should not have been experienced whatsoever. At least, I hope our future generations will learn from our blatant mistakes.

What I have written for you, the future generations of many alien life forms, is this historical account of personal endurance and extreme hardships on our now non-existent Earth and another planet called Orgatopia. It includes many lessons to be learned, some of them being positive while others are rather bittersweet, to say the least! So, please learn from our truly less than impressive successes and from our disastrous errors so that you will be able to improve your own innocent lives. This book is a testament of the trials and the tribulations that we imperfect humans have encountered and sometimes have overcome.

In retrospect, we definitely created our own demise in so many ways. You might think we had learned our lessons. Our technological equipment provided so many more opportunities to pursue our individual goals. Perhaps, that was our problem, because we became more selfish of and more focused on our own needs. Why did we not learn to listen to one another?

We became self-absorbed in hoarding for ourselves and our families, that we had complete disregard for our environment. Why did we not listen to the Earth? All the while, it was giving us signs of our self-mutilation and self-annihilation. We could have easily interrupted this doomed snowball effect and improved in so many ways.

Nevertheless, we became our own worst enemies. We became too complacent. We became reliant upon others when all of us, in actuality, did not take ownership of what we could have done and should have done as a global society. We had become an impoverished, global society, although we were so advanced technologically speaking.

It would have been great, if we could have reversed the time clock somehow and advise one another to make the substantive changes that we should have been obligated to pursue.

To explain our present, it is necessary to digress, to understand our misgivings, and this book will share with you our past, all of which I have gained with great accuracy from my relatives. Please heed this warning and subsequent enlightenment. After all, your life and those whom you love are dependent upon you and your actions. Should you elect to do otherwise, you will repeat our very own fate. You then will be continuing like my ancestors, creating your own abyss and becoming the ill-fated Earthlings, like what they fabricated without even becoming conscious of it.

Let’s reflect on the Planet Earth from my acquired knowledge. From afar, Earth appeared very faint. It appeared to be non- existent. As you ventured closer and closer to what seemed to be a glimmer of a light bulb, you scantly surmised that there might be some semblance of a dot. As you gained a bit more curiosity and as you squinted your eyes ever so tightly and with intensity, you might actually have determined that it looked like a shiny pin amongst all the darkness of the universe. You possibly noticed there was a slight, little speck that revolved around it, that being rather attracted to this supposedly innocuous, larger entity. As you approached the Earth even closer, you became entranced and marveled by the amazing vastness of blue that stood out blaringly on this world. Yet, there were land features that interrupted the expansive, complacent blueness of this beautiful sphere. These varied masses of land seemed to really disrupt the magnificence of the strikingly magnificent water formations; however, it seemed as though the water was attempting to rebel by combating with their veins like shapes of rivers, lakes, and seas, but to no avail. It is as though these water masses and these land formations had tenacious, trembling minds of their own that were continuously in persistent conflict with one another for domination.

Eventually, you noticed that there were extraordinary amounts of alluring, colorful lights and capricious forms of civilization scurrying around from one place to another as though there was some sort of purpose. These people were only interested in their own well-being and the people whom they loved. There seemed to be no conscientious appreciation or propitious regard of the water that could easily crush them, if there were a desire by the water to do so. The water seemed to have a tolerable appreciation or a distant regard to the people who oftentimes avoided it, but there appeared to be people who traveled on it, thereby disrupting its beauty by literally making waves for their own use and for their own gratification.

As you descended into the long gone atmosphere, you heard many noises and viewed many lights. Most of these noises and lights were pleasant to the senses and their own charisma; however, some of the sounds were harsh, consisting of the wars that we created foolishly with one another.

There were some green forests, but mostly there were blackened forests caused by the imposing, suffocating deforestation projects along with humanity’s obvious disdain for the peaceful nature that just wanted to coexist in harmony. People, their high buildings, and their abuse of the forests were continuously disintegrating the beauty of this fragile planet.

The plants had been ineffectively appreciated for their delicate beauty. They felt trampled upon by the many human footprints and by the exponentially human disregard that many of their species vanished to never reappear.

The astute winds had attempted very earnestly to scatter humanity’s existence. The winds were extremely aware of the need of self-preservation and caressed and cherished their innocent bystanders, the plants, the animals, and the geography of this planet. They did not want such human treachery to continue without any repercussions. They used all of their formidable strength to provide hurricanes and tornadoes. Yet, no matter how intensely they blew the pollution to smithereens and no matter how steadfastly determined they were to get rid of the humans, they failed in their attempts to cleanse their beloved planet. They still transported the determined pollution to many areas of the Earth, and they failed to resolve the obstinate problems that the Earthlings created. The pollution persisted. They realize that most humans were extremely powerful, but most were oblivious of their actions and their consequences.

The clouds were the only fleeting marshmallows that seemed to have a mind of their own. They were scooted by the winds as fiercely as possible, but the clouds were determined to undermine the winds’ intentions of dominance by remaining in their stagnant positions as long as they could. They felt that their purpose was to provide coolness, protection, and comfort to their land and the dwellers below. The oftentimes rapid, freezing temperatures would offset the clouds’ loving intentions. Then, the clouds realized that they needed to flee these infected areas as quickly as possible in order to permit more sunlight to envelope the land below and so that people and all of nature not only survived, but also perhaps, could thrive.

The dreary, dismayed animals were enraged. They were the original inhabitants of this pure planet. The Earthlings invaded their amicable territory with constant force and without any precious regard. They had attempted their best to fight back to live in harmony; however, human beings had too many resources to combat them, oftentimes to maim, and to destroy these innocent creatures of the land. The animals continued resisting and constantly died, or they retreated out of desperation and out of the sheer need of preservation. They truly became disillusioned by their attempts and by the stupidity of the human beings.

The animals finally realized that their supposed masters of the world were dying a slow death and also were creating the deaths of every living thing on this planet. In essence, the animals were far more intelligent and revering of the serene beauty around them compared to the stubborn, narcissistic human beings.

Earth had been issuing its dire, desperate warnings to ignorant human beings multitudes of full orbits ago, but there were many complacent, ignorant non-believers. They believed that the cyclical, whimsical nature of the earthly evolution could restore its purified state of being with a minimal amount of effort. Most were not willing to make any attempt to conserve whatsoever with them becoming reliant upon the so-called others, the ecologists and the conservationists, to resolve the humans’ stupidity and to do the work that was purposefully disregarded. The humans were definitely too lazy to be a part of the answer.

They continued wasting valuable, limited resources, as if somehow replenishments were going to suddenly materialize. A majority of them were truly unaware of rapidly becoming disingenuous prisoners of their own destructive powers on a planet that could only bear so much environmental pain throughout the centuries before leading to its eventual demise.

The devoted, well-meaning ecologists and the conservationists were very realistic about the impending, doomed planet. They first tried to convince dubious governments throughout the world of becoming its own worst enemies. They demonstrated their precise findings by continuously showing the rapidly decreasing resources and the limited amounts of food that were being produced. The scientists of these knowledgeable groups presented all of their data in the best way they could, only to be confronted by disbelief and skepticism.

A majority of the global governments were not convinced, and they only saw these scientists as so-called instigators who thought themselves to have their own set agendas and were engendering more chaos than what had already been endured. They did have the financial support of some environmental companies, but mostly universities; however, many of the global governments had become cynics and thus discounted these well-intentioned groups who truly did have the foresight of things to come.

A minority of the global governments had been more receptive to the scientists’ cause and decided to make some instrumental changes to the chagrin of their populace. They decided to ban cars and trucks completely from the streets and only allowed horses and mules to transport people and cargo. Not even electric cars that had become so popular in the twenty-first century were permitted, because the electricity was bleeding the energy supplies, and they did not know how much more water could be generated through hydroelectric power. Wind power from statuesque windmills rising to the skies were not be consistently available on account of not knowing, if the decaying environment would thus lessen the wind supply and the electricity. Thus, water and wind were considered unreliable resources.

In turn, the auto industry began to lose money. Even when people resolved to relinquish their mechanical forms of transportation, the general population became disgruntled by not having access to all of their modern conveniences in stores for purchase in a timely manner. There were massive amounts of burglaries and disobedience by the public. As a result, these governments relented by allowing trucks to return to the streets, which meant supplies became more plentiful and eventually restored some sense of uneasy calm, at least for the time being.

This small planet had been challenged to the core by making humans realize that they were not as invincible as presumed. It needed to be understood that the planet was just a small speck in this massive universe, and it was floating in this portion of the universe for a limited moment in terms of time. Nevertheless, the nefarious impact on this innocent planet, this rolled up piece of land, could only tolerate so much and was at the verge of collapsing within itself, unless the collective societies became proactively involved in unison.

If there had been a concurrence to not commit a form of environmental suicide, fewer dilemmas would have been the result, but even if humans had listened to the Earth’s silent, but continuous pleading, our elimination on account of all of our trials and tribulations. The self-imposed societal issues were so abundant, so overwhelming, that they were certainly devolving into a treacherous world where chaos was beginning to unfold. It was as if there was a drip of water from a faucet that had been making its appearance known by its sound and its wetness. It was actually holding back a tsunami of events. Yet, humans were obdurate and self-serving.

They truly were becoming ever so slowly exhausted from the lack of resources available; however, they did not realize it until it was too late. The general population and most of the global governments could not have possibly foreseen what happened with the events of the past and how we are now marooned in a barren world, but we now begrudgingly realize the errors of our ways. Our ancestors unfortunately did not listen to the ecologists, the conservationists, and our dearly missed Planet Earth. We now suffer on account of their lack of action, of being so very lazy and not treasuring the resources that were rapidly depleting. We now are resolved to live our lives in another part of this vastness of space with better clarity, with more appreciation, and thus knowing how to live in harmony not only with our environment, but also with one another. Hopefully. Of course, time will tell.

Being so learned about our past, it undeniably is the case that they only created more problems for themselves not only on the Planet Earth, but also from outside their atmosphere. They would only find that out in time.

How I dearly wish we could enjoy the blue globe, The Earth! The current year is 2767, and we are about to set foot on another foreign body, which is exceedingly far from Earth. We did not want to come here, but we had limited options available to us.

Your determined past is something that is out of your control like when you are at the bottom of a snowy mountain when suddenly an avalanche is set to engulf you. It was because of my loving, sincere, and intelligent parents’ generation and the generations before them that we have inherited the ambivalent, apocalyptic traits of life. Thus, this detailed autobiography is an explanation of the wonderful and horrible events of the past and how they all relate to the many unforeseen changes that have happened for all of us so far.

Thus, this imploding history of the Earth, my mother, my father, and my uncle need to be understood and to be scorned, because they were abundantly influential in their own ways for the productivity as well as the decline in their own ways of our home planet. From here on, although it will feel extremely strange writing it in this fashion, I will refer to my relatives by their first names.

Chapter II

Our Ancestors’ Provocative Livesr

Spencer Martinson and his family were living in the oftentimes extraordinary and oftentimes discouraging era of our Planet Earth. Our global society became frustrated and eventually intolerant of the worthless United Nations trying to solidify a collaborating planet with peace. They definitely had limited success to resolve significant differences between countries forever at war with one another. There were very few nations that respected the United Nations, although they were very sincere in their efforts to establish harmony for everybody.

The biggest conflict on a global scale consisted of China and the United States. China was economically at war with us largely based upon everyone’s dependence on the sparse remains of preciously depleting fuel from the Middle East, South America, and Canada. We tried for seemingly interminable months to discuss practical ways so that our two super powers could resolve our abundant differences and to profit from each other’s strengths. There were even discussions of the utilization of current, alternate methods of acquiring energy, including wind energy, thermal energy, solar energy, and even considering complete blackouts of countries lasting for a full month. Even with all of our meetings lasting more than two years with China, more prevalent distrust was the result. Both of our nations’ governments were extremely selfish and refused to compromise from our stubborn positions for the sake of everyone.

China’s supporters were Russia, South Korea, and the European Union on account of their own selfish needs of power and resentment of the United States. The United States’ supporters were Mexico, Canada, North Korea, and Japan based on their own weakening economies. All the other nations were too feeble economically, politically, and militarily to join with one side or the other. In fact, they feared doing so, because they were afraid of possible repercussions from the super powers and from their own supporters. They tried their best to be tactful in all of their political interactions with the super powers in order not to aggravate anyone whatsoever. Nevertheless, that resulted in that much more hostility and continuous volatility. These defenseless, inferior countries were caught in between and could not possibly placate anyone to any degree whatsoever. The smaller populated countries were destitute as to how to possibly overcome and survive their economic ordeals and were so reliant on the super powers in terms of their industries. Lay people died either by their own choice on account of the many hardships that they all encountered and the sheer submission to a fate they did not want to face.

To gain the necessary commodities and luxuries that the super powers took for granted the so-called weakling countries decided to formulate a plan, a plan of life and death. These governments realized that their blighted citizens enjoyed baseball. Thus, these governments devised baseball games in which cities representing their countries would play only one game against other cities for competitions and championships. It was ultimately determined who was the best baseball team. Then, with the full support of the countries’ citizens, these minor governments’ countries played against one another with a deadly twist. They decided that the winners could collect all the basic goods of the losing countries.

The losing countries then had a choice. They could either commit suicide, or their winning teams’ countries could execute them. At that point in time, the losing countries’ citizens usually became very defiant to have to endure death. There were mass demonstrations and chaos that the governments tried to control, but to no avail. Eventually, most everyone felt their fate had been sealed and opted to commit suicide, because they had their own sense of honor and were depressed for having lost the baseball games, thus giving up all possible hope.

The end result of such deadly, oftentimes humiliating practices was that the winning countries were automatically increasing their economic and political powers, but they eventually became the losing countries upon encountering stronger, more highly skilled players in the other countries. One after another, the winning countries became the super powers that just viewed these massive destructions of smaller countries mostly with extreme jubilation. In many respects, this so-called game was similar to what the Romans had practiced in the Coliseum many centuries ago.

The world’s common people along with a few global government officials were extremely disappointed with such vicious behaviors with these sadistic games, with the chaos, and with the ruthless results. The world’s common people demanded major changes in order to restore humanity to becoming more civil. There were mass demonstrations, but not any chaos whatsoever. Everyone was respectful of their governments, but their overall purpose was abundantly transparent. They wanted change, but they did not know how to resolve this dilemma.

In order to rectify this disastrous global situation, the famous, influential philosophers of our world decided to gather in Montreal for six months, and they wanted to determine how to incorporate a world that John Lennon had envisioned in his song Imagine in the twentieth century. They discussed, argued, deliberated, formulated, and re-formulated a pact that might solidify the world hopefully.

It was finally determined that there should be a global government where there could be consensus. The name