“Sit down,” the teacher, Alphonse, announced as he got in. He was fairly old, probably getting close to retirement. Gray hair, what little of it was left, wrinkles, an old style of clothing and a complete lack of patience for nonsense. Old-fashioned in many ways. Proud practitioner of favoritism.
To be fair, he was not the only teacher exhibiting that behavior. Most of the other teachers were just a bit more subtle about it. He obviously didn't like Mina, but there were also several others that got the bad treatment. In fact, Brenda and Mina connected through their shared fate.
The worst part of his favoritism wasn't necessarily the difference with which he treated his students. It wasn't even how picked his favorites based on the seemingly flimsiest of reasons. No, the most infuriating part was how he stubbornly refused to change his mind later.
Mina had tried her best to earn his grace through repeated efforts, and it just didn’t work. She might be fooled by his ‘encouragements’ if not for the fact that she could sense his feelings and know he still looked down on her. At that point, she had just given up any plan for improvement and opted to just try to survive his lessons instead.
“There has been a change of plans. Due to a special project starting Monday, we need to go into more details on the Gates today.”
Mina raised an eyebrow. It was hard not to connect this to what Nico had talked about.
“Before we begin, let’s do a quick recap on Gates.” His eyes scanned the classroom. “Daniel, what is a rift?”
“An area where dimensions overlap.” Daniel answered.
“A concise explanation,” the teacher nodded.
Mina internally groaned. Yes, that was a concise explanation, but it also ignored all the special properties of an area in which a rift occurred. If one of the non-favorites had gotten the question, they would surely have been chewed out about it.
“Where do rifts occur, Lisa?”
“All observed rifts on Earth have led to worlds with atmosphere and mana. These atmospheres have sometimes been toxic…”
“Let me stop you there,” the teacher interrupted. “I am truly impressed at how quickly you found your notes on the subject, and you are absolutely not wrong. But when I ask a question, I just want you to tell me what you remember. No need to look so embarrassed. We are all constantly learning.”
Lisa looked bashful. Even when criticizing his favorites, he still sprinkled them with compliments.
The teacher went on: “It is true that all observed rifts have been to places with atmosphere and mana. But note the word ‘observed’. We are not sure how representative our sample size is. Having said that, our observations of the correlation between rights, atmosphere and mana suggests that rifts do not form in a vacuum. As in the literal vacuum of space. Or a figurative one, for that matter.”
He turned to his next target.
"Oliver, what is a gate?”
"Ehm… a thing that is built on a rift?"
"That is technically correct while at the same time containing absolutely nothing of substance. A completely useless answer, in other words. Anyone else wants to chip in? What is the purpose of a gate? Yes, Bill?"
"To provide a stable connection through the rift," he answered.
"That is absolutely correct. How is this done?"
"By building a physical gate that circulates mana," Bill answered again.
"The key word there is ‘circulates’. I want to remind you all that this is not exactly what we do, but it’s the closest thing we have in the English vocabulary. Now, we need to refresh our memory on one more topic before we can move on. Mina, what is magic backlash?"
And there it was. A question that was so hotly debated, there was no correct answer. No matter what she said, he would find something to nitpick. She could even feel his expectation of her failure.
Brenda gave her a sympathetic look. She just settled for the path of least resistance.
“Eh… It is something bad that happens when too much magic is used?” she half-asked half-answered. She intentionally gave a lacking answer that still was technically correct.
“About as nonsensical an answer as Oliver gave earlier,” the teacher frowned. “If you had written that on an exam, you’d be lucky if you even passed.”
“Yes, teacher,” Mina nodded while radiating meek acceptance. Mentally, she created a picture of her as a puppy looking up at her owner. In this case, she barely had to hint at it before the teacher nodded condescendingly. People easily accepted what they already expected.
“It is technically not wrong,” he continued, “A magic backlash is indeed ‘something bad’. While the exact details vary, we know catastrophes have happened as a result of magic backlash, ranging from natural to supernatural.”
That was hardly any better than her own answer, but she wasn’t going to point that out. In fact, she preferred to avoid attracting any of his attention if she could help it. Brenda gripped her hand and clenched it, a gesture of support. Not that it was strictly necessary, Mina could easily tell from just her feelings alone. She could also tell that her friend was relieved she had not been picked as the target for any questions.
The teacher went on: “Moving on to the topic for today; the Veil and the Gates. It is less about the gates, and more about what is on the other side of them.”
He drew something that reminded Mina of a japanese Torii on the blackboard. On the left, a stick figure that was probably supposed to be a human. At least it was a lot more human than the exaggerated picture of an alien he drew on the other side.
“I expect many of you will not believe me, but the Earth has been invaded by aliens from other worlds many, many times before.”
That was a bombshell and a half. Mina could tell that the teacher believed what he said with absolute certainty. Not many of her peers believed him.
“If we put aside actual invasions, there have also been dozens of confirmed cases where we know aliens have lived on Earth for extended periods. In addition, there are hundreds of myths where we suspect the truth is related to otherworldly beings. In all the known cases, the aliens assumed a superior position to the humans involved, either as a deity figure, an oppressor, or a menace.”
The teacher drew a crown on the alien’s head, making it look even weirder.
“Until we find proof otherwise, we believe that no one, alien or otherwise, is immortal. When they were present here for more than a few decades, it is likely that they either reproduced or ‘imported’ new recruits from their own world. One example of this is the Greek gods of Mount Olympus. They lived on Earth for centuries. Our theories suggest that, contrary to what the Greeks believed, the individual gods were actually aliases employed by many different alien individuals over the years.”
To illustrate further, the teacher drew a lightning bolt in the alien’s hands. The juxtaposition between the clearly alien face and the crown and symbol of Zeus was kind of hilarious.
“The aliens had magic superior to anything the local humans could do. The problem, from the alien perspective, was that Earth has two defenses against magic. First is the Veil. You know how it works; humans that don’t believe in magic worked against them. Either they had to deal with humans while their magic was crippled, or try to convince the humans that magic was real. The former would probably put them at a severe disadvantage compared to what they were used to. We have reason to believe that their technology level was medieval at best. As for the other alternative, since their ability to use magic was severely diminished, they couldn’t easily convince humans of its existence just by demonstrating it.”
Now, the teacher drew a group of stick figures, smaller than the rest, behind the first stick figure. He drew lines radiating out from them, signifying the effects of the Veil.
“Now, unlike our modern world, most people throughout history were much less certain that magic didn’t exist. Still, there’s a difference between barely leaving a crack open at the edge of the door and flinging it wide open. Even the most open-minded of individuals, if they had lived their whole life without seeing magic themselves, would be somewhat disbelieving if they looked up and saw someone flying in the sky. In practice, this meant the Veil was weaker than today, but far from non-existent. Yes, Anne, you have a question?”
“What if they flew very high up? Couldn’t they avoid the Veil by being outside the effect it produces?”
“You are delving into an interesting topic, one that is researched to this day. We don’t have time for the full discussion, but I can quickly summarize the modern consensus. The current theory is that non-believers are passively using magic to create a dampening field around them. When they witness or otherwise sense something that clashes with their current worldview, they are actively using an inherent type of magic suppression to combat the magic observed. The active effect is so much stronger than the passive, it can be effective even at extremely long ranges. In addition, these effects multiply the more people there are.”
“So if a lot of people saw someone flying, they would pummel to the ground?”
“Essentially, yes. This might actually have happened in ancient Greece. I’m referring to the myth of Icarus. Unfortunately, we do not have more time to discuss hypotheses like that one now. We need to return to the original topic.”
He pointed to his drawing again.
“No matter how hard it was to convince people, if they persisted long enough they would eventually have convinced the entire world of their existence. This is where Earth’s second defense comes in; the magic backlash. When more people believe in magic, more people will awaken. More people awakening means more magic use is exhibited. At some point, a magic backlash would be triggered. The obvious effect of such a catastrophe would probably have rendered hundreds or thousands of people dead, and thousands more fleeing In every direction. The less obvious effect, from what we now believe, is that mana itself turned hostile. Using it would be painful or harmful in some way, which would have done wonders to cull its future use. We have written observations of this happening after several earthquakes in China.”
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Mina couldn’t help but think of Elsa. She missed her old roommate, and hadn’t seen her since she returned with her parents to China. Only a few weeks until Golden Week. She had promised to visit during her holiday.
“To return to the Greek Gods, it is likely that they, or at least the aliens behind it, caused such an incident. While most people tend to think of the ancient Greeks as one continuous civilization, there were actually two distinct periods. The first, the Mycenaean civilization, ended around 1100 BC. The next, called the Archaic age, began around 750 BC. The period between is called the Greek Dark Ages. We have strong reason to believe a magic backlash caused the end of the Mycenaean civilization. The actual event, or maybe several events, may have happened as many as a hundred years earlier. We can observe the indirect effects of the event, mainly famine, which led to the culture essentially breaking down. No matter how dramatic a natural disaster is, the following famine and disease will in general kill many times as many as the event itself.”
He returned to the blackboard, this time drawing another, slightly smaller, alien behind the first one. This one had a crown of sorts, only the lines drawing it were stippled rather than solid. It held a trident in its hand.
“Now, here is the peculiar part. Both of these civilizations worshiped what we call the Greek Pantheon, but there were significant differences between the two. How many of you knew that Poseidon was the Greek God of the Sea? Yes, that’s practically all of you. Well, this is true in the Archaic age, the later of the two. In the Mycenaean age, he was the God of the Underworld. In the Archaic age, Hades was the God of the Underworld. Hades didn’t exist in the Mycenaean age. There are quite a lot of gods that either disappear or fade into obscurity after the Mycanean age, and also a lot that first appear in the Archaic Age. Now, what does that tell us?”
The question was clearly rhetorical, though that was lost on Bill. He desperately tried to get the teacher’s attention, and succeeded.
“Yes, Bill?”
“Maybe the stories were lost because a lot of people died?”
“That is a reasonable guess, but not a very likely one. We have not observed anything similar with other pantheons, even after events that devastated the populations.”
“Let us assume there were aliens posing as Gods. If a God was prominent in the first age but gone in the second, it must mean that no aliens were trying to pass themselves up as this God in the second. Further, there can only be one King of the Underworld, so if that mantle passed from Poseidon to Hades, there must have been something significant happening behind the curtains. For example a crisis between the aliens.”
He pointed at the Zeus-alien.
“Now, let us look at this from the aliens’ perspective. We obviously don’t have anything written from their point of view, so this will require a good amount of guesswork. Still, the thought experiment gives us insight into what might have happened. Let us assume the aliens entered the gate with the intention of conquering or colonizing parts of or the entire planet. The rifts typically form where the Veil is thinner, so let us assume it formed somewhere on Mount Olympus. The aliens were undoubtedly intelligent, so within a reasonable timeframe, they would surely have figured out most of the intricacies of the Veil. Perhaps they had even encountered something similar in a different world.”
The teacher drew a group of smaller aliens behind the Zeus-alien.
“So, while they wish to conquer or colonize Earth, they realize this would take time. Either that, or a huge commitment of an army fighting on the humans’ terms, that is to say without magic. This was probably not an enticing scenario, from their point of view. In order to use their magic, they had to make humans believe in magic, which in turn would erode the Veil. The easiest way was to pose as Gods, and make the humans worship them. They probably didn’t care much for sacrifices or gifts, as what the humans could give them was probably largely worthless. This plan for breaking the Veil required only a small force. From their perspective, this was a low investment in personnel for a potentially high reward; the Earth as a colony. The biggest investment was time, as it would take a lot of it to convince all or most humans in a large area.”
He wiped away the rays radiating from the human stick figure group.
“Now, let us say this plan succeeded. They manage to severely hamper the Veil, and take more and more control of the land. This might have led to the Mycenaean age, which we know was very centralized. Maybe the top figures in this society were in turn controlled by the aliens. All well and good so far.”
The teacher crossed out the Zeus-alien.
“After a while, the combined use of magic by the aliens and awakened humans finally broke the camel’s back. The result was one or more magic backlashes that probably killed or injured a good amount of the aliens, in addition to whatever effects caused the famine. From the human’s perspective, the Gods suddenly punished them, and then went completely silent while the population starved. This might have led to the Greek Dark Ages.”
This time he crossed out the gate.
“Now, we don’t know how a magic backlash would affect a rift or gate. We are almost certain the rift would at least destabilize without any mana to sustain it, if not outright dissipate. Let us assume that the aliens were isolated from their own world. Provided they were not gathered in the same place, not all of them would have been killed by the backlash itself. The rest would find themselves powerless, cut off from both their homeworld and magic itself. Suddenly, humans were a huge threat to them. The only reasonable thing to do would be to hide. Thus, the gods were silent during these dark ages.”
“Eventually, magic calmed down again. Did the alien survive those centuries? Hard to tell. There are at least three possible scenarios. One, at least some of their offspring survived. Two, the rift opened again, allowing travel back and forth between the dimensions again. Third, though less likely, it is possible that a rift opened to a different world, from which a new group of aliens emerged. This new group might have figured out what the last group had done, and learned from it.”
“No matter which of these scenarios played out, the aliens gave up on their large-scale colonization idea. Most likely, they decided to salvage what value they could out of the endeavor. Some alien presence remained into what we call the Mycenaean Age. They still posed as gods, but without the previous ulterior motive."
"What would the aliens use Earth for at this point? Maybe they turned their Mount Olympus base into an alien holiday resort? Was it a research station? A prison colony? Regardless, after a few centuries, they seemingly left altogether. Or perhaps something caused the gate to close and the aliens left behind eventually died of natural causes."
“Now, practically all I just said was merely speculation. A thought experiment, based on the limited amount of information that has survived until this day. What we do know for a fact is that aliens, no matter where they went, rarely managed to control a large area. The combination of the Veil and magic backlash made it pretty much impossible to conquer the entire Earth.”
“Magic backlash is probably a net positive for Earth, but the price to pay each time it is triggered is very high. How high? We just don't know enough about it to make a proper judgment. It has not, as far as we know, been triggered for the last hundred years. It seems to happen when too much magic is used, but exactly how much? We don't know. Does the population of the Earth affect the limit? We don’t know. How large is the mana poisoning effect? We just don't know. There are hundreds of questions we lack the answer to. As such, while it has most likely been historically helpful, it would be a great mistake to rely on it.”
“Instead, we must hedge our bets on the Veil. The Veil of today is stronger than ever, but also more vulnerable than ever. Stronger, because of the general population’s strong disbelief in magic. More vulnerable because of the advent of mass media. You see, the Veil makes it very hard for a single awakened person to demonstrate magic in front of more than a few people. An amphitheater might seem like a fine place to demonstrate magic to hundreds of people, but if a good portion of them disbelieved magic in the first place, they’d overpower any and all attempts from an awakened person.”
“The invention of the television changed all that. Now you can perform magic in a remote location with only a camera, and still share it with the entire world. The Consortium quickly realized this possibility, and implemented counter-strategies against it. In the very beginning, it was possible to have a measure of control over the media stations. Soon, though, the number of places to control rose far above what the Consortium was capable of. We tried some other strategies, such as national guidelines. Our most successful one, by far, was causing more disbelief. We hired and even trained lots of stage magicians. Showing the general audience magic, while also allowing their tricks to be debunked. Do it enough times, and people expect even real magic to be a mere trick. Same with movies. With proper conditioning, a veiled person seeing actual magic on camera will disregard it as ‘just another film trick’.”
“The current technological landscape has made our job both easier and harder. Easier, because now even a layman can make something look like magic on film. This makes it even harder for actual evidence to pass as facts. Harder, because the Internet has so many smaller communities which may be sharing information under our very noses. Worse, actual awakened people are posting prohibited information online, where veiled individuals can read it. This is usually done in good faith, such as awakened individuals communicating with other like-minded people. But once it is on the Internet, it is impossible to fully contain.”
He glanced at the clock hanging over the door.
“I guess that’s all we have time for today.”
He gave new homework assignments just in time for the bell to ring. Good thing this was the last class for the day. Mina’s head was practically bursting with thoughts.
"I knew it," Brenda exclaimed as they left the classroom, "The government is controlled by aliens!"
"That is not what he said," Mina pointed out.
"No, but it's clear if you put together the clues. All the hints were already there, and now we get a clear confirmation that aliens for the longest time have been infiltrating our society?"
Mina wanted to dispute that conspiracy theory, but her friend’s emotions gave her pause.
“To me, that sounds like bad news, but you don’t seem bothered by it. Quite the opposite, I’d say you are enthusiastic.”
“I am! It’s wicked!”
“Wicked?”
“Wicked cool! This is what I’ve been dreaming of my entire life!”
Several of their fellow students glanced at them like a pair of weirdos. That wasn’t too unusual, but this was even worse than usual. Mina was not happy about the attention.
“Let’s go somewhere else and talk.”
Brenda suddenly became of everyone else, and suddenly turned extremely shy. She nodded. Mina found it both curious and adorable how utterly her friend could be while she was in the zone.
They walked through the wall of heat waiting for them outside the air-conditioned building. The difference was massive. They made for the nearest table. Even with the small roof, the heat was almost unbearable. At least they didn’t have any earsdroppers here.
“Okay, now we can talk,” Mina announced. “Want to elaborate more on your lifelong dream?”
Brenda still looked bothered by her earlier faux pas, but she opened up quickly.
“Well, you know, aliens, right? I mean, it would be wicked cool if there were actual aliens on Earth, and we got to meet them.”
Mina wondered how Brenda would react to actually going to an alien world. She didn’t want to share the secrets Nico had revealed. It was still a chance the information was false or at least misleading. In addition, she wasn’t sure if she could trust Brenda to keep quiet about it. Yes, she appreciated her friend, but she also acknowledged she had some peculiarities.
“I’ll admit the thought of meeting aliens is somewhat tempting, but I find it more scary than anything else. What if, say, they do actually control the government and are harvesting resources from Earth or something?”
“Pff… Would that be so different from humans controlling the government and harvesting resources to their own pockets?”
“Well, fellow humans would hopefully be more ethical… but I hear how ridiculous it sounds when I say it out loud.”
“You have no idea how badly the people in charge treat their fellow humans, and how willing they are to lie about it! Did you know they built housing for vulnerable people on top of an old lead refinement factory?”
It was frightening that Mina couldn’t immediately tell if this was another of Brenda’s conspiracy theories or actually true.
“No, I haven’t heard about it.”
“Yeah, not surprising. They do everything they can to cover stuff like that up.”
“I guess. Can we go back to talking about the aliens?”
“Sure. The teacher said many of our myths were based on it. Imagine that. Werewolf aliens! Vampire aliens! Trolls! Fairies!”
“Eh, not to burst your bubble, but the idea of the myths being some kind of benevolent, or at least not malevolent beings are extremely modern. In the myths, these were horrible creatures that for the most part killed anything coming too close.”
“Yeah, well, maybe they were misunderstood. Or feared to such an extent that humans created horror stories about them.”
… or they were actually as horrible as in the original myths. Mina kept that thought to herself. Brenda had gone completely fangirl, and at the moment Mina saw no reason to burst her bubble. It was kind of fun to listen to super enthusiastic people. The problem would come later, when Brenda realized there was a chance she could visit aliens for real.