“I want you to explain to me and the rest of America right now, how any of the President's statements from last night were not a cause for mass panic and proof that this government has completely lost control of the situation? We have an active invasion occurring and the response of this administration has been to placate and go along with the demands of our enemies and yes these ‘things’ are our enemies.”
The blonde woman silently sat waiting for a response from the balding pundit.
“The president, the joint chiefs, and congress are all standing together they have made the Unanimous decision to go along with the demands of the Alkanii empire. Even though the President has stated his disagreement with this entire process, it is clear as daylight that they have weighed the options and unfortunately going along with this ‘Submission’ and subsequent ‘Tournament’ is the only course of action that ensures humanity avoids some all out war with an advanced species, who are clearly capable of doing unimaginable things to us. I would like you to explain to all the listeners what you would have done differently?”
The blonde woman did not miss a beat in her response.
“Ill tell you and everyone else what I would have done if I were in the position that this weak president is in now. Its very simple, I would have said one word to these bullies ‘No’ that’s it just ‘no’. No we are not going along with whatever strange ritual you want to put us through and no we are not going to prepare for it in any way shape or form. I would have demanded that they immediately stop any and all threats of violence and if they refused then I would reign down the entire might and force of the United States Military on these disgusting animals if you even want to call them that. Oh and another thing, I would not have begged my people to sit there quietly waiting for their death or enslavement to come, I would not have asked for peace and tranquility while these things organize our defeat, no sir not one second. I would have called on every able bodied man, woman and child to put forth an angry and aggressive rebellion and to not stop until these aliens are dead or gone from this planet and as a matter of fact that is what I implore they do now”
The blond woman stood up from her chair and looked the camera straight away, addressing the audience. “if any of you are smart you will not listen to this failed government, they have clearly been scared into submission or placed in somekind of Alien control, I call upon you all to resist and do not sit silently waiting for these aliens to send more ships and more soldiers. Go out there and make them regret they ever picked our planet and or species to mess with.”
The feed cut off while the woman was giving her speech. ‘Jeez’ Sam thought to himself. Its been two days since the presidents emergency broadcast and things seem to still be getting worse and more unstable everyday. The presidents emergency broadcast lasted two hours. It involved the military, congress and several scientific experts. It was actually kind of funny since Sam thought that the worse thing about the Alien arrival was that there was just no information coming out, well it turned out that the information that came out was way worse.
Despite the pretty horrifying news that the President informed everyone of yesterday Sam still could not sit idly by, he was out of work, tired and restless and for the first time since his father's death he felt helpless, he did not know what to do so he just kept on reading and listening to whatever piece of news came across his feed. He started to feel the anxiety and weight on his shoulders with every new piece of information that he laid eyes on. He was kicked out of his mind-numbing scrolling by a notification that came through.
The message showed up in Sams phone as coming from Jackson Bookstore “Hey Sam, you know about tech stuff right? Can you help me with this podcast setup I am trying to set up video and its being tricky”
This was the first time Sam had heard back from Jackson since the night of the arrival. Spending time setting up a podcast for a guy he barely knew wasn’t exactly what Sam thought of as an exciting afternoon, but he needed to do something to escape the doom scrolling that he found himself in.
“Yeah I can help out, you free right now?” Sam replied
“Cool meet me at my house, we are going to try and record soon” Jackson gave his address to Sam and after dealing with his mothers minor protest he was on his way to meet up with this teen that seems to be the only one more obsessed with the aliens than he was.
Sam arrived at the address provided to see Jackson and another young guy sitting down at a table with microphones in front of them. They were busy fumbling around with the various cables to notice Sam walking up the driveway.
“Yo Jackson!” He yelled while just outside the garage, Jackson was startled and then looked a but relieved when seeing Sam. “Finally!” he said. “Hey take a look at this while I go grab an extra monitor from inside” Jackson got up and before he ran inside he briefly introduced his friend to Sam “ Oh yeah this is Lamar hes my cohost”
Sam and Lamar exchanged pleasantries for a few minutes. Lamar mentioned that he was at Arrival meetup earlier in the week and has been stocking up supplies ever since, he figures he should be good for about a 8 month hunkering down.
“I should be good for maybe 8 days” Sam said jokingly, although that number was probably not far off. He and his family had not done any prepping and had avoided the supermarket in the last week due to the large crowds and several reports of violence that were in the news. Jackson walked out interrupting their prepping conversation.
“Okay so I want to have this screen to show Lamar what I see on my laptop screen that way we don’t have to sit right next to each other, but I also want to record my screen at the same time and capture the hosts with these external cameras I bought and its not a necessity but if we could get a wide shot of us then that would be the best, I was hoping we could go live in 20 minutes… maybe 25” Jackson started to unload several pieces of audio and video equipment from a cardboard box he had.
“Whoah, slow down. Im going to try my best but I don’t set up this stuff everyday and its probably going to take me an hour or so based on what you are asking for” Sam started to dig through the box himself to see what kind of equipment he was working with.
“Okay you have some good stuff here, I could probably set you up with two camera angles and I can set up the screen recording too but it might be easiest for me to produce the show so you don’t have to worry about switching angles” Sam started setting up the equipment around the table and unspooling cables.
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“Dude, this is the second time you saved me, I owe you a major one, I guess two major ones” Jackson said. He sat back down into his chair and let out a sigh of relief.
“Oh hey Sam, I have a third mic in there that I need to have set up as well.” Jackson pointed at a second box on the ground with even more AV equipment.
“Sounds good” Sam said “who is the third mic for?”
Just then he heard a familiar voice come from behind him “Oh Mr. Samwise, what a pleasure to see you again!” the woman from the night of the arrival was standing in the doorway, she was tall enough to have one hand hold on to the top of the door while her other hand held onto a can of light beer.
Sams smiled a crooked smile, he turned his head to look at her briefly before going back to the box of equipment.
“Oh is that Karen I hear, Im surprised you’re here, the last time I saw you it looked like the party was never going to end” he stood up and turned around to see the woman looking at him with a frown on her face.
“the name is Kay, call me Karen again and you wont need to worry about the Alkis” she walked past him and sat down putting on a pair of headphones reserved for the third cohost.
Sam felt a slap on his shoulder, it was Lamars large hand “rookie mistake, we don’t say that word around Kay”
‘dammit’ Sam thought to himself, he was hoping that he did not just completely ruin his chances with Kay, maybe since the world might be ending she would still give him a shot.
The rest of the setup took Sam 50 minutes, he was able to get all three of the hosts audio levels good and the video feed was good enough for the amateur production, after a quick test recording all four of them were ready to start the show. Jackson spoke after a small instrumental intro.
“Hello and welcome to The Submitted, a podcast about the fate of our species, our alien visitors and the ritual humanity is being forced to take part in called the Tournament of the Lesser. Im your host Jackson Foster, joined by my fellow cohosts Lamar Owens and Kay North. Alright guys to lead us off, I first want to get both or your reactions to President Coronados emergency broadcast which finally put everything on the table. Lamar, do you want to give us a quick recap of what we learned from the President and the other government officials?”
Sam was a bit surprised to hear Jacksons intro, most podcasts he listened to started off with just some guys riffing off thoughts to each other. He noticed that Jackson had a piece of paper where the intro and other talking points were written down.
“So” Lamar replied “the Presidents Broadcast lasted a little over 2 hours, there was plenty of information provided. Here are the eight most important pieces of information I wrote down.
One, The name of the Alien visitors are the Alkanii Empire they are a super intelligent species with technological advances that seem to be thousands of years ahead of our technology and their empire rules over trillions of life forms it stretches over millions of star systems all over the Milky Way Galaxy.
Two, the Alkanii Empire claims ownership over the entire Galaxy and claims authority over all stars, planets and lifeforms in the Galaxy and that would include Earth.
Three the Alkanii empire has sent a group of delegates to our planet to inform all humans and help us prepare for a ritual they call The Tournament of the Lessers.
Four, ten human beings will be chosen by the Alkanii to participate in this tournament.
Five, Those ten humans must participate in a series of fights TO THE DEATH against other Alien species that the Alkanii have invaded and deemed to also be inferior.
Six, the tournament is winner takes all and the winner will have their respective home planet spared from total invasion and Submission to the Alkanii and will be allowed to operate in relative independence within the Galaxy.
Seven, all losers of the tournament will have their planets become a part of the Alkanii empires resource mill. All resources including lifeforms will be stripped from their planet and transported across the galaxy to satisfy the empires needs.
Eight; this tournament will take place roughly ten years after the participants or as they have been called ‘The Submitted’ are chosen.
Kay interjected “Nine, The Submitted will be chosen in exactly twenty days”
Lamar responded “Yes, that’s right Kay in twenty days the United States Federal Government along with most other world governments have decided to have the individuals chosen for the tournament by the Alkanii, the details are not clear as to how this process will work but apparently the Alkannii have methods of choosing humans that will be physically capable.”
“So we wont have a bunch of babies and 92 year old women picked” Jackson chimed in.
“Apparently so, several online sources state that Humans were given a choice as to when we wanted to choose our “Submitted” and the government officials decided that the earlier we know who is chosen, then the more time we have to plan and prepare for this tournament.”
“and Kay can you tell us anything more about the Tournament” Lamar stepped back from the mic waiting for Kays response.
“yeah, umm, So according to the presidents broadcast all ten of the humans who are chosen will be fighting in a tournament in approximately ten years. We don’t know who the opponents will be specifically but they will be comprised of other alien species that the Alkanii empire are choosing. Every single one of our Submitted will have to fight and ten people means we have ten chances to win this thing, but that also means every other opponent also has ten chances.”
Sam chimed in, forgetting for a second that he was just the Producer for the episode. “Why the hell are they doing this to us?”
Jackson spoke into his mic before handing it to Sam “And that ladies and gentleman is our Producer Sam Barrett.
“I just want to know what the hell is the point of all this” Sam repeated. Kay jumped in to answer his questions.
“because its fun” everyone looked at Kay with slight confusion “because its fun to them and they can do what they want to us cause they are way smarter than us, that’s it. I mean everyone here including myself eats steak rigth?” All of them nodded. “so if you could talk to a cow, it would ask us why are you doing this to me and my kind. What would your response be Lamar?”
Lamars eyes widened a bit “Becuase we need to survive”
Kay looked annoyed “you want to survive? Eat a potato, you want to survive? Humans figured out how to plant hundreds of years ago, theres no need to kill a cow to survive. So why do you eat cows?”
Lamar searched his mind for any kind of honest answer “Well, I do it cause it tastes good” Kay gave a slight smile knowing she got the answer she was looking for.
“so in other words you do it because its fun”
“yes I guess so” Lamar replied.
“Yeah but if cows were smart enough to tell us to stop then we would” Jackson chimmed in.
“Do you think any species of animal regardless of intelligence wants to be treated that way? Even if they cant articulate it?” Jackson thought for a second but did not answer and Kay continued.
“I mean, Im pissed off too, my life was going just fine and suddenly I became cattle and you know what happened to me then? I started to wish that we treated cattle better because I don’t think I have any ground to stand on to complain to the Alkannii because at the end of the day, they are just having fun like I was” Kay stopped talking and after a few seconds Sam spoke up.
“I guess I wish I did too” he said.