“Nearly 30 years ago, the Karradas appeared in our solar system. Traveling for many years, they found us shining like a blue diamond in the sea of darkness. But when they arrived, they saw our planet’s state of destruction.

Endless, unofficial wars plagued the lands. The environment was rapidly deteriorating, animal species going extinct, the oceans polluted, the skies dark with smog. Humanity had appointed itself the master of the world, and the world was dying. Humanity turned on each other as people fled the rising seas.

The Karradas landed in the center of the great garbage patch in the ocean, and began breaking it down.

Drones, aircraft and ships were all sent to where the bright light of the alien spaceships landed. When fired upon, the projectiles fizzled out and vanished before striking their targets. All attempts to reach the vessel resulted in the human vehicle turned around, suddenly heading away from an invisible barrier.

Nothing could stop them as their ship inhaled our collective shame.

A platform began emerging around the ship, which until now had hovered motionless above the water. The bigger the empty space amongst the garbage became, the more the platform spread out. Structures like houses seemed to build themselves without any sort of people visible to create them.

Everything happened so rapidly, humanity barely had time to try to start bombing each other in a misplaced attempt to control the terrifying situation. But as they tried, the bombs would not fire. Missiles wouldn’t fly. Control panels did not respond. When mass destruction was obviously no longer an option, many humans took to the streets with their personal weapons of death. Nearly half a million people died as homegrown militias took it upon themselves to root out whoever was causing this great theft of our trash. Every group of people were suspected to actually be the alien invaders, or behind it. Gunfire rang through the streets and most people huddled in their homes, doors locked, lights off, waiting for it to end.

Slowly, it did. No matter what happened, the alien craft did not stop clearing the waters around itself. Attacks continued to do nothing. Humanity boiled and swarmed like a poked anthill.

One day, the ghosts began to walk into our cities.

They were holographic projections, though no one understood where the projectors were coming from. The people glowed like angelic beings, their skin and hair and eyes all different colors, but all humanoid. Like the ship, no one could stop them. Walls couldn’t keep them out. Weapons had no effect. And all they wanted was to talk.

Instead of meeting with world leaders, the alien projections, resembling nothing but colorful, glowing humans, began to talk with any who would listen or approach.

They explained that they themselves were AI, here to prep the planet for invasion. They made no illusions: The Karradas, the aliens, wanted to stay. They were a traveling people, refugees of a destroyed home planet. They had lived among the stars for too long, and their people hungered for ground beneath their feet and skies above their heads.

Humanity continued to boil. Meanwhile, from the ship, for the first time, another craft emerged. It flew with astonishing speed to the nearest landfill. It set down, and robotic arms and other crafts began shoveling the massive mountains of waste into a machine that was quickly built around the craft. As with the garbage patch, as the trash mountains around it shrank, the craft began to get bigger. A platform emerged around it. And soon, as the building around the craft began to tower into the sky, shiny as a black pearl, another craft departed from it. And it headed to the nearest landfill. And repeat.

As before, nothing could touch these newly built platforms and structures. As the the platforms widened, so did their territory, protected by shields which no one could penetrate. Garbage trucks has to dump trash around the edges of shield.  And all the while, the ghosts wandered the streets, attracting gunfire but unphased by it. And slowly humanity began to speak to them.

Over months of talking, fighting, terror and hope, people came to understand the Karradas’s plan. They wanted to become citizens of the Earth, to be allowed to live and build and work here. And in exchange, they would save humanity from itself. First they said, they would clean the Earth, and they would feed and house any who asked. And in 30 years, every adult human would vote: Would the aliens be allowed to stay, or would they leave humans to their own fate?

Of course this was debated so hotly that some places became uninhabitable. Humans streamed from their besieged cities, fleeing their own kind who had begun gleefully exercising their power to murder each other in the name of humanity.

And then people began heading for the landfills.

All the largest patches of filth and garbage were vanishing. All garbage that continued to be brought to the sites were quickly swallowed up. Plants and buildings had been inserted into the newly renovated landscape. And humans continued to arrive. As they did, they found neighborhoods waiting for them. Housing structures shining in the light, automatic food and clothing and medicine machines housed in special little areas of their own. Terraforming surrounded these new community lots with plants and trees. Anyone who wished to live there, could. And many wished to. All who passed the barriers, that is, all without weapons, found themselves in a new society. Empty save the ghosts, the machines, the alien craft and drones, and each other.

Human refugees moved into these places. The first Hubs were born.

And then everything began to change.

Some of you can never understand the chaos and upheaval we went through as a collective species. Even as stories trickled out of these landfill cities, millions of people could not accept the help the aliens brought. Many, many more died as we all tried to deal with the unprecedented events.

And then, miraculously, the chaos died down.

The landfill cities spread. The uninhabitable polluted places were becoming not just habitable, but welcoming. Daring to hope, humans continued to live in these cities. And as they spoke to the ghosts, the holograms, they learned that everywhere could be this way. Not shining, brand new cities made of recycled waste, but existing cities saved and improved. Human volunteers started working with the AI to implement changes in their worn out homelands.

Protected by invisible barriers which repelled those carrying weapons, human allies of the AI moved into the cities, the recycling and printing technology being used in smaller scales but to a similar effect. Garbage was devoured by the recyclers, and new buildings for free food and clothing sprang up. Any could go to them to have their needs met. The barriers continued to repel mass violence. People met with each other in naturally forming councils and discussed changes and improvements to be made in their communities, the best ways to utilize the alien tech. Some places decided to completely rebuild, while others kept their historical backgrounds and buildings. Everywhere, humanity decided how to improve their homes. The violent, thwarted by barriers, turned on each other. Shots rang out in the darkness beyond the cities. Then less, and less.

25 years ago, the first living, corporeal Karradas visited us. The story of that historic meeting will be covered in our next episode of this special series recounting the Invasion of earth and the beginning of the New Era, as we lead up to the most important event in human history: The Vote.”

Suatre leaned back from his tense position as the segment ended. Charlie switched off the holoscreen in the center of his living room, and he and Jun glanced at Suatre.

Suatre didn’t say anything for a while. He looked around the room he was in, at the massive heap of cash money piled next to the couch. He stood and walked to the window. Lighting a cigarette, he leaned out and looked across the cityscape that he could see from Charlie and Jun’s second-story apartment. He blew a cloud of harmless, sparkling green smoke and watched it dissipate into the air. He shook his head.

“You know...I thought I was crazy, until now. This is crazier than even my stupid brain could cook up.” He turned to look at his friends, Charlie on the couch next to where Suatre had been sitting, Jun on the floor cross legged near Charlie’s feet. They looked back steadily. 

“Are you okay?” Charlie eventually asked.

Suatre shook his head. “Um. Man. I don’t even know right now.”

“I know it...it must be a shock, to hear this all for the first time.”

“Yeah...yeah, it is.” Before he knew it, Suatre was walking to their door. “Um. Thanks for showing me this. I, uh. I’m gonna go.”

“I’ll come see you tonight!” Jun called to his retreating form. The robot’s voice was full of concern.

Before Suatre knew it, his feet turned towards the direction of Sorrel’s apartment.