Heiser-The-Facade - Sparkling Eyes

forestalling something like that is our nuclear capability—and today, our biologicalweapons.""Our government made a tactical error in that regard as well," Neil resumed hisdiscussion. "We made it very clear that if there was any attempt to circumvent our desirethat public contact be postponed, or if they made any aggressive move, we'd use ournukes.""Brilliant!" exclaimed Deidre."If you're incensed at that, Dr. Harper," Major Lindsay intervened, "wait until Dr.Bandstra explains. We didn't intend on using weapons against the visitors.""Huh?""No—we'd never be able to touch them with our weapons," Neil resumed, "evenour weapons of today. Their vehicles are too fast and the larger ones too remote to betouched. We informed them that we'd essentially nuke the planet. Of course now wecould use biological warfare to keep them from getting any of earth's resources, but that'sout of the question.""So our policy was MAD?" asked Melissa incredulously."Correct—Mutually Assured Destruction—exactly what it was with the Soviets inthe Fifties and sixties, except from a more aggressive posture. We had enough nuclearcapability to destroy the earth and its resources, which is what they need.""Are the boneheads who created this policy still around?" Malcolm asked."No, they've all since passed away.""There are those in the Group, however," the Colonel interjected, "who stillbelieve in the policy—or did until the visitors trumped us.""What do you mean?" Father Benedict asked nervously."Our problem. The visitors took matters into their own hands and decided to forceus into population integration. They engineered the virus—we think sometime during thesixties—to essentially blackmail us into full disclosure.""I don't follow," the priest responded. "How does it serve their purpose to put theplanet on a course of environmental collapse?""We aren't completely sure, but we believe they're hedging their bets. They musthave a way of reversing the effects of global warming—but we're guessing.""What Neil is trying to say," added the Colonel, "is that a global environmentalcatastrophe to humanity is preferable to them compared to nuclear winter, which woulddestroy all life on the planet for centuries. We believe that they are willing to put theplanet at risk environmentally since they could somehow survive it while we could not.What they want in exchange to halt the methane increase before it gets too severe ispopulation integration. They want unrestricted and unopposed access to all areas of theplanet.""Why can't they have that now? What could we do to stop it?" asked Deidre."We basically can only harass them," the Colonel explained, "and threaten toinstitute our MAD policy if we see them take any aggressive move.""Fortunately for us," Neil took the floor again, "the visitors have been patient, butit seems they've now figured out a way to call our bluff. As Colonel Ferguson just noted,they have offered to retard the effects of our current environmental situation in exchangefor our non-resistance to public disclosure, rather than just letting nature take its course,so to speak. We believe they've chosen this path to allow us to think about our actions asrational beings, as opposed to acting rashly in self defense."108