The first intergalactic space aliens landed in a human village. To be perfectly honest, we believe then—and we believe now—that it was very much fifty-fifty. They could have been greeted with open arms, happiness, and rejoicing. They could have been made to feel at home and shown the best sides of humanity, making it obvious that we were ready to join the galactic community.
Instead, they met someone whose first question was, “What are your politics?”
When the aliens answered that they didn’t know and didn’t understand Earth politics, the humans explained that it was self-evident to anyone who breathed the same air: certain people in politics were simply pure evil, and if you were not directly against them, you were an enemy of everything right and good. The mob chased them back into their spaceship and tore off several important parts. Rather than turn those parts into new technology, the humans painted protest signs on them—signs decrying things they had never personally suffered, but about which their bard had told them in great detail.
The aliens recognized it was entirely possible they had simply found the wrong people. They were willing to give it another try or two.
They looked for people who had fewer weapons. Not because peace is necessarily a sign of intelligence or readiness for the galactic community (in nearly every species, the least aggressive individuals tend to lock themselves in small rooms, meditate for hours a day, and teach compassion to others—a worthy and honorable task, but also terribly boring). At least no one would be shooting at them. This time they wore a little armor. Everything they had was made to protect against laser bolts and proved surprisingly ineffective against arrows and stones. The more high-tech you get, the more you forget simple basic realities. That’s all right. At least you keep the technology. Everything is a trade-off.
Then they found us.
I’m not saying none of us played any pranks, or that the goblins they met were saints or perfect. But they found goblins who were *very* excited to meet a new humanoid race. We were quite interested in the stars, the spaceship, and everything else. We invited the gnomes over (which proved to be a mistake). The gnomes quickly dismantled the spaceship and, under some gentle but firm guidance, reassembled it properly. This doesn’t mean they know how to *build* spaceships, but gnomes can take almost anything apart. We sort of envy that, but we’re glad we can’t do it. We do not think it is a power we would use particularly wisely.
The Cult of Dionysus, which continues to be very influential among us, ordered a great feast. They brought the attention of three very prominent hobbit families. Each became wildly excited, and they competed viciously to lay out the biggest, most groaning tables filled with the widest variety of the most exciting, delicious, savory, nourishing, fascinating, positively surprising, happily strange, comfortably normal, and generally wonderful food you can imagine. Being hobbits, their viciousness was largely verbal, along with a couple dozen lawsuits. These were, after all, very wealthy hobbits.
The food was incredible.
We of course invited the dwarves, who spent a great deal of time talking about the metallurgy of meteorites and are now avidly searching for them. Do you happen to have one? It is worth quite a lot of gold and magical weaponry if you’re into such things. Simply pick it up from its place in the museum and walk it over to your nearest dwarven cave, and you will find yourself wealthy and happy beyond your wildest dreams. (Though not beyond *my* wildest dreams—mine are extraordinarily wild.)
The feast went on for a week. At which point the elves decided to take notice of the lesser races. They invited the space aliens for a stay in one of their great vast white palaces, full of their oldest royalty. Their court sage declared that these were clearly beings of a higher order—higher on the food chain, even, than elves.
Don’t be ridiculous.
The elves held a huge four-hour ceremony during which the current Elven Emperor (or Queen, or Lady of Light, or whatever her title was that century) and the various incredibly royal families—each with a lineage that, if you added up every person you passed walking through the streets of New York City for eight hours a day for three days, would still go farther back—very carefully explained how elves were the height of beauty, perfection, and wonder in the world. How they were the greatest things in the universe. And how they had graciously decided to condescend to eat the leaders and most important people among the space aliens—so long as the aliens were brought to them, and the elves butchered them themselves, having greater knowledge of anatomy. They even offered oral instructions and helpful written notes pointing out the choicest bits.
No space aliens have been seen in our world—or yours—on any reliable basis since.
The only person who claims to see them regularly is Gandalf, and they visit him because he continues to make the best pipe-weed in the galaxy. He doesn’t see them often, however. He was kind enough to give them a couple of stocks, and the entire dark side of the moon is now under a gigantic electromagnetic piezo-molecular vibratory device that keeps the surface dark while lighting and tightening the growth of all the marijuana plants. This is also why there are no more moon landings. Do you have any idea how hard it is to take off after a couple of pipes of pipe-weed?
The gnomes learned how to make combustion engines and got some idea of what computers are, which increased their technical skill significantly. Having watched how happy it generally made the (rather unhappy) space aliens, they decided not to go in that direction. Instead, they went back to erecting monoliths. Those really last. And if there’s something a gnome likes, it’s a piece of technology that follows the stars accurately, helps you cast magical spells, gives you very pretty views, brings in a lot of tourists, and doesn’t force you to debug squirrel.
The dwarves straight-up received about a ton of gold each, sent to several of the clans that had been present at the feast, along with a bunch of handmade hammers and a note saying the aliens had been an inspiration.
We got this story.
We clearly win
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