If you wait long enough, pray hard enough and keep all fifty of your fingers crossed enough of the time, sometimes, just sometimes, a wish can come true.
Things have changed on Planet X, very much so. Their scientists, way more advanced than ours, have predicted utter destruction. They calculated that a ray of gamma radiation, from a yet to happen supernova, will cross paths with them in around twenty millennia.
Opinions varied on how to deal with the impending doom. Many wanted to move away and settle somewhere safe. Others wanted to begin research on new types of shield defences. Leaving would make them totally vulnerable to those of us on the outside. Staying would require an advance in technology beyond anything currently conceived.
Heated words were exchanged. Factions formed. Each side became entrenched in their own beliefs, deriding the other, issuing treats and demands. Before long they had begun looking through their history books searching for long forgotten war devices. Each side began to arm, with weapons more destructive than anything the rest of us had ever even imagined. Weapons designed to maim, to induce insanity, sterility.
Now we just sit back and watch…
