chapter 3

the last story I worked on, I looked stuff up.  My characters followed actually highways through actual towns.  I figured out travel times, checked out weather averages, and looked up other stuff like filtering radioactive water.  it was somewhat tedious.  

it's a lot quicker when you just make everything up.

chapter 3

Interview with Claude LeBlanc, former bishop in the Raelian church

"Can you tell us what the Raelian church is?"

"Raelians believe that humans were created by extraterrestrials, who guided us with messengers such as Buddha and Jesus.  One day, if our society becomes peaceful, the extraterrestrials will welcome us."

"You no longer believe in that?"

"One of the first things our visitors established was that they were not the creators of all things.  They made it quite clear.  For me, this was too much at odds with a basic Raelian tenet."

"But a lot of Raelians were enthusiastic.  They were among the first to apply to be in The Ten Thousand."

"People of many religions, not just Raelians, chose to emphasize part of their beliefs and ignore others to link the visitors to their faith system.  Judeo-Christians pointed out that their God lived in the heavens above, and liked the promise of salvation, even if it didn't quite line up.  For the Hindus, several of The Followers resembled gods and demigods.  And so on."

"Tell us about The Ten Thousand."

"The visitors determined that a population of ten thousand humans would be genetically sustainable.  They had a lottery for those that were interested in leaving Earth with them, to act as missionaries and to bring humanity with into the next universe."

"The next universe?"

"Yeah, that's another thing that got twisted around to fit different ideologies.  The visitors told us they came from a previous universe.  When it was nearing its end, they found a way to remove themselves form existence, and re-emerge in the middle of the following universe.  Buddhists glossed over some of that and called it enlightenment.  Some Christian groups mashed it up with eternal salvation."

"Previous universe?  How can they, 'leave existence?'  How old are they?"

"They claim this is their fourth universe, and they started taking Followers with them in their third universe.  This would make them billions of years older than we are.  As to how they could leave existence, well, you know how they are."

"How's that?"

"They don't get into the details.  Powered by thousands of stars, and blip!  They disappear, and then blip!  They come back in a younger universe.  It's like the technology they left behind, we were shown how to use it, but not how it works."

"I think we might be straying off topic with all of this.  Did a lot of Raelians leave the church when you did?"

"Yeah, I wasn't the only one.  We'd been visited by, 'The Gods,' and dozens of races in The Followers, and not one of them claimed to have created us."

"Did you seek to be one of The Ten Thousand?"

"No, I didn't.  I'd just lost my religion.  I figured I needed to find something to believe in here on Earth before I had any business heading to Heaven."