Group Precipitation

by FanOfMostEverything

Reasonable Doubt, by Masterweaver

"Don't tell me you believe that magic tripe! It's aliens, man! It's all aliens!"

Meringue put down his sandwich and gave Trail Mix a flat look. "Aliens."

"Yeah, man! Like, how else are you going to explain all the psychic powers and the mutant mumbo jumbo? The galactic confederacy genebombed us man! There's no other explanation!"

"So, the whole magic spells thing—"

"Psychic nanobots, man!"

"... And that message from Sunset Shimmer—?"

"Pff. OBVIOUSLY she's just an AI that's focused on directing our culture to join the confederacy."

"You know something, Trail Mix? Sometimes, I just can't believe you."

"You've just got to keep an open mind, man!"

Comments

[Hopeful_Ink_Hoof]

There's an interesting question.
Which is more outrageous:

A world with high levels of magic began seeping into a more mundane one, creating magical anomalies. As a result, a being from that realm ascended to near god-like power and forever altered the human world allowing the use of magic while saving the world from destruction.

Or

Aliens genetically altered an entire world, allowing the natives to develop previously unknown innate talents that appear as magic, then created an AI to oversee the race and help them adapt to their new world before allowing them to join an intergalactic alliance.

[goldfencer]

7629717 From a purely practical standpoint, is there even a difference?

[Jirodyne]

7629717 That depends. If there are talents that just 'look' like magic, they would be able to simulate those things with Technology eventally. They never do. Also, if they were to be part of some Intergalactic Alliance, where are they?

[BenRG]

You have to admit that "contamination by extra-dimensional energy" does sound a bit more improbable than "it wuz alienz!"

[jacen]

7629778
Short term, no. Long term, if the aliens do plan to invite you to join their civilization, yes.

[Blue_Paladin42]

Meanwhile, Pinkie Pie just got Sunset Shimmer X-COM 2...

[Tophe]

Trail Mix just got a bit too much science fiction in his worldbuilding. He's not even wrong - human magic (aka psychic powers) did exist and was hidden from the public by forces unknown. Technically not a "conspiracy", but he's more right than Meringue knows!

... Meringue is a boy's name?

[Man without a plan]

7629778 Well, that's the difference between wether the eventual aliens will be guaranteed friendly or only possibly friendly.

[FanOfMostEverything]

7629717
Depends on who you ask.

7630023
Of course, the aliens could've caused the energy infection...

7630706
And then SETI had a new intern.

7631407
"It's gender-neutral!"

[Prawo Jazdy]

7629717
7629778
In both cases, the public is supposed to believe the first scenario. The difference is that the aliens in the second scenario want us to believe an elaborate lie instead of an elaborate truth, for no clear reason.

Heck, Sunset admitted (albeit to a small number of people at first) that she put a mind-whammy on the world's humans to think the huge change was fine. The aliens would have to have this capability too. Therefore, not only is the deception crazy-difficult to pull off, it serves no function.

[Lurks-no-More]

Well, technically Sunset at least is an alien...

[shadowstar618]

7736388
Even better, she's a muti-dimensional life form

[DanaO]

7629717
I'm reminded of the central premise behind the City of Heroes/Villains setting: natural laws aren't, reality is inherently solipsistic, we think science is a real thing - for that matter, have continued thinking past the first "I wish we weren't" - because our section of the universe was helpfully sealed off in a stabilizing bubble long ago (not so much by precursors monitoring and developing us as precursors following the equivalent of "pick up your campsite trash and plant a seed or two to replace the firewood" rules), and events have finally started slowly running that down and putting Earth in contact with reality. Which means that whatever your preferred explanation for why the world has started getting weird, you'll find more than adequate evidence of it, either because you're making it real or because it was already there and the timing's coincidentally right for it to come visiting.

[Dinodude88]

...trail mix reminds me of Yasuhiro Hagakure.... and that is not a good thing....