We Come In Peace?

Right. I'm sure by now you've all heard the news, so the question is, 'what does this mean for us?'

I'm pretty sure the answer is 'nothing, really'. At least, if the government manages to follow proper object-oriented practices when dealing with the interface. There's no reason to treat this any differently than any other foreign relationship.

So of course, we're screwed. They're bound to make a big deal about it -- I'm sure the bigots will be out in force saying 'so and so isn't really human' just because, you know, they might not share 100% of their DNA with the human race as we know it. There'll be long, rambling, pointless speeches by muddy-headed mystics saying that there are 'critical moral issues' at stake, that never go to the trouble of actually saying what those issues might be. Just like anything else that's even slightly unusual.

Anyway, I guess the key thing is not to panic. Or at least, that's what I'll keep telling myself while I curl up under the desk and weep.

What may or may not be happening

Apparently, most poeple haven't heard the news, or at least not the same news. So instead of doing any work, I've been trying to piece it together.

The only thing that everyone's really sure about is that, somehow, the entire north coast of north america was pushed back thousands of miles -- almost to the north pole. If I'm interpreting the sattelite picture over on msnbc correctly, Alaska isn't even an island anymore. I wonder if it's still our Alaska?

That is, we all -- or at least, I and everyone I've talked to -- remember that if you drive a few hours north of here, you end up on a frigid beach looking out onto the arctic sea. I assume you do too. Although you might not live as close. But around midnight last night, people started reporting that the arctic sea was vanishing.

Yes, midnight. Time zone didn't really matter. Mass confusion, and the fact that it apparently only affected this continent (well, and Alaska), which was already near the international date line, kept anyone from coordinating and sending someone to see what was actually happening. I mean, there were people who live on that coast, but they don't remember seeing anything change. Even the ones who were awake at the time just looked up and saw more land where they remembered a bunch of icy water. I bet a lot of them thought 'Tsunami!' and ran for the hills, heh...

Luckily (?) the explanation wasn't anything quite that simple. This isn't just new land rising up from the ocean in some sort of techtonic event, because there's an entire civilization living there. Judging from the photos on the news, of the cities just across the border, it looks like it's on about the same level as the US, technology and population-wise both. That's a hell of a lot of people to just 'show up' suddenly.

It's creepy... I mean, I know at least one Arctic Islander working in my group. I wonder what happened to his hometown? I mean, was it swallowed up by this new continent? Swapped to some alternate universe that expects there to be a big landmass there? Buried under hundreds of tons of rock (since apparently the Cascades continue north all the way to Alaska)?

Here's the really weird thing, though -- did you see the picture from Detroit? There's a bridge connecting it to the other side... which is really the same idea as the other pictures of highways running into massive border stations and the like, although a bridge is a lot bigger and flashier.

No, the weird thing is that, when the camera pans, you can see that Detroit is STILL A PORT CITY, even though it's now ludicrously landlocked. That's really what convinced me that this wasn't all just a mass hallucination that this land hadn't always existed. I'm sure more inconsistencies will show up as time goes on.