ZORGON VII INVESTIGATES : The secrets yielded up by the last fragment of digital cloud on the Planet Earth have brought a dramatic halt to the archaeological inquiry into the collapse of human civilisations in the 21st century (of one of their calendars).
“It has long been believed that human civilisations collapsed as a result of electing barely sentient, ageing males into the positions of high priests. Essentially even mass human sacrifice at the hands of these rudimentary creatures couldn’t appease the God Mammon. We know this by translating the rubbish and juvenile human technology of television. Its signals are still clattering their way out into the galaxy and driving far flung civilisations nuts. Especially ‘The Apprentice’. Had humans not extinguished themselves it’s highly likely the interstellar council would have taken the decision to do it for them. You’re fired humans! Ha!”
The archaeologists involved in the study of Earth had first taken an interest when the last of the television signals were received on their home planet.
“It suddenly went quiet,” lead researcher Zorgon VII said, “we were actually anticipating the first Game of Thrones spin off and nothing. I turned on the human technology simulator and it was just blank. I tried again the next week and still nothing. Not even a Trump rally. It was all very strange. So we decided to spend the four hundred or so years it would take to travel to Earth and investigate on the ground.”
And what they found was not what they expected.
“Whales have started farming. Which is nice. They’ve industrialised krill production. They’re about to commodify it. So, in spite of our earlier expectations they’re probably stuffed too. Which is a shame. Most of the land is under forest of course. Spider Monkeys shagging is now a niche musical genre at home, after we tight beamed it back and some kid remixed it with a contemporary tune.”
But what happened to the humans?
“Anti-maskers. As far was we can tell. There’s still a bit of digital cloud floating about over what was once called New Zealand. It lives in a server powered by a solar array that is still functioning. Just. We got everything we needed from there. They were allowed to get onto aircraft and go on holidays. This carried the new virulent variety of Covid-19 across the Earth and killed the lot. It mutated in a vegetable aisle in Waitrose and before anyone realised what was up it was game over.”
The anti-maskers would be very proud, if they were still alive.
“If they were still alive we would have lifted back off into orbit and nuked the lot of them. Just to be sure.”