A Bit of Fiction – sort of

February, 2025

Dear Interplanetary Partners:

It appears from our vantage point here on ravaged Planet HSE that our nearest neighboring planet, formerly known as Earth, should now be known as the Ice Queen. It appears to be a complete ice ball. Because we have had no communications from Earth for several years, our Intergalactic Committee has officially declared that the Queen is indeed dead. From our bunkers here deep below Planet HSE, we once had communication with the Earth. Over the years, we warned them, on a repeated basis, that their tactics toward combatting global warming were as fruitless as the trees now made extinct on their desolated planet.

In our warnings, we used our own experience as a dying planet to give them the knowledge we learned the hard way, but they continued to follow in their often willy nilly and destructive ways. You see, a few centuries ago, we too began to feel the effects of unchecked growth and pollution on our lovely planet which we once called Trefoil in honor of our three goals of peace, harmony and love of nature.

When we first began to discover the changes to our atmosphere, there were many intelligent discussions about what could be done. For many years, different theories were bounced back and forth between our various committees. For quite a time, the group POTT, also known as Planet of The Trees, held sway over our government. They enacted different lifesaving initiatives to help save our planet with a focus on saving our trees which supply so many necessary nutrients. Initially, POTT’s policies helped curb the decline of the essential compounds we all depend on, like oxygen, for example. Their favorite slogan was “Trees are something that everybody needs.” For a time that slogan was enormously popular with the people, and its signs could be seen everywhere. It was motivating and stirred up all kinds of altruistic notions. The wheels of betterment could be seen turning … until an order came from Dr. Suess to cease and desist using that statement. At the time it was frightening to think that a noble man who once lauded the great environmentalist, The Lorax, could be behind such an order. Unfortunately, the order had enough of a chilling effect to shut down the campaign to save trees. Later on, we found that the supposed cease and desist was one of our first encounters with “fake news.”

Soon after, some vexing anti-life support groups began to emerge on our once peaceful planet. One large group called Tree X aligned with Agents of Deforestation to begin widescale harvesting of trees for their valuable components. Once all the trees were farmed, the soil underneath was mined for valuable minerals. Their slogan was “Minerals are something for a few of us to achieve.” The Suess estate remained quiet on that one, and so the slogan stood as did the relentless deforestation and demineralization of our resources. Huge tunnels and underground caverns were created to achieve what was termed a “global mining adventure.”
All through this difficult time, it did seem curious to those who cared, that the minerals never seemed to go to the betterment of our planet. In fact, life conditions seemed to get worse. A few brave souls dared to protest this proliferation of extinctive measures. Dissenters to Tree X’s plan were given a pickax and bucket and sent down into the mines to dig and keep digging until they saw the light of day.

About a century ago, the owner of Tree X declared himself King X. He then proceeded to rename our planet Key X, in recognition of all the things he had successfully deleted. Once self-installed, he announced that all minerals would go to support the new colony he had founded in a distant galaxy. When our once lovely planet was just about totally destroyed and devoid of life, King X took off in a specially designed Space Rocket to parts unknown. Many of his followers jumped on their mini rockets and sped off in his direction. It has been nearly 50 years, and we have not heard a single peep from King X and his motley crew. May they rest in peace, somewhere… out there.

Sadly, our planet which once supported a bounty of treasures has been reduced to piles and peaks of discarded rubble. Like Earth, we once enjoyed skiing down snowcapped mountains with snowflakes glistening in the sunlight. An abundance of food and grains were grown and harvested in our prairies and valleys. Our tropical islands were a haven for wildlife, providing joy for both man and beast. There wasn’t a place on the planet where there wasn’t some wonderment to be discovered. Now, our air has been left too toxic to support life due to years of mining our resources.

Still, we carry on with what is left; there is no other plan. In honor of our efforts at renewal, we now refer to our planet as HSE which stands for Hope Springs Eternal. Luckily for us, a few crafty miners were able to gather heirloom seeds and DNA samples and carry them down through the tunnels and into the bunkers where they have been safely stored. It is in these tunnels and bunkers that we now live our lives.

It is a different kind of life down here, but we try to make the best of it. Lately, we have become more successful in harnessing the dim sunlight for heat and energy. Our seed growing experiments have flourished, and we now have a source of plant life to feed us. We have also been fortunate to discover an abundance of minerals in the heaps of debris that dot our planet. It seems that in King X’s rush to run off with his bunch of eXquisite minerals, he left behind those most necessary to sustain life. It is with these discards that we are rebuilding the world that we once knew, the world that lives so deeply in our memory cells.

One of our most important missions is to keep our intergalactic commission up to date with events in our small part of the universe and thus it is with great sadness that we bring this announcement about the former Earth. Let it be put in record that we did try our best. For decades, we sent various warnings to Earth through a thought penetration process known as conscience. You see, every now and then we would prick the conscience of those earthly controllers who had their hands on the levers of justice for humanity. We tried to get them to question the wisdom of destroying the very thing that brings them life, but it seemed that particular realm of consciousness was not able to be stimulated due to its lack of use over the years. We then tried working on the conscience of individuals, hoping that their will to live would somehow be stronger than their will to die. It didn’t work. Humans are so hard to understand. It could be that thick skull of theirs.

In any case, it is with a heaviness in our hearts that we send out this official intergalactic announcement: The Ice Queen, once formerly known as the majestic planet Earth, is now an ice ball.

Sincerely,
The Intergalactic Team at Planet HSE