Muzikia

When Captain Anderson and his crew landed on the yet unexplored planet Muzikia, they were greeted by an embassy of harmonic chords. Their leader, a C major, welcomed the humans with great enthusiasm and assured them about the natives' peaceful intentions. Things were looking great.

 The humans were the first ever to visit their planet, the major explained as their shuttle was on its way to the Royal Palace, but they've been ready for such an occurrence for a long time. The night sky is huge, and littered with distant stars; it would have been foolish to believe that they were alone. Their astronomers have long spotted the incoming spacecraft, giving plenty of time for them to prepare for the first contact, and their politicians and diplomats to plan ahead and make sure everything goes at an easy flow.

As they were slowly closing to the Palace, Anderson took his opportunity to look around and observe the strange inhabitants of the planet: mellow pads were drifting slowly through the parks, zigzagging dreamily in the air, much like plastic bags being carried by a lazy summer breeze; high-pitched and rapid beats – troublemaking youngsters, the major explained – bounced around the shuttle whenever it came to a halt, trying to sneak a peek inside. Artful and mildly dissonant riffs were quickly advancing on the pavement, seemingly in a rush, slaloming between the rows of carefree harmonies and arpeggios, never slowing down, not even for a moment. Somewhere in the distance a warm and fuzzy bass rumbled and echoed for a long time, while short clicks and beeps hopped left and right everywhere, like oversized fleas. The planet around them was bustling with life, but it all seemed to follow some higher order, like a hidden rhythm or a set of rules, never becoming chaotic, not even in spite of its richness and diversity.

When Anderson asked the major about this, he lengthily explained the two opposing views about this phenomenon: the priesthood propagated the belief that behind the unity lay the Great Metronome, an omniscient and omnipotent entity who created all the dwellings of the planet for its own delight. The scientists, on the other hand, believed it to be the result of long-term convergent evolution. Whichever case might be the truth, he added in the end, no one can deny the underlying beauty and complexity of the system. The captain agreed with him.

By the time they finished their discussion, the shuttle arrived to the Royal Palace, and they were urged inside to meet the council and the Supreme Ruler of the planet. Soon, a lengthy discussion began about the joint future of the two species, whose representatives all seemed to be highly obliging and cooperative. It seemed like the beginning of a prosperous and advantageous relationship. Little did they know what terrors were about to be unleashed a mere few miles away…
   It all started when one of the maintenance crew members left on the ship – in spite of the serious investigation after the incident, it never turned out who exactly was to blame – got bored and decided to pay a visit to the digital entertainment library. Before browsing through the music section, however, the ignorant crewman was careless enough not to properly seal the airlocks, thus allowing some of the music to seep through and escape into the atmosphere.

The immediate effect was barely noticeable. In the beginning it was only the elders of the planet who sensed the slight imbalance in the greater order. But in a mere few minutes the intruders started to gain strength and multiply. Some of the locals tried to fight them back, but it was far too late by then; the newcomers seemed to be invincible against their conventional weapons – if it was their brutish simplicity or their aggressive and hostile nature that made them impossible to defeat will always remain a mystery. They spread like wildfire, mindlessly massacring everyone on sight. Their attack soon turned into a full-fledged assault which promptly became a planet-wide slaughter, leaving no survivors behind.

Playful consonants were torn apart, gloomy melodies trampled to death, ingenious rhythms raped and murdered in cold blood. In the end the oppressors turned against each other, violently destroying themselves, leaving nothing, but the fading echoes of dying and broken sounds behind. Muzikia was destroyed.

Some days later, a simple search in the library’s browsing history revealed the origin of the malicious attackers: the crewman, whose identity will never to be discovered, was listening to some long-forgotten electronic music created back at the dawn of the 21st century. A genre Old-Earthians would have called dubstep.