Article: 899 of alt.tv.dinosaurs.barney.die.die.die From: phoenix@genesis.MCS.COM (Eliezer Shlomo Yudkowsky) Subject: Barney vs. the Federation Date: 20 Oct 1993 21:01:09 -0500 Organization: MCSNet Subscriber, Chicago, IL Lines: 81 Message-ID: <2a4qh5$21c@genesis.MCS.COM> NNTP-Posting-Host: genesis.mcs.com Summary: Part Two Status: OR BARNEY VS. THE FEDERATION, PART TWO. Captain Glytarra of the Dyson-class starship *Leviathan* started as an alarm sounded. She jerked out of bed and ran down to the control center. The Dyson class was the height of Federation technology. It looked like a really big sphere. A Dyson sphere. Unlike the original design, the Dyson class was solid, not hollow, with a radius of a light-hour. We are talking really big here. We are talking so humongous that you could get lost inside it and never find your way home with immortality and a skateboard. We are talking something that used a small quasar for power. The original Dyson sphere would have captured the power output of a sun and housed people over the area of several *billion* worlds. The Dyson class could have tucked the population of an entire galaxy into one corner. It could have plowed through a sun without noticing. But it was just a ship. The entire Federation was housed in the Great Sphere,a hollow sphere filled with air, several hundred lightyears in diameter. The *Leviathan* was the greatest ship ever built, but it was only a ship. Captain Glytarra plowed onto the bridge, straightening her hairdo. "What is it, Makop?" The first officer looked up from his virsole (virtual console). "One of our ships exploded. The *Blunt* *Instrument*. "Why?" "We're finding out." They turned to watch the holo projector as it showed the last moments of the *Blunt*. "I am searching for similiar occurences and that song," announced Info, their android. "Got it. No similiar occurences, but that song was once the theme song of a children's show called "Barney the Dinosaur" from before the Fall of Earth. "That's not it." Glytarra snapped. Droids had access to huge amounts of data but didn't know what was significant. For the hundredth time, she wished she had a New Borg or one of the Sons of Suung. But they were scattered few and far between. "Got it. The theme song of a children's show from before the Betazoid Revolution. The theme song in fact..." Info dripped programmed solemnity, "of, according to this, a children's show from just before every known Fall from technology." "WHAT!" shouted Makop. He was an Intuitionist, and he got the point fast. "Why didn't anyone notice before?" "Cancel that," he said, sighing. "Can you show us a holo of this children's show?" she asked. "Only a video." The 'jectors hummed to life. A horrible Purple plush dinosaur was screeching "I love you, you love me, we're one great big family." Children danced around it. Glytarra felt herself recoiling. "Turn it off!" she shouted. "Why?" asked Makop. "We know there's no thret from that." Glytarra spun in horror. "What did you say?" "I sed thers no thret! Itz a harmles childrens TVI sho." Glytarra knew now that Makop's personality had somehow dissolved. She also knew, with a sickening terror, why this was called the Purple Cluster. Security read her typed message and dragged Makop, singing, off the bridge. With the *Leviathan* safely outside the Purple Cluster, Glytarra was in Sickbay watching Makop. The computers had confirmed her guess. The cluster was shaped like the Barney-creature. Now she watched as Doctor Bluzh worked desperately to save Makop. Glytarra glanced at one of the monitors, showing the inside of the brain. "My God." she whispered, as if saying it aloud would make it real, "his brain is melting. No wait, it's turning into...a sponge." Glytarra knew what she fought. A hundred glimpses of Terran history suddenly made sense. This was the real meaning of the long-forgotten Final Battle that had blasted Earth back to the Stone Age. The Final Battle-between the "Jihad"... And the "Sponge-Minions"... TO BE CONTINUED... Eliezer Yudkowsky, Lord of the Bright DAY! P.S. The Mahdi has been captured! To arms! Can I help? -- Eliezer Yudkowsky phoenix@genesis.mcs.com "There are more ways to skin a cat than nuking it from orbit- but it's the only way to be sure."