Galactic Grade Report:
Forced Cultural Germination
in a Remote Spiral-Arm Galaxy
by John Mimbres

3-D L-T* University

M.G.A** Thesis Project

Student Name: Mauve chromal-Hybrid XVI
I.D.: avR43kcH110
Date: 12⁸⁷/ 403.92.2

Title:

"Forced Cultural Germination
in a Remote Spiral-Arm Galaxy"

Grade Report

Nurturant Creativity: D-.
Technological Stimuli: B-.
Artistic Innovation: F.
Interventional Subtlety: C-.
Editing & Continuity: F.
Comic Relief: A-.
Overall Grade: C-.

The Committee's Judgment

Background:
chromal-Hybrid, a promising student (displaying unusual aptitude in such disparate courses as "Introductory Deism," and "Models of Metaphysical Ambiguity"), requested a challenging subject for his terminal thesis project. In his preliminary researches, he had located an overlooked spiral-arm galaxy, which though duly cataloged, had not been visited nor even viewed in more than 70 UEC’s***.

He found that early seeding, long neglected after initial germination, had proceeded apace, with a pleasing variety of cultures at various stages of coming to terms with Common Early Violence. For thesis project purposes, he proposed to limit himself to one planet in this remote area, known in the primary local language as "Earth," and to further limit himself to a minuscule time fragment known to the inhabitants of "Earth" as one "century."****

Because the M.G.A. Committee perceived such potential in chromal-Hybrid’s performance in his standard coursework, we granted him permission to intervene in the affairs of "Earth" in any manner he saw fit for one "century."

Performance:
The fact that the sentient, self-aware population of the planet went from 2 billion to 6 billion during chromal-Hybrid’s very brief tenure caused great concern among the Committee. Mr. chromal-Hybrid’s response ("Can I help it if they just really like to fuck?") was wholly inadequate.

Still, he did show alacrity in perceiving that the planet was already far beyond its level of sustainable culture and took a number of highly creative steps to reverse this uncontrolled libidinous outburst.


1. In an intriguing combination of of the hoary Pestilence and Famine Ploy, he introduced several rapidly mutating strains of sexual disease while simultaneously accelerating the development of cheap and easy birth control methods. By century’s end, however, no significant improvement could be discerned.

CRITIQUE TO THE STUDENT: The Committee was baffled by your various techniques here, which often seemed at cross-purposes. You pulled strings on a number of leaders in the most populous country and had it see-sawing back and forth between a dizzying range of political possibilities. Then you planted the most devastating sexual-disease virus in the poorest continent, yet constructed the virus in such a way that it attacked an already hated minority group. And while your various birth control methods were cleverly efficacious, you did little to free the oppressed child-bearers from the deadly stresses of nurture and work under conditions of extreme poverty.

2. Applying lessons he had learned well in his Ethno-centrism classes, Mr. chromal-Hybrid repeatedly injected artistic and political prodigies into the population, which resulted in the rapid growth of Primitive Nationalism in several tribal groups.

The student was alarmed to note that the two planet-wide wars following his intervention only led to more Primitive Nationalism.

CRITIQUE TO THE STUDENT: While we admired the Byzantine confusion you were able to create out of a peaceful, affluent period at the beginning of your "century," leading directly into the first planet-wide war, we felt your scenario of static battlefield scenes in that war in which, day after day, hundreds of thousands of soldiers just sat in trenches and killed other soldiers sitting in other trenches showed a marked lack of inspiration.

Furthermore, the readiness of various "Earthlings" to accept the most vacuous and superficial political and religious doctrines was, we found, simply beyond belief. Even one-celled creatures, Mr. chromal-Hybrid, move AWAY from painful stimuli. Yet you apparently would have us believe that these "Earth" creatures continue to embrace the most destructive belief systems long after the systems have proved to be totally futile.

SPECIFICALLY, we found your casting of a whole series of what you term "mega-leaders" (the names you mention in your thesis are: "Stalin," "Hitler," "Nixon," and "Mao") to be easy expediency on your part. This, Mr. chromal-Hybrid, is the stuff of the trashiest kind of low-level popular art, the sort of careless plot-manipulation that one expects from Emerging Animists but hardly what we look for in our M.G.A. candidates.

Your mid-century introduction of atomic-weapon capability seems, to us, to indicate that even you realized that you had let things get way out of hand.

3. And what a mess you made in your late attempt to grow affluence, technology, and art all at the same time. We have never encountered a student who so blithely made thousands of dream-appearances with the express purpose of 1) spurring innovation across the board, 2) giving repeated overwhelming glimpses of larger realities for which these creatures are far from ready, and 3) creating a small, smug upper-class (whom you refer to in your thesis as "Republicans") whose exercise of power is based solely on your bizarrely encouraged, increasing accumulation of wealth and the resultant, harsh exploitation of the economically deprived groups.

In The Committee’s experience across many dimensions and many large time-constructs, we have never encountered a group so self-centered, arrogant, and indifferent to the suffering of their fellow sentients as are these "Republicans."

4. The Humor Outlet addendum which you attached to your thesis left us somewhat confused. On the one hand, we truly appreciated the levity with which a few of the "Earthlings" were able to respond to the horrors you had unleashed on them. We especially enjoyed the series of what you referred to as "1950s Hollywood comedies featuring 'Doris Day' and 'Rock Hudson'," as well as a group of actors whom you cited under the somewhat puzzling rubric "Monty Python." Still, it was far from clear to us that these comedic creations resulted from your own intervention, or whether they were merely the desperate grasping after laughter on the part of a much put-upon populace.

Conclusion:
All in all, Mr. chromal-Hybrid, we feel we are being extremely lenient in allowing you to pass, with a C-, and receive your M.G.A. We trust that your future interventions when you begin your professional career as a Galactic Consultant will be somewhat moderated as you review the terrible "Republican" reality which you contrived to bring about on this harmless little planet in a wispy arm of an extremely remote, overlooked spiral galaxy.

[signed]
Gravitas hyper-Modal
Committee Chair



*Three-dimensional Linear-time.

**Master of Galactic Administration.

***Universe Contraction-Expansions, a time-space measure which really has no "earthly" equivalent but can be considered something like 120 billion "years".

****Again, translation to pan-universal standards is almost impossible. If the multi-dimensional, multi-level matrices of All That Is can be thought of as an ocean, a "century" is a bubble in the foam of a small wave on that ocean.