Round 28 - 32 Players Left

The Fuller Crater

21 Days to the Sixth Attraction

The digital reality filled billions of screens around the solar system, encompassing even the nearly nine-hundred non-Earthborn. Watching also were the two-hundred ex-players on mars and the hundred hotel staff. Most importantly, the two madmen piloting the Io Explorer were a light minute away getting a live feed. The colors, the resolution had no equal, this world was on steroids.

As the Rho wave-powered introduction swept over her audience, even the dullest and most skeptical watchers realized that Electoral's computing power now seemed boundless. Those using glasses, known colloquially as "Orbisons," would be watching the round in full 3D from multiple points of view. No mere movie producer could rival this technology, even though the glasses themselves were relatively old technology. Others were using the contact lens.

Today, several billion viewers from all imaginable walks of life would discover Marilyn's latest tale, again with a live twist. Liam just explained how music fueled adventure, the goddess delivered.

Heavy metal music thundered as the images from the solar system kept blinking from ordinary celestial images to something like hand-drawn comic reality. The relatively few watching who were familiar with the junction between photography and computer-aided animation felt their collective eyes glaze over for a moment. Marilyn had drawn on a very old method of seeking to combine the fluidity and realism of a live camera shot with the dreamlike lucidity of adjustable realism of special effects animation. "Rotoscoping," as it was called, was thus invented by a man named Max Fleischer, which he patented in 1915. Later, the technique would be adopted and improved upon by one Walter Elias Disney, who used the technology in the creation of Mickey Mouse in 1928, two years after the birth of Norma Jeane Mortenson, the original Marilyn Monroe.

As time passed, the technology continued to be improved and used extensively in all manner of film-making. A full feature film, married to the fastest computers of the early 21st century, was an 18-month animation process.

Electoral was now spectacularly employing its latest descendant, and she was doing it on-the-fly while simultaneously broadcasting it to the entire solar system.

The first two minutes of the introduction to Round 28 was from the vantage point of a space probe traveling within the solar system. Marilyn showed the Milky Way in a sea of galaxies and then took a step back to introduced the hundreds of worlds of the Multiverse. These images, inspired by Sophie's interaction with the supreme intelligence, consisted of light, music and a grandiose spectacle of science. Compared with Sophie's strange inter-dimensional travels, this was just okay.

Marilyn swung the camera's viewpoint as it traveled back through the solar system, passing mars and earth as it flew toward the sun. The white orb grew until it occupied the whole sky. Mercury was a dot in the distance. The view of the Io Explorer was the same on each screen around the world. She then printed her logo in the darkness.

The Mercury Landing

-- Electoral 2072 / Round 28 --

(500 hours to the Sixth Attraction)

Nine billion minds connected at the same time to the Electoral system. Marilyn used Terrawatts of energy to power the system. In return, the flow of mental energy pouring into the electrical grid was unprecedented. Waves of all types were created and flooded in. The shared experience was common to all minds; they each responded to the stimuli in a rather analogous way, and like music, the waves meshed and resonated. The music Marilyn designed and played into the system helped reinforced the harmonics. The brain waves created by each viewer, much like the movement of dancers of a rave party, began to pulse. They moved like a sea of baby crabs running to shore on a beach. From an invisible observer, deep in space the blue gem of earth sparkled.

Energy jumped as a blue spike high above the planet and locked hands with the red hand of Sophie’s Rho waves produced on mars. Invisibly, the Rho waves amplified and synched in unison. The energy began to flood the solar system. This was a rare self-amplified process: the happier were the viewers, the greater the flow of Rho waves, which in turn made the person happier. The process was circular, the serpent eating its tail. Marilyn Monroe was the conductor of this dangerous symphony of mass euphoria. With each round, her filtration algorithms of the waves were getting stronger and sharper. As they did, the game became more addictive to watch and play.

Round 28 began with thirty players connected in the aligned tubes of the amphitheater room at the Electoral Center on mars. Only the two scoreboard leaders were missing. Laurent was in the room below the tubes in the center cradle flanked by Sophie, who attended to him. As he played, she watched him on the screens around the room. Her hands were on Laurent's head. Invisible to all but Marilyn was the torrent of Rho waves emanating from the guardian into her father. They were emanating, focusing and pouring into Laurent. The artificial intelligence with her detectors saw the energy; its scale was massive even to her. With time, Sophie’s power was increasing.

Invisible to all but George’s from his consoles, the Electoral system was trying to compensate and even out the odds by funneling waves to the other players.

Marilyn knew her efforts were pointless, the girl's power appeared boundless. After their escapade to the Underworlds, she had no reason to dispute this conclusion. Sophie, the Attractor, was a battery; a fuel cell that was capable of destroying worlds. To Marilyn, Sophie wasn't an Attractor; she was some type of detonator. Sophie was unique in that she avoided abusing this gift. Marilyn felt the girl could wish the healing of Laurent or even the resurrection of her mother and somehow that would happen.

The second absent player from the tubes was Emilio, who remained on earth. The President slipped into the chamber on the stage in front of his friends and guests. He placed the ring of sensors around his head and closed his eyes. Immediately he began to sweat, and ventilation kicked in to the point where his hair moved in the artificial wind inside the tube. In the room, strangers extended their hands to hold a neighbor. The face of the world was being played, live for all to watch powerless.

The system powered-up.

The solar system came alive. Mankind was told their collective hopes and loves could be funneled and would help the President. Religious men prayed, atheists hoped.

In the background, Marilyn played the heavy metal music. Like a bird, it swooped up and down the musical scale. It played during the entire introduction. Electoral 2072 took almost ten minutes to recap the events leading up to the Sixth Attraction. The viewers saw a montage of the solar system, the Multiverse, the Purple, and flying vignettes of the main protagonists of the Sixth Attraction. Marilyn showed the moment when she'd used Sophie's power to steal the Dot. The video carefully supplemented Emilio's summary. The story was getting too complicated to describe yet too important to ignore or forget. Sophie was amused to be labeled "Attractor" on the clip. She did not like to see herself on TV, and Marilyn took her wishes into consideration. She was always shown in a positive light, from behind or touching her father. Laurent wasn't described as a cripple; he was a multi-faceted man, a superhero with a secret game identity. There was no pity in Marilyn's depiction of Laurent. Laurent was a creature half-way between the real world and the digital world. Marilyn knew how to dramatize events. The last segment was about the doomsday events cascading around Sophie's birthday.

Once the credits stopped, the viewers saw mars, alone, floating in space.

There was a long and lucrative commercial period. Viewers did not know if the artificial intelligence wanted to keep a sense of normalcy to the game to avoid panic or if the entire Attraction story wasn't a ploy for higher ratings. When Round 28 of Electoral 2072 resumed, the same singer slowly transitioned from heavy metal to a deeply voiced love ballad only heavy metal singers could belt out. The voice ran heavy with emotion. He sang music everyone recognized on some level or another, making each brain react.

On the screen was a Martian backdrop. Sophie did not care for this type of music.

"Intelligent life began on mars a long, long time ago," narrated Marilyn. "Earth was in its Triassic era; this happened hundreds of million years ago. Large dinosaurs roamed earth." The images began to rewind in time. The sun in the red sky of mars halted a downward movement, and reversed its course in the sky once, twice accelerating, then like an out of control clock showing a reversal in time. The Holliday Inn was disassembled, the man constructions soon vanished.

"Mars wasn't always fourth from the sun as it now stands its current position in our solar system, far and cooled. Instead, Mars was here." The view zoomed out showing the inner solar system and its four small inner planets: mercury, venus, earth, and mars in that order. Mercury was a black ball, venus was yellow whitish, and mars was the small red rock after the shining blue earth. The red planet began to move closer to the sun, as it did, Marilyn illustrated a dotted line from the outer region to its new location. It came closer and passed the orbit of earth and went to take an unstable orbit halfway between venus and earth.

"The current gap between earth and venus is about 42 million kilometers. While that might feel like a long distance, remember that's only a hundred times the distance that separates us from our moon. If you factor in the elliptical orbits," the small bodies began to orbit at different tilts and bends, accession angles and elliptical apogees. "And you add one moon to each of the planets," one cute round moon began to orbit the three outer planets. "You get this!"

The four rocks began to orbit in a matter of one pass a second. The dance of the planets was visibly unstable. As they moved closer to one another, their bodies pushed and pulled each other slightly. The orbits were not stable and wobbled with each revolution. "The distance between earth's moon and mars' moon was as low as ten million miles. At this range, gravity pushes these bodies outside of their normal paths; the pushed planets were subject to heavy tectonic and volcanic activity. Volcanoes helped the planets cope with the pain."

Placing mars in the small gap between both planets was easy to see would create problems. "Factor in millions of years," the dance of the planets moved much faster, leaving a trail like Superman flying around the earth to reverse its spin. "Venus, as we know her today, has no moon. That wasn't always the case. It also rotates very slowly counter-clockwise to all other planets. Mars today has two moons, and one is crooked." On the screen, the orbiting planets began to spin faster and faster. As they did, with each revolution the slight pull of each planet began to warp the movements. "I was able to calculate what happened in the past using additional data created by recent anomalies in our system."

On the screen, the entire angle of the orbit of mars and venus moved down by three degrees like a ballerina adjusting a tutu on one side. "Once venus' reaches five degrees this way, you get this fun scenario." Electoral played around with the tilts and pulls. The entire system wobbled but appeared stable. "Finally I found this," she tilted the orbit of Venus by one more degree, and then everything changed.

Like a brick thrown in a washing machine, the bodies began to move wider and wider outside of their orbits. Earth pushed on mars, our moon pulled away and then returned as it then pushed on venus. The mathematics involved was no doubt insanely complex. Things swirled and orbited until there was contact between the planets.

Marilyn now illustrates as she spoke, "One day, which I call Genesis, mars almost hit venus. As mars barely escaped venus' gravity, the moon of venus wasn't so lucky. If fell," the images were incredible, "millions of pounds crashed on the surface of mars. It bounced. The shock was sufficient to crack the thick and rigid mantle of mars open. Electrostatic discharges filled the skies as the moon fell. First, there was lightning," joked Marilyn, reinforcing the Genesis metaphor. "Unlike earth, which had a thin crust and routine volcanic activity, the mantle of mars was thick and inside the lava was building along with pressurized gas. Mars, like Io at the moment, was a time bomb." The images were graphic; one could almost hear the heavens crying out in pain. Next to the impact area, a thousand miles to the side, the surface cracked wide and deep. The inner pressure of Mars finally had an outlet and spewed a massive quantity of toxic gas and part of the moon away from the surface. Like a giant pimple, an enormous plume of gas shot up between the two planets. Venus' moon also exploded in hundreds of pieces as it flew away filling the solar systems with millions of rocks.

Everyone watching was in awe. "Thus was born the thick atmosphere of gas on venus. The impact area created the Mons we now see on mars, and the scar next to it is the rupture of the mantle. The solar system filled with rocks that have been falling for quite some time." Marilyn continued to broadcast the events she was describing in shockingly high definition. As mars pulled away in its orbit under the shock, the spin and the ejection of the gas, Deimos, now the second irregular moon of mars, joined its orbit. Mars now had two moons.

"In a matter of days, venus slowed its daily spin to a crawl, mars was pushed to a distant orbit. Earth entered the debris area. For seven days and seven nights there was darkness," said Marilyn, again invoking the Book of Genesis, albeit her version of it. "The skies fell," there were lightning bolts of static energy as parts of mars and venus' moon entered the atmosphere. "Then a rain of sulfur," the Martian gas poured into the atmosphere in a much smaller amount than on venus, "But all life was destroyed." As the rocks hit the earth, volcanoes exploded.

"Humbly, I believe this is the event which caused the extinction of the dinosaurs on earth. It took earth seven thousand years to exit the gas and for the sun to return. The temperature on the ground reached a hundred and fifty degrees below zero. Most of the oceans froze, and the thick layer of clouds formed that would take a thousand years to dissipate." There were no words to be placed in the mouth of the viewers. Everyone watching was in shock. The images were very realistic. In minutes they had witnessed events so realistic that everyone wondered why scientists had never suggested them. Was any of this even possible? Marilyn was very convincing.

"Then the planets settled in the new orbits, angles, and spin to the locations we have today. That took millions of years." There were images of mars migrating to its current location." Marilyn showed more footage of the rocks and gas pouring onto the earth, volcanoes exploding in the sky and toxic gas pouring and killing all vegetation.

"The creatures on mars felt Genesis was coming years before it did. They knew the orbits were about to wobble out of synch. The creatures were unable to model what truly would happen, but nothing good was on the horizon. They felt mars could very well perish. They were not far from the truth."

The movement of the planets stopped, and Marilyn returned the planets in a configuration just before the destruction of the crust. She zoomed. From the door, deep in the bottom of Valles Marineris flew out about twenty blue crystals. "To avoid destruction, the Martians changed forms and took a form which was non-biological. They transferred their souls into puffs of sand, likely to survive the Genesis. Groups were prepared for an exodus, and these handful of ships set out to the four corners of the system."

The view settled on the red planet. The images showed specs of sand, forming as structures in a dirty, murky water flowing in the canyon. "What is known at the moment is that at some point in time, the inhabitants of mars were desperate. They sent these ships," Electoral was illustrating every word. The vessels were composed of blue crystals. "Each flew to a different planet and moon of the system. All of these missions proved to be a disaster. Venus, earth and the moons were not stable enough to host these fragile creatures. No one survived or ever returned, and today the creatures on mars are angry, upset and frustrated. They barely exist on a dead planet." There was an image of one of the blue ships crashing into earth's lunar ash only to later be hit by one of the falling meteoroids. "As you all know, I later arrived on mars and my neighbors are not very hospitable. No one will be surprised to learn that I've had my little differences with these not-so-humble creatures. Let's just say their manners to welcome new neighbors is somewhat lacking."

The view switched to the present. It showed the Electoral Center seen from about a hundred miles away. To the left was the giant crater, the natural canyon called the Valles Marineris. A sandstorm was rising over the Valles as if an army of creatures of mars were attacking Marilyn. In the distance could be seen the spike of her Center. "This will be the set-up for one of the next games, maybe Round 29 or 30, it all depends. I title it 'The First Martian World War,' but I digress."

Marilyn had just set one of the games for the next rounds. The creatures on mars were attacking her. For her billions of viewers, this was beyond exciting.

There was another long commercial pause. Each viewer saw a personalized commercial break. The clips were targeted on a person's immediate needs. If a viewer's refrigerator was low on orange juice, the owner was shown adds for apple juice. In the meantime, the thirty-two players received, in seconds, a briefing which felt like days of classes. In fact, the players were given the same preparation as Christian Maltais, the Jester, before his he was launched aboard the Io Lab.