THE PLOT Sometimes things happen that you’re not prepared for. Sometimes those things are good, even marvelous things. They help you, befriend you, lift some of the weight from your shoulders onto their own, and even get you to trust them. Slowly you lose any wariness that you might have had. You relax. Change is good. Change helps you to move forward. Yet, sometimes those good things are lies. The whole time they watch you, waiting patiently for you to drop your guard. Preening in your trust, they silently build themselves up to be something no longer good, but something very, very bad. This is my story. This is your story. January 22nd 4550 The Star Searcher was launched today. No one knows what’s going to happen, but we have placed great hopes in our newest technology. This new space ship will be the first to leave our galaxy and enter another in less than twenty years. Its main goal is to discover another planet with life forms on it. We hope to one day be able to colonize a distant planet. April 5th 4565 Today was one of the greatest days in human history. The Star Searcher mission has been a complete success! It transmitted images of a small, green planet located three planets away from the sun. The planet is just over a fourth the size of Earth, but clearly has intelligent life forms on it. From the zoom on the cameras on the Star Searcher we have been able to pick up at least one city and several small villages around it. The buildings look similar to those built in the early 21st century on Earth, but we cannot be sure without closer inspection. July 18th 4565 After studying the distant planet for a couple months, we had the Star Searcher project a communicator to contact the foreign species. It landed in the center of their biggest city, recording their curiosity and fear in high definition. As it turns out, these creatures automatically know any language that they hear and can speak any language fluently as well. We transmitted a live video chat with them, asking for permission to land and perhaps colonize their planet. To our great joy, they agreed. A great thing was discovered on this day. We have discovered through our constant video feed on the planet that these creatures are in fact shapeshifters. The limits of their powers are currently unknown, but we will be studying them endlessly to find out. However, as my friend pointed out, the fact that they are shapeshifters does explain why they automatically know and speak all languages. August 22nd 4565 The Goliath was launched; today is a large array of parades and fireworks. I can still hear the celebrations going on outside my window. The ship was the largest ever created, and is now home to over 10,000 workers and families on their way to the shapeshifter’s home planet, Cambria. They are in the process of starting a space port for the Goliath to land in. They are being very cooperative, and building to our exact orders. We expect the Goliath to arrive in their capitol city, Keis, sometime within the next 20 years. After that we will begin Project Colonization. June 3rd 4588 Today was a great day, the Goliath has officially landed on Cambria. The shapeshifters threw our race a great welcoming ceremony, and showed us where we would be living and staying. As I watched the live reports on the hologram projector, it pained me that I wasn’t there enjoying the festivities. However, that will not prevent me from watching these events develop. Our technology is advancing in leaps and bounds. New ships called Space Sharks can hold up to 150 people and travel from Earth to Cambria in less than 5 years. They are steadily bringing people to and from Earth, and life continues on at a great, steady pace. December 14th 4593 Project Colonization is in full swing now. Two more ships have been sent to Cambria loaded with young humans in search of a new beginning. Life is apparently great in the distant galaxy, while it remains the same here on Earth. I have heard of some troubles with the shapeshifters starting though. It seems that they are not as welcoming as they once were. We have tried to help them, and already began rebuilding their city, however they continue to be rather violent and act inappropriately. The police have their hands full arresting the brutes, but their emperor insists that the idea of jails is preposterous and he will not permit them to be built. That means that those beasts who have been murdering our faithful colonists, wives, children, and husbands, are still roaming the streets. It is a shame that they will not take a look from our point of view. August 29th 4595 Cambria has turned out to be too small of a planet to house humans and shapeshifters in harmony. This is no surprise, as we prepared for this all along. It was proven that the only inhabitable planets would already have life forms on them. Technology is far enough along that we can adjust the atmosphere of other planets to suit our needs, but that process is long and expensive. Simply finding an inhabitable planet and colonizing it is much cheaper. The shapeshifters have gotten out of hand. They have told us that they do not wish for Keis to be rebuilt, and that they would like humans to start living in restricted areas. That simply will not stand with our government, and therefore Project Colonization has evolved into Project Finalization. November 6th 4600 We are in the final stages of Project Finalization. The war was simple and short. Assassinating their emperor and taking charge was easier than we expected. Our weapons are far superior to theirs, and we eliminated most of them quickly and efficiently. However, their peculiar abilities have proved to be in their advantage. They hide among us now, disguised as regular humans. Because of that, the Shapeshifter Elimination Group (SEG) was created. Their job is to hunt out and kill or capture rogue shapeshifters. Captured shapeshifters are brought to their base for further studies. They have already developed a blood test that can determine whether you are human or a shapeshifter so that they don’t make any mistakes. Humans live peacefully on Cambria now as if it was always our planet. Violence is a strange and almost foreign thing. The people are happy, which was the goal all along. April 30th 4601 Shapeshifters have all but vanished from the minds of most. Though the SEG is still busy hunting them out, the average person thinks of them as nothing but nightmares. They are regarded with the same concern as car crashes. Everyone thinks, “It’ll never happen to me. I’ll never meet one,” when really their neighbor could be one of the brutes. Though I feel a small amount of regret for taking over Cambria, I feel that it was justified. Earth is too full, and humans are only trying to survive. It is the way of life. October 14th 4601 As much as I hate to admit it, SEG fears that danger is on the horizon for Cambria. There have been hints, whispers, that an uprising is brewing. The hunt for the remaining shapeshifters has been picked up twofold, and they hope to stomp down any potential issues before they arrise. Yet, the beasts have become wiser. They hide among humans better than ever before, and so the hunt for them becomes even more desperate. I, and humans in general, must certainly hope that the new anti-shapeshifter device in development is hurried along, or I fear we could potentially become very sorry for what we have done to Cambria.