ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

The Monolith Monsters (1957)
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Let's Create a Sequel!
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A Question for the Members: What if a second meteorite of the strange black rock landed on Earth. but this time we weren't lucky enough to have it land in a desert region where rain is rare?

~ Here's what I came up with.: The second meteorite lands in the worst possible place on Earth — Lake Superior, the largest of he five Great Lakes![/color]





Immersed in the fresh water, the meteor would grow rapidly until one or more giant black columns rise above the surface. Since we've seen how the columns often grow at a slight angle —[/color]





— each one would eventually topple over and sink down to the lake bed, where the horizontal columns would begin to grow in a wide "wall" shape. This would be caused by the fact that the columns wouldn't fall as hard (thanks to the water) and shatter into pieces, the way they did when they fell in the desert.





There would be no way to stop the rapid spread of the black spires as they expanded in all directions from the meteorite impact point.

The water in the lake would constantly trigger their growth, and it would also prevent any attempts to stop their expansion by using salt water, the way it was done in the desert.





I can't think of an effective defense against this geological invasion! We would not be able to turn all of Lake Superior into salt water. And we can't lay down enough salt around the entire shore line of Lake Superior, because its 2,726 miles.

Besides, all five lakes are interconnected, so a dam would have to be built between Lake Superior and its connection to lakes Huron and Michigan.

Any suggestions, folks? The fate of the world is in our hands!
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Pow]

What if the crystals that make up the Monoliths were a gift from another star system? They could see that humans and nations were destroying the planet. They wanted to help us and sent these A.I. crystal entities to us not to destroy us but to save us.

The crystals were to communicate with humanity and inform them what their function was and how to properly utilize them for replenishing our world.

Something went haywire in all of this somehow. Now the crystals are growing to enormous size and creating world-wide catastrophes.

[Bud Brewster]

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Hot damn, what a great idea! As soon as I read it I bought the premise completely.

The "meteor" was originally a spacecraft made entirely of the black monolith material. It had a complex molecular structure which made up the A.I. computer and all ship iteself. But a collision with an asteroid in the solar system damaged the ship's molecular matrix, and it was unable to decelerate properly during its descent.

It wasn't supposed to heat up so intensely when it entered our atmosphere, so the molecular matrix was altered even more drastically.

So, the "operating system" that would have guided the monolith material's growth was corrupted, changing it from a brilliantly designed, self-replicating entity into a mindless "virus" that replicated the monolith material over and over, threatening the Earth.

Mike, you've done the same thing for this story that the Wizard did for both the Tin Man and the Scarecrow. You gave it both a heart and brain!

You're version of the concept means that mankind must stop the monoliths by somehow repairing the A.I., changing if from the Monolith Monster back into the Monolith A.I.!

If occurred to me that Tim's description of the research being done on the material would fit perfectly with your idea that the material is capable of 'directed growth" which could be controlled.

The research scientists discover that, with the right stimulus, the material would begin to reconstruct portions of the A.I. system!

Holy Bovine, I love this whole concept, guys! Bravo!
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)