What if MTV’s shift away from primarily playing videos was part of the plan all along? What if MTV was a memetic virus whose method of propagation was encoded sound waves and subliminal video messages? Like any virus, it reached critical mass and then mutated, reality shows supplanting music, restructuring itself for the digital age and worming into the Internet. Where could something like that have come from? Only from extraterrestrial origins. How many worlds exist out there now devoid of life? Buildings, cities, entire continents left with nothing but burnt-out husks of television and computer screens, and decaying architecture. A trifle few bacteria remain on those worlds, in the cold oceans of those worlds, already infected with the hyper-evolving virions that will eventually give rise to a new form of a life, one with neon-colored heads and WiFi already built in.

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If the above is true, then there are worlds out there who already gave rise to alien prototypes of Jersey Shore.  Which, in turn, meant COME AT ME BRO has already been uttered, cultivated, and exploited across numerous worlds, and those radio signals are rushing towards Earth, reaching us only long after the cities have crumbled, the sea has become acid, and the warning is too late to be heeded. Unless the cockroaches develop into some sort of super-society, which is entirely possible.

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And if cockroaches have developed into some sort of super-society, inheriting a hollowed out but massive (in comparison) planet, then imagine what they could develop if given the time and sentience. Terraforming, deep space missions to Neptune, floating cities around Titan, colonies on the moon. Not to mention cloning the long-dead humans and unleashing a Jurassic Park-level disaster because, you know, history has an odd sense of humor like that. Forget what the 1950’s told you, the cockroaches will have the true future we were promised. And by “we” I mean people over 60.

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Unless, of course, there is some parallel universe where the Space Race really did lead to personal rocket ships and colonies on the moon, as well as things like gold and money becoming obsolete. Naturally, this parallel universe will eventually go to war with us, Fringe-style, because if Sliders taught us anything, it’s that more powerful races will always attempt to enslave weaker parallel versions of their reality. And possibly enslave you in a breeding camp, but that’s only if you get McLeaned.