A Tea Party in 1939
By Robert Lynch
“Good day, Gentlemen and Ladies.” Sol gestured to the collection of sun gods, “I have brought you all here because we have a problem.”
Hundreds of gods from all the pantheons stood in a group, grumbling at one another, mostly the gods of competing pantheons only met on the battlefield, tension was high. Around them, threads of plasma erupted from the surface of the sun and lashed into space. Magnetic eddies swirled the surface of the sun beneath their feet. The extreme heat and fire not bothering a single god, this was their collective domain, after all.
“Please enjoy a cup of tea, wine, or ambrosia; water ever is to your liking,” Sol held up a magazine, “This is why I brought you here.”
“What have the humans done now?” Nanahuatzin asked. “They are forever getting us into trouble.”
“This papyrus is called a ‘scientific journal,’ more specifically the ‘Review of Modern Physics,’” Sol explained, “Inside a human named Hans Bethe has outlined the theory of nuclear fusion.”
The group gasped. Immediately they understood the gravity of this development. If the humans understood the mechanics of the sun, their power would begin to wane. They had watched that busybody Benjamin Franklin start taming lightning, and as more humans followed, like Maxwell, Faraday, Edison, and Tesla; the thunder gods had reduced to barely anything. They could still get a little awe in a thunderstorm, and Thor was apparently grooming a comic artist, but mostly the thunder gods were diminished beyond repair.
“Is there anything we can do?” Éadaoin asked, “Once the humans reach a certain technological level, there is typically no stopping them.”
“I doubt it,” Sol answered, “Ever since Prometheus first granted them knowledge of fire; this was inevitable.”
“All we can do is take solace that the sun will continue to shine every day.” Ra said to the group, “Sunrise and sunset will continue to capture their imaginations and stir romance and serenity. Our continued dance with our respective planet and moon gods will continue to create 4-7 eclipses each year. But as it is that the sun rises and falls each day, so do we rise and fall. We have passed our zenith, but you never know; all of human culture could collapse in some kind of calamity, then we shall rise again as we do every day. Then again perhaps not, if so we shall gracefully go to our sleep, resting in our final sunset.”
“Or,” Sol said, “We could slowly expand the sun until we burn all the little bastards.”
The crowd whooped and cheered.
“You realise that will take billions of years,” Ra said.
“Better get started then,” Sol said.
END