Plot
An emissary (John Glover) from an alien race arrives to claim to have genetically engineered Humanity. He directly challenges the United Nations to prove Humanity's worth, displeased over their "small talent for war". He then tells them that Mankind has failed to produce the potential that the aliens nurtured in them thousands of years ago, and as a result, all life on Earth will be destroyed in 24 hours. With the survival of Humanity at stake, the UN hurriedly establishes an accord for lasting global peace and presents it to the emissary.
However, the emissary was, in fact, seeking a greater talent for war, as the aliens routinely breed warriors to fight for them across the galaxy. Humanity's "small talent" for war (crude weapons, petty bickering over borders) is not significant enough to be of any use to them, and worst of all, the ultimate goal of Humanity is peace. As the ambassador calls down a fleet of spaceships to destroy the Earth, he praises the humans for their "delightful sense of the absurd", and his parting comment repeats the dying words attributed to several English-language actors: "Dying is easy, comedy is hard".
Read more about this topic: A Small Talent For War
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“The plot! The plot! What kind of plot could a poet possibly provide that is not surpassed by the thinking, feeling reader? Form alone is divine.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
“We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. “The king died and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a plot. The time sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)
“Those blessed structures, plot and rhyme—
why are they no help to me now
I want to make
something imagined, not recalled?”
—Robert Lowell (1917–1977)