Notice

This is a work of speculative fiction. Any person, place, or event are either not real or used in a fictional manner. Any resemblance to actual people (living or dead), organizations, events, or locations is entirely coincidental.

In English, Damoclean is pronounced “duh-MOE-clee-un”

The Damocloid

In the future, a damocloid class minor planet will strike the Earth. It will be roughly twice the size of Manhattan and the resulting destruction will take its place among the history books as the sixth mass extinction event our world has faced. When the object (dubbed 2028 VB) is discovered there will be many who seek to employ another program like DART to redirect the asteroid, or even blast X-rays to destroy it. But there is another group who will want to do nothing at all. They will call themselves Damocleans, and they will advocate for swift and total annihilation of the human race.

After the death of founder Les U. Knight, the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (or VHEMT) will fracture. Although membership is scattered, unofficial, and generally peaceful, from its ashes a more extremist group will form. They used to believe that having babies who then become adults and pollute beyond anyone’s wildest dreams is a problem. VHEMT aren’t eugenicists. They don’t believe that only “correct” people should have babies, nor that children dying of starvation is good. But the new group won’t simply believe that a policy of “no more humans please” will save the Earth. They think everything ought to be wiped out entirely.

When 2028 VB is discovered shortly after Knight’s death, the most extreme former members will form the Damocleans. Unlike others, they will think the so-called “long-range” goal of voluntary human extinction will not ever come to fruition by asking nicely. Starting with simple social media posts from unorganized people, various organizations will independently form and then coalesce to call on the newly elected U.S. government to not do anything. Had 2028 VB not been discovered–pundits will note–the Damocleans might have ended up being terrorists who would have tried to kill billions by burning crops and salting fields. The Damoclean leader Erich Turner will issue a response, stating that starvation is brutish and disgusting. They would have much preferred to use euthanasia chambers for the willing, and use nuclear bombs to eradicate everything else. The damocloid is just good timing.

When Dr. Beck Tiernan finally finishes reading the latest Damoclean statement, it’s the line about starvation that stays with him. Brutish and disgusting. Every child he had seen waste away over the last eleven years still haunted him, and so Beck just couldn’t find it within himself to disagree. Walking down the hall with a room temperature coffee in his hand, he overhears two colleagues of his debating what the government might do. “They’ll just deflect it. This is nothing, you’ll see.” And again, Beck couldn’t find it within himself to care. He checks his watch, knocks on a door, and enters his patient’s room.

A wave of hand sanitizer smell hits him immediately, which he has never gotten used to. In the bed sits a child. Just nine years old, Mina Okafor sits up as Beck enters the room. Next to her is her sleeping mother and an IV pole. Above her are 30 paper links chained together in a zig-zag formation taped to the wall, with just 4 colored in. “Dr. Tiernan,” Mina said very softly, “Do I still have to do the next round if the asteroid’s coming?” He mentally froze before opening her chart. He looked at it for longer than he needed to. “I don’t know, Mina. That’s a good question, and I think that’s something your mother needs to be awake for. But I see you’ve stopped coloring in the links on your chain.” Beck and Mina breathe in the silence as her mother snores softly. “I guess… I just didn’t see the point,” Mina finally replied.

It is now 15 months out from direct impact. The U.S. Congress has been split between three options. A fast-tracked and cheaper but more unreliable option, or a highly expensive nuclear option that likely violates the Outer Space Treaty. Option one runs the risk of failure, option two risks too late of a launch window. The third option–the Damoclean option–is growing in popularity. People quit jobs, skip appointments, and stop planning their vacations. Many hospitals lose staff, and donors and insurers get nervous about long-term care. A number of religious leaders hold vigils and gatherings to find a signal among the noise, and various doomsday cults pop up to praise the asteroid as heralding the end. Pro-Damoclean rallies begin to ramp up in number across the globe, and there is simply not enough police presence to stop any violence that may arise.

By this point Beck’s other patients have started asking the same question that Mina did. Many have registered as organ donors as they ease into palliative care, not seeing the point of going on. To many–especially the terminally ill–this is nothing. Signing away a kidney might as well be shaking a hand. A final gesture before everything goes dark. Damocleans begin to populate the streets with leaflets and letters, while fewer and fewer people cross the street to argue with them. Inside the hospital, the pediatric ward grows quieter as the days grow longer. Mina sits and waits with her 30 links, still only four colored in. Her name sits on the transplant list now. Beck checks it each morning before rounds, the way anyone else might check the news, and each morning he’s just a little more ashamed of how badly he wants it to move.

But before he even checked the list today, a little after six in the morning on an implacably chilly day, he gets the call. Bone marrow from a donor Beck will never meet and whose name he will never be told. He reads the message over and over again, internally begging that he got it right. Beck walks into Mina’s room as she’s speaking with her mother, and the sunlight nearly blinds her as he tells her the good news. The paper chain has five colored links by the end of the day.