Untold Podcast

Untold Podcast 1 - The Final Revelation

11/26/2012

Story: "The Final Revelation" by Nathan James Norman
Genre: Science Fiction, Apocalyptic
Rating: PG-13

"The Final Revelation" travels 490,000 years into the future after humanity receives a message in the sky visible at all points on the earth.

The message appeared the day after the world declared God dead. Not that he ever existed, but humanity, finally united under one language, realized they had outgrown their need for the concept of God.

            Then, all at once even though no one quite saw it happen, the message appeared in the sky . . . visible from nearly every point on the surface of the earth. The message repeated itself in thousands of locations. The blue text, several shades darker than the sky on a sunny day, became obscure during twilight, disappeared during the night and reappeared in the midst of dawn every day.

            Several scientific inquires were launched, including a specially modified spacecraft that flew right through a message in attempt to gather material from the message’s makeup. When that proved inconclusive, the Rayleigh scattering phenomenon was reexamined. Tests continued to be confounded. Trillions of dollars spent in a mere half century yielded no results. Perhaps the message was a result of the rebuilding process of the ozone layer which began a decade before the appearance. Perhaps the nitrogen in the air had somehow changed its molecular structure slightly. Perhaps there was something wrong with the sun.

            As generations died out, and new ones took their places, children stopped asking their parents, “Why is the sky blue?” and instead asked, “Why does the sky say ‘I AM HERE’?”

And when parents responded, “I don’t know,” it was not out of their own ignorance. It was out of the ignorance of the whole world.

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Credits:
"The Final Revelation" by Nathan James Norman
(Originally appeared in A Voice in the Wilderness Edited by Winston Crutchfield and published by Critical Press Media)

Sound Effects by J Fairbanks, Ighuaran, MWLANDI, Black Boe, Malexmedia, Nathanshadow, Jedimichael, Hans, Connum, FreqMan

4 Comments

Rhoetus

7/29/2014 06:52:28 am

I can't say I *enjoyed* the story, but it was definitely well done.

Nathan J. Norman link

7/29/2014 12:44:59 pm

Definitely a difficult story... but sometimes an unpleasant reality. Thank you.

Samuel Imarhiagbe link

1/2/2019 11:14:49 am

Thank you for sharing this interesting story. I felt this was generally well written. I found it entertaining and I appreciated the "show don't tell" style. It helped to build vivid images in my mind.
Some polite and subjective critiques (to those who have not listened to the story yet, BEWARE, SPOILERS BELOW):
Right from the beginning of the story, I felt that the narrator implied the church/organised religion did not exist on earth. So this begged the question, did the church exist on earth and then stop existing at some point in history? If so, would that not be in contradiction to scripture? So I thought, maybe this is not earth or the near future of our reality. Perhaps this is meant to be a fantasy story with a fictional world and a creator God. But then the narrator began to use terms like "common era", and gave dates that are in the near future. So I was a tad confused.
My point being, it would have been helpful to explain why most people did not believe in God any more. What had happened to bring about such a massive shift in worldview across the world in a short space of time. It didn't feel realistic because of this.
I also felt that revelation from God in the form of writing in the sky begged the question: what was the intention of God in giving this extra revelation (assuming this was a world post Jesus' earthly ministry - I didn't know that it was, as explained earlier)? Remember, Romans 1:20 says, "For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse."
Writing text in the sky implied that God was trying to provide more evidence to the existing pool of evidence, and therefore the pool was lacking. It implied that that people did not already clearly see God's invisible qualities, that it wasn't already understood from what is made, and God hoped this new revelation would do the trick. Of course, these things were not actually stated.
Finally, I felt that the dialogue could have been a little more realistic at times, most memorably with the 5th grader in Dr Lee's class. These things are from memory, but I recall the 5th grader suggesting that science and religion can inform each other. I felt that a 5th grader would not say that, or at least, if they did say that, they would explain what they meant (ie do they mean religion gives a foundation from which to do science? Do they mean science helps to explain the natural mechanisms behind religious narratives? It wasn't clear). Also, the professor gave irrational answers, and the answer the student who cleared her throat gave to explain the laminin was simply not specific enough for any science teacher to say it was correct. Rather than saying "it evolved" (this is recalled from memory, I don't think that was her exact answer), perhaps an atheist explanation would mention genetic mutation, natural selection, advantageous for survival, it's not clear yet etc.
I appreciate that the society in the story was dogmatically atheistic, but again, that's why it confused me that there was no explanation as to why it had become that. What had changed?

Saying all that, this was a good story. Again, thank you for sharing it. I know it's not easy to incorporate issues of faith into storytelling. This was very interesting.

Samuel Imarhiagbe (Christian, medical student, writer in spare time, based in the UK)