Postmodern Dread

And so the world went on as it always had done, with the Earth rotating slowly, and stately on its axis whilst innumerable carbon-based lifeforms scurried hither and thither across its surface. And nobody actually noticed immediately when asteroid 15382 Vian suddenly veered out of orbit from the main belt and made a seemingly unscheduled detour our of the Solar System to parts unknown. In fact, it wasn't until a week later when a tired astronomer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California happened to see that 15382 Vian didn't appear on the latest deep space imaging, that anyone released the asteroid was missing. But by then 15382 Vian, which had picked up some considerable speed once it had passed Jupiter, was out past Uranus and far enough away to prevent anyone on Earth from pinpointing its location or accurately tracking its trajectory. Scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory were baffled. The Small-Body Database Browser, which stored information on all of the main belt asteroids, showed nothing to indicate that Vian would inexplicably deviate from its usual orbit, let alone find it's own means of thrust from which it could break out of the main belt. In the end, the Advisory Committee at NASA called 15382 Vian an "anomalous reading", that's its disappearance was "inexplicable", and suggested that actually the asteroid had never existed in the first place. After a year or so, 15382 Vian was mostly forgotten, and looked upon by astronomers and the scientific community at large as an interesting curio: The asteroid which disappeared.

What they totally failed to recognise was that Vian was not an "anomalous reading". It's true purpose was far more disturbing, and ultimately this minor miscalculation would prove disastrous.

A brief introduction to something I cooked up whilst I was bored. I hadn't actually decided what Vian was up to: I guess it was something to do with aliens but I'll leave that up to your imagination. Also interesting to note that everything factual in the introduction is true: There really is a 15382 Vian, and the Small-Body Database Browser really is hosted by the Jet Propulsion Laboratories at Pasadena. Nobody can accuse me of not doing proper research.