It was a Christmas tree constellation. That was the difficult part. It wasn’t like the big dipper, or Orion, it was a fully decorated tree. All the observation posts around the globe (and in space) agreed that it was created from a huge collection of stars and nebulas varying from millions to hundreds of millions light years away. It didn’t make any sense that the light would just start to reach Earth, and it made even less sense for them to be arranged like a perfect Christmas tree. Yet, there it was, as plain as day.

Rumors of the end of the Earth, Armageddon, Santa God, and even intergalactic pranksters circulated the news channels hourly. It was hard for anyone to come up with a scenario that was any less absurd than the tree existing at all. That is, until Rudy Blephson wrote his paper…