Title: Roswell
By: LoraLee2
Pairing: gen & past Reid/OFC
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Usual disclaimers, I do not own any CM characters, I'm just borrowing them and will return them in the same condition as I found them.
Note: I've had this sitting on the back burner for a while, but today July 29, 2008, is NASA's 50th birthday, what better time could there be?
Summary: Morgan and Reid visit Roswell.

***

Reid nearly leapt from his seat in excitement, "We're going to Roswell? You're serious, we are going to Roswell?"

"Reid, calm down, what's the big deal about Roswell?"

"You're kidding me, Morgan. Roswell, New Mexico?"

"Yeah?"

"Where the aliens crashed."

"Reid, you can't seriously believe there's a giant government conspiracy to cover up a bunch of aliens landing in the desert?"

"What? You can't tell me you think the government would issue a press release about it. People would panic. Especially back then."

"Yeah, all those pre-Star Trek folks, they might have actually thought all aliens are three feet tall, have green skin and were here to take over."

"Get real, Morgan, Star Trek is fantasy. There's no way in just four hundred years that the human race is going to have evolved enough to peacefully co-exist with other races without some outside threat forcing a truce. And the whole thing with parallel dimensions and time travel is scientifically implausible."

"But you think aliens coming here is logical?"

"Absolutely." Reid felt more than saw JJ and Emily coming up behind him, he thought about stopping, letting Morgan win the argument, rather than continuing, but he was tired of Morgan 'dissing' his science fiction interests, plus he was right and he could prove it. He casually moved his chair forward between the two desks - Morgan was going to have to go over him, if he wanted out.

"Listen to this, guys, Reid's gonna tell why he thinks there's aliens in New Mexico."

Reid took a deep breath in preparation, "That's not what I said, Morgan. I said there's no logical or scientific reason to assume it couldn't happen." He looked up to see Rossi and Hotch lean over the railing to the upper level. Ignoring his audience he focused on Morgan, "Pick a theory of evolution."

"What?"

"There's three major theories of evolution: Darwinism or the big bang theory, survival of the fittest; Creationism, God made us, then gave us free will and let us develop on our own; and Intelligent Design, God made us, and continued to shaped evolution through the millennia."

He looked around at his audience, noticing a few non-BAU agents gathering around, "Okay. Let's start with big bang. The whole world started with a big explosion, particles combined and formed life. We started with single-celled amoeba-like organism which eventually evolved into life as we know it, birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians and mammals, all being very different, but at the same time very similar." He raised his hand and ticked off the similarities on his fingers, "We all need oxygen, water, food, we're carbon-based. Our existence is based on what the planet provides.

"Now, look up in the sky on any clear night - how many stars are there? Billions.

How could it be even remotely possible that there's no other planets around any of those stars? It's not. Scientists have already found several, and we've only developed the technology and methodology to even look a few years ago.

"So, now we have multiple planets around multiple suns. If life forms to suit the environment, then how could it be possible that this is the only planet it's happened on? Maybe they're silicon-based and breathe nitrogen, who knows? The point is, it's ridiculous to think that billions of stars would only have one planet capable of sustaining life."

He looked around again, the expressions around him ranged from amused, Hotch and Rossi; to incredulous, the guy standing in back from questioned documents; to doubting his sanity, Morgan.

"Now, that we've established that according to Darwinism, there must be life on other planets, we need to take a look at Earth's history. Evolution was set back a couple million years when the asteroid struck the Yucatan Peninsula and wiped out most of the life on the planet. If it wasn't for that, dinosaurs might have developed opposable thumbs and gone on to rule the earth. Then throw in the Great Flood, which evidence shows was actually a series of small floods that decimated communities, but 'it' happened early enough in history that it affected all of a given culture's known world - remember that whole Earth-is-flat theory? People used to think they could see all of it, so if it was all wet, then the whole world had been flooded. And civilization developed in flood plains, it's where the best growing soil is, floods happen. So, anyway, there have been several other natural disasters that have set back the scientific progress of the species.

"So, now we've established that life must have formed on at least some of the other planets that we've already established are out there, so if those planets have had fewer or less significant natural disasters it's only logical that some of the species living on those planets would have developed intelligence, and therefore without the setbacks we've suffered could very well be more technologically advanced than we are.

"The next obstacle is the distance from Earth to the nearest stars.

"Disregarding Methusela and Nicholas Flammel, because accurate timekeeping methods hadn't been deveolped yet, the oldest recorded human was Jean Louise Calment, who was 122 years old when he died in 1997. Actuaries have determined that because of advances in healthcare, people alive today may routinely begin to live to 150 in this century. And that is not accounting for the advent of cloning replacement parts, which since the first stem cells have just been created from skin cells, we'll probably have down pat in the next hundred years or so, as aggressive as science in that area is, maybe twenty to fifty.

"So, again figuring in our evolutionary setbacks, these other planets may have had millions of years longer to develop medical techniques to extend their life spans, therefore a 200-year-or-more lifespan isn't unrealistic.

"We have vehicles that can break the sound barrier in the atmosphere, with the right mechanical systems and fuel sources, that could be topped in space. With our current technology it would take decades years to get to the nearest star. However, NASA encourages its scientists to develop ideas for warp drive. Yes, that's a Star Trek term, but NASA kind of adopted it, since it's in common use anyway. There's a couple of promising theories out there, the big hold-up is the fuel supply. It pretty much has to be nuclear, but there's a planetary ban on nuclear testing - Catch-22 - and the payload would have to be larger than the spacecraft itself, so it needs to be built in space. Granted that's quite a commitment, but under certain circumstances the benefits would far outweigh the costs."

"What benefits?"

"Habitable space. Earth is becoming overpopulated. NASA didn't launch those probes to Mars just so they could look at the pretty rocks, you know. Earth is running out of resources and if we don't reverse global warming, air and land pollution, and deforestation, this planet isn't going to be habitable for much longer. Some estimates say there's less than a hundred years until all our usable landfill space is used up. Think about that the next time you debate whether it's worth it to wash out your soup can or recycle the newspaper.

"Before long we're going to be faced with mandatory birth control for everybody or colonization." He smirked at Morgan, "Take your pick: Moon, Mars or get snipped?"

"Yeah, so what are you gonna pick?"

"Hey, benefit of being a genius. They're gonna need my offspring to organize the colonization."

"You wish. They're gonna need muscles, you're scrawny little ass is going to be stuck in some brain trust here, and I'll be off populatin' a brave new world."

Reid mentally conceded a tie on that point and continued, "Anyway we've now established that theoretically extra-terrestrial life is not only possible, it's probable, shall we move on to Creationism and Intelligent Design?"

"Sure. Dazzle me."

Reid smiled and leaned forward, "Okay, 'In the beginning --."

"You are not quoting the entire Bible to me."

"Shut up and listen. In the beginning God said, 'Let there be light and there was light.' So, God created the world, including billions of stars, with planets, in six days; what's he been doing since then?

"I mean, seriously, how xenocentric do you have to be to believe that God would create the Heavens and the Earth, all those stars, planets, galaxies, thousands of species here on this one little planet and that's it? He's all done?

"With all that power, He created only one species capable of sentient thought? Why bother with the rest of the Universe, if he's only going to hang out in this one little neighborhood? If this was all there is, then He would have made Earth and stopped there. If there's nothing out there, there's no logical reason to create it, it's like building a fifty-room mansion with the intention of living alone.

"So, long story short, it's not only possible that there's sentient life on other planets, it's logical. The only question is whether they're more advanced when it comes to space travel than we are."

"So, you really think we're going to meet an alien in Roswell?"

"Nope, my college girlfriend lives there, I want to stop in and see her while we're town."

"You had a girlfriend in college?? Now, that's science fiction."

***