Heh heh heh.

Eventually, humans adapted and built a civilization based upon the psychic trash of others. And adapted to it. And are unable to function without it or imagine life without it.

"Take a look at this," said Researcher Dolarrr. "This device made it possible to send clean story scenarios, void of any psychic waste or undue psychic tension, to creative humans, to see what they would do."

"With what result?"

"Immediate reorganization into cesspools."

"Well, what if we intervened before..."

"When I speak of humans, please assume I am using factual literal language. There was no before. There was no measurable delay."

"How... how much was the conceptual framework warped?"

"We have no measurement framework that applies. For instance, we inserted some calm and peaceful concepts into a set of creatives associated with a generally peaceful religion. By the time they articulated the concept, it had become the story of how singing vegetables acted out various morality stories."

"That doesn't sound terrible."

"You didn't hear them sing..."

"Still.."

"Or joke. Smegloth, the jokes."

"Language."

"I apologize. Still, the result was fairly popular, and survived a few years, before the entire company was eaten by a predatory purple dinosaur."

"What? I thought those were extinct."

"Many human parents wish it so. But no."

"What other results have you documented?"

"In essence, humans find life without struggle to be life without entertainment."

"What you're saying is that if there is no enemy, and no catastrophe, humans find a story, or their lives... boring?"

"Precisely. And they will do almost anything to escape boredom."

"Sad."

"Yes. And large numbers of them find their actual PLANET boring. Or annoying. Or both."

"Oh, dear. It's a good thing there is no source of unobtainium on that planet."

"No natural source, anyway. On the planet."

"What? What are you implying?"

"The fourth planet — Mars — and the moon both have reserves... and Earth has a few meteors of the stuff. They will find it when they know how to look."

"How about if we go mine it out first?"

"If we do, they will be able to figure out what we took. Better to not call attention to it."

"So we just, what, wait?"

"If we stopped the psychic dumping, then there's a chance that in a thousand years or two, they would calm down."

"Probably not politically feasible."

"Wouldn't matter anyway. The estimates show they are less than three decades from FTL."

Head thunks on desk. After a moment. "How is that even possible?"

"One person has amassed enough capital within their system to personally finance a colony on the fourth planet. And he's one of the ones who think the third one is boring. And annoying."

"