Not part of the Tales of Lucius

Now this isn't part of the tales of Lucius I just wanted to put it up on the internet, so please comment:

There is a well known fact about science that people find it hard to accept new ideas. This is in most situations a minor nuisance; however there are always stories about people who have been in fatal accidents because of such things. A good example of this is the fate of the scientific community on the planet Deis, a relatively Earth like planet with a race of humanoids inhabiting it.
This species had flourished for millions of years, into a civilization that was a perfect, peaceful Utopia. However there was a fatal flaw which was that no one had come up with a new scientific theory in over 2 thousand years and they were in fact so comfortable with their beliefs that they never changed them.
One day the radios of the planet all received a very unusual message. This message was from a super intelligent race of cat like creatures and the following is a rough English translation of what that message was:

“Attention lower life forms. We are the Jocain who have for billions of years inhabited this universe. Although we have seen much we are currently interested in a scientific experiment which should show us workings of a solar system. Unfortunately for you this experiment involves smashing your planet into another one. You have one of your weeks to vacate the planet before we smash these worlds together. Thank you so much for your interest. End transmission. (Long Pause) I can’t wait to play this game of yours; I mean pool with planets that is such a cool idea. What? We’re still on? Hracisopof (a word who’s meaning shall not be mentioned here).”

Now as it turns out the inhabitants of this world had been traveling in space for a while now but had never encountered an extra-terrestrial race before. Therefore all of the scientific community was skeptical. Not one politician or scientist thought that it was anything other than a hoax.
The next day a very strange thing was seen. Thousands of square kilometers of the planet had been painted white. Initially perplexed by the phenomena scientists decided to have a look at a satellite photograph and were amazed when they saw a pattern. It was shaped in an enormous character which they didn’t understand. In our numerical system this character translates to ‘8’.
The day after that an, even stranger phenomena was recorded. The rest of the planet was painted black and although this planet had no idea what it meant you probably do by now.
The next day they received another message from the aliens which said:

“Well I haven’t seen much evacuating so unless you want to die, you might want to get going.”

By this time the political establishment was ready to accept that this was not a hoax. They had spaceships lined up all over the world preparing for evacuation of the population. These were due to fly the next day. The majority of the scientific community still did not believe that there was an actual alien civilization. They cited many reason including “Why on Deis would an alien civilization who could cross the vast distances required for space travel play pool with planets?” However the main reason was that they believed it wasn’t possible for there to be life on other worlds and nothing would change their minds. It probably wouldn’t have comforted them to know that the aliens in question were actually college students on their version of spring break.
The next day the space ships left the planet with the populace all intact. Except for the majority of the scientists who decided that it was pointless since it was all a hoax. The people who left would live for a couple more decades. The scientists would not.
The day after the scientists decided to do everything they’ve always wanted to but never could, such as insulting religion, nude runs and of course wild rave parties (which weren’t technically prohibited but were rather embarrassing to be caught at). Thanks to the ships taking only the essentials there was quite a lot of alcohol and party food left over. This may have accounted for the fact that none of the scientists saw the giant space ships in the sky each looking vaguely like a vase.
The next day the planet was moved into position along with many other planets into a big triangle. To prevent gravity from destroying the set up several anti-gravity shields were positioned around it. The aliens were very anxious to get playing. The scientists were very busy trying to come up with an acceptable solution for why the planet had just been moved.
And then the frozen planet of Hoth was launched at the formation of planets and smashed them off in all directions. Unfortunately the planet of Deis fell into one of the 6 black holes stationed around the arena and all the inhabitants died. They were not a great loss as they were all idiots who basically maintained that nothing was happening right up until the end. The real tragedy was that the Deis was sunk straight after launch, meaning that the game ended in the first round. The aliens, very disappointed, went off to find a new planet to make into a ball.
This story has two morals. One, accept new ideas if enough evidence points towards them. Two, if you are going to play a game use readily available resources like balls. Planets take a while to replace.