I’ve written a few posts (I call them rambles) about pictures that fire my imagination. I keep a list of links and photos, adding to it when I see an image that shrieks: Weird, alien, story. The three words can be taken separately or combined. The last of these links begged to be examined right away, hence this post.
I give you the annual migration of red crabs in Christmas Island, Australia:
There are a couple of reasons this image refused to be filed for a rainy day of blog post writing.
- The crabs are very red. I find it difficult to ignore instances of red. See the post: The Alien Forest
- I just wrapped chapter four of a new project and wanted to write something other than fiction.
- Red.
- Aliens.
Aliens are a recurring theme in a lot of my rambles and stories. I find them fascinating. I also think these crabs are fascinating. Not sure I’d like to actually witness the migration, though. Would probably make my skin crawl. But what a great story idea!
It’s hard to imagine an alien the size of a crab being able to conquer the Earth, but what if they arrived in the billions and just swarmed us into submission? Enough of them could collapse a roof, stop and/or overturn a car, ravage crops, overwhelm a cow. It could be like a plague of locusts; utterly devastating and difficult to combat because of their size. And I haven’t even started talking about what they could do with their claws. What if they were poisonous?
What if the crabs were merely the foot soldiers and something even more terrifying was waiting to clean up the mess.
As always, the possibilities are endless.
Image credit: James P. Morgan for Australian Geographic. Click through to read about the March of the Christmas Island crabs.
Kelly Jensen 
Oooh. Idea. What if the aliens live underground, waiting for a perfect moment (after 17 years) to emerge and conquer us with their never-ending droning buzz? Aka cicadas? Anyone else think the cicadas are sort of alien-like in their lifecycle?
Another couple ideas for the file!