As it so often happens in stories told by humans, the good ‘ole boys were humanoids and the monsters in grey wore the black hats.

(This notion, however, is nonfactual, a serious lapse in judgment and clearly xenophobic. Fortunately for us, that’s not the focus of the tale I’m spinning—although maybe it should be.)

But I digress…

The Ictheons—who had sixteen eyes, eight for each head and sported five appendages of various lengths and widths—were a technologically advanced race with capabilities far beyond those of their adversaries, the Bolug.

The Bolugs’ heads had a distinctive egg-shaped appearance, their eyes were large and round, their limbs and torsos longer and thinner than a human’s and their skin bore a slight powder-blue tinge. Other than this, they could outwardly have passed for humans.

The galactic conflict had lasted for centuries, and the Bolug were losing badly. In a series of recent crushing defeats, they had been forced to retreat to their solar system of origin. There, they regrouped and planned for what was likely their last opportunity to avoid annihilation.

They considered a large variety of military tactics and strategies. Sadly, though, the Ictheons’ starships were much faster, stronger and more manoeuvrable than their enemies’. Further, as if this was not enough, the Ictheons’ fighting forces now greatly outnumbered those of the remaining Bolug fleet. Most of it lay in ruin, littering large swaths of space between their home planet and the Ictheons’.

The Ictheons gave no quarter and took no prisoners.

Hours turned to days and the Bolugs’ options narrowed as each idea was shot down because it was untenable, impossible or—in some cases—desperately preposterous.

They were, it seemed, hopelessly outmatched and facing a fiery, highly explosive, death.

Then the hero of our story, Bengu, timidly raised his hand and said: ‘Gentlepeople, I’ve been doing some lab research in the area of quantum physics and I believe I may have stumbled upon something that might rescue us all from certain destruction.’

‘You see,’ he continued ‘I’ve been experimenting with a new radioactive field that greatly contracts the interspatial distances between subatomic particles. Proportionate to relative size, the distances between interstellar bodies compared to the space separating the nuclei and the electrons that move around them is very similar. Once generated, the atoms comprising any object exposed to this field are compressed, reducing the size of the object to the quantum level.’

Petuvo, the high commander of the ragtag Bolug fleet, interrupted him: ‘So you’ve discovered a field that shrinks matter to quanta?’ he barked. ‘Brilliant,’ he exclaimed. ‘We can shrink their ships to the size of atoms and destroy them!’

Bengu uncomfortably shifted his weight. ‘Not quite, sir’ he replied. ‘I propose we shrink our own ships and then destroy theirs.’

The assemblage fell silent.

Petuvo’s face flushed dark blue in anger. ‘You want to reduce us to the size of an atom only to be more easily obliterated by the Ictheons’ advanced technology? Has PTSD twisted your mind, sir? Have you gone mad?’

‘No, sir’ Bengu replied. ‘Allow me to explain.’

‘The transformation of an ordinary object, such as a starship, to atomic dimensions wouldn’t affect any of its properties except for its scale. It would remain fully functional in its shrunken state, including its warp drive and weapon systems.’

‘The atoms comprising such a vessel’ Bengu continued, ‘would also be reduced to the size of subatomic particles.’

‘That would give us the element of surprise,’ Petuvo mused, ‘…but it wouldn’t be enough to even the playing field. The Ictheons would simply trace our phasers back to their source and target our ships with their disruptor beams. They’d annihilate us, anyway. Nothing of any size can survive a direct hit.’

Dissatisfied murmurs of disappointment spread out amongst those present.

Bengu shook his head and cleared his throat. ‘I’m afraid locking on target would prove to be an impossibility for the enemy, sir.’

‘In this quantized state,’ Bengu continued, ‘the Ictheons could determine the exact location of our ships but not their precise speed. Conversely, our speed could be tracked but our location at any point in time could not be observed. So if we programmed our ships’ navigational computers to randomly vary their direction while maintaining an overall course converging upon the enemy’s fleet—’

‘—They couldn’t predict our position!’ Petuvo finished.

 Bengu smiled. ‘I’m afraid Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle would surely prevent it, sir!’ he retorted.

…The rest is history, albeit limited to that particular region of space.

The Bolug equipped their fleet with Bengu’s invention, activated what would soon become known as the Bengu field, shrank their ships to the size of atoms and wiped out the entire Ictheon fleet.

This, dear readers, conclusively proves the veracity of two commonly lauded aphorisms: First, good things can indeed come in small packages. Secondly (and perhaps most importantly of all) size matters, but not for the reasons we had once thought.