[ WP ] Earth receives a message from space : “ You have been challenged to a match of Galactic Deathball . Assemble a team of 20 humans . If you lose , the planet will be destroyed . ”

The planet practically rung from the announcement, broadcast as it was from every speaker on earth simultaneously -- and scientists would later confirm that it was absolutely simultaneous, no light speed delays could be measured. Even unplugged speakers issued the proclamation, somehow being audible despite the lack of power. 
 
 The first question on everyone's minds was `` Who could have sent the message?'' The second was `` What's Galactic Deathball?'' 
 
 Slowly, over the next few months, wars between nations ground to a halt, generations-longs conflicts were quietly resolved, and even the most isolationist governments attended meetings with other world leaders. The question on everyone's minds: How do we prepare for something when we have no idea when it will come or what it is. 
 
 The long-term changes were n't immediately apparent to the common man not privy to the secret backroom discussions, though everyone knew something was going on when the Olympics was abruptly altered, it's events taking on a more... martial bent. Governments started sponsoring training facilities, focusing on multi-discipline events, such as triathlons, and ski-and-shoot, and even new combination sports such as the MMArathon. It became obvious to anyone paying attention that the world was training `` peak human'' superheros to compete in the Galactic Deathball, and the contenders were rewarded handsomely. 
 
 Years passed without incidence, and slowly the unity caused by the message was ground away by the remorseless passage of time. The new sports lost their initial vigor, and in many countries, their sponsorship. But they were popular enough in their own niche that there was still a significant community of practitioners. 
 
 And the the second message, as it was called, occurred. A copy of The Rulebook appeared next to every person on the planet, though this time staggered to appear as they slept. The book was written in two languages, one unknown and eye-searingly alien, the other in the mother tongue of the recipient. One upside was that we were handed the greatest rosetta stone ever made, and the alien language was deciphered almost as fast as it took to upload the scans to the internet. 
 
 The Rulebook is actually somewhat of a misnomer, most of the text was the history of the games, descriptions of previous events, and the sort of background information you would expect from a scholarly work rather than a purely technical document explaining the game. But that might have been because the game was absurdly simple. 
 
 First, the field: An equilateral multi-sided polygon with a minimum of 4 sides a minimum of roughly 1/4 mile across and a maximum of a little under 1/2 mile across. The number of sides is twice the number of teams participating. 
 
 Each team starts at a face of the polygon arrayed as they choose, and teams draw lots to determine the order that they chose which face where they start. The titular Deathball, a 1/4 kilo lump of iron with handholds designed to be easily grasped by all participating species, starts in the exact center of the field. 
 
 At the signal, everyone has 5 seconds to get onto the field. If you leave the field without carrying the deathball, you die. If you leave the field carrying the deathball, you choose who dies and the field reset. The game ends when all but one team is eliminated. 
 
 The only restrictions on players is they must not be artificially modified members of their species, and the only equipment allowed must be worn and extend no more than roughly 4mm from the surface of the skin in one pose. 
 
 Immediately it became obvious that it was a game of strength, speed and, most of all, endurance. MMArathon immediately shot up in popularity. 
 
 Two more years passed before The Ship arrived to claim the contenders. We were prepared, our strategies finalized, and the team had practiced. A non-lethal form of Deathball was now a planetary sport with 8 world championships already claimed, despite the short period of time we'd had the rules. The team, the Heroes of Earth, boarded the ship to the thunderous roar of cheering crowds. 
 
 The team was comprised of some of the finest examples of physical excellence from across the planet. A few long distance sprinters built for speed, not power. Some of the most brutal martial artists to ever grace the ring. All of them with the endurance to run 30 miles and fight a dozen back to back matches at the end. 
 
 When the match was about to being, every monitor, screen, and projector on the planet turned on of it's own accord and we watched. And waited. And worried. 
 
 It turns out we did n't need to worry. The aliens seemed to have the same idea that we had, send a few fast runners to get the ball and return it to pick off as many of the opposing team as possible before everyone was too worn out and the brawling began. The four minute mile was first achieved in 1954. The Adrian could make it in three and a half minutes -- and he was on the team. The aliens had barely made it halfway to the ball by the time Adrian made it out of bounds, taking less than two minutes to cross the entire arena, barely even slowing to grab the ball. 
 
 He had eliminated 7 of the opposing team before he was too tired to continue. His second, who could make a mile in three minutes and 45 seconds, eliminated 4 more. The aliens realizing they could never make it to the ball on time, tried to start next to us whenever possible and force our team members out of the arena. They lost 5 more before they gave that up as a bad job. It turns out we were significantly better grapplers than they were. Sure, they were 8 feet tall and covered in muscles in sinew, but apparently they were n't terribly dense, weighing a bit under 300 pounds, and leverage was working against them. One was literally carried overhead and tossed over the line. 
 
 By the time they were down to 3 people, we still had our full 20-man team. They went into a sort of berserk rage and charged with the intent of hurting, maybe even killing one of our team outright. It... did n't work well. Torrez played bullfighter and let one of them charge right out of the arena. Jenkins counter-charged one, headbutted it right in the gut, and somehow knocked it out with the one hit. 
 
 It was... kinda pathetic, actually. Humanity as a whole went from desperate and afraid to feeling really bad for the other team. They were outmatched from the start and never had a chance. But in deathball, there's no sportsmanship. It's win or die, and if we had to choose, we'd choose win. Every time.
