The threshold

The events of The Nonplussed occur as the human race approaches a critical threshold of social and technological development and population density as a civilization. Upon crossing this threshold, Mankind collectively goes insane as a species, and will either survive the inevitable trauma of the ensuing chaos or destroy itself; if not as a species, then as a civilization. This is a natural occurrence in the development of all intelligent races throughout the universe which achieve a technological civilization - some survive; most do not. North Korea is the first example of the collective insanity taking hold as Mankind crosses over the threshold. By the time Trump is elected president of the United States in 2016, the entire world is joining in, and by 2041, Humanity as a surviving species is well on its way to hell, in a hand basket.

CANNIBALUS THE STARVELING

Then the truly unexpected occurs. An American particle physicist and drunken alcoholic,without any shits left to give proves the pseudoscientific theory which ruined her career by opening a gateway to a parallel universe, purely by accident and at billions to one odds, by slamming the hair of the dog into itself at light speed using the Largest Hadron Collider, a particle accelerator which spans the globe at the equator. An entity known to itself as Cannibalus the Starveling emerges through the gateway from its realm, which it calls The Far Flung Hunger, and into our universe. It takes the form of a petulant child, about eight years of age, and declares to all information processing systems, machine and organic - from a virus to a thermostat to a termite to an 8 bit game console to a supercomputer to a dog to the advanced AI imbedded in the global internet, and finally to humanity - in an all reaching, all demanding, all encompassing, supremely puerile, infinitely self absorbed, ear splitting, mind shattering declaration - that it is STARVELING, and that it expects LUNCHEON, and it's looking to US. To provide it.

THE METHOD

My brain hasn't invented this part yet.