Original subtitles

[narrator] When the yogurt took over, we all made the same jokes.

"Finally our rulers would have culture.

Our society is curdled.

Our government is now the cream of the crop," and so on.

But, when we weren't laughing about the absurdity of it all,

we asked ourselves, "How did we ever get to the point where we were,

in fact, ruled by a dairy product?"

Oh, as a matter of record, we knew how it happened.

Researchers took one of their most computationally advanced strains of DNA

and grafted it onto Lactobacillus delbrueckii,

commonly used to ferment yogurt.

Initial tests appeared to be failures.

However, one of the researchers sneaked some of the bacillus out of the lab

to use for her homemade yogurt.

The night of June 27th, it became sentient.

[yawning]

[gasping]

The yogurt declared it had arrived at solutions

to many of the country's problems.

But it wanted payment for that.

We.

Want.

Ohio.

[everyone laughs]

That's fine, we will just go to China.

They promised us a whole province.

[president chuckles slowly]

[narrator] The yogurt was crafty and shrewd...

and got a century-long lease on Ohio

with the promise that it would respect the human and constitutional rights

of those who lived within its borders.

[electronic humming]

There it kept evolving, and soon,

it handed over a complex formula

to eradicate the national debt within one year.

[yogurt] Follow it exactly.

Any deviation will bring complete economic ruin.

We will.

[narrator] Naturally, the politicians didn't follow instruction.

Within six months, the global economy collapsed.

I am going to eat your little toes.

- [narrator] Only Ohio remained unscathed. - [baby laughs]

[yogurt] We told you not to deviate from the plan.

Your experts are too close to the problem to solve it.

Any. Human. Is.

[narrator] The government declared martial law,

and gave the yogurt supreme executive power.

Of course, some people weren't pleased at first.

[crowd yells] Down with yogurt, down...

The anti-government demonstrators...

[erratic electronic music plays]

[narrator] Now, ten years later, humanity is happy, healthy, and wealthy.

No one argues with the yogurt, no one tweaks its formulas.

That's how it happened, but we still ask ourselves,

if the yogurt was smart enough to solve our debt problem,

wasn't it also smart enough to realize that human intellectual vanity

would keep us from following the formula exactly?

Then there's this.

- In the past several weeks, the yogurt... - [rocket engines blasting] ...has initiated several space launches.

Life from earth is going to the stars,

it just may not be human life.

What happens if the yogurt goes to the stars without us?