Notice of Intent to Incorporate under section 74656.1864 of the Galactic Charter Regulations for Colonial Expansion
The aliens were among us
The galaxy is teeming with life; the leading theory being that the earliest self-replicating molecules formed by chance late in the life cycle of the first-population stars, then spread on the shockfronts of novas and through hyperspace fractures formed by the sudden shifting of their mass-shadows. Essentially anywhere something can survive, something does.
We never knew they were there
The great Galactic Wars lie tens of thousands of years in the past, the treaty organizations and trade councils formed in their wakes having grown and merged into a massive interstellar bureaucracy that governs all with a papery grasp, impersonal and pedantic.
When their survey was complete, they acted
"Seriously, they speak how many languages on the at planet? It'll take weeks just to read the formal notice of intent in all of those, and it's not like the locals even have receivers to hear the broadcast!"
"There's nothing saying they have to be listening, just that we have to broadcast the notice in language understood by every local inhabitant thirty duty cycles before the motion is put to vote, so regional representatives have time to arrive. It's doubly pointless, since the review meeting is at the sector capital, but the forms have to be followed and all the entries filled. It's why we sent a fleet's worth of observers down there for the last seventy orbits."
Only one man heard the warning
Dr. (name) was, frankly, a nerd. He did number puzzles, studied foreign languages, and traded cryptographic challenges with an online group for fun, had his own personal server room (Well, a room where he kept the still functional older computers as he regualrly replaced his current primary one, running protein folding and SETI clients) and had originally been aiming to work in high-energy experimental physics until the US canceled the Supercollider and shut down the Tevatron, leaving the only remaining operational hardware overseas. Not that he was a rabid flag-flapper, either, but his family and friends were here, and staffing needs in the field were never large to begin with. With that avenue largely closed, he had instead pursued string theory and the design of sensors capable of detecting tiny fluctuations in the fabric of space itself. That was how he came to be the first sapient native to Earth to decipher a hyperwave broadcast, when the regular "noise" he'd been trying to show had a connection to the mass shifts of solr wheather and prominences was suddenly drowned out by a far stronger signal, one that was immediately recogniseable as carrying basic amplitude modulated sound in the normal audible range. The fact that it was in Chinese when he set up a program to convert the measurements back into sound was slightly concerning at first, until he found that the message was simply being repeated over and over by descending order of the population that spoke it, but then it started playing in a language he understood, and he didscovered that there was good reason to be alarmed.
There are thirty days left to build a hyperspace-capable shuttle, gather representatives of the nations of Earth, and attend the Colonial Review Board, or else
If the Motion to Incorporate is passed as laid out in the aliens' broadcast, Earth will become an Expendable Resource Extraction and Processing Outpost, and any inhabitants not registered as Galactic Citizens (meaning, in effect, all of humanity) considered outlaws and claim jumpers, subject to suppression and removal from properly registered claims (i.e. anywhere there's something remotely valuable, like oilfields or mines or factories) unless they comply with the registered owner's terms.
Can human civilization survive?
You decide!
... 'cause I ain't go no more on this. I was reaching just to put it together this much.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows
The aliens were among us
The galaxy is teeming with life; the leading theory being that the earliest self-replicating molecules formed by chance late in the life cycle of the first-population stars, then spread on the shockfronts of novas and through hyperspace fractures formed by the sudden shifting of their mass-shadows. Essentially anywhere something can survive, something does.
We never knew they were there
The great Galactic Wars lie tens of thousands of years in the past, the treaty organizations and trade councils formed in their wakes having grown and merged into a massive interstellar bureaucracy that governs all with a papery grasp, impersonal and pedantic.
When their survey was complete, they acted
"Seriously, they speak how many languages on the at planet? It'll take weeks just to read the formal notice of intent in all of those, and it's not like the locals even have receivers to hear the broadcast!"
"There's nothing saying they have to be listening, just that we have to broadcast the notice in language understood by every local inhabitant thirty duty cycles before the motion is put to vote, so regional representatives have time to arrive. It's doubly pointless, since the review meeting is at the sector capital, but the forms have to be followed and all the entries filled. It's why we sent a fleet's worth of observers down there for the last seventy orbits."
Only one man heard the warning
Dr. (name) was, frankly, a nerd. He did number puzzles, studied foreign languages, and traded cryptographic challenges with an online group for fun, had his own personal server room (Well, a room where he kept the still functional older computers as he regualrly replaced his current primary one, running protein folding and SETI clients) and had originally been aiming to work in high-energy experimental physics until the US canceled the Supercollider and shut down the Tevatron, leaving the only remaining operational hardware overseas. Not that he was a rabid flag-flapper, either, but his family and friends were here, and staffing needs in the field were never large to begin with. With that avenue largely closed, he had instead pursued string theory and the design of sensors capable of detecting tiny fluctuations in the fabric of space itself. That was how he came to be the first sapient native to Earth to decipher a hyperwave broadcast, when the regular "noise" he'd been trying to show had a connection to the mass shifts of solr wheather and prominences was suddenly drowned out by a far stronger signal, one that was immediately recogniseable as carrying basic amplitude modulated sound in the normal audible range. The fact that it was in Chinese when he set up a program to convert the measurements back into sound was slightly concerning at first, until he found that the message was simply being repeated over and over by descending order of the population that spoke it, but then it started playing in a language he understood, and he didscovered that there was good reason to be alarmed.
There are thirty days left to build a hyperspace-capable shuttle, gather representatives of the nations of Earth, and attend the Colonial Review Board, or else
If the Motion to Incorporate is passed as laid out in the aliens' broadcast, Earth will become an Expendable Resource Extraction and Processing Outpost, and any inhabitants not registered as Galactic Citizens (meaning, in effect, all of humanity) considered outlaws and claim jumpers, subject to suppression and removal from properly registered claims (i.e. anywhere there's something remotely valuable, like oilfields or mines or factories) unless they comply with the registered owner's terms.
Can human civilization survive?
You decide!
... 'cause I ain't go no more on this. I was reaching just to put it together this much.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows