Excerpt from Julius Paine's Memoirs: Journals of the Wanderer

Published 2035

The women had refused to let us see the speech that they had prepared for first contact. They said that it was essential that our reactions be as natural as possible. We had to agree, because in the moment the broadcasts started the cameras would be fully on us. I hadn’t understood what a challenge that would be.

Before the broadcast, the moment when I almost lost it was when I realized the ships could be launched on trajectories by using my new plasma engine. They would broadcasting synchronously from positions over the world’s biggest three oceans. I had been sure that some entrepreneurial astronomer would be able to do some forensic wizardry and notice the change in mass of VI’s most recent satellite. But no one had. At least if they did, they never told anyone about it before we did the right thing and told everyone a few years after.

After the launch we waited. The probes were scheduled to activate on a timer. The women knew, but they insisted we should not.

In actuality, Grace had a neural network designed specifically to decide when the moment was right. Later, when I asked her how many variables her calculations accounted for, I didn’t believe the answer. I had wanted to bet on the day that it would happen, despite the obvious idiocy of the idea. Secrecy was so important that we weren’t even to know when her criteria had been met. We were to be almost as surprised as everyone else.

We all knew that the moment was near when the son of a party member was drunkenly arrested on video after killing a carful of teens, then promptly released. He thought it mattered who his father was; the rest of China seemed to feel differently. When China shot down a satellite in geosynch, we knew the moment was getting even closer.

It was still a surprise.

The transmissions started from three positions in what appeared to be a halo orbit around the Earth-Moon L2. Just prime numbers, repeating from one to a just shy of a billion. A few governments tried to claim responsibility or enforce ignorance, but the news got out that everyone had been surprised first. When they started streaming video of Earth, people began to be unnerved. When the perspective on the streaming video started zooming out logarithmically, a few people committed suicide.

The newscasters called the phenomenon ‘perspective dementia.’ People unaccustomed to viewing reality as outside of their own heads suddenly had to face the fact they were part of a very, very large universe.

The opinions of astrophysicists became very highly sought after. The price per word for their opinion quintupled in a day on the Valuestream.

Naturally, religious leaders claimed that the end of days was nigh.

The first transmission simulcast in English was almost old news when it finally happened. It was a simple video of a word processing document typing a document at around 50 words per minute, accompanied by some strange noises in the background, a mere a hundred words. Those noises were a matter of intense speculation, second only to speculation about the hidden meaning to the message.

“We come in peace. Our knowledge of your world is very limited, and we would like to enter your atmosphere to learn more about your culture and your biosphere. We do not intend harm to your race or planet now or in the future; we need to gain a greater understanding in order to learn what items will be of value for trade.

Our ships emit no radiation or chemicals. During some portion of our time in Earth’s atmosphere we will transmit a message on this channel. We require simply the assurance of the safety of all three of our ships for one of your solar days. However, we do not know how to gain this assurance. Please respond with video encoded in a manner similar to this one.”

If I had to sum up a most common reaction to the message, it would be simply. “Well, there are aliens up there. Wanna get some lunch?” People seemed remarkably prepared to accept the presence of English writing non-humans on the moon.

Governments proved equally unprepared to accept aliens in their own backyard. Eventually, the UN stopped all the squabbling by insisting that no single nation had the right to prevent the ships from entering the atmosphere over international waters without overruling veto powers. After some back room dealing where the Secretary General promised that any nation that exercised that power would receive none of the promised trade, the three locations were chosen.

Choosing the time was harder. Everyone wanted their holiday to be remembered as the first day that aliens entered the earth. Then someone said that it should be on a day that didn’t already have any major holidays.

It was harder still to choose the person to send the response back. Again, it was decided more by action than deliberation. The Secretary General did it before anyone else could.

“Your right to traverse the Earth’s atmosphere above waters demarcated on this map is guaranteed by the United Nations and the 200 countries that it represents for one solar day seven solar days from now. You say that you come in peace. If your word proves good, you will leave in peace as well.”

The world waited. More properly, the people of the world decided that they had better not wait any more to do all the things they really wanted to. Many people died of excess exuberance. The number of stomachs pumped in the world’s hospitals rose astronomically. So did the number of marriage proposals. The New York Stock Exchange closed after the first day due to unprecedented totally warranted volatility.

The Governance held a roundtable discussion on extra-human life that was the most-watched media event in history. The Chinese competitors were especially outspoken; they strongly espoused the belief that good faith trading with the ETs could only enrich the world’s culture. The scientific and technological strides that could be taken after contact were a matter of rampant curiosity. Julius hoped they were peaceful. Annagail Clorence-Peraster chaired the event.

I spent every moment that I could writing my memoirs. Annagail has told me many times that for the world to understand what we did, we would have to be the ones to tell them. I am a peaceful man, and coercing the world in the way that we are trying to do runs counter to what I would intuit to be my beliefs. Explaining exactly the circumstances that led me to undertake this task is both crucial and difficult.

Now that my plasma engine is done, I have plenty of time to write.

My work was being corrupted. It was being used to endanger billions of lives. I feel as though what I am doing is stopping a Manhattan Project. It is preventing the development of a new arms race that would make the Final Frontier wilder than the Wild West. The Communist Party broke the only contract that I cared about enforcing: no weapons; I think it is within my rights to make it impossible for them to continue to do so.

I also wanted to see what the results of my self-programming were. What did my writing voice sound like now that I was off the glacier and back in the public eye? Who am I now? So I write. When the news came on, I would watch ‘til my eyes itched like everyone else. Then I would go back to my computer and write some more.

Most nights this week Lauria has come in and rubbed my back for a few minutes before going to bed by herself. I’m looking over the notes that I took each night and updating them. I don’t know why I feel like this needs to be done before the probes leave the atmosphere, but I deeply do. So it will be.