“HOURS AGO, I COMPLETED the section on the assumed primacy of human beings relative to their perceived position in the vast universe. Thinking about it afterward, I realized that section mandated a more objective assessment of what our actual position might be and how our primacy is almost an inescapable joke on our species. A fatal one.”

“Some years ago, I wanted to start a family. It’s a natural thing for every species on Earth to have a desire to replicate itself. I assume that it must be a universal constant of life itself. However, like many other couples of childbearing age in the post-apocalyptic world, Sofia and I held off, hoping things might get better.”

“Unfortunately, they didn’t. I’ll cover again at some point the aftermath and utter anarchy that followed for many years before the demigods wrested control. Although I wanted children, progeny, I chose not to bear them in this world of gross uncertainty. Perhaps that decision was unfair to them, whoever they may have become. Perhaps they should have lived human lives, however brief those lives may have been.”

“Sofia and I talked and talked, and we always reached the same conclusion. Humanity is grossly incapable of seeing itself as just another species across time and acting accordingly to extend our viability throughout the ages. An innate attribute of our existence. Immutable. As each day passes, we move closer to this point of dissolution, this final entropic state of humankind, and our decision not to bear fruit is reaffirmed.”

“In a broader sense, it’s clear we are not beings who were gifted by their creator with unique primacy, as if we were the only species on one of a trillion trillion planets in the universe. Why create such vastness of a universe only to populate it with one sentient planetary species, and a failing one at that?”

“If you assess the logic of it, you must consider these alternatives. First, assume humanity is the only sentient species. If this is so, then we clearly have primacy because God made it as such. In other words, how do you do the math around one chance in infinity, or one species on one planet in a universe of infinite planets? It is an illogical mathematical result.”

“Of the humans left on the planet, many hang on to the hope that divine primacy is the case. If we are not prime, then it erodes one of the key tenets of our belief constructs regarding humanity as God’s chosen children.”

“In other words, if humans are the only sentient species in the infinite universe, this fact affirms the existence of an all-knowing, all-seeing, supervising God. If that is true, however, then how did such a loving, supervising God allow four billion children to die in a week’s time?”

“I am no parent, as I stated, but that makes no logical sense. Given the lack of recognizable messages from otherworldly species, I fully understand this postulate. I just cannot align myself to it.”

“Second, let’s assume human primacy is false. In a universe of infinite worlds, one must assume an infinite number of sentient species will exist, currently exist, or once existed. From what we can tell of the many other planets we’ve studied, life indeed does exist on some level, but it’s not the kind that actively exposes any evidence of sentient communications.”

“The old Drake Equation be damned, in my mind. Its postulate was in error. If one does the math, considering time and space, then the logical conclusion is that many sentient species are active in the universe, as I speak. Right now. Again, with the constant of infinity in any equation, every other factor is enslaved to it. I have seen the physicist arguments, and in order to come up with a logical, real number, they always add an artificial constraint upon the infinite. That’s a cop-out; a logical error.”

“If you don’t assume the first case, you must assume the second. There is no other alternative, only a matter of degree. I’m speculating on the rest of this, but gut instinct tells me that, because the universe is likely replete with sentient life, even infinite sentient life, we are not finding it for a very intentional reason.”

“That reason is this: It does not want to be found. In this respect, I’ve already covered those species who inhabit their own worlds, so I’m not repeating. The right question to ask is why they are not here, right now, on Earth and inhabiting our world?”

“In the cosmic view of time, interstellar travel is nothing. Intergalactic travel is a bit more, but still nothing in the span of billions of years. If the universe is teeming with life, why have we not been visited – excepting via the obelisk, if you believe that story?”

“My only conclusion is that they either don’t care enough to visit, or they’re somewhere close by, patiently waiting. If they don’t care, then we’ll never know about their existence because they’ll ignore us.”

“If they were previously here and considered us a nuisance species, their advanced technology could no doubt annihilate us instantly. Look, we almost did that to ourselves, had whatever creator of the Debacle plague not engineered a five-day shutoff.”

“I can’t ascribe to the beliefs of others simply because they believe. I must assume that aliens are somewhere in our proximity, simply waiting. But what would they be waiting for? My speculation again on this is that they are waiting for us fail. To self-annihilate.”

“If you’re so advanced that you’re doing intra or intergalactic travel, you don’t need nice, oxygen rich planets to survive. You’ve created your own environments for millions or billions of years. At their level of technology and skill, one more planet to inhabit and terraform is not that exciting or necessary.”

“Maybe they have a non-interference pact with other traveling species, like the old Star Trek videos I watched with my dad in the first decades of this century. Whatever the reason, the math tells us we must assume they are there, they are here, and they are watching and waiting.”

“If we self-annihilate soon, as we most certainly will, then they can have at it. Nobody will be around to care. Sure, they may be required to do a little cleanup depending on the cause of our final exit, but that’s probably not an ominous challenge unless it’s via nuclear devastation. You’d think they’ve likely done it a thousand times before.”

“As much as we pretend we’re prime and nobody’s out there watching us, I’m thinking we are likely very, very average in the universe. Average behavior, average intelligence, average mistakes, average arrogance and primacy, average viciousness, and average species lifespan. This means we’ll come to an average end because of our very middling inability to put a few rules in place. A few norms on how we treat each other and the planet. A few agreements on our long-term intention for the species. A few rules for managing existential risks.”

“We had so presumed any message from a superior being might elevate us out of the dire straits in which we allowed ourselves to wallow. Understandably then, it was beyond disturbing to discover the obelisk’s warning that the universe may not be a place of wise and amicable beings.”

“The obelisk’s icons painted a picture of harshness and severity, destruction, domination, and devastation. Perhaps mindless and soulless dominion, even. But humans are already experts at these things. We don’t need an alien race to teach us what we use so ferociously against ourselves."