"Asphalt? Highrises?"
Gestalt chuckles and takes a long sip of coffee.
"You know nothing."
He shakes his head slowly, listening first to Rebecca and then to Xander's pleas.
"While this might be 'first contact' for YOU, I can assure you, it is not 'first contact' for humanity. You can relax."
Gestalt munches on the food Rebecca brought him happily.
"Riddle me this: Why is the Alliance of Sol opposed to terraforming our solar system?"
He looks at Xander and Rebecca in turn.
"Is it an environmental concern for maintaining the ecological balance of the planets and moons as they are?"
Gestalt raises an eyebrow and waggles his finger.
"Is it a theological concern for playing God as a species?"
He pauses, then waggles his finger again.
"No, though our membership includes both of those viewpoints and more."
Gestalt takes another sip of coffee, looking remarkably comfortable for someone who is a prisoner.
"Let me tell you a story."
quote:
"Once upon a time, a shrouded ship cloaked in starlight stumbled upon a particular solar system in a particular galaxy in a particular stretch of space. Neither pilot nor ship had ever been there before -- which makes sense, as part of their job was to catalog the stars."
"There are regulations and conventions for everything, and the classification of solar systems is no different. Our intrepid pilot was looking for signs of sentient life, signs of organizational maturity, and signs of technological achievement."
"His ship quickly identified 8 planets surrounding this particular star. Half of them were smaller, rockier worlds which were only able to hold a moon or two at most, while the other half were gas giants with many moons of their own."
"Though all of the planets were interesting in their own right, by far the most promising was the rocky world orbiting third from the sun. Though rocky, three quarters of it was covered in liquid water, and it had a vibrant atmosphere and magnetosphere that together helped the planet sustain organic, carbon-based life."
"The pilot drew closer, and observed that this planet was inhabited by a race of sentient bipeds capable of invention, communication, and independent thought. They had passed the first test."
"The final two tests, however -- organizational maturity and technological advancement -- were handily failed. The bipeds of this planet did not have a centralized system by which their resources could be equitably distributed for the greater good. Nor had they managed technology sufficient to survive beyond their homeworld."
"Checking the relevant boxes on his surveying form, the pilot turned to his instruction manual for the correct protocol on how to proceed. The sentient life he had witnessed might one day grow enough to be inducted into the interstellar community, but at the moment it was a liability. Many promising civilizations discovered in about the same state as these bipeds had gone on to be wiped out by the more aggressive races, to whom intelligent but technologically immature civilizations were prized as slave fodder."
"To combat this, the regulations required the pilot to remove this system's jump rings from the larger network, rendering them dormant but observational. Eventually, perhaps this race would stumble upon them, and in doing so invite themselves into the interstellar community once it was ready. And until that time, the pilot's organization would simply watch and wait."
Gestalt finishes his coffee and hands the mug back to Rebecca.
"Do you understand what I'm saying? These jump rings are far beyond anything we have the ability to create or even understand, and they are considered mere...traffic cones...to whoever installed them. Discardable. Forgettable."
He shakes his head in wonderment.
"We have found a total of 2 jump rings in our solar system so far...3 if you somehow found another one after capturing me. The story I just told you is the story we were told when we found the artifact."
Gestalt holds up a hand.
"It's not as impressive as it sounds. Just a box with solar panels and a pre-recorded message. We left it where we found it, in the patch of space surrounding what we call JR-Bravo. You found us initially using what we call JR-Alpha, incidentally. But I digress."
He clears his throat.
"Point is, the Alliance of Sol is opposed to colonizing the inner solar system because doing so risks activating additional jump rings and plunging us headfirst into the interstellar community. A community filled with powerful warships and dangerous aliens and technology that would make your head spin."
Gestalt adopts a pained expression and knocks on the hull of the ship.
"And my dear girl...humanity is simply not ready."
This message was last edited by the player at 14:40, Wed 26 Apr 2017.
