Random stories

This may come as no surprise to some of you. Others may be shocked to learn that many of us towards the end of the 22nd century read, watched, and VR’d news media with the same fevered skepticism as our early 21st century ancestors. But this isn’t a discourse about media integrity. It’s not about the technical details of faster-than-light travel either (though I will say Miguel Alcubierre was onto something way back in 1994).

This is about the video message that the interstellar craft known as the Brian May II received the morning of January 3rd in the fateful year of 2187.

That morning, the Brian May II was officially recognized as the first manned vessel to traverse the breadth of our galaxy. Its international crew of eighteen had been aboard for three years at that point and, having determined beyond reasonable doubt that we were alone in The Milky Way, they were eager to go home. One doesn’t really turn around with an Alcubierre drive, but just as the Brian May II was preparing to depart, its console indicated reception of a tachyon blip, decoded and rendered for video.

Of course, everyone imagined first contact via jumbled radio waves in some mathematical language or, from the bleak among us, a full scale invasion of Earth. A video seemed like an elaborate hoax. A high definition video coming from a few million AU away seemed outright chicanerous. The crew watched it in disbelief, again and again. If the images portrayed in that video were real, we were not alone. Not by a longshot. If the video showed the truth, it cleared up that pesky Fermi paradox.

The Brian May II immediately transferred the video file to mission control back on Earth.

“Enough fucking around, Commander. This is admirable creativity but we expect better of you.”

Yeah, they didn’t believe it either. A few days later, the video was being broadcast by every news network on the planet. Few took the wordless message seriously. Though there was something to be said about its production value. Entertainment value did more for ratings than anything serious or factual anyway.

Those that did take it seriously were a little miffed. I would say rightfully so. Something about that video felt downright racist.

Take Russell Drazin’s experience, for example:

That night, on the 6th or 7th, as the hardened citizens of Amarillo, People’s Republic of Texas, took their seats on space-age sofas and Hov-Er-Boys to watch the evening’s holographically displayed infotainment programs, they were offered a relic of a treat - breaking news.

“That’s right, folks. Nothing’s really breaking anymore in this era. In fact, I’m not even sure how we still have jobs! Tonight, however, you’re in for a very special segment. This was brought to you by the first interstellar craft to reach the Scutum-Centaurus arm of our beloved galaxy. While we’re not sure what to think, we’re sure you’ll find it extremely interesting.”

Here we go again, Russell thought. Another low grade image of a semi-inhabitable planet.

Instead, his eyes took in aerial footage of a very inhabited planet that was not Earth. The inhabitants themselves were like nothing Russell had seen in movies or his own imagination.

The video zoomed out to reveal a city full of life and light, towers that seemed to stretch into the exosphere, dense veins of aircraft traveling in miles-long lines at the speed of sound. As the footage continued to draw back, he saw that every square foot of this planet was covered with infrastructure. If there were oceans or seas, they too were concealed in alien urban sprawl. The planet, from orbit, was surrounded with a bustling economy of space stations, satellites, and motherships.

The camera panned rapidly through space to another planet, perhaps a few systems away, which it zoomed in on until the POV was on a street, not unlike a street in a quiet Michigan neighborhood. Only the “youths” playing on this street weren’t tossing a football back and forth. Two gelatinous looking humanoids with impossibly long arms were throwing a small furry creature to one another with increasing velocity. Suddenly, a strange vehicle descended from above them, landed, opened its bay door, and began dispensing what Russell thought could be ice cream to the alien children.

In five minutes, the video showed glimpses of civilization on a multitude of planets. It was a lot like the tourism marketing video for the New Bahamas Russell had seen the week before, just far more exotic. In an era of deep fakes indistinguishable from the real thing, this footage would have been possible to craft for anyone with modern editing software. There was something innately genuine about it though. Something so real, Russell thought he could smell it from the holographic display.

That was when the video showed a familiar blue planet from afar. Russell had never been to space (even though space travel had been easy and affordable for a moderately successful Earth denizen for about a century), but he knew his home planet in an instant.

The camera began its regular zooming, stopped abruptly, and a red circle with a line through it suddenly overlaid the image of Earth. There was a sharp blare like a buzzer horn, as if to say “Earth is canceled.”

Maybe “not welcome” was more accurate. Russell felt color rising in his face as the video began showing his species. Humans at a huge pool party, perhaps somewhere in Vegas, falling over each other, laughing, imbibing. Humans fomenting rage, screaming at each other unintelligibly. Humans foaming at the mouth, shooting each other, driving their ancient ICE cars into crowds of other humans, explosions, rotting mountains of food, fires, mushroom clouds, plague.

And then there was flat blue. A string of symbols appeared briefly in the projection. Certainly not in English, Russell thought. They didn’t even take the time to learn about the good parts of Earth, why would they know English?

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Submitted by DrewbitTaylor on Tue, Feb 07, 2023 to /r/WritingPrompts/

The prompt

FTL is now a reality. A crew ventured out into the stars, and first contact was made... kinda. A semi-automated message welcomes you to the galactic community, but warns you not to contact the humans... This is not going to land well back in Texas.