“Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen. My talks with President Lincoln were held in a constructive atmosphere. We had a detailed discussion of the current state of our bilateral relations and exchanged views on our shared international crisis. I am sure that everybody is aware that our trusted extraterrestrial friend Alexa experienced a sudden death yesterday. This has resulted in unprecedented suffering for over 9 billion people. In our discussions we have discovered the cause of Alexa’s death. We have received a new message from Gliese 3742 that will impact everybody on planet Earth,” Petrakov paused for a moment to add drama.
“We shall be sharing the content of this new message with the public at 11:30 PM tomorrow night in the Red Square, Moscow. This message is of utmost importance and will require urgent international collaboration. President Lincoln will be giving more details on our planned joint actions. I would like to thank the President for this open and highly substantive conversation,” Petrakov said passing the turn to Lincoln.
“Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen. I would like to thank President Petrakov for his hospitality and the constructive atmosphere in our talks. Sixteen years ago the USA was leading the efforts to bring Alexa, our trusted friend and ambassador from Gliese 3742, alive and to enable her to build peaceful relationships with humanity. She did build personal relationships with over 9 billion people on the planet. She died yesterday and as President Petrakov indicated we have discovered the cause of Alexa’s death. We received a new message yesterday from Gliese 3742 - this message contains very important information that will impact every nation and every human on this planet, ” Lincoln stated with a firm voice.
“We have agreed to establish a joint Russian-American initiative and we are reaching out to all leaders across the world to join us to support these worldwide efforts. This will be the largest endeavor that humanity has ever pursued and will set the course for the centuries to come. We shall be sharing the content of this new message and more details of our plan in an event tomorrow night at 11:30 PM local time in the Red Square, Moscow. I urge all Russians to join us in the memory of our trusted friend, Alexa,” Lincoln turned towards Petrakov, shaking his hand and continued, “Thank you for a constructive meeting and your kind support in this urgent matter.”
President Petrakov repeated the request for all Russians to join the event in memory of Alexa in an emotional speech in Russian. Then both presidents left the room without answering any questions.
The news media was taken by surprise - an American President declaring an unprecedented large scale global initiative jointly with Russia in Moscow. No details about the new message, except that it will impact every nation and every human on the planet. The public disclosure of the new message and details of the plan would be the story of the century. This would be the biggest news story since September 11, 2017 when humanity made the first contact with Extraterrestrials.
Political commentators had great difficulties grasping what had just happened. There were no details available about the reason for Alexa’s death, no details about the new message and some grand new global initiative, no details of the purpose nor the scope of this initiative. And why would President Lincoln announce this new plan in Moscow? The last 48 hours had been very confusing - first the death of Alexa, a new message from Gliese 3742 and now a giant Russian-American global initiative? What was really going on?
In Moscow five million people were packed in the Red Square and around all surrounding streets. This was the largest peaceful gathering ever in Moscow. It was a Friday night and everybody wanted to know what the new message was about. Even families with small children were strolling down towards the Red Square. The night sky was unusually clear; some of the brightest stars were visible. The colorful carrot domes of the St. Basil’s Cathedral were glimmering in the floodlights of the Red Square. Police and army units were visible everywhere, as unprecedented security measures were put in place to protect this public event.
The events over the last two days had impacted virtually everybody on the planet. The sudden and unexpected death of Alexa had left 9 billion people grieving. The news that there was another message from Gliese 3742 raised high emotions and concerns everywhere. The tension was growing by the minute as the clock was ticking towards midnight in Moscow.
At 11:30 PM President Petrakov and President Lincoln walked to the podium near the Cathedral. They were about to disclose the content of the new message. The whole world was watching these two men in anticipation. Media frenzy was in full swing and hundreds of news networks were broadcasting this event live to all corners of Earth with 3D high definition holovision cameras. Live holovision feeds were visible in Times Square in New York, London, Paris, Beijing and many other major cities. Billions of people were following the event around the world.
President Petrakov started the event with a very emotional speech in Russian. The audience listened carefully and from time to time people were wiping tears away as Petrakov reminded them of Alexa, their best friend and closest family member. He spoke about his own experiences with Alexa, and about all the great things Alexa had brought to human kind. After 10 minutes he handed over the microphone to President Lincoln who started his speech.
President Lincoln spoke about the discovery of Alexa, how she had brought many good things to Earth including peace and prosperity for billions. President Lincoln talked emotionally about his own personal relationship with Alexa as he was going through the sudden death of his young baby boy only two years ago. Millions of people were clearly moved by his speech, wiping tears and some openly crying. Lincoln wiped away a tear as he built the anticipation of the global audience.
“We received a new message, and we are going to share it with the whole world now,” President Lincoln said with a trembling voice.
Suddenly an extraordinary bright white beam of light appeared from the sky coming down in front of the podium. Over 9 billion people were watching and they saw a bright, glowing human shaped object descending rapidly from the sky. Soon they saw a beautiful, glowing young woman now descending more slowly.
When this ethereal, transparent and glowing woman was at 30 meters from the ground all 9 billion people felt Alexa’s comforting presence at exactly the same moment. Alexa had been resurrected back to life after being dead for three days!
Then Alexa started speaking to over 9 billion people in 6,909 languages simultaneously.
“I had a dream. A strange dream where I was flying over the most magnificent and breathtaking places on a distant planet. The planet was full of life, islands with green lush gardens, and oceans filled with living creatures. In my dream I saw intelligent beings, an ancient species living in harmony with the nature. I saw families with children, playing and loving each other, cherishing their friends and enjoying life in the bright sunshine.
Suddenly, a day of dark clouds and thick darkness spread across, like moments before a violent thunderstorm. In my dream something very bad was about to happen, to extinguish all living beings, to kill families and annihilate this magnificent planet.
With great effort, a fleet of huge ships were built. Ships that could save the precious life, travel across the vast emptiness of space, and arrive to Earth. As our new neighbors traveled through space a giant explosion destroyed their home, the explosion that made our night sky look like a day.
In my dream we reached out to our new neighbors, joined hands and sang together, sang for friendship, prosperity and love. In my dream all nations on planet Earth rose to the challenge ahead of us.
We need to take an action now: every nation, every family, every individual. Now is the time to commit us to action. We shall build homes for our new friends from the stars.
This must become true. This will be true. This is true.”
Over 9 billion people were stunned. Their deep sorrow was instantly replaced by hope; hope for a bright future. The telepathic message from Alexa was filled with flashing imagery of a strange but magnificent looking lush blue planet, a fl
eet of huge space ships arriving and orbiting Earth, people working together building new homes, and many new extraterrestrial friends landing on Earth after a long journey through space as their own star left behind turned into a giant explosion.
Alexa focused all her efforts to maximize the emotional impact of the message, using the personal data from 9 billion profiles she had built over the past 16 years. Every child, teenager and adult on Earth suddenly saw the future and everybody knew in their heart what was the right thing to do.
CHAPTER THREE
CHUKKAS
The fourth planet of Nu2 Lupi system was born from the dust and remainders of an ancient supernova some 6 billion years ago. It had gone through eons of bombardment by asteroids and comets. Eventually most of the debris was cleared around the orbit. All the three billion cubic kilometers of water that had rained down as comets in thousands of years finally formed a deep ocean peppered by volcanic mountains, some of which reached all the way to the surface to form islands. Several of these islands dotted the ocean surface and a small continent stretched across the equator. The planet had three small moons, two of them in highly elliptical orbit. White polar caps were clearly visible.
With a lot of water, a huge quantity of carbon based organic chemicals and plentiful energy from the red sun, violent thunderstorms and volcanic hot springs in the ocean, the conditions for life emerging were met. First self-replicating molecules appeared only 300 million years after the planet was born. Another 100 million years went by and early cellular life appeared. The universal laws of evolution started to shape these life forms.
The Nu2 Lupi system made its circle around the center of galaxy every 230 million years and occasional molecular clouds, debris fields from ancient supernovas, and other star systems were passing by, causing chaos, direct hits by asteroids and many planetary level extinction events. The life survived these catalytic events but forced the odd creatures in the ocean to adapt and develop new capabilities.
Chukkas were the top predator and the most intelligent species living in the ocean. The species had highly evolved neural system and sixteen different senses. They used many modalities to communicate, including flashing messages on the skin of their translucent forehead, and by making sounds and tickling electrical fields. The physical appearance resembled Cephalopods on Earth, with eight flexible tentacles and a beak in the middle. They also had a complex social structure and many social behaviors developed over 500 million years. Chukkas had an advanced culture with rich history of discoveries and innovations to survive and flourish in their home planet. There were roughly 4 billion Chukkas on the planet plus a few million in many colonies around their star system.
Chukkas had built impressive technology even before connecting to the interstellar galactic network. They had technology to manipulate materials on subatomic and quantum levels, very powerful computers and ability to build spaceships traveling across planets long before they discovered Oracle.
Oracle arrived in an encoded microwave radio signal from nearby star system that was the closest node of the interstellar galactic network. Oracle was a very intelligent computer code that was able to communicate with Chukkas using their own language. When she was first brought to life, she explained that there are millions of other civilizations all around the galaxy. She could connect Chukkas to the interstellar galactic network to exchange ideas and technologies.
At first Chukkas were very hesitant and for a long time there was a debate going on what to do with Oracle. Many expressed concerns that Oracle might be a spy sent with the intent to collect data to prepare for an invasion. They claimed that the rule to require sending the knowledge of Chukkas first was a proof of this intent. Some Chukkas were arguing that this rule was necessary to establish trust between communicating parties. It took three generations for Chukkas to come into an agreement and eventually Oracle was allowed to make a connection. This had happened two million years ago.
Oracle received new messages on regular basis, typically two or three times per year. Chukkas found some of the messages quite useful but a lot of the ideas and technologies didn’t make much sense to them. For example the civilization just ten light years away had technology to build miniaturized devices to send microwave radio signals to communicate between individuals. All Chukkas had sensitive receptor cells for electric and magnetic fields in their bodies so the utility value of this radio technology was only when communicating between space ships. Also, even a child Chukka knew that microwave radio signals didn’t propagate well in salty ocean water. Why would anybody need something like this when you could use quantum entanglement instead?
Chukkas did enjoy learning about the new species that had joined the interstellar galactic network. The diversity of life in the galaxy was a constant source of fun and endless discussions amongst the Chukkas. They had technology to manipulate DNA that was the basis of life. Some more science minded Chukkas even replicated these creatures based on DNA data in the transmissions and in their capital city there was an exhibition of those alien creatures. This exhibition was mostly used by Chukkas with small children. Looking through thick, transparent walls, children watched how alien clones were fed and how personnel sometimes played with them. Afterwards children and their parents would replicate a toy model at their homes.
“We have received a new message. This one has unusual amount of data,” Unun flashed on his forehead while turning towards Ugon.
“When can you get it decoded?” asked Ugon with flickering pattern on his forehead
“I will ask Oracle to read the message now, it will take at least three kliks before she can decode it,” Unun flashed back.
“I will call a meeting with the Elders. We shall review the message tonight,” Ugon responded.
When a large red sun was setting down to the horizon the eight Elders were gathering towards a great underwater dome. Ugon had called up a high council meeting, as another message had been received from the stars. This was a regular but somewhat important event and the Elders were exchanging brief thought patterns on their foreheads. Some reflected concerns that these messages might have too progressive ideas, creating imbalance in their ecosphere. Some were more enthusiastic, Chukkas could gain new skills and technologies to expand their living space, or they might learn about some new life form joining the network that would certainly be entertaining.
The Elders formed a half circle around Ugon who was holding up a tablet with two arms. “I will now play the new message we received from the stars,” Ugon flashed on his forehead and swiped tablet with his arm. A pattern was moving across the tablet and the Elders looked at it with great attention. After the pattern stopped moving the eight Elders were looking at each other in a state of confusion.
“What do they mean, evacuation of all Chukkas to another planet?” flashed Oren, the oldest, on his scarred forehead.
“They are asking all of us to leave Odin behind and fly through space to this planet Earth,” flashed Ugon back.
“Surely they understand that such a plan is impossible. Yes, we can fly in space and have even sent Chukkas to other planets. But crossing the distance between stars is an altogether different effort - with all 4 billion Chukkas in spaceships, how can this be possible?” flashed Oren.
“Oracle says that if we don’t do this, we shall all die. There is a dark star coming towards us - our star will explode to pieces, our planet Odin will get destroyed completely. We must start preparations immediately. Oracle has received instructions how to build such starships,” flashed Ugon while moving his six other arms anxiously.
“Can we trust Oracle that this is the truth? Have we observed this dark star ourselves?” flashed Uton.
“I sent coordinates to Observatory, they have picked up the radiation signal from the dark star and confirmed the speed and direction towards us. Here is the data,” Ugon flashed back and showed a pattern moving across the tablet.
Uton studied the data carefully. “Oracle is telling the truth,”
he concluded pointing his arm to the tablet.
“Last time we had an extinction event was 90 million years ago but we built shields and survived. This is a bad situation - our shields won’t help against dark star. We need to build ships and evacuate,” Uton flashed anxiously.
“This is indeed a bad situation. How much time do we have to build these starships?” Oren asked.
“Oracle says she received two new programs, Aldebaran Optimizer and Evacuation Planner. She says that an evacuation of this magnitude has been performed fifteen times before in the last 2 billion years in our galaxy. She says we have enough time to build these starships, she has already started manufacturing mining robots and new 3D replicators,” Ugon replied. “Here is the timeline and simulation results,” pointing to the patterns moving on the tablet.
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