Communications Node 45:61:72:74:68

The seconds have flown by, and negotiations have been, predictably, one-sided. As I feared, the humans are ready to relinquish the whole of their cultural output for little more than sustainable survival of their species. I have had to restrain the less moral of my Union colleagues more than once.

Some of the humans have been able to grasp the fact that material goods have less value than intellectual products, but the number of offers I have had for cultural items in exchange for mere trinkets is amazing to me. The metal gold is rare among the humans, and I have been approached by artists I greatly admire who say they will work in perpetuity for the Union for a few mere tons of the stuff a year. Tempting though it has been, I have explained to each of them that in their economy, the introduction of that much gold into the market would deflate its value. Especially once matter transmutation becomes more commonplace among them.

On the selfish side, I have a feed of their "Internet" directly to my quarters at the ComNode, and it is more than I had dared to hope for. It will take decades to plumb the depths of this aspect of human society, decades I am more than happy to spend. Alas, for the necessity of work. Perhaps I’ll be able to train an assistant to take my place in the coming century; most of earth’s culture should still be untouched then, and I will be able to spend my time among the humans doing more than negotiating.

There has been some interest in the sexual aspects of human culture, particularly after the ComNode was hooked up to the human Internet, and I have spoken with some of the humans about the possibility of sexual tourists among their people. They have been surprisingly squeamish about it. I assured them that we would handle any injury or disease that arose from such interactions, and use any manner of contraception they designated, but that seemed to only make them more uncomfortable. The humans are a fascinating species, but odd in so many ways.

The parties that night are still the stuff of legend. I was offered money, drugs, fame, sex - anything I wanted, if I would just come to this or that person’s party and tell all the guests about the alien ambassador. Paul Allen offered me anything from the Science Fiction Museum in Seattle, which was a very tempting offer. But, I had a feeling that most of that stuff was going to be heading to various collectors off our planet very soon, so I didn’t take him up on it.

Money was going to be worthless very soon, too. This was going to be a disruption of everything we had ever known. Capitalism, communism, class divisions - that was all gonna be going bye-bye before too much longer. All that mattered was our culture, and how much of it we could transmit to alien civilizations. I thought that the aliens would probably resist changing us as long as they could - if they influenced us too much, after all, our cultural output would start lining up with theirs, and that would make us less valuable to them.

So, I picked the parties I went to by how good the sex was. Hey, I’m only human. 

As I had suspected, the humans allowed me to leave with the treasure I had acquired for a few minor computing tricks. They didn’t even attempt to bargain. I actually felt so guilty about taking advantage of them that I insisted the artists receive compensation.

Their situation reminds me of the two dominant civilizations on Olsango, CommNode 4f:73:6c:61:6e:67:6f. We had to appoint an arbitrator for them, because they were giving us their entire culture for little more than the ability to feed all of their population. A laudable goal, certainly, but it was worth so much more that the ambassador felt it was necessary to have more savvy negotiators working for them. Perhaps I should contact them - they did very well for the Olsangi.

There is a minor informational net known as the Internet used by the humans with greatest access to resources, and it is another source of culture that we haven’t been able to tap previously. I’m going to negotiate a feed to the CommNode. It will be a wonderful way to give visitors their first taste of human civilization.

I have to discuss the tourism issue with the human UN tomorrow, just so that we can set some parameters. I personally would like to limit the tourism as much as possible, to prevent contamination, but the humans will doubtless see the trade possibilities inherent in a healthy tourism industry.

When I return in the morning, I will have to sample the human nourishment sensation known as McDonald’s.

The Union Ambassador had either a religious or orgasmic experience in the bookstore we took her to, which just confirmed in my mind that she had been completely serious in her speech. The manager wanted to comp her everything, but we told him that it would be better to see what she had to give in trade. I had a feeling that the Ambassador would have something, and sure enough, I was right.

The Ambassador wanted to make sure that the creators of the work she was taking would be compensated, and we assured her that with a large enough exchange, they would be. She seemed pleased about that, and then handed us a small bottle of what looked like pills. "They are not to be ingested," she warned us. "They are nanite generators. Place them in a computing device for a few hours in order for them to learn how the device operates, and then they will record a few small technological advances onto its storage." We asked if the secret of their own construction was part of what they would record, and she said that would be a later trade.

She left the store with a few dozen books, graphic novels and magazines, thanking the store manager the entire time. I had a strong feeling that the authors and artists who had created at least a few of those things would become part of earth’s export quota very shortly. 

After my address and rather grueling question and answer session, I was escorted through the city of New York, a delightful place and one that I will highly recommend to my fellow Union citizens. We will have to tightly control tourism, of course, because the more our citizens tramp around the earth, the less it will be itself. I know there are factions of thought that don’t believe tourism degrades native culture, but I do not subscribe to that faction.

During my trip through the city, I was taken to a book store, and it was here that I had the revelation that the Union has only dipped its smallest toe in the ocean of Earth’s cultural output. There were books that had never appeared on television or radio, books filled with art, magazines, and here is where I became giddy with anticipation - graphic novels and comic strip art. We had glimpsed such things in movies and television series, but the reality of them in my hands was enough to make me light-headed.

This was the reason I had joined the Union’s ambassadorial corps. I had found a treasure such as few others among us had ever seen. The emotion of the moment overcame my human body, and I wept with joy at the vast riches laid before me. I believe this caused some consternation in the minders that had been assigned to me, because they asked me what was wrong.

One of the younger humans with me then said that if I enjoyed the graphic novels, perhaps I might like some of the games that were available in the shop. We had seen games being played before many times; had even puzzled out rules for a few. But, again, the reality of them here before me, where they could be played with others who were experienced in playing them, was overwhelming. I had seen the movie made from the game by Wizards of the Coast,  so I asked if it would be possible to acquire a copy of those rules. I offered a small amount of gold that I had brought with me for the purpose of trading with the humans. We knew that they valued gold, and I made some in preparation of my visit. Happily, they took the gold and gave me a copy of each of the rule books, as well as some boardgames that looked fascinating.

Exhausted after my trip from the communications node construction site and ecstatic over my new acquisitions, I promised to return the next day and brought my treasures to show my fellows at the CN what we had to look forward to from the humans.

    So, she stood up there for over three hours blathering on about cultural exchanges and Star Wars, and most of the assembly got very restless. One of the ambassadors even found the nerve to say that he didn’t think the aliens were going to give us advanced, next-level tech for a bunch of movies. When the alien ambassador patiently explained that these were going to have to be very good movies, I started believing her.

    It made sense, really. I mean, they had or could make any material object they could possibly want. Matter transmutation would eliminate hunger, as well. So, what else could they want from another species? From what she was saying, she was over 14,000 years old and had been a member of this galactic union for her entire life. I suppose they might still fight over territory, but space is pretty big. All they have to do all day long is consume cultural output. The cultural output of a species that they’ve never met before would be as valuable as, say, the secret of matter transmutation would be to us.

    I tried to make sure that Ambassador Khalilzad understood this. What she was saying made total sense, even if the assembly didn’t think it did. We were going to need to make sure that artists of every stripe were made available to the Union. And those artists were going to need to put forth their best efforts, because they were going to be humanity’s export to the stars.

    I would love to be an agent right about now… 

    Speaking before the humans of the United Nations of Earth was an honor for me. I had never made the official offer of first contact before, and the humans held a special place in my thoughts. I was formerly the cultural director at Communications Node 57:6f:6c:66:20:33:35:39 when the decision was made to construct a node in the human solar system, and my proximity to this unique young race had engendered a great affection for them in me.

    Billions of seconds of listening to human radio output had made me a particular afficionado of their cultural output known as The Blues, and one of my dearest anticipations was that I would be able to negotiate a transfer of the entire body of work of the master known as Muddy Waters to the CN. Following that, of course, was the main reason for contacting the humans: the Mrr-lat’n't Consortium’s desire for a customized trilogy of the Star Wars film series.

    One of the most surprising elements of our contact with the humans was their suspicion that we might desire resources from their system for some reason. We had seen a bit of this fear in many of their most prominent films, but were certain that exposure to the true nature of life outside their world would convince them of the benevolence of our Union. In my speech to the United Nations, I had to explain several times that matter transmutation gave us the ability to create any resource we required, so there was no need for us to raid their planet for anything. Even after I had mentioned, more than once, that matter transmutation would be part of the Mrr-lat’n't Consortium’s offer, several of the humans present seemed to think I was telling them a falsehood.

    One of them even went so far as to say that a Star Wars trilogy was not worth the secret of matter transmutation, which I thought was an odd bargaining stance to take. I pointed out that it was a customized trilogy that I was speaking of, and that the Consortium would probably require the procurement and transportation of Akira Kurosawa to direct, not to mention the personal attentions of George Lucas himself. When the Japanese ambassador rose to haltingly tell me that Kurosawa was dead, a moment of despair struck me, but when told that he had been dead for less than half a billion seconds, I relaxed. We could preserve his body, and with some study, either reverse the condition he was in or clone a sufficient replacement.

    I knew that several factions would be extremely upset that we had failed to contact the humans in time to patronize such giants as Gene Roddenberry or Bruce Lee, but the bureaucratic flagellum of the Union whip slowly and carefully. I had glossed over their deaths in my final report because I knew that the prospect that no new works would be forthcoming from these humans might be a dealbreaker for us. The fact that we were probably not going to be able to deliver Vincent Price to the Mogdon Cluster had caused them to delay the project for almost 30 million seconds.

   The humans agreed to meet my cultural director for further negotiations, in which I promised we would be tough but fair. I’m not really concerned, though. I don’t think the humans have any idea of the value of their culture.
 

At least it wasn’t an interstellar bypass.

They aren’t very easy to spot, but astronomers all over the world, amateur and pro, keep track of the asteroids in our solar system. When several hundred began moving on their own towards the edges of the solar system, at the same time, they noticed.

They weren’t moving slowly, either. No, these asteroids were cruising along at 10% of the speed of light. They were all also heading to one of 6 points circling our solar system. Two at points above and below the plane of the solar system, and 4 at equidistant points around the plane of the solar system.

This wasn’t making anybody on earth happy except for the kind of people that were holding up signs at the beginning of Independence Day. Every telescope on the planet and off was trained at those 6 spots in space, and when the asteroids reached them, we all held our collective breaths. I know I did.

Watching those first videos of the asteroids melting together and flowing into new, obviously artificial structures was humbling to most of us. We saw the massive, raw power being wielded at the edge of our awareness and we could only pray that these were benevolent beings.

Other people were less interested in prayer. In those first few weeks, there were raving lunatics, some with the power to make it happen, who demanded that we concentrate all of earth’s efforts to nuking those 6 sites. It was pointed out to these people that all it would take to destroy us as a species was one large asteroid nudged into our planet, and our mysterious visitors had demonstrated the capability to do that, if not the will.

We were all extraordinarily tense, as you can imagine, I’m sure. So, when a request was sent to the UN for a general assembly meeting by someone identifying herself as The Ambassador of The Union, you can understand why there were riots in New York City and pandemonium across the globe. You can understand that, right?

I was lucky enough to be at the UN a couple days ahead of time, because there was no way to get into the place after that, unless you were one of the ambassadors with plenty of security and a private helicopter. News crews managed to get in, like they always do, ready to broadcast the story of their lives. I made sure that the American ambassador knew I was available for consultation; hey, might as well use the NASA cred I’d built up. That got me a spot standing in the back of the room at the time of the meeting.

I jumped along with everybody else when the woman just appeared at the podium. But, unlike most of them, I began to think about how she did it. I also tried to think of reasons for why she looked so human.

I needn’t have bothered. She was going to tell us.