Communications Node 45:61:72:74:68

    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.