Communication Record 3
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…
