Ｃｈａｐｔｅｒ Ｏｎｅ
Ｈｕｍｂｌｅ ｂｅｇｉｎｎｉｎｇｓWe are not alone.—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
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Looking over the cityscape of London through the glass in front of me, I wonder if the Chancellor made the right decision when he named me his personal assistant and advisor. Now that the United Nations of Earth have managed to construct a space-port, as well as several functional corvettes, a spaceship equipped with top-of-the-line radar and science equipment, and a spaceship equipped with building materials and even drones that can construct spacestations, I cannot help but wonder what the next step will be. The Chancellor had informed me that his eyes were pointed towards the Sol system, our very own system. I had agreed with him, as this seemed the reasonable step forwards.
Left to right: science ship, space-port, Earth, three corvettes, construction ship.First, we survey the Sol system, see what we can find here in terms of minerals and energy sources. It seems that those two things will be key to our expansion... where ever that expansion might lead us. The Chancellor seemed to understand precisely what he'd need. Although I hadn't accepted the position of assistant and advisor to him, it seemed that my consent for the position was not needed, as I was more or less pressed into service. And so, the Chancellor sent me off to order the science ship to survey the system and report it's findings. Before I could leave his office, he also ordered me to order the construction of a second science ship, and hire a new lead-scientist to man it. We'd need to survey other systems as well, 'just in case' he said.
Not long after the science ship had already left to survey our nearby Moon - although we had surveyed it a few hundred times by then, the new science equipment aboard would ensure that nothing slipped our gaze this time. Sadly, nothing was found there, and the science ship continued it's way to Sol - the sun.
In the meantime, nothing of particular importance happened. I was spending my day going through the selection of scientists that had volunteered to man the new science ship that we were building. I was about to call it a day, when I received a transmission. Not a regular phone call, but a real transmission.
From space. I hurriedly pressed the button to accept the transmission, and surprisingly, I looked right into the face of Dr. Yuen. He was the scientist aboard the spaceship that was currently orbiting the sun.
“Dr. Yuen, what a surprise to see you. Um.. is something wrong?” I asked him, since I had not expected a message so soon - or rather, at all.
“No, no, not at all! My dear friend, we have just made a remarkable discovery! Sol, our very own
sun, if you can imagine, it's producing energy! And if we build a station here, we can
harness that energy and turn it into, well, energy!”
“Ah.. yes, we've heard of solar power before, trust me, Dr. Yuen.”
“Solar power, what, no! Are you daft, I am talking about- well, nevermind, just transfer this data to the science department at the UN headquarters, and send that construction ship over to build a station here. They'll understand!”
And with that, Dr. Yuen ended the transmission. I didn't quite understand what he meant, since I wasn't sure how we could generate energy out of the sun without solar panels, but that was a matter for another time. Dr. Yuen was much smarter than I was, so I shouldn't question what he said, I told myself. After running it past the Chancellor, he agreed to build a station near the sun. 'If it doesn't produce power, at least we'll be able to monitor other things from there,' he reassured me when I asked if this was cost-efficient.
A few months passed, and we discovered a similar source of energy on Mercury, though it was slightly different. The new science ship had been completed, and the scientist was hired - an archeologist, which would turn out to be a life saving qualification, even if we did not quite realize it yet. He was sent to survey Barnard's Star, a nearby system that contained, as far as we knew, a few planets. Hopes were low, but it was on the way to another star, so we decided to send them there in any case.
During the time it took him to enter a hyperdrive towards Barnard's star, we received a.. cryptic and strange transmission from Dr. Yuen once again. In a message half-broken by obstructing storms, he alerted us to the fact that 'there are strange buildings on Jupiter' and that he'd like to 'land the damn ship to take a look at this martian prank.'
Permission was, of course, denied. Dr. Yuens specialty laid in biology, and as such, we recalled the new science ship, and ordered it to investigate the ruins - the archeologist would do a much better job than Dr. Yuen, we were sure. Dr. Yuen would be sent to Barnard's star in his stead, to ensure that we kept him occupied. Ultimately, this too turned out to be a lucky decision.
Within a month we received word from the archeologist.
“We are not alone,” he told me in a direct feed from Jupiter. It was a worrying thing, and I did not quite know how to respond. We are not alone? Was this like one of those old 'Alien' movies? But he quickly reassured me, seeing the horror in my face.
“.. or rather, we weren't. According to my findings, which are quite accurate if I may say so, there were aliens here some two million years ago. Using the science ships' powerful computer and AI, as well as some of my expertise, I translated some of these artifacts. While we were on Earth running around like tribals, they were here establishing something called 'The First League'. If I had to compare it to Earthly matters, I'd say it's quite comparable to the first League of Nations that was created after the first World War.”
“But the human first league failed, did it not?”
“Yes, and from what it looks like, this one did too.”
“They're dead?”
“Well, we didn't receive a welcome party, and nobody stopped us from trampling all over their buildings, so I'd say so, yes. The artifacts were untouched for two million years.”
“Well, that's... both saddening, and mildly reassuring. Continue your work, regardless, and survey the rest of Sol. Dr. Yuen didn't get to that yet.”
“Ah, one last thing, sir. If I may be so free, it seems like there are more of these artifacts. I'd be.. happy to uncover them, if we get the chance.”
“Understood.”
After that, I was given a mere two seconds of calm and peace, before a transmission from Dr. Yuen came in. In a distressed voice, he spoke those same familiar words. “We're not alone!”
“Calm down Dr. Yuen, you found more artifacts, didn't you?”
“Artifacts? What the hell are you talking about, you idiot! NO! I'm talking about these.. these.. giant space cows! Look!”
With a press of the button, he switched the relay feed to the on-board camera's, centering them on some foreign object in the distance. Once the camera properly focused, I nearly fell out of my chair from excitement. He wasn't kidding - there is.. life!
We're not alone! I proclaimed loudly, the excitement clearly audible in my voice. Then it hit me, oh.. lord.
We are not alone. Dr. Yuen seemed equally dissatisfied with the discovery. What if they were going to attack us?
“You need to scramble the three corvette's, and engage these things before the kill us!” he yelled at me, and for a moment I considered following his directions. But, ultimately, I did not.
“Is it fighting you?”
“W-well, no?”
“Then... exit the system using your hyperdrive?”
“B-but, we need to extract data from their innards once we blow them up!”
“We'll not blow up anything. We're no longer savages, so we will try to hail them on our communication devices and launch an investigation as to who these.. spaceships are.”
“I- but- okay, fine! But I want to be the one to investigate them! Damn advisor, I wanted to blow this thing up and-” End of communication relay.
That was a deal easily made, since he was a biologist and seemed to be the most capable of doing the job. Dr. Yuen returned to the Sol system and investigated the 'space cows.' In the meantime a press-release was made to the people of Earth, expressing that we had found some sort of life, or precursor society. Both these things excited the people of the United Nation of Earth, and it seemed like people were scared but excited to find out what laid beyond us.
The following months were somewhat uneventful - the surveying of the Sol system was completed, and the bounties were incomprehensibly large - but, never the less, not a ground breaking breakthrough compared to the precursor 'First League' that existed in the Sol System when we were still making huts out of mud and sticks. And also not nearly as interesting as the 'space cows' that Dr. Yuen had redubbed into the more scientific 'Tiyanki'. It didn't quite matter, because most people still referred to them as 'space cows' or 'space squids' or, well, just about any name that started with 'space' and ended with a reference to a regular earth animal.
Thankfully, the slur of disinterest was broken when Dr. Yuen ran into the Chancellors chamber during a standard routine meeting, yelling something about 'breakthroughs' and 'space cows' and other random assorted words that sounded scientific. I promptly stopped him, grabbing his shoulder and forcing him to take a few breaths before he continued, slightly more comprehensible this time.
“We've figured it out! These Tiyanki, or space cows, they're just.. regular animals, except they exist in space!”
“So they are not spaceships?”
“Well, they're as much as a spaceship as a regular earth cow is a racecar. They also don't really do much. Sadly.”
“What do you mean 'sadly?'”
“It's hard to gather data on them. They just 'swim' through space, from one gas giant to the other, seemingly 'grazing' on the gasses before leaving again and finding another gas giant. They're quite boring really. They also don't hunt - they seem to just graze on gasses. They didn't even attack our ships when we drifted really close to them.”
“That's... good news. We can safely avoid them and continue our mining operations then.”
“Hmm, well, if you ever happen to 'find' one that is 'dead' then please contact me so I can 'test' it thoroughly.”
“You... want us to blow one up for you so you can test its' innards.”
“Yes.”
“... we'll see. Dismissed, Dr. Yuen.”
Once Dr. Yuen had left the office, I looked at the Chancellor to see what he thought. He just smiled at me and nodded, before getting up and leaving the office. Sometimes, some days, it almost seemed like the Chancellor didn't really care about anything other than mining minerals. Me, on the other hand, I was preoccupied with wondering just.. what these Tiyanki were. And if there were Tiyanki, then did that mean.. there were other things too? We'd have to wait and see what was out there for us - we'd have to..
....Ｒｅａｃｈ ｆｏｒ ｔｈｅ Ｓｔａｒｓ
I can let you name a planet, if you want. 
