Less Space Needed
[WP] Humanity finally makes contact with aliens. They are about 30 light years away, and their civilization is approximately as developed as ours - they do not have means of interstellar transport. We can only engage in two-way conversation with them using messages 30 years apart.
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For almost as long as humans have had radios, we have screamed into the void. The year is 2023, and four hours ago the void screamed back.
Researchers at the SETI Institute (or Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence Institute) were just streaming in for work and starting to review last night's anomaly logs. Normally those logs are mostly empty, as gigabytes of radio receiver data are filtered down by banks of PCs to a few lines of timestamps. Not today. A bleary eyed technician peers at the datasheet, and decides this is above their paygrade. They find the nearest guy with a PhD and hand them the printout.
Normally, when SETI finds an interesting anomaly it takes a panel of experts years to decide if it's significant or not. Anything from unlicensed hobbyist radio operators to fluctuations in the upper atmosphere can get flagged. This anomaly is confirmed within 24 hours.
The defining characteristic of the transmission was that it was continuous- it was still being picked up, and it kept changing. The transmission, cleaned up and printed out, looked more like Morse code than the normal celestial radio signals. It started in a way that was familiar. .-..-...-.....-.......-...........- and so on. Listing out prime numbers, in order. It reached 43, at which point the entire message repeated, twice. Then it started on squares of numbers. .-....-.........-, reaching 21 squared before repeating, twice.
From there, it rapidly got more complex.
Normally, such surprising results wouldn't be announced for months, as they were analyzed, inspected, and debunked or confirmed by committees on increasingly esoteric subjects. Unfortunately, the whole message was much stronger than anyone would have expected, to the point where some of the larger civilian receivers could pick it up. The experts had to rush an announcement, before speculation and conspiracy theories could take hold.
It isn't uncommon for researchers to give a press conference. It is, however, rare for people to watch them. They watched this one. A series of experts in white buttoned shirts and ties sweating under the cameras formally announced the discovery of intelligent extra-terrestrial life. The press went wild.
The normally cash strapped SETI project suddenly had more money than it knew what to do with, as crowdfunding campaigns surpassed their goals in hours, and US government funds were redirected into the institute.
Within 48 hours of initial discovery, the signal had switched from universal mathematical patterns to an unknown language. Within 1 week of discovery, we were starting to translate it from the clues in the build up to the language switchover.
The transmissions originated from a previously undiscovered exo-planet 39.4 lightyears from Earth, with a thin oxygen-based atmosphere, in a binary star system. It was sent by carbon based lifeforms that, based on their own descriptions, were around 2 meters tall and resembled giant starfish with 7 arms, or in some cases 8 arms. Their number system was base 7, and their lifespans averaged around 160 Earth years, though despite their long lifespans they were capable of breeding like rabbits. We don't know what they called themselves or their planet- being unable to translate the associated sounds for their language- but after a news commentator jokingly referred to the aliens as "Starmen from planet Spacia", the names caught on and soon appeared in official documents.
Almost immediately it was proposed we send a response. That we build the largest transmitter we could afford, and reply in kind. Experts on the internet and the news pointed out the issue- Spacia was 39.4 lightyears from Earth. Any message we could send would take almost 40 years to arrive. And any message we receive is 40 years out of date.
Humans had assumed that if alien life was out there, it would be nothing like us. We had searched first for carbon based life, and gradually widened our horizons, looking for traces of the purely theoretical silicon-based life, for beings that communicated silently with body language, for massive hiveminds spanning planets. It turns out the cynics were right- Human nature is universal.
The transmission, which has been coming in continuously since it was first detected, is a non-stop narration of Starmen society, as it was 40 years ago. News bulletins and history lessons were interspersed with sports results and casual chatter. In one notable segment, the transmission recounts what the operator, who the SETI nicknamed Maurice, had for dinner.
After a while, we came to understand just why so much random chatter was being transmitted 39.4 lightyears at us- bureaucracy. It turns out the government funding for the Starmen transmission project had a mandate for continuous transmission, regardless of if there was anything to say. The local politicians didn't want to think their money was going to waste apparently. At least, this was the reason according to Maurice, who was keeping the transmission running by ranting about local politics, and after that rant ran out of steam, sports.
7 years after we started receiving the transmission, we learned the Starmen had successfully colonized a neighboring planet- equivalent to if humanity had colonized Mars. Humans worldwide celebrated with the Starmen- albeit 40 years late- by cracking open champagne bottles as we heard accounts of the bravery of the first interplanetary colonists. This new planet was quickly named "Spacia 2" by an oft-complained about internet poll.
This colonization had an unexpected boon- we were able to pick up the communication signals used between Spacia and Spacia 2 all the way from Earth. Before we could only listen to the official transmissions about Maurice's political positions and what Maurice thought of the weather, but now we could listen in on the entire Starmen internet as information was transmitted back and forth between Spacia 1 and 2.
This was a convenient side effect of the fact that Starmen inter-planetary communication transmitters were significantly more powerful than they need to be (another point of politics Maurice had strong opinions on).
Soon after, construction was completed on the first Earth transmitter capable of transmitting to Spacia. We decided to reply in kind after all, with our own constant stream of commentary, starting with a greeting, a guide to translating the Starman language to English, and the location of Earth in the universe.
Earth society was obsessed with Starmen culture, and this was only exacerbated when we started receiving their internet transmissions. Online forums shared Starmen memes and Starmen were included in children's books.
In our transmissions we included advice to the Starmen on everything from social crises to government budget balancing. Our advice would arrive 80 years late of course, by which time it would be irrelevant, but it made us feel better to send it, and we thought it would endear us to them. In one notable segment, we transmitted the results of a global poll on who Earth thought should win the Starmen equivalent of "Dancing with the Stars". When we received the final episode a week later, there were celebrations in the streets after the Earth favorite made the finals, even though they didn't win it all.
When the transmission ended 13 years after it had began due to budget cuts to help fund peacekeeping efforts on Spacia 2, Earth mourned that it would never again hear Maurice's opinions on how scandalous the younger generation is with the latest fad of robes that don't cover the 8th tentacle, and how it shouldn't be allowed. The inter-Spacian transmissions continued, however, and enthusiasts were overjoyed when Maurice later took up angrily blogging.
Earth politics got mired in Starman politics, as Earth political party platforms included positions on everything from the Spacia 1 defense budget to the need for increased funding of higher Starman education. Of course, the winning party had no power to affect Starmen society, but the winning parties would broadcast their advice to Spacia, where it will eventually arrive, 80 years late. In one major scandal, an Earth politician brought up crime rate disparity between 7-armed Starmen and 8-armed Starmen in a debate. Many Earth commentators later pointed out that the disparity was in actuality a disparity between the crime rate of Spacia 1 and Spacia 2, which bled into the race statistics as Spacia 2 had a significantly higher 8-armed Starman concentration, while others blasted the scandal as political correctness gone mad.
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TO BE CONTINUES
