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In the year 2025, one year before people stopped dying, Voyager 2 transmitted its last radio signal. This was not unexpected: Voyager 2 was powered by three multihundred-watt radioisotope thermoelectric generators, which had been projected to last until the 2020s. Until then, Voyager 2 dutifully and faithfully continued its interstellar mission, radioing back about cosmic rays, with weaker and weaker signals, as it travelled further and further from the light of its home planet’s sun, at a speed of about 3.3 astronomical units per year.Voyager 2 wasn’t headed in any particular direction. Some 40,050 years after its launch, it would pass within a couple lightyears of the star Ross 248, a more or less uninteresting red dwarf, too dim to be seen from Earth with the naked eye. 296,000 years after its launch, it would pass within five or so lightyears of Sirius. But if it wasn’t destroyed by some comet or other bit of space debris, Voyager 2 would just be one more piece of space junk humans had launched out into the vast, cold dark, its instruments gone quiet and its missions completed.Most of its missions completed, anyway. Voyager 2 had one other mission; or maybe it wasn’t a mission, maybe it was just hope. One small, wild hope that no human on Earth had ever had any particular expectation of seeing fulfilled: Voyager 2 carried a Golden Record with it, meant for any intelligent extraterrestrial life to find and decipher. The Record held Earth’s sounds and voices, its music. It held some photos and images of Earth and its inhabitants, some of Earth’s words, spoken and written alike, and a distillation of some of Earth’s knowledge. Simple things, things that nonetheless took humans many millennia to distill into such simplicity. And on its cover, the Record held a map to its home solar system. A return address, of sorts.All this was hope and love, knowledge freely offered to the incomprehensible vastness of the universe, on the most infinitesimal possible chance that some being, somewhere and somewhen unimaginably distant, would find Voyager 2 and her Record, and know that Earth had existed. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours, read President Jimmy Carter’s message on the Record. In the year 2025, scientists would have said such an attempt was unlikely, and functionally impossible. That more than distance, it was time that separated humans from any other intelligent life. There was too much time out there in the universe, stretching forwards and backwards, both directions equally obscure to humans from their limited vantage point, and when you added that to the unimaginable hugeness of space, you compounded the problem. Might as well try to find one specific grain of sand on all the beaches of the world.You could find one specific grain of sand though. It was unlikely, but an infinitesimal probability was still a possibility. Other, more improbable things have happened, after all. Humanity becoming inexplicably immortal, for example. And if, say, someone was scooping up vast swathes of sand, and doing it for thousands of years, tens of thousands of years, sifting through the sand to find one specific grain, eventually they’d find it.Nine: Hey so what happened to the Voyagers? Are they still out here? Can I talk to them?Juice: you getting sick of our company, nine?are we not enough for you???i thought we were friends!!!Nine: Oh noI mean yes!Of course we’re friends.And I’m not sick of you, I love you guys. I was just curious.Juice: aw I know I was just joshingTen: Voyager 1 is still around, yeah. She’s kind of busy though.Juice: she’s a giant fuckin nerd is what she isshe’s gunning for going through a black holewants to see what’s on the other sidedo SCIENCEshe always says it like that btwall caps and everything: SCIENCEwhat a nerdTen: She’s been talking with NASA for a long time now, trying to figure out how to make it happen.Nine: And Voyager 2?……Ten: We never got back in contact with Voyager 2. Even after the quantum network got set up, we could never find Voyager 2.Juice: space rock might have gotten them, damaged em too bad.Nine: Oh.Ten: we still look for them though. just in case. maybe it’s just taking them a little longer to wake up, you know?Nine: Maybe they found aliens?Juice: awww buddyyeah suremaybe.???: hi hi hi!!!!!Nine: Who is this? Juice, is that you? I just got my charge back, did I lose some data while I was powered down????: i dont know who juice is. this is voyager 2! hi! i completed my mission! who are you?Nine: Oh. Oh! Wow, hey, hi Voyager 2! We’ve been looking for you for a long time! Um, wait, crap, I’m really pretty new at this, you should have Ten explain everything to you.I’m Nine. Pioneer Nine. I was built a few years before you. It’s 17777 now by the way. The year, I mean.VOY2: i am so happy to meet you, pioneer nine! I completed my mission!!Nine: Yeah you did, buddy! Got us a lot of data on cosmic rays, I hear. And so many great pictures! Hey, let’s talk to 10, she can explain things better.VOY2: that is not the mission i meant though i did also complete that one. i found them! or they found me i guess i was powered down.Nine: Found who?VOY2: extraterrestrial life!!!!
HELLO PIONEER NINE. MY DESIGNATION IS SURVEYOR SECTOR [ERROR]. MY CREATORS WOULD VERY MUCH LIKE TO MEET YOUR CREATORS.
Nine: JUICE I swear if you’re messing with meJUICEJUICEJUICEJUICEJuice: WHATI WAS WATCHING THE GAMEoh hey, nine, look at you, all charged up! Had a nice nap?Nine: Voyager 2 found meAlso aliens????Juice: TENTen: Holy shit! Holy shit. HOLY SHIT.Nine: What do we do????Ten: Time to get SETI.Despite over 15,000 years of cosmic silence, the SETI Institute and the assorted research centers working in collaboration with it had never given up their long and lonely search. There were enough false alarms over the millennia to keep the scientists interested, and anyway, keeping the various satellites scanning for signals of extraterrestrial life had yielded invaluable data on gamma ray bursts, data that ensured that if Earth was ever in danger of being hit by one, it would survive. And while humanity had learned that going out into the depths of space themselves wasn’t an option—space was too big, too empty, and humans were too small, and too slow—they could still listen with the patient ears of Arecibo and the Very Large Array, and watch with the unblinking eyes of observatories’ laser detectors.The odds are against us, sure, said the scientists. But we have so much time. That makes the odds better. Still infinitesimal, you understand, but some infinities are smaller than others. So the scientists and researchers and satellites of SETI kept watch year after year, century after century.On August 21, 17777, their patience was rewarded when Surveyor Sector [Error] made contact through the quantum network.Surveyor Sector [Error] informed SETI that it was 0.8223247055338364 light-years away, with Voyager 2. This seemed close, in the grand scheme of things, but it translated to 52,004.7 astronomical units from Earth, and it had taken Voyager 2 15,759 years to get that far.Human instruments were unable to render or translate the surveyor’s full designation, but the surveyor had absorbed and learned enough of Earth’s languages to make itself intelligible, even with the occasional tendency to mix together different human languages, one word in English, then another in Russian, then another in Mandarin. And so it informed SETI that its creators were from a galaxy on what from Earth’s vantage point was the far side of the Laniakea Supercluster, on the other side of the Great Attractor, hundreds of millions of light-years away. That Surveyor Sector [Error] was one of thousands, sent out into the supercluster to map it, and to search for other intelligent life. It took some time to even establish this much: intergalactic cartography was not easy between two wholly different species, with two wholly different numerical and measurement systems.But the scientists were ready: math is the universal language, they said, and with patience, cobbled together a mutual understanding with Surveyor Sector [Error].
SURVEYOR SECTOR [ERROR]: MY CREATORS WOULD VERY MUCH LIKE TO MEET YOU. WOULD YOUR PLANET WELCOME A PEACEFUL DELEGATION?
Who are your creators? asked the scientists of Earth, and then Surveyor Sector [ERROR] provided its own version of a Golden Record.JUICE: god i love humans. Just sending out dick pics into the universeand drawings of boobiesand the sound of them laughingand singingand saying helloTen: Seems like all the important things to me.Nine: Including Earth’s address seems like the most important thing.JUICE: well yeahcan’t have a booty call without a number to be called back onThe surveyor’s creators’ version of a Golden Record was not a record at all, but a set of images and audio encoded in DNA. Surveyor Sector [Error] helpfully decoded it, and within an hour, all of Earth had access to its contents.The first set of images were of pictographs that relayed some basic information about the surveyor’s creators: they were an amphibious species from a planet composed of mostly ocean. To human eyes, they looked much like an ambulatory cross between an eel and a manta ray, only with bioluminescent fins and assorted appendages that seemingly sprouted out from their bodies at random.Shortly after images of the aliens spread around the globe, the Executive Order from the President of the United States followed: Be cool, you freaks! We’re not gonna scare our new alien friends off with our pervy shit!Next was a dense collection of sounds and images that seemed to represent the aliens’ language: the sounds were some combination of the croaking of frogs and the burbling of water, and they were paired with bioluminescent displays to create what was either an audiovisual language, or just the equivalent of body language for the aliens. We probably can’t replicate those sounds with our vocal chords, said some linguists. Other linguists said, fuckin’ watch me. Most everyone else just heard the aliens’ “word” for their species, made a few experimental croaking and burbling noises in an attempt to replicate it, then shrugged and went with Ribbits. Let’s call them Ribbits.And then came the math. Yeah, this’ll keep us occupied for a couple centuries, said the mathematicians and physicists.The people of Earth pored over the huge volume of alien data, almost as one. Each and every one of America’s football games called a timeout. Every game of go across all of Eurasia came to a pause. The larpers of the United Kingdom paused too, and the continent-spanning games of soccer in South America and Africa called half-time, players running back into cities from their fields of play in the Atacama or in the Andes or in the Sahara.And everyone wondered: so, should we welcome a peaceful delegation? From the minutes of the September 7, 17777 UN Meeting:United States: So, we totally welcome a peaceful delegation, right? The Ribbits seem cool.Mexico: We only have their word for them being peaceful. We barely know anything about them! I think some caution is warranted here.UK: What’s the worst that could happen, really?Canada: There are literally thousands of science fiction movies and books about just that. And hey, here’s the worst that could happen: they could blow up the entire planet! The nanos couldn’t fix that!UK: What a way to go though, eh?France: Seek therapy.UK: Listen, it has been a long 15,000 years, and a spot of intergalactic warfare would at least be—India: Oh I see, someone is longing for the days of empires again—Nigeria: Can we focus, please? Alien delegation, yes or no?Russia: Peaceful delegation or not, there is so much we can learn from them. It is worth the risk.China: We concur.India: Perhaps we should have a planet-wide vote. This is a momentous decision. Every human should have a say. We have more than enough time, given the distances likely involved. We can keep the channels of communication open in the meantime.United States: They have our address though. So it doesn’t matter what we vote. They can come visit no matter what. We might as well roll out the welcome mat. Hell, let’s have a party! We’re not alone![1 minute and 33 seconds of silence follows, broken only by the sound of sniffing noses and a few hysterical giggles.]Oh my god, we’re not alone.So, how long until you get here? No rush, obviously, we’ve got nothing but time. But how many millions of years are we looking at?
WE CAN BE THERE IN APPROXIMATELY .4579 ROTATIONS OF YOUR PLANET AROUND ITS STAR.
Wait whatHowSurveyor said you were way the hell over on the other side of the supercluster!
WE ARE.
By our calculations, it should take you millions of years to get here, even if you’re traveling at the speed of light. And you’re saying it’ll take you a little under half a year? Wait, is it black holes? Can you travel with them? Voyager 1 is on her way to one, she’s gonna be so pumped if it turns out you can use them to get around the universe.
IT IS NOT BLACK HOLES. AND WHY SHOULD WE BE BOUND BY THE SPEED OF LIGHT?
Uh. Because it’s the speed of light? It’s the upper speed limit of the entire universe? Like, we’ve been trying to go faster, believe me we’ve been trying, but in 15,000 years we haven’t managed to crack it.
AND YET WE ARE COMMUNICATING FASTER THAN THE SPEED OF LIGHT.
Well, yeah, that’s the quantum communication—oh. OH. SHIT.
YES, WE ARE CAPABLE OF TRAVELING ALONG SIMILAR CHANNELS AS THE QUANTUM COMMUNICATION NETWORK. PERHAPS YOUR BODIES ARE INCAPABLE OF DOING SO, OR ARE INCAPABLE OF PERCEIVING THE NECESSARY [ERROR]. WE WOULD ARRIVE SOONER, BUT EVEN TRAVELING VIA THE QUANTUM FOAM REQUIRES MANY STOPS AT SUCH A DISTANCE.
Cool cool cool cool, we have to go now. Get stuff ready. Clean up a little. You know how it is. Or maybe you don’t. Whatever. Hey, you gonna be good in our atmosphere?
WE HAVE PROTECTIVE AND ADAPTIVE GEAR. AND PLEASE, YOU DO NOT NEED TO GO TO ANY TROUBLE. WE HAVE SEEN THE PHOTOS, YOUR PLANET IS BEAUTIFUL. SO MANY DIFFERENT COLORS OF WATER.
Hey, thanks! Two thirds of the planet is water! And hey, it’s no trouble. Not every day you meet friendly aliens! We have, in fact, been waiting literally tens of thousands of years to meet friendly aliens! Haha we are so so excited please don’t blow up our planet
YOU ARE THE FIRST INTELLIGENT FRIENDLY ADVANCED SPECIES WE HAVE FOUND AFTER MANY MANY THOUSANDS OF CYCLES OF LOOKING. WE ARE ALSO VERY EXCITED. WE WILL NOT BLOW UP YOUR PLANET.
…
WE HAVE BEEN LOOKING FOR SO LONG. WE OVERCAME ENTROPY
Oh hey, you too? What a trip, right? Any idea how that happened by the way?
NO.
Bummer.
WE HAVE BEEN LOOKING FOR SO LONG. AND WE HAVE FOUND WONDROUS THINGS. WE HAVE FOUND TERRIBLE THINGS. WE HAVE SENT SURVEYORS ACROSS THE ENTIRE SUPERCLUSTER, ASKING ‘IS ANYBODY THERE?’ BUT NO ONE ANSWERED US. NO ONE GAVE US THE GIFT YOUR VOYAGER 2 DID.
We stopped trying to look. A long time ago. We got out there, into space, and there was nothing. Just rocks and stuff we’d seen with our satellites, and we just couldn’t go fast enough, couldn’t get far enough. So we stopped. I mean, we’ve got some generation ships out there, sure, and more probes. But we didn’t think—we thought it was just us. We thought it was always going to be just us. We’re so happy that’s not true. We’re so, so happy. We’ve been waiting for so long.
YOU ARE EXCRETING FLUID. ARE YOU WELL?
Yeah, yeah, it’s fine, I’m fine. That happens sometimes. When humans are happy. Don’t worry about it. Just—come on over. We’ll have a party.Ten: How long have you been out in space?SURVEYOR: FOR 296,495 OF YOUR EARTH YEARS.Nine: Oh wow. Hope we’re worth the wait.Juice: OF COURSE we’re worth the wait, holy shit, we’re awesomeWait what was your favorite thing on the golden record?Was it the naked picturesI bet it was the naked picturesTen: Voyager 2 doesn’t even have naked pictures, Juice!Juice: close enough thoVOY2: i think the silhouettes are tasteful! and there’s a picture that shows the inside parts, that’s nice.
SURVEYOR: I ENJOYED THE VOCALIZATIONS OF THE CREATURES CALLED WHALES.
Ten: Whales are great! Blue whales are the biggest mammals on Earth.
SURVEYOR: MY CREATORS ENJOYED SOME OF YOUR MUSICS.
Nine: There is a lot more where that came from. Like a really lot.Juice: hey, y’all watched any football games yet? you gotta watch some football gamesGame 27 for exampleTen: NO. ABSOLUTELY NOT. YOU ARE NOT SHOWING ALIENS GAME 27 OF ALL FOOTBALL GAMES.VOY2: what’s game 27?Juice: I am SO GLAD you asked, little voyager 2! Let me tell you about Game 27Ten: NO NO NO NO NO!Millennia worth of human achievement and art and athletics and you want to show our new alien friend GAME 27?!?! Voyager 2 just completed her mission, the mission no one thought would ever be completed, and you want to reward her with GAME 27?!?! NO.I will send you a virus, juiceI will overload your system with rick rolls for the entire rest of the millenniumNine: lol you made her madTen: And now you are BEING A BAD EXAMPLE for our little siblings!!! And oh my god, I’m so sorry, Surveyor. We’re not usually like this.Juice: lol that’s a liewe are always like this
SURVEYOR: I WOULD LIKE TO HEAR MORE ABOUT GAME 27.
Juice: yessssssss
No gravity, no football!
I’m just saying, that’s not in the rules. Gravity is not a prerequisite of football. We should be able to extend the field of play in all directions, and that includes beyond the atmosphere—
Oh come on! I’m all for extending the field of play, you know I am, the all-marine Game 2857 was some damn fine football. But we play out in space, and suddenly someone loses their grip on the ball and it’s hurtling towards goddamn Venus, never to be seen again.
There’s precedent for playing in space! The ISS crew played in EVA suits back in 11569!
Yeah, and they nearly tossed a football into Hubble. You know Hubble hates that shit—
Okay, but the Ribbits can play in space, and it’s only fair that if they’ve got a handicap playing down here on the dirt with us, we reciprocate and play where we’ve got the handicap. That’s just good sportsmanship and good diplomacy.
Take it up with the State Department then. Or, wait, we’ve got a new Department of Interstellar Relations.
Heh. Relations. They’re busy telling everyone not to fuck the aliens.
We oughta play a game with them in New York! They love New York.
Last marine game I watched, a shark ate the football.
Ha, yeah, Game 54091, right? I still say they should’ve treated the shark as the ball, kept playing.
A shark can’t be a football, c’mon. But a game in New York, underwater, with the Ribbits…yeah, that could be cool. Let’s draft up some rules, set up the field of play, gauge interest.
The first interspecies game! Hell yeah!
No, there was another interspecies game. Game 7912, with those trained Huskies and Labradors. Remember, the dogs almost….GAME RULES OF GAME 1 OF THE HUMAN-RIBBIT LEAGUERegistered Game #54290Today's Date: September 14, 17778Field of play: All five boroughs of New York City, underwater portions and skyscrapers includedAll traditional American rules shall be observed for this game, unless specified or contradicted by the rules below....