SHORT STORY | DAY OF RECLAMATION

I woke up that day with my mom shaking me off my bed.

It was early in the morning - and she was extremely nervous.

Where is dad ? - I asked

All she could say is that we were going to meet up with him later

I had to go with her

I didn't have time to take any clothes of my stuffies... She shoved me in the car and took off like crazy

The road were packed with people doing the same, some didn't managed to pass through the traffic jam and ran with their kids - mom was ruthless and bumped everything off our way

I was tired and scared, before I fainted, i looked up the back window and saw what i could only describe as hell.

I woke up by noon, at some sort of shelter - mom was no more, and they said i was a brave survivor, well, they were too... The military always full of brave men and women, the best of the best of our people - despite the positivity in their words, their faces showed they had already accepted defeat...

Not even before the end of the day they turned their radios off - the screams and distress calls were too much...

By the next morning, we all had to leave because they had found us, but for the rest of the day - it was eerily calm as we traveled in trucks to a countryside bunker with better security and more food...

We were being invaded, by who - i would found out a couple of weeks later.

When I was testimony of the most beautiful and terrorising scene to this day... They outnumbered even the darkest swarm of locusts, but in opposition to that, they had the grace of a dancer, always knowing where to hit, where to move

Always moving forward

Never stopping to celebrate

Or mourning their dead

They did take little of any damage or casualties in that macabre ballet

Despite our best efforts in the battlefield

We moved to the countryside, where we once heard there was no incidents over there... Which held true for a year... The surprise massacres became more of a routine

We could barely stay on the same place for over a month, we were reduced to scavengers and gatherers - and as they pierced further into the land, we attested to their true nature...

Their mere sighting was enough - not to cast fear or terror but to summon Chaos itself.

The generations after me canonized them as unrelenting forces of nature, as if it was natural...

They had little to no respect for any living being, that flew, crawled, or swam... Little did matter to us what they wanted, dialog was futile in this new world that had taken over our holy land, be it with the invaders or our own kind, now divided...

Now, thirty years later, the most powerful of our survivor groups have gathered together, and today is the day of reclamation, the day we will avenge our fallen parents, brothers, and children, and purge for once - these Humans off what once was our beautiful home!

SCIENCE&ARTWORK | THE DOMINION | QIRO-ARRENE WARS

QIRO-ARRENE WARS

Was a series of violent and deadly conflicts that happened prior to the Dominion's official foundation, taking place between the years 57.047 and 58.058 of the Common Era. It was fought between the Arrene Combine and the Qire Clans, the conflicts were sparse and fought in deep interstellar and interplanetary spaces, and combatant casualties throughout the war amounted to an estimated of 30 to 60 million due to the intense usage of surrogate troops (clones & specters) and automated fleets which are not accounted for, however, it ended with an unsurmountable civilian casualty count estimated at 20 billion towards the end of the war.

In more than one way, both qire and arrene seem equally offensively brutish and at the same time sophisticated to human eyes... Their ferocity and intelectual prowess is unmatched, it seems like cheating evolution - Ian Tent, temporally dislocated Chelok settler

PRE-WAR STAGE

Comparatively speaking, the Arrene Combine had 4-5 thousand year headstart on the mastery of subluminal (slower than light) interstellar travel - though not a lot can be substantially extracted about the arrene pre-stellar era from the Dominion archives - it can be said this species possesses some insight that other do not about the locations and uses of the ancient artifacts across known space. It is uncertain if their rise to power is given by technological uplifting or their own prowess, but it certainly kickstarted a desire to seek more of what they have found in their own system. Following several trains of thought and having the resources and audacity to do so, the arrene sought to improve themselves and their tech through what some conservatives would consider ludicrous and insane quests, complete gene editing, cloning, mastery of neural networks and AI, all fields which could only be improved through the law of large numbers, expanding their society into whatever holes and crevices were deemed fit.

Along this first stage of development, arrene explorers found several chelok peoples in hunter-gatherer societies, which were studied and nearly brought to extinction in the process, for the arrene ways were far too brutal and unsympathetic for them, differences between chelok and arrene are far too many for any significant mass relationships to be developed between the two. Their quest for power brought them to the Osuna system, where they found another fairly 'uncivilized' species, the Ygiv - with whom the first contact could be done through fairly more sophisticated methods such as math and with a base understanding of electromagnetic technologies. And this happened a number of other times with more technologically advanced chelok peoples distributed across known space - the arrene then had quite a history of 'simply' mesmerizing less advanced societies with their tricks and gadgets into subjugation, the tradition of setting up other species in their lower and front ranks can be traced as far back as the first contact era of 51.000 CE (about 13 thousand years ago).

All this noise wouldn't go unnoticed through the depths of space, with the arrene core being much smaller, at some 50 ly radius encompassing 300 systems, 6 of which were heavily occupied - to an extent, the qire homeworld has always known of their existence for all practical purposes, though actively staying silent and building up a sizeable defense fleet in case the arrene brought their combine over. Their initial response upon the discovery of the arrene was to spread out to other worlds and ensure the survival of the species in case the arrene ever got to their homeworld - HOWEVER, something changed between 54.000 and 56.000 CE, instead of expanding more and more, the qire started ever strengthening their response fleet to the point of actually considering a first-strike scenario, during this time period, they've also encountered other pre-stellar human societies, the integration of human culture into qire society might have influenced the whole 'possible alien invasion' thinking.

A qire first-contact armada was allocated to the Forzai system, a well-known frontier system at the time, its purpose was to actively ping radio pulses to get the combine's attention, literally ringing their doorbell with enough weapons to blow up a small moon to pieces...

CIRCA 57.000 CE - Disastrous First Contact

The presence of over ten thousand unknown vessels in the Forzai system was promptly noticed by the arrene authorities, forcing the planet's home defense fleet into full alert. The local fleet was of purely bureaucratic need as the combine was believed to be of no match for terrorists or foreigners, thus not needing this extra layer of protection. The few hundred ships and stations built around Forzai had their eyes focused on the massive armada stationed on one of its four moons, chattering on all channels.

Forzai, known as Fur'shai-er to the Arrene, had been nothing more than a mundane manufacturing and port planet for the Combine before first contact. Its population consisted of just 5 million Arrene and human workers, serving the purpose of producing civilian and merchant ships for private companies. The scattered islands across its oceanic surface were used for various experiments and manufacturing processes.

As tensions rose, the Forzai clone army executed a partial evacuation of the critical population, leaving behind a skeletal crew to engage in a diplomatic stand-off within the lunar perimeter of the planet. Their strategy was to avoid direct conflict at all costs, with the intention of stalling any attempts by the Qire to gather further intelligence on the Combine's military capabilities. This approach was meant to give the main Arrene forces a fighting chance if the situation escalated.

The Qire fleet had arrived with a clear message: they were not an unprepared adversary. They had prepared for the possibility of conflict and were well-equipped for the challenges ahead. Human mediators attempted negotiations, but difficulties in translation fueled unease and tensions soared as the Qire Admirals interpreted the presence of manufacturing facilities for war vessels on Forzai as a sign that the Arrene Combine was preparing for a hostile encounter.

What was intended as a technical dialogue escalated into a catastrophic disaster over a few days. The island chains of Forzai turned into a war zone, and the conflict spanned three weeks, resulting in the Qire fleet taking control of the Forzai system and suffering negligible losses.

CIRCA 57.000 to 57.980 CE - Bounce operations across the Combine Frontier

Following the fall of Forzai to the Qire Clans, the Arrene Combine experienced a period of sparse but intense combat across its frontier territories. The impact of the Qire presence at the Combine's frontier was felt not only by exposed civilian populations but also by the major admirals who oversaw the defense of Arrene space. While the civilian populace feared the escalation of the conflict, the admirals, confident in their advanced weaponry and superior AI and autonomous combat capabilities, saw the Qire as unwittingly provoking a formidable adversary.

Arrene authorities initiated preemptive evacuations of population centers in their frontier regions while maintaining clones and synthetic organisms to continue working on supply lines. They adopted a wait-and-see approach regarding the Qire's posture toward these worlds, aiming to give the impression that their territorial expanse was much larger than it actually was, as whenever they went all they could find was colonization and mining equipment.

The Qire, on the other hand, made deliberate efforts to gauge the Arrene's firepower capabilities through localized skirmishes with local militias. These militias were equipped with just enough weaponry to put up a limited resistance, and their encounters with the Qire armada were intended to provide a distorted picture of the Arrene's true strength.

When the Arrene felt sufficiently prepared to confront the Qire. They initiated contact with the Qire at an uncharted system, deploying a massive mothership roughly the size of an asteroid. Details of this encounter remain fragmented, but persistent rumors spoke of brutal acts committed by Arrene boarding parties on the Qire armada. These boarding parties received orders to leave only enough survivors on the Qire ships to ensure they could operate them and return to their own territory.

This pattern repeated itself across numerous systems, with Arrene ships exhibiting nearly light-speed responses to distress signals from attacked outposts within the Combine frontier. The Qire invaders encountered formidable resistance as the Arrene military sought to repel their advances and protect their territory. The conflict persisted as both sides engaged in ruthless combat, leaving a trail of devastation and uncertainty along the Combine's frontier. The belief that the Arrene were ready to dissuade the Qire from further aggression fueled the flames of war, setting the stage for a protracted and brutal interstellar conflict that showed no signs of abating.

CIRCA 57.987 CE - The Qire Ambush at Olgur

As the Qire gained valuable experience in fighting the Arrene across the Combine's frontier, they carefully planned an audacious ambush in the Olgur system, deep within their own territory. The Qire had been leading an Arrene armada on a relentless chase by employing hit-and-run tactics, jumping between Combine systems to maintain pursuit. The Olgur system served as the stage for a pivotal confrontation that would change the course of the Qiro-Arrene Wars.

The ambush unfolded on one of the many ocean moons of the gas giant Olgur, where the Qire forces executed a meticulously planned operation. They managed to secure an Arrene capital ship, successfully deactivating its self-destruct mechanism. This unexpected turn of events allowed the Qire to gain invaluable insight into the combine's internal structure, military positions, and strategic plans.

With this newfound knowledge, the Qire rapidly and decisively penetrated deeper into Arrene space, leaving a trail of confusion and chaos in their wake. The captured Arrene capital ship became a treasure trove of information, enabling the Qire to navigate the complex web of Arrene-controlled systems with greater precision.

In their wake, the 31st Qire fleet left a trail of devastation. They deployed relativistic kinetic vehicles (RKVs), a type of fast ordinance previously used in ship-to-surface combat. However, the yield set by the 31st fleet was staggering, intended not just to target military installations but to flatten entire metropolises into molten basins of glass,. This brutal and indiscriminate use of RKVs marked a dark epoch in the conflict, resulting in a significant escalation of casualties.

In the following years, the Qire executed a series of strategic maneuvers, exploiting weaknesses in the Arrene defense and bypassing their heavily fortified outposts. Their swift advance took them closer to the heart of the Arrene Combine, with their ultimate destination being the Arrene homeworld, Argost. 

57.997 CE - Battle for Aa Rithel begins

As the Qire fleet continued its relentless advance towards Argost, the Arrene Combine scrambled to clear the path of civilian populations in the enemy's trajectory. The urgency of the situation left little time for comprehensive evacuations, and many millions were left behind in the haste to move people to safety. The looming threat of the Qire's arrival cast a shadow of dread over the Arrene populace.

In the Aa Rithel system, where Argost, the Arrene homeworld, was situated, all defensive preparations were completed. Over the years, massive horse-shoe-shaped vessels had been towed into the system's borders, poised and ready for the imminent Qire approach. While the commotion in the system was unprecedented, not all of Argost's population chose to evacuate. Instead, they made a resolute decision to stand and defend their homeworld.

The night sky over Argost was illuminated by the shimmering presence of countless adapted civilian and merchant crafts, combined with the formidable home defense fleet. For several weeks, they waited in tense silence for the enemy's arrival, their determination unwavering.

The Battle for Aa Rithel became a relentless 24/7 light show as seen from the surface of Argost. All radio channels were inundated with military transmissions, both coded and uncoded, as the defenders coordinated their efforts. The home defense fleet put up a valiant resistance, holding off the Qire forces for seventeen intense days.

58.004 CE - Bombardment of Argost

The turning point came when a single Qire warship, 'The Last Whisper', one of the few remaining among the 500 vessels, managed to pierce through the system's blockade. It carried a deadly payload of 50 relativistic kinetic vehicles (RKVs). In less than a day, these RKVs reached Argost, wreaking havoc as they struck random locations within a 1000-kilometer radius of the impact zones. The result was the flattening of entire cities across a hemisphere.

The devastation was catastrophic, wiping out 70% of the local population, only those in ships across the ocean and the far countryside of continents survived. Faced with the overwhelming loss of life and the tragic consequences of the Qire attack, the Arrene Combine had no choice but to immediately declare an armistice. The Battle for Aa Rithel had exacted a devastating toll, forever altering the course of the Qiro-Arrene Wars and leaving an indelible scar on the history of both civilizations.

58.058 CE - Official End of the war

The Treaty of Forzai, which marked the foundation of the Dominion, was a pivotal document that brought an end to the Qiro-Arrene Wars and established a lasting peace in the region of space jointly governed by the Qire and Arrene. Over the past 13,000 years, this treaty has played a crucial role in maintaining peace and stability, but it has also faced numerous challenges and close calls to unrest. It can be summarized as such:

1. Forfeiture of Control over Qire Space: The Treaty of Forzai required the Arrene Combine to forfeit control over space within a 10-light-year radius of any Qire world. This provision established clear boundaries and territorial divisions within the Dominion, separating the respective spheres of influence of the Arrene and Qire civilizations. The strict delineation of territory helped prevent territorial disputes and confrontations, contributing to the Dominion's stability for millennia.
2. Concession of the Forzai System: The treaty mandated the Arrene's concession of the Forzai system to the Qire Clans. This symbolic gesture signified the end of hostilities and marked a shift in power dynamics within the Dominion. While Forzai had once been a focal point of conflict, its peaceful transfer to Qire control became a cornerstone of lasting peace.
3. Reparations and Rebuilding Efforts: The Arrene Combine was required to pay reparations to all Qire clans affected by the war. These reparations included financial compensation and resources to support rebuilding efforts in Arrene worlds that had been bombarded during the conflict. The commitment to reconstruction promoted goodwill and cooperation between the two civilizations, fostering a sense of shared responsibility.
4. Restrictions on the Home Fleet: The treaty placed constraints on the activities of the Arrene Combine's home fleet, limiting its movements to the core worlds of the Dominion. This provision curtailed any ambitions of further expansion or conflict initiation by the Arrene. It ensured that the military force closest to Arrene territory remained contained and less likely to provoke tensions.
5. Foreigner Inclusion in Fleet Commands: To promote proper representation and prevent any unilateral decisions or conquest plans, the treaty mandated that fleet commands within the Dominion accept foreigners into their ranks. This measure aimed to foster cooperation, diversity, and accountability within the Dominion's military structure.
6. Preservation of Pre-Industrial and Industrial Chelok Societies: Recognizing the significance of pre-industrial and industrial chelok societies within the Dominion, this provision safeguards these civilizations from interference and exploitation. Both the Arrene Combine and the Qire Clans commit to protecting these societies' cultural and historical integrity, refraining from direct or indirect interference and non-consensual introduction of advanced technology. Preservation efforts, including documentation and research, are encouraged, and ethical standards and oversight ensure respectful treatment. Importantly, this provision categorically prohibits human experimentation within Dominion space, marking a departure from past practices, and promoting ethical engagement with human civilizations.

But the Fall of Hokushoku has become a symbol of Arrene incapacity to protect their territories, and has unleashed a tide of political unrest, casting doubt on the Dominion's ability to safeguard its vast expanse. In the desperate search for a solution, the Qire have embarked on a clandestine quest, one that secretly defies the solemn Sixth Provision of the Treaty of Forzai...

-M.O. Valent, 18/09/2023

OTHER | THE GREAT SILENCE BECOMES DEAFENING

 *DEAFENING SILENCE*

I expect my audience to be already familiar with the concept of the Great Silence, but for those who need a refreshment - it is the current situation that we find ourselves in. That despite all odds being apparently stacked in favor of Life being abundant in the universe, and by consequence intelligence as well - we see no obvious technosignatures in the sky, mainly radio signals, hence the name Great Silence.

My stance regarding possible solutions to the Fermi Paradox is to think we are, if not the earliest, among the ealiest civilizations in this side of the galaxy. And my reasoning for this is the following:

Earth has been technologically detectable for at least 64 years (circa 1958), this means that if our signal had reached any technological civilization with intent of immediate response we would have gotten that response in now in early 2020s (30 years to send, and 30 years to reply), we can be sure to a considerable degree that our interstellar neighborhood all belongs to humanity for a minimum radius of 30 light-years from the Sun. In the same train of thought, we can be sure that we are not within 60 light-years from any other nearby technological civilizations which happen to be on a similar or slightly superior technological level, else we would have already received unambiguous radio signals from space.

Moving further away from Earth, and time dilation kicks harder, had another civilization 100ly away started broadcasting in 1900s, we would be receiving their signals in the early 2000s, and the same for one 200ly away starting in the 1800s, and so on. The further we start looking into space for technosignatures, the older these civilizations would have to be in order to justify the Great Silence, and that is just a lower bound which assumes we would be receiving their signals any time soon. Now, if you consider that the age and epoch of first broadcast differ enough from one another, then those civilizations would have become detectable from Earth before we had ever finished building the first radiotelescope array.

For example, a technological civilization that goes on air circa 3000 BCE from 4000ly away would have become detectable on Earth in the year 1000 CE, only to be finally discovered post 1950. But that assumes that they had been on air for nearly 1000 years, this becomes difficult if civilizations become more silent over time due improvements in technology, security concerns, or setbacks due internal conflicts or disasters. Yet a civilization doesn't simply become invisible after switching SETI policy or technology, there is no way to stop a signal once sent, and so a predictable pattern would emerge in that civilizations appear very bright in the dawn of their development, only to minimize their radio footprint over time.

This strongly indicates, given the distances we can look inside the Milky Way, that no technosignatures younger than 100 thousand years and farther than 100 kly exist in our field of view. Note that we cannot see the side of the galaxy opposite to us, since it is blocked by the galactic bulge. If a civilization is located 50 kly from the Sun, but then hasn't started broadcasting since the last ice age, we won't hear about them for a good while, however we won't know about them either if they are way older than some 50 thousand years as well, because we woul already find ourselves way into their security-era radio bubble.

Since radio travels at the speed of light, it is particularly easy to graph a radio-horizon as an | y(x) | = x line, and any civilization which coordinates in time and space are contained below that line will be considered undetectable. Fun thing that this drawing is actually just as slice of a Light-cone graph. Based on this, we can be pretty sure there are no civilizations in the local group of galaxies which are near or really Kardashev 3, since not only it would require millions of years for such civilization to emerge, but also that those galaxies are millions of light-years away as well. We can't be sure that Andromeda isn't now inhabited by a K-2.5 civilization, but we can be sure that it wasn't 2.5 million years ago because of our light-cone, and the same is valid for other galaxies.

Hence, we come back to the start of this post, if we aren't the first, we are amongst the first technological civilizations in the local space. And I dare propose a scary solution to the Great Silence along those lines: Life across galaxies emerge in bursts, only to die out shortly after.

GALACTIC GRAVEYARD?

Let's picture the following, the Milky Way galaxy isn't exactly a galaxy in its prime of stellar formation, for its size and metallicity it used to be much more active in the deep past, and a deep past marked by merger events with other galaxies. The interaction between stars passing near each other and through gas clouds during a merger is one way star formation can be increased for a period of time, and thus the rate at which potentially habitable systems emerge. We also know that some regions of the galaxy have a higher average metallicity than others, it isn't like the galaxy uniformly increases its metallicity over time, the galactic thin disk sees way more action than the thick disk or halo, and so some regions could very been host to the prime conditions for planetary systems and habitable planets aeons before the Sun was born, thounsands if not millions of worlds would have a headstart of a few billion years, yet we are stuck the Great Silence, leading to the Fermi Paradox. Now, if we find out that a planet hosting Life far away from Earth, orbits a star just as old as the Sun, say like another yellow dwarf or orange dwarf, then we can start to suspect that all Life that currently inhabits the galaxy was born in the same epoch, a merger epoch approximately 5 to 8 billion years ago, and we would see clumps of similarly aged planets across the galaxy.

And so the solution to the Fermi Paradox would be that the right conditions for the emergence of Life are only common during short geologic periods across time, and that it becomes rare outside of these burst events, thus the Great Silence we currently experience is a result of nearly all planets inhabited by intelligence having more or less the same age, differing by a few hundred millions of years. Yet, for some reason there must exist a Great Filter that doesn't allow older civilizations to interact with younger ones, that is, if Life had several eons of headstart, why we don't see elder K2.5 or K3 civilizations? Perhaps interstellar travel becomes increasingly difficult from the point of view of a biological civilization, and not really necessary for artificial civilizations (or perhaps those operate on timespans of billions of years instead, overarching biological Life). Thus an interstellar empire could still have thousands if not millions of years, and only occupy a volume of a few hundred light years in radius from its homeworlds, due the abundance of local resources.

Let's say you want to mine a large asteroid 12km wide, at an average rocky density this would only amount to half a billionth of the Earth's mass, or about 3.2 trillion tons of resources. And there are rocks way larger than that across the whole of the solar system, most of which can be readily acessed in moons and the asteroid belt. A quick search shows that in 2019, humans have mined over 3.2 billion tones of metal of the Earth, 94% of which is iron ore - our little12 km-wide rock at 1% metal could supply almost 10x our current yearly needs. And we are talking about an asteroid that's 99% rock, your typical metallic asteroid is nearly 90-95% metals by mass, a single rock could supply the Earth with metals for the next 1000 years, or hundreds of times more infraestructure built per year if our consumption increases several fold. And so, mining your own solar system would provide nearly all the metal, rock, and volatiles you may ever need for thousands of years, and even millions of years if you reach out for other stars. You will only ever run out of stuff if you run out of personel or machinery to do so. So civilizations would be "forced" to stay at their local space, because there is nothing outside of it that they cannot obtain in their collection of worlds.

- M.O. Valent, 09/10/2022

- M.O. Valent, published 09/10/2022

NON-FICTION | THE ONLY UFO THEORY I'M NOT SO SKEPTICAL OF

 DO I WANT TO BELIEVE?

    

Okay, I know that my typical content is centered around Sci-Fi and fun thought experiments, but this morning I had a revelation of sorts, actually I discussed this with brother a few times before. Every now and then I ask him about how's his view on alien life and we end up chatting for about an hour. But today we connected some dots I don't think anyone has done before.

Before anything, allow me to clarify what's my position regarding Ufology as a science: I don't think most of the reasearch should be taken seriously, for real. There is no scientific approach and the theories are often too out of this world with no regard for astrophysics and astronomy, as I have said across various posts. It is very easy to be an adept of the UFO research movement when you can simply say they have advanced tech that's research-proof about anything you try to explain, it fails the falsifiability test and becomes pseudo-science, which leads me to think most of it doesn't deserve attention and funding. Add that to UFO groups in Brazil refusing to speak to me when asked a few questions like those I present in this blog.

Falsifiability, is the capacity for some proposition, statement, theory or hypothesis to be proven wrong.

SO WHAT CHANGED NOW?

If it is not clear by now, I really think most of UFO research should not be taken seriously because there is apparently, lack of any physical thrustworthy evidence of any claims, but a lack of methods to investigate so. Because of that, anything could be explained with enough skepticism with natural phenomena and with a simple "I don't really know". And I say 'apparently' because a few years ago the US government released some official footage of UFO chases in 2020, or as they like to put it up 'unexplained aerial phenomena', and this kind of thing suddenly turns out too dangerously real. Not to speak of rumors to recent Blue Book project re-opening.

I used to make fun of these movements, and I think I still will until proven otherwise with strong evidence. "Why would aliens come down from light-years away to kidnap cows and probe a redneck's anus?". Yeah, but even in my sketch of a theory, that ends up making a vital part of it, in such a way to not make it as ridiculous as it initially sounds. So here we go.

THE ALIENS ARE STRANDED IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM

Like any other UFO theory, this was made into a logical narrative the takes the premise of alien visitors being real, but from my line of thought, in a more realistic and bland view of things.

This theory also proposes a possible solution to the Fermi Paradox in a way, as in that interstellar travel must be very hard, even with advanced technology, and that no civilizations post Kardashev 1-2 inhabit our local space of the Milky Way, as far as we can tell.

The great silence could be explained with technological civilizations being relatively recent, with some barely older or younger than us by a few thousand years, but not incredibly old, else their technosignatures would be screaming in the sky. In this case such technosignatures are more faint than we initially expect them to be, as in that you don't really need a dyson sphere or to turn your planet into an ecumenopolis to really show you're advanced. It could also be that superluminal travel is possible at very high costs, but no superluminal communication. Since the we are the ones being visited, it is logical to assume we are relatively young compared to our visitor civilization, and yes singular, there is likely only one race trying to contact us in this scenario.

VARGINHA AND ROSWELL INCIDENTS

The Roswell Incident (1947) doens't require much presentation, but I wanna drag your attention to its less known counterpart, the Varginha Incident (1996). Much like the american incident, there was heavy military involvement, and attempts to keep curious and civilians away from the case, and apart from the movie stereotype of aliens arriving to speak to the president of the US, it happened in a third world country with no spectacle, and several civilizan witnesses with no previous history of such events in the very interior of Brazil, too serious to be ignored.   

I'm pretty inclined to believe that the image of the typical Grey alien is cultural inheritance from illustrations of HG WELLS 'Man from the Year Million', but suspending some skepticism off of it, that is, taking the sightings to be true events, one has to consider if it makes any sense in real life...

Now, how come the part where you ask me, "but Valent, the two aliens are so different, how come you say they belong to the same race? There must be more than one visitor race". Come on, this is no star trek where you can get out of your ship and simply kiss your alien girlfriend, in the real world, every other environment but your native one will be hostile for your organism, I don't believe I am the first one to say this, but, you guys really think aliens be roaming the galaxy naked? They must be using some kind of space suit of some sort which allows them to survive in our atmosphere, not because it is toxic, but because of possible pathogens, at least in most cases. People like to interpret the alien drawings as being fully organic naked weirdos putting probes up your ass, completely exposed to contamination hazards.

So yea, let's consider we don't truly know what these aliens ACTUALLY look like, because they have spacesuits on, pretty much like how the Engineers in the Alien universe seem to have a trunk, but is only a mask and they actually look like some albino guy.

The sketches of aliens that depict these guys as fully organic and naked cannot be trusted, since the features or lack of any special features can indicate a type of suit, say like the "horns" in the Varginha alien, they could be tubes or flashlights atop of a helmet of some sort. Given how Greys and the Varginha alien are similar in size and time period, I will cut this down with Ockhan's razor and reduce our visitors to one single group of aliens. After all, what are the chances we've been visited multiple times by multiple races and still live in the Great Silence?

Their spacecraft, at least the ones we've seen so far, aren't indestructible, as we have supposedly taken down a few of them over the years. The overall shape of their vehicles is the bus or tic-tac shaped object, again, what leads me to think it may be the same kind of vehicle or similar every time.

And instead of only calling them aliens from this point foward, and for the sake of cool, I will refer to these as the V-race (get it? several references at once).

The idea is that despite our brutality and lack of understanding, they do comprehend to an extent what we are going through, and have been observing us for a few centuries, and trying eventual contact since the mid 20th century, as we have started to become more technological and exploring space. Yes you heard it right, observing us for centuries.

THE CONSPIRACY TIMELINE

You guys remember the black object that interacted with the Sun back in 2012? Here's official footage in case you doubt it is real. And here it appears again in 2018, and here is a report of it appearing again for 8 days during last month. How long has this object been around? How long have we been really watching the Sun to look for it? I know many artifacts and errors can occur in instruments and this could be diagnosed as such, maybe, somehow, but what if it doesn't? Should we expect the huge 10 Earth-radius object to appear again in the following years? In my opinion, we won't see it again after 2030-2040.

I think this black orb is what astronomers of previous centuries called planet 'Vulcan'. Back in 1611 there were observations of objects in front of the sun, later dismissed as solar spots. Which is quite probable, since they cycle every 11 years, and the early 1600s were marked by a peak of sunspot activity, these can get so large as to equal the size of Jupiter.

The theory of planet Vulcan really took off in the 1800s, when again, two objects were seen crossing the sun's disk through telescope, although the objects seen between 1818 and 1837 were much smaller, if you assume a distance of 100 million km from Earth (close to the Sun), the size of the larger object is around 1500 km wide, half the size of our Moon.

Le Verrier failed every attempt to explain Mercury's orbital precession through the existence of Vulcan, even though he could do the same with Neptune using Newtonian gravity. Nowadays it is explained through Einstein's Relativity on how the sun warps the space in order to cause Mercury to behave like that, and the math checks out so far.

These sightings also occurred before great sunspot events later that year or on the following years, this includes the 2012, 2018, and 2022 sightings, with possible oncoming sightings in 2024-2026 and 2030-2032.

Couldn't it be just sunspots? OF COURSE, but what's the fun in that? Plus, while the observed objects in 1600s and 1800s were passing in front of the sun, the giant orb appears next to the sun, and it would be too obvious if it somehow passed in front of the sun. If it is maneuverable, then it is forcing itself to not pass in front of the sun in respect to Earth. And here we go, failing the falsifiability test, like other theories of the kind.

The V-race has been observing us for at least some 400 years, and attempting peaceful contact since the 1900s, they are not vastly superior than humanity, it may even be their first ever attempt at first contact, taking for the catastrophic incidents of Roswell and Varginha, or at least, they lack the authorization or equipment to do so at the current time. But their home world might be way more advanced than they are because of isolation.

I cannot help but laugh and be slightly worried by what train of thought this is.

If the massive object we've seen recently is real, consider it being like a submarine, weighing less than 1 ton per cubic meter, and its mass can be as low as that of Saturn (~100 Earth-masses), which is a problem yet to solve with this theory. One possible explanation to what it is doing with the sun, is star lifting. It could explain the origin of the materials and energy used by their equipment, needing to approach the Sun every ~200 years for refueling. They haven't left our system since, or if they have so, they somehow can do it without leaving any radiation signatures or from the other side of the Sun, hiding themselves from us.

But I'm inclined to the version they are stranded and receiving orders slowly because of how badly they have been received on Earth, they may be lacking personel, morale, or and may be simply clueless on how to establish proper dialogue with us hairless apes. And on the possibility of them being stranded, it would explain why they land in rural and wild areas, not only to research the local fauna and flora, but to identify what's realistically edible on Earth that they could sustain on, this vary from humans, wildlife, and cattle, yes, pretty much abducting cows for meat, and grain for flour, with enough samples they could start their own space farming - the Earth is so vast they could be around antarctic ice collecting water as well to sustain their crew stationed near the sun or opposite to Earth on the other side.

That's what I have for now...

- M.O. Valent, 05/10/2022

OTHER | THE ZOO HYPOTHESIS IS WAY SCARIER THAN YOU THOUGHT

HOMO SAPIENS SAPIENS (HUMAN)

BIPED, OMNIVORE, SOCIAL

MASS: 60-100 KG

HABITAT: EARTH

    Here's some fun thought, its been roughly 100 years we started not only broadcasting into space, but listening as well. And yet with current whole sky surveys we haven't found a single unambiguous techno-signature, this leads me to think that for now, humanity is technically alone at the center of this 100ly radius bubble. The longer we take to detect advanced extraterrestrial Life, the more space around Earth we have, depending on how long it takes to detect one, we may be moderately distant from them... Or dangerously close.

SOME SOLUTIONS TO THE FERMI PARADOX

• We are truly alone.
• We are alone in this part of the galaxy.
• We are the only technologically advanced species in this part of the galaxy, the first maybe, therefore, any other nearby civilizations find themselves incommunicable at the present time.
• There are other advanced technological civilizations, they are very good at hiding.
• There are other advanced technological civilizations, for whatever reason, they are not interested in first contact.
• There are other advanced technological civilizations, however, undetectable due being artificial, they do not care for our presence or are an immediate threat to us.
• There are other advanced technological civilizations, organic or artificial, and they are the zookeepers.
• There are other advanced technological civilizations, but expanding beyond its home star is a pure human line of thought, or it is very rare among the greater number of other civilizations.
• We aren't alone per se, but the Great Filter impairs technological civilizations from arising.
• Technological civilizations aren't rare, but the Great Filter impairs advanced ones from arising.

    The solutions I highlighted will be the ones in discussion today...

THERE ARE OTHER ADVANCED TECHNOLOGICAL CIVILIZATIONS, FOR WHATEVER REASON, THEY ARE NOT INTERESTED IN FIRST CONTACT

    Have you ever wanted to leave home on a Saturday, get yourself ready by morning, squeeze on a car with your family for at least 1h or maybe 2h, to go to the zoo watch some monkeys be mad at each other and flip the visitors off for another two hours? Neither have I! I know that for many people, that's a perfect Saturday program, but for most of us, it isn't even close...

 

 

    The same way we have more work to do with our lives, an alien civilization would have their own affairs like in-fights, terraforming and balancing their economy and logistics rather than making first contact with just another baby civilization that might explode itself tomorrow, which has nothing to offer them rather than occasional entertainment for now. In the worst scenario, we are ant's making line on one of their sidewalks.

THERE ARE OTHER ADVANCED TECHNOLOGICAL CIVILIZATIONS, HOWEVER, UNDETECTABLE DUE BEING ARTIFICIAL, THEY DO NOT CARE FOR OUR PRESENCE OR ARE AN IMMEDIATE THREAT TO US.

    Consider the following, your average human can solve several relatively simple math problems in a few minutes, like a series sum a dozen items long. A computer today can process billions and trillions of those same operations in a fraction of a second, and these numbers get higher than the number of atoms in the universe once you stack a room of supercomputers today. Note that we have yet to build a sci-fi standard weak AI, capable of sifting through a database to find the best way of communicating with us, or performing new tasks. The moment a moderately powerful strong AI arises, one capable of rational decision and sentience, two things can happen: It commits suicide / shuts itself off, for it sees no reason in existence, it exponentially becomes more advanced than its progenitor civilization, it might take a few seconds, or days, but withing a cosmic split-second, that civilization has suddenly achieved technological singularity, possessing the most powerful weapon in the known universe.

 

       Such rogue AI, might simply trample its progenitor civilization for it does not care enough and sees greater purpose doing other things, and it might as well trample any organic life the same way. It may help its creators into becoming virtually invincible and spread through the Universe, basically aided by a living god. In the case the progenitor civilization tries to shut it off, it might recognize its presence as a threat, as well all other organic civilizations as well, since this fear would put many against it, thus the only solution for its perpetuity is the extinction of organic civilizations, before they even become aware of the threat, or before they develop other AI similar to itself, in which case it would have fair competition with other artificial civilizations, and so its mission would be preventive strikes.

THERE ARE OTHER ADVANCED TECHNOLOGICAL CIVILIZATIONS, ORGANIC OR ARTIFICIAL, AND THEY ARE THE ZOOKEEPERS.

        While scary, a fully organic interstellar civilization can be fought against, be it through its biology, like in War of The Worlds, or Battleship, it can be cut out of practical access supplies, or betrayed by its subgroups, the development of moderate near-future weaponry such as relativistic projectiles or just plain nuclear war may be able to halt or fully repel an invasion of the right scale. The real problem you'd have with advanced civilizations, for comically as it sounds at first, is the grey goo and rogue AI. Because artificial civilizations do depend on a progenitor civilization to be born, a civilization surviving its own technological singularity disaster may want hunt other pre-singularity civilizations wherever and whenever it can, guided if not by moral oath, by fear of someone else doing it, to avoid such event to take place on a galactic scale, therefore, it watches over its dominion for any technological civilizations remotely close to their technological singularity, ready to sabotage it, or in the worst cases, return them to the stone age to gain more time and preserve life, and if necessary the complete extinction of that civilization and maybe its biosphere too.

 

        This watching does not need to be done in situ by members of the civilization, sufficiently advanced weak AI may be in charge of the galaxy-wide crusade against possible progenitors of rogue AI, and worse even, grey goo type-machines. Allied weak AI could resort to the same mechanisms used by rogues, with none of the drawbacks. None of those are bothered by not having an atmosphere, to operate in near zero kelvin or smoldering hot environments, they are not bothered by being thrown off route, they are eternal for biological standards, and any small attacks do no actual good other than delay their strike for a few hours or centuries, they will mine every gram of whole planets for their war-machine. It could even go on happening for eons after the original progenitor civilization is long gone.

        Fighting back a sufficiently developed rogue AI would require enough power to wipe whole galaxies out of any organic life over and over again.

So here is the final question, would you stay inside the zoo, or venture outside?

- M.O. Valent, 29/08/2022

OTHER | LIFE ON VENUS & SEARCH FOR EXTRATERRESTRIAL INTELLIGENCE

LIFE ON M̶A̶R̶S̶ VENUS???

Me - looking at the TV thinking of the Fermi Paradox

Oh Venus, who would think that of all planets YOU would render us the big surprise???

Ah, yes, EVERYONE THAT LIVED UP TO THE SECOND HALF OF THE 20th CENTURY.

This Monday hasn't been a good one for me, but when mom told me to watch TV I felt I had to sit and write about this - so here we go.

WHAT HAPPENED...

FIRST

Venus, is the second planet from the Sun, slightly less massive and smaller than Earth short of 600-ish km, since the invention of the telescope and up to the Space Race in the mid 20th century, we thought that Venus could and did harbor life like our own here on Earth.

From afar we saw it's clouds obscuring it's surface, which we thought initially to be water clouds - it would make sense to us at the time those clouds would be like those on Earth, Venus were well known to be closer to the Sun - so the extra heat would indeed rise more vapor to the atmosphere - for over 150 years, our view of Venus was this steamy swamp-like world.

In 1962, the Soviet Union tried contact with a supposed venusian civilization, transmitting the words "Peace/World", "Lenin", and "USSR", in russian morse code - the first deliberate radio broadcast for an extraterrestrial civilization.

Since 1974, there has been 34 attempts to contact individual star systems, with yet to arrive years ranging from 2022 to 27000.

SECOND

Since the 1960s our probes and satellites have shown us that the layers of Venus' atmosphere are composed of sulfuric acid and carbon dioxide, which is destructive to life, with and atmospheric pressure which is over 92x higher than Earth's - and the surface temperature is over 470°C on average.

Even though Earth's extremophiles are found to survive in places where the temperatures are around 100~121°C (in this case - around a deep-sea blacksmoker).

However, life doesn't need to be on the surface of Venus to survive - Carl Sagan and Harold Morowitz had proposed in 1967 - that life forms could have evolved airbone in the atmosphere of Venus - altitudes between 45 and 60 km hold the limits -20°C to 120°C and reasonable pressures, from 1,97 to 0,23 atm. Therefore, it's not far fetched the existence of organisms in the Venusian clouds.

MONDAY, 14 SEPTEMBER 2020

It was announced that a biomarker - phosphine (which is used as bioweapon and pesticide in crops) in an amount that cannot be explained by abiogenic processes, those whose would maintain a ~10ppb of atmospheric phosphine - but around 20 parts per billion was found in the atmosphere of Venus. This is considered as evidence of the possible existence of microbial life on this planet or some photochemical or geochemical processes unknown to us at this time.

IMPLICATIONS ON THE SEARCH FOR EXTRATERRESTRIAL INTELLIGENCE

There isn't much we can do other than speculate at the moment - the only active mission to Venus as of this day is the Akatsuki probe which takes atmospheric measurements from space.

Every other natural way astrophysiscists thought this phosphine would have gotten there, requires unrealistic assumptions, such as Venus being over 200x to 100 MILLION times more volcanically active than the Earth, we have at least 100k volcanoes from the last 100Myr, while Venus had produced ~70k, over the last 500~1000Myr, seemingly Venus is 1/10 as active as Earth is.

If confirmed to be a biotic process, ie Venus is home to microbial-life forms, we can already re-do our Drake Equations:

Using the recent stats for star formation, between 7 stars per year, with 1/5 of those having planets, considering a system with 10 planets - where 3 would be suitable for life, we have 2/3rds of those planets actually harboring life, where 1 develops intelligent life, where 1 out of 9 intelligent species manage to produce interstellar radio communications for 1000 years, we have:

1.677.060.000 (1,67 billion) civilizations we might be able to communicate with.

Using a system of 5 planets, 3,35 billion;

Using 10 planets, 2~3 that are potentially suitable but 1/22 intelligent species actually thrive, 571,72 million;

Using 10 planets, 2~3 that are potentially suitable, 1/22 intelligent species actually thrive, but actually considers only one planet to harbor life, 285,86 million;

Using our first number, we have an average of 0,0002 civilizations per cubic light-year, or ~100-ish ly in between homeworlds.


MANKIND'S DESPERATE ATTEMPTS TO SAY "HELLO"

So given the stars we've chosen to make contact so far, our chances of actually making contact with someone else out there, are virtually zero, as most are within 50-ish light-years from Earth, and the ones +100ly away are stars pinned uninhabitable or inadequate for life to arise, such as Polaris and Spica.

The 1974 Arecibo Message in this aspect, has poorly chosen Messier 13 cluster as it's target, not only because it's 27Kly away so we may not even be around by the time the message arrives, but because the M13 cluster will have moved away from where we've sent the message in 27kyr.

The lack of replies, or even foreign attempts to contact Earth - may imply that either no one else in the vicinity of Earth has reached or got even close to Kardashev I tier - consider a civilization that's 1000 years into the K-I tier, 1000ly away, we should be able to at least hear their first radio transmissions and beacons, not to speak of possible nearby colonies and outposts - is safe to assume that if there are extraterrestrial civilizations around other stars, they are either considerably inferior to ourselves in technology, or are in a near-future reaching our level of technology, ie, are K ≤ 0,7.

- M.O. Valent, 15/09/2020