A continuation of The Visitor

It took Randall three years to verify enough of the results in the paper given to him by the visitor to conclude it was genuine. It had been a difficult task, as he did not want to reveal the existence of the paper to his students and colleagues. Instead he used it to guide his students and his own research in particular directions, that ultimately confirmed some of the results of the paper. Of course he published the intermediate results, and apparently the visitor was watching the publications. He met the visitor again one evening, as he went for a stroll along the river.

"Hello Randall."

"Oh, hi, how are you? It’s been a while!"

"Yes. I noticed your publications, and I figured you were ready to believe my story."

"Yes, although I don’t want to. But even if you were a super genius you couldn’t have put together that paper by yourself. I’ve only verified a few of the assertions in that paper so far, and it would have taken you many years to arrive at those conclusions on your own."

"Exactly. We have an extensive lab of course, with many very smart people working there. And of course we are given many results up front, rather than having to derive them ourselves."

"Right. But what’s the point of all this then? I doubt the results in the paper will drastically change the course of world history?"

"You are probably correct. The point of the paper was to establish credibility, not to change the world."

"Very well, I believe you. Now what?"

"Well, first I’m curious to hear your opinion on current events and what if anything you think can or should be done about it."

"That’s a tough question! I obviously don’t agree with the war; in one form or another it’s been going on for almost twenty years now. It seems to me a grandiose waste of resources and it’s likely to lead to catastrophe if it continuous much longer."

"Our assessment as well. What to do about it?"

"That I don’t know. I don’t suppose your aliens are picking sides in this conflict?"

"Not really. Nor will they ride in their cavalry to clean it up. It’s too messy and in any case it would solve nothing if we just came down from the sky and made it all stop. The underlying forces would continue, and as soon as we’d leave, things would start up again."

"Why, are they planning to leave then?"

"They might. I don’t know, but I doubt they’re staying here forever."

"So it’s ’they’ now, not ’we’?"

"Yes, after being down here so long it’s hard to maintain that association. But we digress. What should be done about it?"

"I don’t know. Maybe if you established a Martian colony that would jar people awake? Maybe it would start to convince people they need to work together. Or better yet, divert an asteroid towards Earth. That’ll work!"

"Yes, now you’re talking. The Mars idea is interesting, but ultimately fails in our simulations. Our species is too competitive; even if Earth unifies, it quickly leads to armed conflict with Mars."

"Really, you can simulate the future?"

"In very broad outlines, yes. At least we can feed in certain initial conditions and assumptions, and see what happens over time. It’s all probabilities of course, but the model tends to be pretty accurate compared to past history."

"What about the asteroid idea?"

"That fails for the same reasons that direct intervention would. It would cause a temporary interruption to the hostilities. If you weren’t able to prevent a collision, which is likely, then we’d have to intervene. As soon as the threat passes however, everything goes back to normal, i.e. the fighting starts up again eventually."

"Well, genetic modification perhaps? Weed out the killer instinct so to speak."

"That’s very risky. It almost always leads to stagnation and decline, because it is so tightly coupled with competition and expansion."

"So, what’s so bad about that? I mean what is your goal here anyway? Is it to turn Earth into some sort of peace paradise? It sounds like you don’t know how to do that, which isn’t surprising."

"No, that is not our goal."

"Ok, then let’s discuss goals before we discuss methods? What is the goal?"

"That is a very good question. The goal is to facilitate the transition to a post-technological society, ultimately resulting in the dispersal of humanity."

"Dispersal as in disappearance, or dissemination?"

"Both. Ultimately humanity is doomed if you remain here on Earth indefinitely. This is obvious."

"Yes, that is true. But why do they care? If we were to successfully spread into the galaxy wouldn’t we be competing with them?"

"No. They have no permanent settlements in this galaxy, and have no interest in establishing any."

"What! They are not even from this galaxy?"

"That’s correct. But we are the only native sentience they have found here. They want to see how we develop. Maybe to compare it to their own history? Or maybe to alleviate the sense that they are unique or alone in the universe. They already know that sentience is rare. They fear that space-faring sentience is even rarer. So rare perhaps that they are the only species within traveling distance of their origin to have reached this level. But they don’t have enough data to know for sure."

"But then why interfere? Why not let us develop on our own. Wouldn’t interfering pollute the experiment?"

"Not really. The chance of failure is extremely high. They don’t want to risk that."

"Great! They’re more concerned about our survival than we are! This is all very strange."

"Yes, but some of us do care enough about our survival to work for it. Hopefully you are one of those."

"Well, sure, but I’m still not clear on what to do about it. You mentioned something about post-technological. What does that mean?"

"It’s a stage of development where almost no new technologies remain to be discovered. Of course there would still be much about the universe that was unknown, but there would be very few new technologies that would have a significant impact on the society’s ability to expand."

"Well that seems unlikely to happen anytime soon. What does that actually look like?"

"For starters, it would mean that we were able to use nearly all available energy for our own purposes, primarily of course the purpose of expansion. In other words, enough food, water, medicines, etc. so that all living humans could contribute to the goal of expansion, instead of merely struggling for survival."

"Ok. Is that even possible?"

"Yes. The Sun produces enough energy for this purpose, and smaller-scale nuclear fusion is another option that could be exploited. Another available energy source is the Earth itself of course"

"But it would require a high degree of coordination and cooperation to keep this society running smoothly? And what would they be doing all day? Building ships?"

"Yes, but that coordination can be achieved with sufficiently advanced computers. Some humans would provide creative input, but most would just be breeding to fill the transports."

"How does that work then? You can’t really get people out of Earth’s gravity well in significant numbers, even if you had all this energy available. It would just take too long!"

"Correct. A much more effective strategy is to consume the Earth itself. Turn the Earth into a ball of tightly clumped space transports, and then synchronize their dispersal. This would allow the entire population to be space-lifted."

"What! Consume the Earth? That is insane!"

"Not really. Earth is a temporary vessel for humanity in any case. In a few million years plate tectonics stops, and the Earth freezes. Assuming it isn’t smashed to bits by space debris before that happens. An even more likely scenario is that the sun increases it’s output by a few more percentage points, boiling off the oceans and the atmosphere. Or a series of super volcano explosions exterminate most living things, including humans. This does not even take into consideration our self-destructive tendencies."

"But these events would take thousands or millions of years before they would occur?"

"Correct. It would certainly take at least a thousand years for humans to reach a post-technological stage, with our help. After that it would still take hundreds or thousands of years to convert the Earth into transports. But on galactic time scales this is nothing of course."

"But why destroy the Earth in the process? Why not colonize the solar system first, and then send out ships to other stars?"

"Of course that is exactly what you would do. But you have to send out a lot of ships, and you have to do it quickly. Many ships will fail to reach their destination, or will be unable to create sustainable settlements when they get there. To protect against such a high failure rate, you have to send out massive numbers in waves. The first wave would come from the Earth, literally. Subsequent waves would follow from Mars, Venus, Mercury, and then the satellites of the gas giants. Finally the gas giants themselves could be converted as well."

"But why abandon the solar system? Isn’t it a perfectly good place to
live?"

"Perhaps. Some people will undoubtedly stay behind, living in orbiting habitats and so on. But sacrificing the inner planets is a necessity, and they are all too close to the sun to be inhabitable for much longer anyway. That time window is closing down; the sun’s brightness has already increased about 30% since the Earth’s formation."

"Well, I guess you speak from their experience, but it is all a bit frightening to me you understand. We humans are not accustomed to thinking in terms of such long timescales."

"Of course. But anyway it is too far into the future for you to worry about. The important thing right now is to ensure that technological progress continuous without major interruptions. The current war itself is not necessarily a setback, unless it involves a nuclear exchange, which is currently unlikely. But not impossible of course. More importantly, we have to plan for the future, and that means disarming and focusing on technological innovation that leads towards our goal. Otherwise we risk a collapse, stagnation or regression of civilization, and that would mean a major setback to the goal."

"Do you have any suggestions then?"

"We do have some ideas. But we want to first get input from you and other natives. Our models are based only on external observation, and therefore we might miss an obvious solution or a key fact."

"Do we have time for that?"

"Yes, we believe so. A few more years here or there won’t matter. So that’s your homework for next time. To come up with solutions."

"But I’m not a political scientist?" Randall protested.

But the visitor had already taken off in full sprint, leaving Randall alone with a lot to think about.