“Happy 22nd birthday Pree.” Sophie thought in an encrypted conversation on their private network. Their friends joined in.
“Thanks guys. I wish it were happier. It seems like we’re going to be stuck here forever. The two months here so far could turn into 20 years at this rate. The President can’t make up her mind about us. Nobody else can either. The 50% of the population who want us sterilized are blaming us for the bad economy. Our supporters are fighting with the protesters. The stock market is down 60%. We should give up and get sterilized so we can move on with our lives. We have our genetic backups. We can still have kids naturally in our own time because of our backups. They don’t know that. We’re 22 going on 15 anyway. I’m not going to be ready for kids for a long time. Maybe when I’m 50 or 60.”
“Yeah, we gotta get out of here,” Raven thought. “I’m getting nervous ever since that AI probe moved from the asteroid belt to near the L1 Lagrangian point. Right near that gravity neutral sweet spot between the Earth and Sun. It’s getting a close look at us now. Even NASA hasn’t detected it, despite having three satellites nearby. I don’t know what the other probes are doing. I’m still not sure if we should tell anyone about this. I need to get to work with Bok on trying to understand this thing. We all need to get back to work because the human species isn’t ready for this AI thing. Especially since the Omanji didn’t feel ready for it either. I mean, an AI singleton the size of an entire planet? The probe could unpack and squash us like a bug if it wanted. Does it even know what it wants? Sitting here in this compound is doing no good.”
“I agree,” Warren thought. “I’ve been slowly getting back into the market in anticipation of us getting out of here. Since my net worth is at the $300 billion limit, I’m having to give my profits away to trust funds and charities. I’ll make $200 billion if we are released. That leverage will be worth something.”
“They could sterilize us and let us go,” Pablo thought. “It wouldn’t be a real sterilization. They’ll think we’re sterilized. However legally speaking, they could throw us back in here later if they feel like it.”
“We’ll have to take that risk,” Priya thought.
Priya contacted the President with tears rolling down her cheek. Soon she was waking up from the short procedure as were her 25,000 friends one by one as they came and went from the operating amphitheater. Their families came to visit afterwards.
“How are you feeling, Pree?” Nisha said.
“I feel empty. Sick to my stomach. I feel violated, but so what? This is over and I can get out of here. I need to get back to work.”
“You can’t stuff your feelings,” Nisha said. “The more you stuff it, the more backed up your emotional state will get. You can’t pretend your way out of this one.”
“I’m in touch with my feelings.”
“That’s what you always say, but you ignore your feelings. Then they build up and eventually you explode. I’ve seen it happen so many times I’ve lost count. Just because you’re smart doesn’t mean you’ve evolved beyond having feelings and emotions.”
“Fine. I hate the people who want me sterilized. They suck. They’re ignorant, uneducated, backward hillbillies. If I had my way, I’d have them sterilized. All they’re doing is propagating their ignorance and stupidity.”
“Good.” Nisha said. “You need to get it out. You need to address your emotions. I don’t think it’s a promising idea to sterilize people and call them names though.”
“Yeah, I know. I’d be doing the same thing to them that they’re doing to me. Hatred goes around in an endless cycle, but I still think they’re ignorant.”
“Part of what they say is right, “Sophie said. “They know things are changing and they’re not part of it. Humans could go extinct and be replaced by us. They feel left out of the progress we’re making. They’re losing their jobs as they have for decades now. We’re partially the cause of them losing their jobs. Many would have been lost if we didn’t exist. Tech would advance without us.”
“That’s why I am recycling my profits into job retraining to help those people,” Raven said. “Warren is recycling his profits too. We all are.”
“You need to make them realize that,” Nisha said.
“How are you doing with the autism study?” Quinn said.
“We’re making substantial progress,” Priya said. “Even with me being gone. I think within about a year we’ll be able to cure Sanjay’s autism. Or at least reduce the impact.”
“I don’t know if I want you messing with me,” Sanjay said. “I like the way I am.”
“We’ll see about that. Anyway, I’m feeling sick and depressed right now. Can we talk later? I want to go to sleep.”
“Okay, we’ll talk later,” Nisha said.
The visitors left as more new species patients continued to pass through the operating theater. Within a few days, all 25,000 modified people had been sterilized. Or so the government thought. Within a week, most of them were back at home and at work. Life resumed as normal. The first thing they did was restore some of their eggs and other genetic stem cells and they were back to normal. They kept some in reserve. The world governments had no idea about the technical expertise of the Mod doctors. A week later, they convened a meeting. Nisha listened electronically.
“Bok, I’m worried about the AI probe.” Raven thought silently to him and her friends in the room. “I know you wanted to see us all in person and tell us what you’ve learned. What’s happening?”
“I’m glad you’re all back home. I was getting worried because the standoff never seemed to end. I have news to report. A second probe is now near the first one. We’re not exactly sure when this happened, but it was some time in the last couple of days. This probe also is part of the AI singleton. It’s about the same size as the other one. A little larger, in the range of about 5 m in circumference. We can’t get close enough to tell what’s happening with them without alerting NASA. They would want to know what we’re doing near the A1 Lagrangian point. NASA also has satellites near there but hasn’t detected the probes. The Singleton now has the capability to monitor a good portion of what’s happening on Earth and other planets nearby. It knows there are a million Omanji like me still on this planet. It also knows the level of human technological development on this planet. Or it will know in about 558 years when the signal reaches the AI-1 home world. It might know we modified 25,000 humans. I still have no evidence that it possesses faster than light communications capabilities, but these probes do know about us here on the earth right now. I don’t know how they’ll behave. They were just setting up around Oma when we left. So, we never found out. They’re doing nothing on Oma as of 23 years ago.”
“That’s why I wanted to get out of that prison,” Raven thought. “I feel we need to catch up. What’s waiting for us out there? The human species spends its time squabbling with itself when greater dangers might be out there waiting for us.”
“It’s all so petty,” Sophie thought. “An asteroid or that AI thing could be headed our way, but we’re too preoccupied to do anything about it.”
“We need to focus,” Raven thought. “As a species.”
“Do you think they know we still have our biological backups?” Priya thought.
“No,” Raven thought. “We’ve been monitoring most official government communications and discussions in the houses of Congress. They think the crisis has passed. They don’t I think we’ll legally be able to reproduce ever. They made sure to get every one of my thousands of eggs I left inside me. They’re still not sure what to do about the two million children around the world who have our genetics. They’re about four years old now. They’re pushing that decision off to a future date.”
“Don’t worry about them,” Warren thought. “We’ll be supporting them. I’ve set up trust funds and they’ll have access to them for their education and legal defenses. If they have problems, we can bring them here. We need to be careful, so the public doesn’t get paranoid about this. I’ll be donating lots of money to worthy causes outside our own. Since the market has recovered so much lately, I’ve made a lot of money for my trust funds. We’re all doing this.”
“My solution of using bacteria as drones to hunt down cancer cells is doing well,” Ian thought. “I’ll announce that most of my profits will go into trust funds in order to help out the victims of cancer. Someday we can use nano scale drones just like the Omanji.”
“I’m going to do the same thing with my profits,” Oyuun thought. “Every few months I’m doubling my output of antimatter created with the energy from my fusion reactors. I’m saving some for my Proxima Centauri probe. Oil prices have crashed so I want to retrain those oil workers.”
“I have some news, “Raven thought. “The strawberry picking robots we’ve been working on, picked an entire field with no bruising completely by themselves. I’m replicating the robots now. I’ve set up a fund to help those who have lost their jobs. We’re going to do this one industry at a time. Mr. Roe from Roebots is helping us out too. He’s made lots of job taking robots. People will be able to do more fulfilling things now with their time. It’s hard to walk the tightrope between capitalism and post-capitalism.”
Don’t you think we’re putting too many people out of work too quickly?” Sophie thought.
“I don’t think so,” Raven thought. “For the past 200 years, jobs have been replaced by technology and automation. Tens of thousands of telephone operators were employed to connect every single phone call one at a time. People lit streetlights by hand one at a time. People used to bring ice from the Arctic regions and cut it into large blocks which could be placed in kitchen ice boxes one at a time. People used to plant and harvest large fields of corn and wheat by hand. That’s all been replaced by machines. They were able to find work in offices and factories. It’s harder to for them to find work now because jobs requiring little training are disappearing. The help we’re giving them will get them into new fields of work. The prices for everything we do is dropping, so that will help also. I think someday we’ll look back at jobs like restaurant work, office work, online work, and picking strawberries in the same way we look at telephone switching operators. There are more rewarding things people can do with their lives. People who used to be forced out of jobs by automation, could get other jobs which created profits for their new employers. But those days are over. The new jobs are often not profit-making. However, we don’t want to give away fee money and make people lazy.”
“Somehow we’ve got to let people know this,” Sophie thought. These protesters want their old jobs back, but they’re not coming back. They’re blaming us for taking their jobs and profiting from their misfortune.”
“We have some good news too,” Priya thought. “We located many of the gene sequences responsible for our longevity and our increased intelligence. I say we because everyone at Genomaly helped out. I still don’t know how the Omanji managed to modify us when they only knew for a few days how our genomes were constructed. I feel happy just to have discovered some of what they changed.”
“See Priya?” Bok thought. “You didn’t need our help to figure it out. I’m impressed.”
“Thanks Bok. We’re also getting close to understanding autism,” Priya thought.
“We’ve also developed several vaccines,” Sophie thought. “They’re going through the approval process now. One by one we’re going to get rid of several major diseases. We’ve got to do something about those protests though.”
“We’re trying,” Pablo thought. “We’re meeting with the protest leaders to tell them about our plans.”
“I don’t know what good that will do,” Sophie thought.
“We’re going to try our best to be fair about this,” Priya thought. “The world is changing more quickly than ever. People need to get used to it. We can’t go back to the past.”
“Bok, did you have something to tell us?” Priya thought.
“Yes. The Omanji are two light years away now and accelerating. Last night I received a message from the Omanji leader, Zon, indicating that they’re sending a large database to me. I think he wants to help us survive. It took several hours for us to receive it. We’ve only had a few hours to look at it so far.”
Tell him I said Hi,” Nisha thought.
Priya smiled. Bok turned a pleasant blue.
“What did you find in the data?” Priya thought.
“Since we were focusing on looking for life forms on other planets in the old database, we decided to look for life forms in the new one. There are more. The old database had information extending out about 120 light years from Oma. We found intelligent life on Earth, and on one other planet where the technological civilization went extinct. We also found the planet with the AI-1 singleton. We’ve found information in the new database going out as far as 200 light years from Oma. That’s over eight times the volume compared to a 100 light year radius we knew about before. Within 200 light years, we know of about 120,000 stars with enough mass to support planets. 80,000 are red dwarfs, like my star, Pfeex. 10,000 are sun-like. The others are unstable. About 1,000 have planets between 0.5x and 3x earth’s mass, orbiting in the habitable zone. So far, we know of 250 with life signs in their atmospheres. Statistically, life is evenly spread out within a 200 light year radius. The new data show 8 planets besides Earth, Oma, and AI-1 with indications of technological development. One of those appears to have recently gone through some sort of trauma due to elevated levels of radiation like what happened on Oma. They may still be surviving. One appeared to have a technological civilization but was impacted by a large object. Two of them used to have a technological civilization but now none exists. I haven’t discovered why yet.”
“What about the other four?” Priya thought.
“One of them has a borderline AI singleton or something similar. We can tell there used to be biologically based lifeforms, but now we don’t know what is happening there. I suppose you want to know about the other three, right?”
“Yes.” Nisha said through her encryption device.
“There are three planets, all more than 100 light years away but less than 200, which have technological civilizations. They’re new compared to the age of the galaxy. None of them are significantly more advanced than the Omanji. One of them, on what you call K2-72 e, is technologically at the same level as the Omanji and may know about other life forms including us, based on their analysis of the atmospheres of planets. It’s 181 light years away and is similar to Oma with a red dwarf star. The other two are not in your catalogs.”
“This makes me think about the great filter and why we see no lifeforms more advanced than the Omanji,” Nisha thought. “It’s more than just civilizations destroying themselves or having natural disasters. Evidence suggests technological civilization is a new thing in this galaxy, compared to its age.”
“What does that mean for us?” Priya thought.
“It means technological civilizations are just beginning to sprout now in the last 0.1% of the history of the galaxy,” Nisha thought. “But this is only within a 200 light year radius. In between galactic arms. It’s too small of a sample to generalize about the galaxy.”
“Is that good or bad?” Sophie thought.
“It’s both,” Nisha thought. “It’s exciting that other lifeforms are out there, but it makes me nervous. It means there’s no way to know what will happen when we meet them. It means we may fall behind as more civilizations develop. We met one already and we see how that turned out. Fortunately, they weren’t too aggressive. What about the next time? What about the AI life forms? What if we met the Omanji and were able to fight back? Bok, what do you think?”
“We have three entities to deal with within the 200 light year radius, plus AI-1 and possibly AI-2. I’ll see what else I can find out. We’re still looking through our data. If humans had forcefully resisted our colonization, especially after the colony was built, I can’t guess what would have happened. The Omanji can be aggressive when provoked. If the highest-level weapons were used against a stronger human force, a sizable portion of the earth’s biosphere would have been destroyed. If we found out the humans were stronger than us before we landed, we would have been driven off. So, we could go either way. We may not have approached Earth in the first place if we thought it had an advanced civilization. The damaged planets we discovered may have been the result of self-destruction, or a war with another planetary society. I’ll also find out more about the two AI entities.”
“Thanks Bok,” Nisha thought. “Tell us as soon as you know. We need to decide what to tell the world if anything.”