Across the Sea of Stars

Answers to the Questionnaires

We've gotten a lot of interesting answers to the questionnaires. Here are some of them, in no particular order:

Age of Expansion question

Christopher Chaney: Our probes, sent before even Mars-base was set up, have finally returned. Many were lost, most came back negative, but a small few gave hints that life could be possible at different star systems. No way to be sure, and it is a very long journey. Those that go will never return to Earth, never see it again. And probably they will die, finding nowhere that is habitable to humans. But we must try. A leap of faith in slow spaceships that our children will learn to fly. Basic spacestation technology, able to support us until the machinery goes through all of its spare parts... 50 years probably to find resources, find someplace to live...

John D'Agosta: "Shipping us out was the best thing they could do for stability at home. There we were causing problems. By giving us our wish to try for the next star over they settle things at home and rake in the glory if we make it. That's all right though, we all get what we want out of it. Glad my son was the one who made up this newfangled 'lightsail'. Sure hope it works. Who would have thought we'd be sailing the old fashion way with a ship that could hold half a million and travel between stars?"

Lisa Padol: The next Galaxy, frozen, waking up periodically for exercise and to take readings and make sure the ship is still functioning correctly.

Paul Wayner: Our scientists have constructed a wormhole generator that will send us to (and back from) gravity wells, and using fine tuning we can ensure we will land on the surface of a planet that's the right size, but we can't control which one yet. So we have to use trial and error.

Lawrence Lee: We are going to orbit, to the near edges of the Great Dark, and we are doing it through chemical reaction rockets. There is risk, but also great rewards... especially to be among the first to go there.

Justin Stamen: The telescopes have found signs of life around a nearby star, we have spun solar sails around an astroid, and the coldsleep and inertia supression systems work well in tests. It will take many decadecycles to get there, but soon we will walk on a second planet and call it ours.

Simon Deveau: We will travel to the nearest uninhabited star system for the purpose of obtaining resources and territory for our race. We will use the most advanced technology available. We will include the armaments necessary to subjugate or eliminate any lo-tech species we encounter. All members will be thoroughly screened to make sure they have loyalties to race 1st, coterie 2nd. This will allow use to break any rules we deem necessary.

Kathy Journeay: We are going on a the spaceship Terminator, named in honor of the great martyr and our 3rd World President Arnold Schwarzenegger. Because it is powered by spent nuclear waste (which gets the radioactive crap off the planet and it still has enough juice to make our ship fly) the crew affectionately refer to her as the GlowBug. We are going to the planet that we think is most likely to contain the natural resources required to sustain our race on and possibly off our ailing planet. Meanwhile, I have a secret task that was implanted in my neural cortex in a classified surgery authorized by current World President Nguin Lan Tok. Since Nguin is a known sociopath (how else do you get to be president?) I am desperately searching for a way to figure out what I have been programed to do before an unknown trigger sets me to doing it.

Doug Hoover: Assuming a relatively nascent effort, well... we are heading out on our first interstellar exploration/colonization mission, to the nearest star with a (only reasonably) habitable planet, on a generation ship. It is powered by Orion drive (lower stage, on the way out), a Bussard ramjet, and a solar sail (for braking, on the way in). We already know when we set out that there is an even chance that we'll get there only to find that our descendants have colonized the planet before us -- but hey, we have to go anyway. If we don't go, our descendants might not be inspired enough to figure out a better way...

Age of Contact question

Brandon Brylawski: I walk until I find a road, clearing, or other sign of intelligence, then sit on a rock and play my flute. What better way to both attract attention and declare peaceful intent?

Meredith Peck: You approach a new race the same way you'd approach a wild animal. First, don't sneak up on it. Make your presence obvious, but don't scare them. Note that non-threatening gestures help and whatever you do, don't carry obvious weapons! Next, approach what appears to be the center of civilization. It is likely that the head of whatever government resides here and that is who you must talk to. Go slow, give them time for your arrival. When you meet the reception party, greet them in your own native gestures, don't try to mimick them, it will only insult them. When you do eventually meet the head of the colony, remember to have brought him a present.

Paul Wayner: I setup a audio-visual-radio-smello device that continously transmitts basic math info to prove I'm another intelligent life form. Then I sit in a magnetically levitated lawn chair waiting for the fun.

Justin Stamen: If this is a civilized planet then I go to the central city on the planet I located from orbit and tell them "take me to your leader".

If this is not, I pick a likely spot and let them find me. I take no pains to hide, and make myself easy to spot. Fire, song, etc. Curiosity is one of the key signs of advanced life. And Natives will have better luck finding me then I will have finding them.

Brian Rust: Daycycle .1: Surrounding area checked for any obvious signs of life. (Like I should be so lucky.) Base camp and recording/monitoring equipment set up. Lures re-checked.

Daycycle .2: Lures placed at optimal points.

Daycycle .3: Vibrational pulse lure triggered; pulse sent out through soil. Results monitored.

Daycycle .4: Visual lure triggered; glowing lights pulsing through spectrum bob from lure to point quarter mile above surface. Results monitored.

Daycycle .5: Audio lure triggered, "pleasing" sounds in different frequencies emitted by lure. (Decision of techs to include Cher questioned.) Results monitored.

Daycycle .6: Lunch.

Daycycle .7: Testing hypothesis of telepathic lifeforms through guided meditation, projecting thoughts of being friendly curious being. (Total lack of) results monitored.

Daycycle .73: Continuing telepathic hoowa through guided meditation, projecting thoughts of being yummy helpless prey animal. Resu

Doug Hoover: Having only one day to make contact with a previously unknown species, I am glad to have some good information from orbital scans to start out with. We have quickly identified what are likely the population centers of the life-forms that have most made their mark upon the planet, and that appear in all the broadcasts in their EM bands. They are not nearly the same as we are, but it doesn't seem that we will have any trouble dealing with them as "people" -- we're used to that sort of thing. I really hope they can find it in themselves to reciprocate. As per protocol, our pilot and ambassadors three and four will be staying in orbit in our five-person hyper-capable scout ship, while I take a self-immolating orbital drop-pod to the surface. Bacon, our ship's AI, has spent the last several hourcycles analyzing planetary broadcasts in the EM band and believes that e has a pretty good grasp of the dominant language (enough for 98.3% accurate real-time translation -- hopefully, that will be sufficient for the delicate task at hand).

I drop to the surface (about 70 klicks outside one of the biggest population centers) with only a jumpsuit, light-weight filter mask, five local daycycles worth of food and water, and, of course, my implanted commlink, keeping me connected to the ship. I leave my jumpsuit cached near the empty area where I have landed, with my food supplies; the broadcasts indicate that the people here do not commonly make use of clothing, so I will not, either. Nakedness can leave one feeling a bit defenseless the first time out, but I am quite used to it by now -- given the rest of the situation, it doesn't matter, really. Far safer to fit in, as best I can.

I set about exploring the area and finding what we hope is a "typical" inhabitant by pure random sampling. (This procedure has proven, over the yearcycles, to be far better on average for getting a good sample in a short time than trying to communicate with the local leadership immediately -- though it does tend to be somewhat riskier, as well.) Making contact first with a random inhabitant on the outskirts of a population center gives the most statistically "average" sampling -- for those societies for which urbanization remains a significant social factor, at any rate. This seems to be the case for these people, from the orbital scans. Typical, for races that are just making their first hesitant steps into the void, and have therefore made it to the top of our long lists.

If the initial reaction is violently hostile -- which has certainly happened several times -- it means that I may well die; but I accept that as a necessary risk. The filter mask will convey relatively little information, if analyzed (merely my home atmosphere, which is over 300 light-years away), and my commlink will quietly self-destruct if my life-signs fail (after transmitting that fact to the ship in orbit). Risking the death of one, however, is far safer than what would be required to reasonably guarantee the survival of the one, or a team. That would require an implicit show of force that would be enough to seriously bias any future interactions with these people, in a way that is more likely to lead to hostilities, and many many deaths. Hence, I come with nothing, making and posing no possible threat; and even if I die, in my death I may succeed in conveying our message of a wish for peaceful relations, because I have been willing to make myself vulnerable. (Putting people at a diplomatic disadvantage because they feel guilty about the first contact rarely hurts us, either...)

I focus, and put my mind at rest. Better not to think on these possibilities; I am not here to convey fear, but confidence, and the desire for peace. I must find my first samples, and strike up a dialog; study their reactions quickly, but carefully, for the detailed report that I will write up, while ambassadors three and four run the next two missions. If things go well with the first meeting, I will then talk to people that they have put in positions of authority, if any, or members of any media, if judged appropriate. Ambassadors are given wide leeway to make judgments based on the current situation; our intuition is built up through years of intense study, training, and simulations. Our training is expensive (especially considering how many of us must be trained), but we must be the best... and the best we can be. What job could be more important than making first contact with an entire world? Or with twenty? I sometimes feel awed and honored, that I should have been chosen for the First Contact Diplomatic core.

One day, of course, is very little time to do anything but start the long and complex process of inter-species diplomacy; but it is all the time we can spare. With tens of thousands of civilized worlds in our immediate "neighborhood", and hundreds of new ones being discovered every standard yearcycle, it is all the diplomatic corps can do to keep up. Better to have a catalog of all the races out there, even at a superficial level; better to know about potential threats as soon as possible. From the look of it so far, this world may languish on our lists, with no one returning here to follow up for a decadecycle or more. They do not seem as culturally advanced as others we have visited. If they are rich in natural resources, it could swing the balance, and be an incentive for the quick development of trade. The initial analyzes of their broadcasts, however, show some tendency towards xenophobia... so it may simply not be worth the trouble. In any case, it could make this one a challenge. I may be killed, or held captive, or deem it unsafe (or simply unwise) to call for the pickup, in the end. This one could be it.

But I hope that this will not be the one, that I have many more First Contacts yet to make. Only one in twenty-three first contacts now results in the death of the ambassador, and I am already a veteran of forty-one full engagements; Bacon says that this indicates a statistically significant likelihood that I have more than the normal knack for my job, and that my current probability of success (with average planetary factors) is as high as ninety-seven and a half percent! At this rate, I may even last the yearcycle, and it might be as much as two before our pilot has to return to headquarters, empty. Our crew could set a new record!

Age of Federation question

Brandon Brylawski: How many chances do you get to use poetry for crowd control and general sadistic effect? Pop in the earplugs and turn to page 42...

Susan Weiner: I see that my friend Cla*tsit is at the other end of the bar and I wink to him. We quickly go around taking bets. We figure out what side the bet is going against, then place our own on that side. I throw the cricket at the leader of the opposing side and begin playing the theremin. Luckily, I knew that the hated predator of this species of noisy cricket sounds much like a theremin, and that the cricket will quickly begin spraying a nauseating substance to escape. Once that side is well down, we cash the bets. If there is any argument over our participation, Cla*tsit takes the money and goes to a set spot, while I distract the bar by reading vogon poetry at them.

John D'Agosta: I quickly toss the Book of Vogon Poetry towards the person who started the altercation. As other folks in the bar look over to find out what's going on, I shout out, "He was about to start reading Vogon Poetry. You, you, and you, better help restrain him before he has a chance to try it again!"

I then grab the theremin, hop up on to the bar and start singing and playing a lively tune during the choas that ensues. I'm sure glad the guy didn't have a chance to grab his noisy cricket.

Lisa Padol: Hm. Pick up the cricket and place it somewhere safe. No reason for it to get injured. Kick the Vogon Poetry so that I can grab it at need, preferably also so that no one else is likely to see, let alone be able to grab it before I do. Vogon Poetry has been banned by the Fifth Interspecies Civilized Convention, after all. But do keep it in reach, because, sometimes, you need something that lethal -- as long as -I-'m the one who has it. Play the Theremin to provide appropriate musical background for the fight, holding out a mug whenever someone tosses a unit of currency in my direction, so I can catch it. Use the mug to hit anyone who comes to close or who, not appreciating good music, tries to injure me or the Theremin. This will make the currency scatter, distracting some of the combatants, and hopefully, the scantily clad bar service sentients, who will scramble for it. So, I'm not getting the currency, but I'm getting a show for the money. Play myself into a trance until the fight winds down. If luck is with me, I have a new job for a few cycles until I've raised enough money to buy passage out for me and one of the scantily clad sentients who attracted my attention. If not, the fight spills over, the Theremin is trashed, I get hit over the head with pieces of it, the scantily clad sentients go off with the thuggish philistine who hit me with the pieces, and I get arrested for inciting a riot.

Brian Rust: There are few universal truths in this universe. Among the few you can count on in a spaceport are gravity, and that the lounges will have been made out of lousy materials by Glg'Kx Construction, the cheapest crew of Neo-Teamsters in the spiral arm.

These truths being in effect, a Noisy Cricket shot into the ceiling above the heads of the brawlers will bring down tiles, a metric ton of dust, and with any luck a water pipe... perfect for cooling down these idiots before anyone gets hurt (and for a bonus, creating a great distraction as I skip out without paying for my drink).

Kathy Journeay: Leela has had one too many Pangalactic Gargleblasters, again. I can see the fight coming as clearly as if it was a headline in the Galaxy Guardian: Timetravelling Caveman Has Trouble Adjusting to Modern Life. Damn the Doctor. Damn him and his endless string of sidekicks. Since he's taken up gallivanting around with some South End Tart, Leela, whom he had left for dead years ago, was taking it hard. One too many blondes in his life, I guess.

She still takes me by surprise when she leaps across the table at the Lurex. Lurexes are a strange race, made of more light than carbon, they glow and flash their emotions at a rate of the intensity they are feeling them. Excitment can take on the intensity of a strobe and sexual attraction is a lurid, slighty queasy purple-green. The result is worse than your average dance floor on Pleasure Palace Q. A pair of Lurex batting their hyphae at each other and telegraphing to the bar that they were thinking of doing it right there on the table must have been just a bit too much for Leela, the jilted sidekick.

She had her stone knife out. Howling her drunken rage she made a broad swipe at the space between them. Both of them turn a shocked blue color, the strobing sped up a pace. The Noisy Cricket in my hand clattered to the floor. Like I said, she took me by surprise.

Instead I grabbed the heavy volume of Vogon Poetry I had been using as a coaster and hurled it across the room.

It connected with the back of Leela's head.

She staggered for a moment and then, still clutching her ridiculous knife, slid unconscious to the floor.

The Lurex bought me a drink. I played a strip tease number on the Theremin to escort them out of the bar and up to their room. Leela slept it off under the table.

General Future History question

Christopher Chaney: All that I know has been forgotten. My current events are the barely remembered history of these people, seen through a lens like I see the Battle of Hastings. Cute, quaint, historic. Nothing to be taken seriously. I don't know where the buttons are to operate anything, as those have been changed long ago. I don't even know how to do anything. Monitors no longer exist. Screwdrivers no longer exist. At least I can recognize the water glasses, but I don't recognize anything they eat or drink. It is like I am a newborn, needing to ask how to eat, how to sleep, how to go to the bathroom... Questions that they never dreamed of telling me in advance, for they have been doing these things for the last 200 years. I am physically young, but my knowledge and skills are like an old man. I can speak of another time, but that has so little bearing on what is now. Obsolete.

Matthew Sachs: I'm missing my pants and am surprised that hospital gowns haven't changed one bit.

W. Scott Meeks: Still no flying cars!!!

Meredith Peck: So McD's folded 700 years ago due to the collapse of the bovine meat economy because mad cow disease WAS something we should have been more worried about, so I won't eat another french fry ever again, I don't mind that. What? You mean we STILL don't have personal jetpacks? Our cars still don't fly? Oh, the asteroid impact was that bad, huh? So the world was covered in darkness for 250 years and the sun just started coming through 15 years ago? What do you mean no more bananas? At all? That's it, I'm going back into stasis. See you in another 1000 years...

Cheryl Ann Costa: How much everything has remained the same. I would have expected that the culture would have achieved a higher degree of compassion.

Paul Wayner: I'm surprised that everyone is still alive, or not depending upon how you look at it. The One Mind (a hyper advanced computer) has disposed of my body but has recreated "me" in virtual form inside a giant program where I can intereact with every creature that has ever lived.

Brian Rust: The biggest surprise would have to be that, of all literature from my time period, it's the blog of my friend Steve, "One Yellow Monkey", that is still widely read. There are even conferences about whether it was possible for a single man to post as much as Steve, or whether he was actually the pseudonym of various famous people, including Richard Nixon.

As for what's missing that surprises me... gender. I expected that to still be around.

Simon Deveau: That I survived the stasis pod. [Missing?] My home planet since someone deliberately super-novaed its sun (Iron Sunrise) while I was "sleeping".

Viktoriya Fuzaylova: It is most surprising, but somehow I got even more stunningly beautiful while in stasis. I didn't know it was possible. It is even more scandalous that there still isn't a religion that reveres me as a god. You would think after all this time it would have become obvious to even humans who is really running the show.

Kathy Journeay: That we have not actually killed ourselves off because of our own stupidity. That would be a huge surprise. I would expect to resurrect into a poisoned, empty planet that would manage to kill me out of sheer indifference almost immediately.

Doug Hoover: Me, I've read nearly every future history there is... and found most of them lacking. Most sci-fi looks dated, twenty years later. "Stolen data tapes?" At the turn of the millennium, who still used tapes? And the cell phones were smaller than Star Trek's "twenty-third century" communications tech. With bioengineering just coming into its own, and IBM working on project to simulate a full human brain on a massively-parallel computer, I figured the age of humanity as we knew it would be coming to an end any time now... and I figured it was high time. I wanted to see it. The risks inherent in the new cryo-sleep process seemed a small price to pay, for a chance to see what the future will have wrought. I figured another millennium would be *more* than enough... and I was prepared to be totally unprepared. I figured I would hardly be able to conceive of the beings that would exist in that time -- but I hoped that we could be friends, anyway.

And I awoke, to find, what? The biggest possible surprise, perhaps: everything was more or less the same! So I asked them: "Why do you still look like me? Where are the all-knowing AIs? Where is transhumanity? Why do you still live in houses, for the love of God?" And they said: "We do not speak of such things. Do not worry about them, you will be happier." And I said: "No! How can this be? How can I have come a thousand years, just to be back where I was before? If the future has not happened yet, I will have to make it happen! I know it can be done!"

And they said: "Would you really do that?"

"Yes, I would... or die trying." And I told them so.

"We cannot allow that. Come with us."

"What??"

"You have not come from the past to join us, and live in harmony. You cannot live among us, nor anywhere, the way you are. Come with us. We will show you the way to happiness."

And they took me to... a church. Or what looked very much like a church.

"Here, you will be changed. So that you can be happy."

"What??"

My protestations were of little use, and they would say no more. Heavy doors opened, into darkness.

"Go in."

"Do I have a choice?"

"No. You cannot live among us."

"You're never going to let me out?"

"You will not wish to come out."

And they carried me to the threshold, and threw me in. The doors closed behind me, leaving me in darkness.

And a voice spoke, low, and resonant.

"Why have you come?"

"They threw me in here!"

"What do you seek?"

"..."

I was at a loss.

"The future! I seek the future!"

"Then you are in the right place. Enter."

And in the blackness, a door into blackness was framed, in golden energy.

Oh. There they are!

Cosmic Sensitivity question

Charlie McCutcheon: That is a secret of the state not to be discussed in the open. Why do you ask? What do you know? Perhaps you need to have a discussion with the glorious elders to remind you of what is important in your life. Come, now before it is too late, while there is still hope for your soul!

Matthew Sachs: Blackie the Black Sock was glad that he was black. If he were a white sock, nobody would know the awesome depths of his pain. Well, unless they read his LiveJournal, or listened to his Nine Inch Nails mix tape. Or found his poetry. "The fungus consumes and devours my thread / I'll laugh at your tears that you'll cry when I'm dead / Shoes always trap me and block out the light / But my soul will be free when I'm one with the night." Blackie liked to pick his threads. No, he didn't like it. It hurt. But pain was good, so he did it. One day he was doing it in the dryer. The thread caught in the tumbler, and as the tumbler tumbled, it pulled and pulled. Before you could say "permanent press", Blackie had been completely unravelled.

John D'Agosta: The Flying Spaghetti Monster's noodly appendages get cold sometimes. He's been known to snag a sock or two... or three... or a half dozen at a time. He's got a lot of noodly appendages ya know! Gotta keep 'em hot 'n toasty. He's got lots of work to do, ya know. He really likes taking socks from smart folks, 'cause then they're busy looking for 'em instead of doing other things he'll have to interfere with. As for where they wind up... well, I'm not supposed to tell you this but the Flying Spaghetti Monster also poses as Santa once a year. He gives 'em all away once he's used 'em for awhile. That's why everyone gets socks on Christmas. I'd love to be turned into a sock and go for the ride again. I've already done it twice though, so you can have my ticket for the Spaghetti Monster Sock Ride if you haven't already been through it. See what a nice soul I am?

Paul Wayner: Socks are misplaced like any other form of clothing. The special "sock universe" theory is amusing but incorrect.

Lawrence Lee: Some aliens work in assembling dryers, they work in factories to learn about our technology. They accidentally make the dryers spin and open up worm holes. Socks always get sucked through the worm holes, but only one ever travels because of the opposite polarities, pairs of socks never go through. It meets others items that been sucked through the same wormhole and always arrives on the alien's planet. You wouldn't be too happy, since the trip would kill you. If it doesn't, you end up in an aliens sock drawer and they always end up mistaking you for some bug and kill you.

Brian Rust: Socks join other lost items in the pocket dimension called Lostralia, a place formed when the first Really Big Lost Thing, Atlantis, imploded, and now powered by the energy of boy bands' lost careers. Many people want to go there... for one thing, there's tons of loose change... but if you stay there too long your face starts to appear on milk cartons.