NationStates Jolt Archive

OOC Note: This is purely MT, and if you would like to participate in the “supposed alien discovery” plot, send me a telegram.

ERNO B, Lindimese Distributed Supercomputing Node – 4: 33 PM, GMT

Likili shoved aside an undergraduate from Tenb as she dashed down the hallways barreling through PhDs and janitors alike. She knocked down a young man carrying a stack of printout papers and shouted a hasty “Sorry!” as she threw open the door to the main terminal center and entered, leaving him behind to clean up the blizzard.

Likili didn't care; this was too important. “You still there?” she asked as she sat down in a chair and shook the mouse to wake the computer up.

“Yeah, I'm- are you panting?” the person on the other end said haltingly, as if he didn't speak the languge.

Likili ignored him and quickly brought up a bash prompt.

[likili-DETS@localhost ~]$ldsn
#Welcome to the LDSN Access Point!
#Before login, available commands are:
#HELP – displays information about the LDSN
#USER – precedes the user name entry on a login attempt
#PASSWD – precedes the password entry on a login attempt
[likili-DETS@localhost ~]$ USER dets PASSWD *********
#Welcome to the DETS section of the LDSN!
[likili-DETS@localhost ~]$ GET /data/farm02/audio-pf/*.dets
getting arcbind0001...
done
getting arcbind0002...
done
getting arcbind0003...

“Are you done yet?” came the voice from phone. “I mean really, this is-”

“I know what this is!” Likili shouted into the phone, prompting some dirty looks from the other scientists around her, who were all here to use the Lindimese Distributed Supercomputer. All of them were aging, distinguished, earnest, and respected. Unlike her young, anonymous, lazy self that had been the laughing stock of her physicists friends for her participation in DETS.

Of course, that was all about to come to a very abrupt end. If this Robert, or Anthony, or whatever Westerner was on the phone right now was right.

getting arcbind0755...
done
[likili-DETS@localhost ~]$./dets_parse -aVc arc*.dets &
[likili-DETS@localhost ~]$more arcbind0001.dets
d1: ae35bc91f83bad73003bdd3...

Likili's mouth slowly dropped as the hexadecimal sums streamed across the screen. She had been reading this gibberish for the past five years, and it was done. It was there in front of her. She could run the analytics in her head. She wasn't alone. Humanity wasn't alone in the universe.

“Likili, you there?”

Likili felt a sense of peace she had never quite known was possible. “I- I think I know what LDSN is going to give us. I think we have it. Someone out there is trying to speak to us.”

One hour earlier, DETS Audio Processing Facilities, North Jearian Plains

Anthony Harbinger sighed as he pushed off from his desk and rolled over to Robert Werkin's terminal. Robert was wearing a pair of white earbuds, and seemed engrosssed in the mathematical equations he was scrawling all over his notebook. The lab was empty except them; all of the native Lindimese had gone home or were on vacation. Anthony couldn't blame them, though. Even with the nocturnal lifestyle of the Lindimese, it was really late.

A quick glance at the clock prompted a groan from him, and he rolled on his chair back to the desk where his papers were scattered. Coming to Lindim with Robert as a visiting scientists had been fun for the first few weeks, but even at the age of twenty-nine he was getting a bit homesick. Well, at least the job allowed him some time to work on his own coding projects.

The DETS Program, or Detection of Extra-Terrestrial Signals, was going to be announced publicly today. Apparently, or at least as far as Anthony knew, it wasn't supposed to be announced until next month, (or whatever the Lindimese called it,) but international furor over the spy satellite dish farm had forced the government to announce it earlier. Apparently this government, fresh from a civil war barely one year old, was still a bit wary.

Eh, Anthony couldn't blame them.

Anthony occupied himself by rolling up and down the halls of the data center, trying to beat his best time. He flipped on the TV, but all it seemed nowadays was an endless march of shows that were more like commercials, commercials more like shows.

In the middle of his best lap, just as he was hitting the homestretch, Robert jumped out in front of him and the ensuing crash sent them both sprawling over the floor, and the chair bouncing down the stairs.

Anthony bit his tongue as he rubbed his shoulder. “Hey, what the-”

Roberts grabbed his shirt collar and tugged on it wordlessly, dragging Anthony back down the hall. Anthony's face has crossed beyond the point of red and was getting closer to blue when Robert finally released the collar and grabbed Anthony's cheeks, which had almost begun to recede to a normal shade.

“We did it! There's it, man!”
Anthony finally broke from Robert's grip and stumbled back, massaging his jaw. “Okay, we really need to work on you not-” Anthony froze mid-sentence. Robert hadn't said it yet, he'd only said it. It couldn't be-

“A signal! From intelligence!” Robert jabbed incessantly at the computer monitor above his desk. “This is it! We've got to get Likili and Aroha down here, and then we have to...”

Robert's nasaly voice seemed to fade to a soft static, and then nothing, as Anthony stared at the monitor. The frequency shifts, each color cascading up in down front of his eyes, seemed to play out like those fantastical cartoon rainbows one can never really see in the real world. But there it was. It was a repeating cycle of harmonics across the radio frequency, it's logarithmic repetitions and pattern had to be too sophisticated for any natural space phenomenon, and it was coming from... “No way,” Anthony breathed harshly.

Under the variable settings, next to the timestamp, blinked the “loc1” variable. Alpha Centauri, it blinked, Alpha Centauri.

Anthony stood up and turned towards Roberts, still in shock. Roberts just laughed gleefully and began to cry. “Right next door... we're not alone here! Alpha fucking Centauri!"

ooc: Bump as I work on second RP post...

Northern Booni Islands

The Linits were gone from the public. The blue- and green-skirted females who had mysteriously guarded all the Lindimese Prime Ministers, and had rescued the last, were gone. They had disappeared, and no one knew where they had gone, or what they were doing.

They continued to do what they had always done: namely, watch. And sometimes, watch and change.

Two Linits sat in the middle of a field of grass, the soft green waves undulating in the ocean breeze. One, with longer hair, sat and stared out over the cliff, at the cascading waves blooming and dying in the Lindimese Sea. The other sat before a laptop, and ws typing furiously. The laptop, an anonymous black, was linked by a thin wire to a satellite dish.

"So they've detected... something?" The longer-haired female asked, pausing from her staring to smooth the green ruffles of her skirt. In her lap her pistol and knife lay next to unloaded ammnition.

The other, at the computer, looked up and smiled. "Yes, something." She turned back to the screen and watched the data sift through the LSDN network. "They've detected something. But then again, they always do."

The longer-haired Linit glared at her younger counterpart. "You know-"

"They've detected some intelligent signal. Yes."

The other nodded. "Shit." That earned a laugh. "Are you going to release it?"

The laptop snapped shut. "Already have. Let's see what they make of it."

The older of the Linits picked up her gun and knife, slipping them back beneath her blue sash. "Who?"

Picking the laptop and satellite dish up, the one who had been working at the computer grinned. "Some random scientist from Northwesteria."

They both laughed, and left the field.

Matthew Silk was sitting at his computer, lazily reviewing data. He was a biochemist, and as such, his work was never done. There were always more compounds to study, always more slides to watch, always more settings to adjust. He was pretty much immersed in his work, no wife, no kids, his life was science. He took a sort of serenity from it, from the ordered nature of its workings, and from the predictable and yet exciting prospects of each day. The government supplied an ample paycheck for his work, advancing technology and research, and so he had no worries. He almost didn't notice when a new President was elected. It really made no difference.
Suddenly, a message popped up on his screen, alerting him that he had a new e-mail. He grudgingly clicked "open", ready to chastise his younger colleagues for interrupting him again, when suddenly he noticed that it wasn't opening. At the bottom of the screen was a download bar. Jeez, he thought to himself. Those kids must be at it again, playing Quake and eating up all the bandwidth. Then he noticed the size of the file. His eyes widened, and he left the room, locking the door, to get a cup of chamomile tea. He figured he was going to need it. A file that big wouldn't be meaningless. He got his tea, and walked back to his office carefully to avoid any spills. He wasn't in a hurry anyway. This would take a while to come in.
Minutes later, it was done loading. The title line immediately caught his eye:
To: Matthew_Silk@pnbc.gov
From: Noneofyourbusiness@lindim.gov

This had to be good.

What he saw was beyond his wildest dreams. On the left was an endless scrolling stream of data, meaningless to him, but on the right was a mysterious analysis of it. Cross-checking between them, he quickly gained a marginal understanding for what the data was: information collected at various sites around some nation called "Lindim", from outer space. He looked at the charts, and it was unmistakeable. "Life," he muttered to himself, "we're not alone."
Inhale. Wait. Exhale. Wait. Inhale. Wait. Exhale. Wait. He knew he couldn't go screaming this to the whole world. He had to calm himself down. Inhale. Wait. It had been sent to him for a reason. He must have been singled out, somehow. Exhale. Wait. Why they hadn't sent it to someone in the field, he didn't know. All he knew was that he would have to be rational about this. Inhale. Wait. Suddenly, he knew what to do.
To: Noneofyourbusiness@lindim.gov
From: Matthew_Silk@pnbc.gov

Where do we meet?

To:Matthew_Silk@pnbc.gov
From:Noneofyourbusiness@lindim.gov
We don't meet. But now you have information. What would you like to do with it?

ERNO B, Lindimese Distributed Supercomputing Node – 9: 54 PM, GMT
Likili nearly screamed as she dragged the reams of paper down the halls, clutchly tightly in her shaking, sweaty hands a simple writable CD that contained the greatest message ever to be read by human civilization. Life out there. Likili found an empty "Private Office" and mannaged to twist the doorknob with the help of a bemused passerby.

She gave him a thumbs-up hidden by a pile of snow-white printout, and slammed the door behind her. "Yes!" she screamed laughing and dancing around. Not some dead-end job at all! She flipped open her cellphone and quickly punched in a number.

After a few rings, a voice responded. "Hello? Likili?"

Likili shouted something unintelligible and leaned back against a wall, and slumped down to sit on the ground.

"What? Did it-"

"It worked!" Likili said, giggling with bliss as she flipped through the reams of printout. "LDSN just returned the analysis. It's real!"

Muffled laughter and banging came from the other side of the connection. Through the office door's frosted glass, Likili watched some vague shadows pause and look in before moving on.

"Listen," Likili continued, "I'm going to the top about this, you call everyone else and- yes, yes, of course you get credit. Relax your winds, mate." She snapped the phone shut, and with her eyes closed, speed-dialed a number she had never had to use before.

To: Noneofyourbusiness@lindim.gov
From: Matthew_Silk@pnbc.gov
I'm no expert on this sort of thing. Why did you pick me? I'm a biochemist, and I'm working on possible alternate forms of life, but honestly, I was never thinking about space. If we can't meet, fine. But at least explain to me what all of this is about, and what the heck you expect me to do.

Matthew Silk hit "send" warily, knowing full well the consequences of this discovery. Life, out there, talking to us. And only a few light-years away. Imagine what scientific knowledge they might have! Imagine how differently they must understand the universe! With these two different approaches combined... if we could somehow learn to communicate ideas... it would just be phenomenal. Suddenly he had a thought that made him slightly uneasy. He fired off another e-mail.

To: Noneofyourbusiness@lindim.gov
From: Matthew_Silk@pnbc.gov
Sorry, but this is important. What messages have we sent their way in the past? I know we've beamed an aweful lot into space, but I need to know... what did we sent towards Alpha Centauri?

[bump for reply from Lindim]

ooc: Don't worry, Pac! :) Just been busy with AP tests... response tomorrow. A good one. ;)

ooc: Don't worry, Pac! :) Just been busy with AP tests... response tomorrow. A good one. ;)
Ok, thanks for letting me know. Was worried this thread was dead for a moment there. Good luck on your APs!

[another bump, hopefully not in vain...]

ooc: Anon, anon! I come but soon! Await the post, at EST noon!

ooc: Okay, nice rhyme, but I lied. Or was wrong. :) Pacific, you're too patient.

To:Matthew_Silk@pnbc.gov
From:Noneofyourbusiness@lindim.gov
Think. Think of nearly every instance of communication broadcast in the form of electromagnetic waves, gently undulating into the great black sea of space. Everything, that's what we've sent out there.

Everything.

A small bedroom in a modest apartment in Iova, Lindim. Late at night.

Lerla Gradus smiled as she slipped into the room, shutting the door behind her. The shaft of light from the hall melted into a thin slit, and as she crept around to the bed the only sound in the room was the steady, clear breathing of the man in the bed.

Lerla had to grin; he was so handsome, and he was all for her. Maybe being a Minister of Science wasn't all so bad. She did, after all, get her share of the cute guys that were also PhDs. She took off her work clothes and crawled into bed, nuzzling his neck. He woke up with a soft chuckle and kissed her lightly on the head.

"Hey," Lerla said, rolling over him, "you know what we-"

The phone rang, and Lerla bit back a sharp curse as her lover laughed again. "Sometimes I think your superiors don't want us to be together," he said, shaking his head back and forth with a rueful grin. He was cute when he was sleepy, Lerla decided.

Lerla picked up her bedside phone before the second ring, and glanced at the caller ID. Some junior scientist at some ETS base. What in the name of the Sea Herself was this woman thinking?

"Hello," Lerla snapped, flicking the nightshade on to his lover's annoyance. With an apologetic look for him, she flicked it back off.

The woman on the other end of the line suddenly startled rattling off some story about earlier today, a single, an analysis an-

"Oh my Sea," Lerla gasped. The phone shivered in her shaking hands and threatened to fall on the floor. Ignoring the man in her bed, she turned the lamp back on and quickly rummaged through the doors for her PDA. With a triumph snarl, she pulled it out and pressed the power button. "Okay," she said, forcing calm into her voice, "let's start from the beginning. Tell me everything that has happened, and who knows what."

The woman on the other end of the line spoke for two hours.

OOC: You're lucky you came up with something that cute... otherwise I might've been mad at you for saying you'll post "tomorrow" and then waiting a week. But as it stands... blast it all... I'm forced to simply continue this ingenious little RP of yours :)

IC:

Matthew Silk had been waiting, rather impatiently, for a reply to his e-mail. Damn time-zone difference, the Lindimese were probably all asleep. He was drinking day-old coffee, strong enough to set off a fire alarm, and pacing back and forth, hairs on end. This had no effect on the status of the e-mail. Neither did checking for new messages and refreshing the window twice every second. He finally settled down, and decided to make himself useful. It tood several seconds to open and load the file he had been sent, and then he was into it. He didn't really understand the code, but no matter how much of a scientist he was he still had the unexplainable sense that if he just let it wash over him, it would start to make sense.
He woke up when his hand dropped, spilling coffee on his leg. Damn, that hurt. The screen in front of him was full of code that was meaningless to him. He had tried to assimilate its information, and just wound up falling asleep. He noted wryly that it must have been quite the sleeping agent, to overpower his excitement and the caffeine coursing through his veins. He plaintively refreshed his e-mail, and was shocked to see the reply. Waking up quickly, he responded:

To: Noneofyourbusiness@lindim.gov
From: Matthew_Silk@pnbc.gov
I know that... we're constantly leaking EM signals. What I meant were specific messages sent into space. I'm sure I heard about them once, some crazy scientists were looking for extra-terrestrial life, and they suddenly had a profound realization: radio telescopes don't do anything if nothing's being sent. If they're just listening too, they maybe our two civilizations aren't quite so "intelligent" after all. In response, they sent a series of high-powered transmissions into space, focusing at nearby star clusters and galaxies, as well as sending some broad emissions. This was our greeting card, whatever it was, and it's probably what this message is in response to.
My inquiry was into the nature of that message. It may be important in deciphering what they have sent us, and if we have offended them, we had best know that before they come knocking on our door. No one knows what technology they have, or what they could share with us if we became friends.


Matthew continued to pace. Hopefully a response would come soon, and hopefully it would bring the answers he needed to even start to make sense of this.

Work was piling up. He was a biochemist, and there were important discoveries waiting to be found. Though they all seemed trivial compared to his new "project", he knew that they were probably going to have a greater impact here on Earth. Besides, how could he let down his eager-faced interns? He couldn't bear the thought of crushing their excitement. That excitement would drive the next generation to achieve great things. I must get back to work, he thought. And he did, but people noticed that his mind seemed to be elsewhere. Later, a thought struck him. He was in a rather odd situation, and he had no idea why. When he had a moment, he wrote another quick message.

To: Noneofyourbusiness@lindim.gov
From: Matthew_Silk@pnbc.gov
Sorry, just a little P.S.:
Who all knows about this? What level of secrecy is required? How and why did you choose me? Can I tell my superiors? I suppose you can't tell me who you are, but can you tell me your purpose in all of this?

Matthew Silk was very worried. Whomever he had been talking to, and whoever had given him this information which had turned his life upside down, was not responding. Something might be wrong. But he had no way of knowing: officially, his "pen pal" did not exist. Somehow he knew this. Perhaps it was the return address. Perhaps it was the confidentiality. But he knew.

One last, plaintive, futile bump, for old times' sake....