[Unknown_Enemy]

TYREAN HISTORY : Second Encounter

2403.5

Tyrean explorer “New Sense of Deja Vu”, 22 minutes after warp jump.

Officers saluted as a private yelled “Commander on Deck” on the arrival of Commander Ixial. He went directly to the Commander's station , then turned to the Navigation officer : “Situation report, please”.

“Yes Sir, as soon as we emerged in the Baktu system, our sensors received large amount of radio and radar emissions, whose sources seems to be the third planet orbiting this sun. Emissions come from both orbital and ground systems. We tried to understand what was said, but we cannot even figure if they are broadcasting their equivalent of Tri-video or just plain speech. Anyway it is not focussed on us, it seems these emissions are just broadcast for their own use. AI Life Is A ***** has labelled this as a genuine Xeno encounter. We are at 2 hours and twenty four light minutes from them, so they will notice our presence in less than two hours, for we didn't detect any survey satellites around our emergence point.”

“Right, first, how can we know these Xeno are not the World Killers ? They have colonised a CO2 planet, as did the dead Xeno on Memento Mori. Any clues ?” asked the Commander.

Life Is A *****'s symbol appeared with the sound of a dim chime. “I can answer that one. The ruins found first on Memento Mori and later on Calka VIII were both ice planets. This is a rock one. This indication is interesting but most important, experiment proved that the Ancients did not rely on radio/radar emissions, but probably on some sort of quantum transmissions. Here, radio and radar wave analysis tell us that we are dealing with a race approximatively of our tech level. They are not the World Killers”

“Let's hope you're right, my orders are then to decelerate to Full Stop situation. Do not respond to any communication attempt nor initiate one until then. Fetch me when we are stopped, I'll be with Science team in the meantime.” replied Ixial.

Tyrean explorer “New Sense of Deja Vu”, 6 hours after warp jump.

“We're at full stop Sir !”

“Right, Main Radio dish, transmit message one, narrow beam toward the planet. Repeat it one time every ten minutes until we get the appropriate answer.”

“Yes, Sir. We are literally hammered by radio/radar/com laser/com phaser emissions from the planet, Sir.”

Commander Ixial didn't respond. By staying at long range, he proved to the xeno he was not a treat. Then the message, it was simple enough :

low signal(0.1s long)-silence(0.2s long)-strong signal (0.1s long)-silence(0.2s long)-strong signal (0.1s long)low signal(0.1s long)-silence(0.2s long)........and so on.

If you put it on paper you would obtain :
0-1-10-11-100-101-110.....
Binary numbers.
Whatever the number system used by the Xeno, they should have mastered binary. By waiting a few hours, he had ensured the Xeno would have time to gather a team able to analyse what was send to them. As expected, five hours later, the bridge crew cheered as they received an answer to their first message. The Xeno were sending more binary numbers, and the second part of their message contained a simple addition, with two new signals representing the signs “plus” and “equal”.
Communication has indeed been established.
“We should try to approach the planet, we need to shorten data transmission time” proposed Life Is A *****. “No way as long as we do not have full confirmation they are not linked to the World Killers, the Science team has some volunteers to ride our shuttle near their world. That is all I am willing to risk. That team is moving to a position 10 light seconds from their world.” answered the Commander. Ixial then switched to private speech mode with the AI, “I guess you listened to my meeting with the Archaeologists, what do you think of their Theory of the Ancients ?”
“They could be right, there are strong indications that past wars extinguished more than one Xenoc species. It could be that Tyrean are part of a new generation of intelligent beings raising to interstellar travel after disappearance of previous races, the fact that our current xeno seems from the same technology level as us indicates they achieved space flight in the same timeline as Tyrean did. I wonder if they created some AI like us. That would be interesting.”

Tyrean explorer “New Sense of Deja Vu”, 6 days 4 hours after warp jump.

“Sir, the shuttle has successfully relocated, they are maintaining distance of 10 light seconds from the planet, Sir ! They are sending in a report, it seems they already made some progress.”

Commander Ixial read the report, which said that advanced algebra system has been defined with the Xeno, and geometry definitions was already on the way. But that was much more tricky and proved difficult. And that was only the beginning, as all that mathematical work was done to create a written language based on logic and mathematics, rather than racial history. Later, maybe some of us would try to learn the Xenocs language, but yet we have still to discover the name of their specie.

The navigation officer interrupted his reading : “Sir, our shuttle report they have detected that a Xenoc small craft has been launched from the planet, in intercept course with them, Sir. Our team request permission to let the Xeno approach them.”

Life Is A ***** reacted first and transmitted “Permission granted” to the Tyrean shuttle.

The Commander stayed silent. Some of the crew on deck were praying.

Life Is A ***** then spoke :”I guess the Xeno will not only approach, but will try to dock to our shuttle. Which is a logical step if they also want to make any good progress toward communication. Do not confuse it as “a nice alien theory”, the way almost all radio emissions were shut down when they discovered us prove this race has a very tight grip on its members. Then all Xenoc wave emissions come from a single source on the planet, probably a single base. Which indicates a very centralised government. How ironic, it could be these Xeno are as bad as the Tyrean on the ground of individual freedom. Time will tell.”