Time-Lost Travelers
An answer to the Fermi Paradox
“Son, we need to talk.” My father glided into the fractal hall in the shape of a dragon. Whenever he assumed this shape it meant there was liable to be talking, droning, and possibly even yelling.
“As I was using manifold-space, investigating the effects of stellar fragments on hyper-dimensional continuity, I discovered a tiny ship interrupting the space-folding systems of my wave-runner. I was nearly absorbed into the stellar fragment as my temporal field was disrupted.”
He had changed colors several times during his description. He was right to be angry. By accident, my project almost killed him.
“I had to save myself and then once I realized what happened, I noted they were plunging toward the singularity. I assumed they were yours and plucked them out of space-time.” He held out his rapidly changing claw and a tiny ship, something primitive and three-dimensional, sat in his great palm. I could see the attempts to create a ship for seven-dimensional wave-running, their primitive ores and nascent glide-shielding allowing them to enter manifold-space for a short time.
I tried not to smile. It was not the right time to say anything yet. He usually berates me three times before I get a chance to defend myself. My efforts in this instant were best directed toward defusing his anger when my turn came.
“How did it get out? Just explain this to me. You have initiated the proper protocols? The ones we agreed to when you began this project?”
Now it was my turn. “Most beneficent parental unit, I understand my project appeared to have gotten out of my control and take full responsibility for what has happened. I admit to more than coddling them against your previous instruction, possibly because a recent period of growth caused me to lower my safeguards. It appears I was in error.”
“What remedies have you tried to retard their growth? They need limits.” He had not quite entered the repercussion stage of our dance. I still had a diminishing window of opportunity to put a good face on this.
“I tried the standards; most of them seemed more than adequate for a few thousand revolutions. Temperature variation, ecosystem depletion, energy shortages, random food instability, I even fomented revolution and dropped an asteroid personally to ensure maximum reduction in their population.” I made the bow of contrition to the fifth degree indicating I was not done.
“My failure came when I realized they had outgrown their primary habitat and inspired one of them to create the first Lorenz drive to allow them to find new industrial and relocation options within the confines of their habitat. I had no idea they would become clever enough to extrapolate later drives from this first design.”
His rage spent, he went to the center of my hall and accessed the habitat with my favorite project. He zoomed in on their primary habitat world and found a major city. “Good activity, lots of mindless capitalistic bustling, a thriving financial infrastructure. I see lots of greed and corruption. With indices such as these, I’m having a hard time seeing how they got, oh, wait. I see, look over here. There is enough money they can send their young for high-quality education. See these right here, doing nothing? They’re dreamers, schemers, always trying to avoid work, or envisioning new ways of being. Those dreamers are the worst.”
“They have been quite interesting. I’ve high hopes for them.”
“We’ve been over this. You cannot enable them. They breed too quickly, live entirely too long, and spread out as fast as they are able. You know how the saying goes.”
“’Once you’ve got Humans, you never get rid of them.’ What should we do?”
“Can they use cybertechnology, interfacing with machines?” He had taken on the glow of Control. He’s confident of a solution.
“Yes, it has been a source of great pride they managed to not erase themselves as part of this biotechnological upgrade.”
“I recommend you utilize a low-grade bio-infiltration virus, attack the oldest members of their societies. Trim away the oldsters and they lose the bank of wisdom keeping them less warlike.”
Cybertech plagues are hard to control. “How do we keep it from spreading?”
“Make it count its generations and stop, should be just enough.”
Understanding, I take the ship from my father, getting into the spirit of experimentation. “I know just the carrier. Time-lost travelers…what stories they’ll tell.”
“I better not find any more.”
