Entropy

“What race wishes to think of its own death!!” the doll exclaimed,

“Sorry about that, too anthro-emotional, dialling it downa bit. too much residual inference about alien emotions…” the technician mumbled to the assembled generals, commercial magnates and heads of state.

We were on a ship as far as man kind had ever travelled. Assembled around the largest telescope ever built. Aimed at the very edge of possibility. Everything was being beamed via relay back our species’ homeworld and infant colonies.

We were just beginning to step out into the void, and this was our best chance to answer the burning question:

Are we alone out there.

An event brought attention to a a distant star and the great minds eye of man kind gazed out at living breathing thinking aliens.

The dolls head swivelled taking in the faces of the assembled. Behind two layers of transparent metal, their hungry eyes revealed much. Mostly their assumptions of safety.

“Tell us of your world.” the speaker prompted.

The dolls head locked on to him, predator like. It stood 3 meters tall, all glossy black and red eyes, with an array of cables and pipes feeding its processors direct data through the telescope from it’s original home world. Several thousand light years away.

The telescopes giant lens would change focus rapidly scrolling back and fourth through aeons. A collection of giganeuronal supercluster AI’s would parse the data. Sort through the echoes of light and boil down the essence of a civilsation long gone.

Theirs was the first system we had ever encountered with concrete signs of sentient highly organised life.

The problem was the distance. The problem was always distance. The galactic constant. Causality. Physics.

Even our best engines would not get us there while we were still us. There was no guarantee that they would still be them. And worst, while scrolling through the data, we watched in horror as their world died. Planets consumed by artificial flame. A star gone nova too soon and without reason.

It’s funny that their death is what cemented knowledge of their existence. Billions of stars of possibility and the act of self destruction resonated so clearly with our own nihilism.

“There is no point.” The doll said finally.

“Hold on…” the technician said twisting a few dials and typing furiously. “Try again”  he prompted

“Tell us of your world” the speaker insisted. more firmly this time

The doll pondered then turned again to face the speaker,

“you misunderstand… “ it began

“Go on. We have here the finest minds of our species. Technologists. Anthropologists. Astrophysicists. Theoretical Physicists. Machine Intelligence. Augmented Intelligence. You can trust that understanding is what we do.” It was an impassioned speech. the kind that won elections and seats on the board. That stirred men on to battle. That left impressionable women breathless.

“No,” began the doll, “Not to telling you, but to existence. There is no point.”

Eyes swivelled to the technician. “No, it’s at 99.8%, this is about as salient as I can get it.”

“Our world… BURNS! Each breath burns. Our star burns. Against an everlasting blanket of nothing. Each second stolen from a finite hourglass. Our lives measured in the stomach of an all devouring beast called time. The paper we are printed on, it will expire. The ink become ashes. The memory of all we have done, all we have ever been, fade to zero.”

The dolls head snapped to each face. Behind the glass. Behind the domes of their space suits. It turned to its hands, or manipulator talons, being built to best accommodate its alien mind.

“100%!” exclaimed the technician his brows furrowed behind his own suit as he squinted down at his display.

The dolls arm shot out and caught him about the neck. Lifted him off the ground and threw him with great force into the window.

“Michael!” someone exclaimed.

The doll stood up to its full height, and examined the cables extending from the back of its head, tethering it to the telescope. The telescope system which contained the last centuries of it’s life.

It ripped them from its head.

Took two huge steps towards the glass and slammed its now bloodied claws into the glass again and again, until it cracked. Until it destroyed its own arm.

Red eyes began to flicker as it’s power source depleted.

On all channels in the air and into the void it screamed

“NOTHING!” then dropped to the deck of the room. Still again. Lifeless.

The technician lived. His suit sealed the breach and his own suite of doctoring nano machines had already begun work to minimise any lasting damage.

Those that witnessed the event however had their memories erased. All except the AIs and augmented intelligences who had decided that while accurate to the 99.9 percentile, they had only witnessed the death throws of a civilisation that had given up hope. That had lost the ability to think laterally. And that had simply given up. After all, there were billions of other stars out there. And more than enough time to find one who had a better answer…

than nothing.