“Dear Galactic Council, my name is Izra, Director of Interplanetary Research and Ambassador to exoplanet 451-b, local designation: Earth, prominent sentient species: Human.
Humanity has gone from a Class II species, capable of gathering resources from their nearest planetary neighbor, to a Class IV, able to build Dyson spheres and harvest >95% of a star’s energy, in only 1026 cycles from our last contact with the species. To my knowledge no human ever had a chance to inspect our ships or any of the technologies we brought with us. If the council wishes it, I will submit my resignation, effective immediately. Please review the following meeting transcript, as I believe this is where I unintentionally changed the course of human history. It may also help you to understand the rapid expansion of humanity, the potential change that poses to the galaxy, and why I am partly to blame.”
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“Human Ambassador Tom, what is that toy your child is playing with?”
“Oh, those are called legos, they are little building blocks that snap together. Kids use them to build things. Sometimes they get used to build larger toys, robots, or scaled down buildings.”
“So, all human children are engineers?”
“In a sense, yes. Human children are naturally imaginative, and they can be extremely creative when compared to adults. They can often be found creating toys from the most basic of things, and going on imagined adventures.”
“My people build some structures in a very similar way.”
“Is that cold welding? When you have two similar metals and press them to each other in space until they fuse?”
“We just call it welding, our home world was very cold, and devoid of oxygen. We discovered this process relatively soon after we learned to polish metals.”
“Interesting, how smooth does the surface have to be? 1-3 micron roughness? Humans use many different welding techniques, most rely on heat and melting materials.”
“I’m not sure, and human distance measurements are unfamiliar to me. You see, I am an ambassador and not an engineer. My species define roles and careers a bit differently than yours, there is less overlap in field knowledge for each individual. All I know is the two pieces of metal have to be very smooth, we use similar polishing technologies to create mirrors.”
“That’s so cool! We can’t get cold welding to work here because most of our building metals oxidize.
Ancient humans polished metals to use as mirrors too, but these days most of that is digital, a camera sees you, and projects what it sees onto a display.”
“Human camera technologies are amazing, but please be careful with how you tie them into your AI projects. The last thing you need is another H.A.L.!”
“Ah! Izra you’ve been reading the book I gave you! Did you enjoy it?”
“I did, but why is it called a 2001 Space Odyssey? Was that a titling mistake? Did something happen to humanity to set back technology? Was it H.A.L.?”
“No, no, relax. That book is sci-fi.”
“My translator is having trouble, what is a sighing thigh?”
“Ha ha, okay I see, I will use fewer abbreviations from now on. Science fiction is a genre of media, sci-fi is an abbreviation. Fiction means it is imagined, not reality.”
“I am beginning to think humans dream too much.”
“Some definitely do, especially in our teenage years. Our time is almost up, I wish you a safe trip home.”
“Thank you, Human Ambassador Tom, this conversation has been most enlightening.”
Project Icarus 