TACT Report

The Alien Contact Team (TACT) Report on the Alien Civilization Encountered in UNTJS 007

published 1st October, 2036

On 6th February 2036, a United Nations exploratory task group transited a jump point into the newly discovered UNTJS 007 system (designated Thebes) and immediately encountered an alien vessel located directly on the far side of the jump point. It was later confirmed that the vessel was a gate builder. The UN exploratory task group transited back into the previous system where it informed UNIN about its discovery. On 4th March 2036, the alien vessel, having stabilized the jump point at the far end, followed suit, transited into UN territory and started stabilization efforts at the near end.

Attempts to establish contact with the alien vessel began on 24th March 2036 after the arrival of the Alien Contact Team to the location. Communication was established three days later, on 27th March 2036, when every crew member of every ship in the UN task group simultaneously began hearing a voice repeat, "WE ARE THE KAAVI. WE ARE THE CONSCIOUSNESS. WE ARE THE MIND." It was confirmed that these messages originated from the alien ship and were transmitted via yet-unknown technology directly into the language centers of the recipients' brains. This communication method closely resembled the one of "the Mind" described in the Belnar archives, and nowadays we can with near certainty assert that the encountered alien civilization is indeed the very same Mind as the one encountered by the Belnar.

Two weeks of direct talks with the Mind followed. The telepathy-like communication ability of the Mind proved distressful to the TACT team and hampered mutual understanding. Eventually the Mind offered to produce a "shard of its consciousness" and send it as an emissary to ease communication. The TACT team has been asked to provide physical criteria for the Shard, and in turn provided imagery of Kofi Annan. On 12th April 2036, a small shuttle appeared on the sensors of the UN's task group. Coming from the direction of the alien ship and the jump point, the shuttle had 300 tons of void displacement and the speed of 40,000 kps. It requested permission to dock with the task group, using a standard UN communication frequency, fluent English and the voice of Kofi Annan. Permission was granted and the shuttle directed to dock with UNS Osaka. During the docking process itself, the shuttle demonstrated unknown advanced technology, essentially reconfiguring both its and our hull to create air locks and compatible docking interfaces on the spot. The shuttle contained one passenger bearing the likeness of Kofi Annan who was then welcomed aboard UNS Osaka - this entity was designated as "the Shard". During its stay aboard, the Shard has undergone several medical scans and appears to be a fully normal human person, although it seemed unfamiliar with its own body in the initial phases. It eats, drinks and breathes as any other human would, and uses spoken English to communicate. It is, however, still connected to the rest of the Mind's consciousness via the unknown telepathy-like communication method.

The following is a summary of the TACT team's talks with both the Mind itself, and the Shard. Quotes received "telepathically" from the Mind are written in capital letters. Quotes from the Shard are written using standard capitalization.

Present during the negotiations were:

- brigadier general McFetusBurger

- colonel Carroll Meath

- colonel Dan-O-Raid

- commander Centurium

- commander Markus_cz (removed from the team on 12th April 2036)

- commander Magrov (since 12th April 2036)

It should be noted that all the following information are as claimed by the Mind and their veracity could not be confirmed. Before these can be explained, caution is advised and it is recommended not to take any of the following as necessarily factual.

The Nature and Hierarchy of the Mind

The Mind is a civilization comprised of physically seperate beings in the usual way, but all of these have been connected via bioengineering and advanced machinery into a distributed network of intelligence. While each "individual" remains a physically distinct creature, there is no sense of individualism and, for all intents and purposes, the Mind possesses a single consciousness. The Mind has likened itself to a single "massive biological computer operating at superluminal speeds" [1]. It appears that the actual biological species constituting the Mind's bodies are countless and have all blended together over millions of years.

Physical form

Because the Mind needs to operate throughout most of the galaxy, it seems to utilise a partly decentralized network. While the main "cluster" of consciousness is located near the galactic core, operations in remote areas of the galaxy are guided by local "subclusters". Subclusters are scattered throughout the galaxy, and each physical lifeform within the Mind maintains an instant link to its parent subcluster, thus ensuring that the group consciousness won't degrade into separate individuals. [2] All subclusters also maintain a link with the central cluster in the galactic core – we have witnessed the local subcluster sending queries to the core and receiving responses weeks later. [3] This is allegedly due to a limited bandwidth of long-range communication, which makes it impractical to connect every host body to a central consciousness. [49]

Thus, it appears that the Mind isn't a single consciousness per se, but rather a network of coordinated consciousnesses - the Mind consists of smaller minds, so to say. Each of these separate subclusters begins their life as a perfect clone of the central cluster, but will over time accumulate information of its own and evolve separately, leading to the necessity to "refresh" the data periodically. [50] In effect, the UN is in communication not with the Mind as a whole but rather with the local subcluster which has been relaying all proceedings to the rest of the network.

A subcluster appears to be the lowest level of consciousness, the lowest level that keeps its own individuality. Although physically a subcluster consists of separate biological entities, none of these have an individuality or consciousness of their own. When a biological entity - such as the Shard - is presented with the idea of "disconnecting" it from the subcluster's consciousness, it expresses alarm and reluctance. [4] [5] It is presently unknown what would happen to such an entity were it to be disconnected from its parent subcluster, whether it would form an consciousness and individuality of its own, or whether it would merely fall back to a "backup" of the data that the subcluster contained at the time of its disconnection.

So far we know of only one biological species that constitute the Mind's physical form, although presumably there are many more. They are called the Kaavi, originally a spacefaring civilization from the Sagittarius Dwarf galaxy. Upon traveling to the Milky Way, they Kaavi have encountered the Mind which was already ancient by that time. A part of the Kaavi refused to be absorbed by the Mind, while a separate subgroup joined the Mind and became a part of its consciousness. It is unknown what happened to the part that chose not to join the Mind. [6] It should be noted that the Kaavi do not constitute an individually recognizable group within the Mind - as with any host species, they provide merely the bodies, their mind having been long ago replaced by the group consciousness. Moreover, their form has been transformed by ages of genetic and technological manipulation to the point that they no longer resemble the original spacefaring civilization. [7] For all intents and purposes, the Kaavi no longer exist. However, due to the decentralized aspect of the Mind's network, it is possible that certain elements from the Kaavis' original culture and civilization still survive as part of the local subcluster's individuality - the local subcluster allegedly comprises mostly of former Kaavi. [8] The notion of each subcluster having a slightly different personality is also evidenced by the original greeting sent to the TACT team: "WE ARE THE KAAVI. WE ARE THE CONSCIOUSNESS. WE ARE THE MIND."

Communication

The Mind recognizes three basic forms of communication:

Star Mimick which is communication using electromagnetic radiation. It is considered to be primitive. [9]

Lesser Communion which is faster-than-light communication via ansible

Greater Communion or simply Communion is the most extraordinary form to communication which to us seems akin to telepathy. At this moment we don't have an exact understanding of how it operates, although we presume advanced technology and bioengineering. What we know of the greater communion is that is is instantaneous [10] and that all lifeforms may receive it. [11] However, the process behind the communion is secret to outsiders and only revealed to a race after is has been accepted into the Mind's Community (see below). [11]

According to our understanding of the Mind, "lesser communion" is the method using which host bodies are connected to their local subcluster, whereas "greater communion" is used to connect subclusters to the parent central cluster. It can't be used for both due to its limited bandwidth. [50]

The Community

The Mind claims to lead a galaxy-spanning organization called the Community, comprised of the descendants of what used to be 23,299,833 separate races but is now a conglomerate of various physical forms that have over millions of years been transformed and merged beyond recognition. [12][13] The Mind is the de facto leader of the Community, the executive body that coordinates the organization's operations. [14][15] Member races of the Community do not necessarily have to be integrated into the Mind's central consciousness. In fact, many member races merely accept the Mind's leadership but choose to remain separate from it and keep their individual identities. [16]

Based on the information we have, we assume the Mind uses the following hierarchy:

The central cluster of the Mind, located in the galactic core.

Separate subclusters of the Mind, located throughout the galaxy and all linked to the central cluster

Member races under the guidance of either the central cluster or their local subclusters.

This whole arrangement with the Mind's clusters as the executive bodies and the member races below is then called "the Community". Aside of the Mind serving as the executive body, there is no other hierarchy and all full members are treated as equals (although "equal" means "all equal under the guidance of the Mind"). [17] To achieve full membership, a race must serve as a "probationary member" for a certain time. The details of probationary membership follow below.

The Mind actively searches the galaxy in order to expand the Community. Because jump gates degrade over time because of collapsing stars [18], it is inefficient to keep the whole galaxy interconnected via jump-gate network. Instead, the Mind sets up beacons in strategic systems where intelligent life will likely evolve over time. Whenever an ascendant space-faring civilization triggers such a beacon, the nearest subcluster is informed and begins recreating the jump gates necessary to link the system with the rest of the Community. [19] The Mind claims it has arrived into our area of galaxy only recently, having been informed of our presence by such a beacon. We believe that the beacon in question was the "bomb" triggered by the Belnar automatons on Mars on 15th August, 2034. [20] [21] The humans are the first race encountered in this area of the galaxy since the disappearance of the Belnar, and the Mind claims it doesn't know the reason of their disappearance or their whereabouts. [22]

Each encountered civilization is then given an ultimatum: either accept the Mind's "guidance", agree to the Community tenets (see below) and become a probationary member of the Community, or be blockaded to its home systems by force. The Mind has been vehement in stressing that there is no other choice: either guidance, or blockade and eventual collapse due to resource exhaustion. [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] The Mind claims to possess a database of countless other encounters and uses it to derive algorithms that decide how to deal with any given species, based on their similarity to previously encountered species. [48]

Tenets of the Community

History

The Mind tells a story of successive civilizations capable of intergalactic travel, which have established intergalactic empires in the ancient past. Intergalactic travel, however, consumed vast quantities of Trans-Newtonian elements. The ancient civilizations of "The First Ones" and their successors "The Second Ones" exhausted the readily available supplies of TNE minerals and eventually collapsed. We are now in the era of the "Third Ones", living from the remaining scraps of TNE minerals with the assumption that there isn't large enough supply for them for even a single intergalactic travel. [28] The original "Third Ones" civilization was called "the Gardeners". The Gardeners have allegedly created the Community and installed the Mind at its top, to help member races, seek out new ones and enforce compliance with the Community tenets. [14] [29] Although the Gardeners have long ago disappeared, the Community endures and the Mind still takes care of its expansion and guidance.

Conservation of TNE minerals

The primary stated goal of the Community is one of conservation. To prevent the exhaustion of the remaining TNE minerals - which it calls "Garden Materials" - and the inevitable collapse of current civilization, the Mind enforces strict control of TNE minerals use. [30] Since the most expensive activity in terms of TNE usage is space travel, all members of the Community have agreed to limit travel and colonization in order to minimize TNE consumption. [31] Most Community members have also been relocated to the galactic core, so that they live close to each other and the running costs of the Community are kept at minimal level. [32] [33] Migration to the core is suggested, albeit not enforced. [34]

The continual expansion of the Community serves a twofold purpose: First, since all intelligence life will eventually be accepted into the Community or blockaded, it prevents runaway civilizations from consuming too many TNE minerals. Second, the expansion is done with the hope that new races might bring new insights into the Community and eventually help achieve a scientific breakthrough that will solve the TNE problem. So far, no solution has been found and conservation remains the most effective tool. [30] [35]

Songs of the Stars

The Mind also believes that stars are intelligent beings that communicate with each other. Stars have mammoth consciousnesses incomprehensible to biological organisms, and communicate – "sing" to each other – across vast gulfs of space, out of the desire to stay in touch and be together. [36] Stabilizing the jump points between stars - which the Mind calls "Unveiling the Hidden Path" - drastically reduces the distances involved and makes communication easier to the stars. Thus, another imperative given to the Mind by their creators the Gardeners is to maintain jump gate networks for the benefit of the stars. [37]

The Mind doesn't know the exact process behind these "star songs", and cannot tell whether stars have personalities, desires, memories, etc. Stellar xenopsychology is still a very much unexplored field in the Community. [38] It is however possible to "hear" the star songs - the Mind attributes them to the sensations one feels when transiting jump points. It seems that "stars songs" is just another term for what we call the "jump hallucination effect". [39] [40]

Probationary Membership

The United Nations has been offered to become a probationary member of the Community. This would mean the following limitations and duties:

(1) Accept guidance. Allow the Mind to gather information about the humankind, our cultures and societies. All policies and norms perceived as negative would have to be changes and brought up to the Community's standards. [41] It is unclear what exactly constitutes a negative policy and what the ideal is, but the Mind has on numerous occasions shown tendencies towards collectivism and, hand in hand, suppression of individualism. [23] For example, the Belnar with their strong communal bend, were considered to require little guidance. [42]

(2) Limit the use of TNE minerals. Based on its findings from the fact-finding phase, the Mind assigns each probationary race its own TNE budget which limits their use of these strategic minerals. [43] The strictness of such a budget is presently unknown, however we expect limitations on interstellar travel, exploration and colonization. [31]

(3) Pay a tithe of TNE minerals. On top of the TNE budget, each probationary member is required to pay a "significant portion" of their TNE minerals to the Mind. These minerals are then allegedly transfered to other Community members in the galactic core, which has presumably largely exhausted its own mineral reserves, and used to fuel expeditions and further expansion of the Community. [44]

(4) Uplift another species. An important part of the probationary membership is to watch over near planets that could bear intelligent life, and help to influence and uplift a species so that it reaches interstellar travel. Only after having uplifted a race can one be accepted as a full member of the Community. [45] We know both from the Mind and the Belnar themselves that Belnar were probationary members tasked with watching over Earth and uplifting the humanity. [21] The beacon that was triggered on Mars served to alert the Mind of the fact that we have successfully reached another planet.

The length of the whole integration process depends on many variables but it is, in any case, a long-term endeavor. The Mind mentions as little as "several centuries" for the integration of well suited races, or as much as "millenia or longer" in other cases. [46] The Mind claims that about two percent of all Community members are currently probationary, and that fourteen probationary members were accepted as full members in the last 100,000 years. [47] As stated above in "the Community" section, civilizations that refuse probationary membership will be blockaded into their home systems.

Conclusion

The United Nations have encountered an alien civilization that is potentially very dangerous. Although the true size and spread of the Mind and the wider Community cannot be verified, it is very probable that the civilization is indeed large and widely spread across many systems. The mere age of the Mind is staggering - the Belnar have encountered it 37 million years ago, and according to the Belnar archives it was 900 millions years ago when the Mind entered the Community (or was created?). It therefore had ample time to spread, expand and evolve. Indeed even the small glimpses of their technology that we have seen point to a technological level decades above our own. If the Mind has any military presence in this area of the galaxy, we dare guess it would easily overwhelm us.

On the other hand, there are a couple of optimistic outlooks. First, according to our technological models we could theoretically reach the Mind's technological levels given enough time, because all factors point to the conclusion that our (current) rate of technological advance is many times faster that the Mind's. The Mind is apparently a slow civilization and this could be our advantage. Our relationship with the Mind during the crucial next decades is now a matter of political decisions but it is the TACT team's suggestion that we keep our true rate of technological advance secret if possible.

It is also likely that the imperative to preserve TNE minerals limits the Mind's actual strength and ability to project force far below what would normally be possible at their technological level. Moreover, the member races that live in the core might have already exhausted much of their local supplies and might rely largely on tithes now. With only two percent races being tithe-paying probationary members and the rate of discovery of new races rapidly slowing, the Mind and the Community as a whole might already be facing a resource crisis, further limiting their actual abilities.

Finally, there are still some inconsistencies in between the Mind's current claims and those written in the Belnar archives - namely, the Belnar state that the local subcluster of the Mind was not in communication with any other members of the Community, having lost contact ages ago. When the Shard was asked about this inconsistency, it dismissed it saying the Mind has no record of any loss of contact. [51] This might or might not be true, and presently we cannot verify whether the local subcluster of the Mind – which undeniably exists – is in fact connected to a larger network or not. Even if it was, it is not unimaginable that the distances involved would be such that the rest of the network had no ability to project force to this corner of the galaxy in any reasonable timeframe.

The Mind, for the most part, remains a conundrum.

Appendix

References

[1] "Each "individual" within a Mind subcluster is, to be sure, a biological entity. However, they incorporate advanced bioengineering and an indigenous ability to interface with electronic machinery. Together, these allow elements of the Mind to function as a sort of distributed network of intelligence. It is not a "telepathic hive mind," as some of your entertainment products postulate, but rather a massive biological computer operating at superluminal speeds."

[2] "Each subcluster of the Mind maintains a link back to the central cluster, and every "individual" element of the Mind is in contact with the entirety of its subcluster at all times."

[3] "The query has already been forwarded to the Mind's Central Cluster in the core. It will take some time for a response."

[4] "If it is not an undue burden, I would greatly prefer to remain in this system. It would be . . . taxing . . . to be beyond communications with the Mind and the Community."

[5] "A being such as myself--a Shard of the local Mind subcluster--by necessity has more limited communications capabilities than a typical Mind entity. I require either contact with a Mind vessel, such as Peaceful Concepts of Communion, or a path of stabilized rifts back to a Mind vessel. If you were to move me out of this system, I would lose that contact, and as I have noted, it would be quite distressing."

[6] "The Mind (...) was already ancient by the time of the emergence of the Kaavi. The Kaavi, as they have noted, were native to a satellite dwarf galaxy of this one. If you were to provide me with detailed star charts, I could point out which one. The first Kaavi to reach this galaxy were explorers, and soon more and more came, an unending tidal wave of Kaavi colonists, eager to exploit the plentiful resources of this relatively unpopulated galaxy. (...). The Kaavi encountered the Mind relatively soon after arriving here. They, too, initially resisted the "guidance" offered by the Mind, choosing instead to forge their own livelihood among the fertile stars. However, a separate culture group decided to learn more about the Mind, and some small number of these were incorporated wholesale into the Mind itself. (...) I could not tell you the fate of the remaining Kaavi, only that none have been seen in this galaxy for several hundred million years."

[7] "Why is this information of importance? There are no longer any baseline Kaavi in this galaxy. Your chances of encountering one are nil, so what use is there in being able to recognize one?"

[8] "This Mind subcluster, formed predominantly of ex-Kaavi, is the operant subcluster in this area of the galaxy."

[9] "After perusing one of your dictionaries and better acquainting myself with your languages, I believe you would call the Star Mimick "electromagnetic radiation." It is a primitive form of communication, but one that most races discover and master."

[10] "This is a meaningless question. There is no time of transmission for the Greater Communion. It is instantaneous. Or, perhaps, limited by the cognition abilities of the recipient."

[11] "THE MIND COMMUNICATES WITH THE HUMANS VIA THE COMMUNION. ALL LIFE MAY RECEIVE THE COMMUNION, BUT ONLY COMMUNITY MEMBERS ARE TAUGHT TO TRANSMIT VIA THE COMMUNION. (...) TO UTILIZE THE COMMUNION, YOU REQUIRE GUIDANCE."

[12] "As I said before, most of them now identify simply as "Community," and very few Community members resemble anything like the original racial forms."

[13] "Untold races have joined the Community, and the vast majority have blended over time through various biological and technological means, so that their original racial heritages are lost. They prefer to think of themselves as simply Community members."

[14] "The Mind is a tool, an institution, created by the Gardeners to ensure the survival, success, and growth of the Community."

[15] "The Mind is what you might call the Executive Body of the Community. Its role is to enforce compliance with the Community Tenets and to seek out and give Guidance to new members. "

[16] "Many Community races volunteer to be integrated into the Mind in order to ensure its continued usefulness, but such integration is not enforced."

[17] "There is no hierarchy within the Community. All full members are considered equal and are afforded the same rights, protection, and bear the same responsibilities. Of course, some species have specialized and used that to their advantage in dealing with other species."

[18] "The dynamic nature of galactic rotation means that over the time periods we are considering, relatively little in the galaxy is static. Stars change relative positions, are born, and die with regularity. Systems like this one, composed of dim, low mass stars, are quite useful in that they provide a relatively static reference. This system is nearly five billion years old, and was last visited approximately 40 million years ago, give or take."

[19] "The rate of discovery of new races has dropped precipitously in the last fifty million years, for reasons that are not entirely clear. It may be that we have simply exhausted the pool of available races at this time, and will need to wait for further intelligent life to evolve and activate our latent beacons"

[20] "We are still re-familiarizing ourselves with this area of space, having only arrived a few years ago, when one of our latent beacons was activated in the vicinity."

[21] "We first encountered them nearly 37 million years ago, when they were first exploring the volume around their home system. Their star was not far from here on an astronomical scale at the time, though it has moved quite a bit toward the north galactic pole since then, based on our recollection of its galactic motion. While reviewing their records, we noticed a system with abundant life on its third planet and assigned them to serve as guardians and mentors to any intelligent life that may have arisen. (...) You say you encountered ruins of [The People]? Could it be that the Humans are from the planet we assigned [The People] to oversee? They were instructed to deploy a beacon in that system and either activate it at the time a spacefaring civilization arose or leave it to be activated by the new race itself."

[22] "Unfortunately, we lost contact with [The People] after an extremely brief time period. It is a shame, as they embraced the Community ideals very quickly and would likely have made excellent members. Our records are incomplete regarding the cause of this loss of contact, but perhaps it may have something to do with your "hostile race?" They are the last intelligent race in this section of the galaxy that we have records of."

[23] "YOUR MIND IS IMMATURE. YOU REQUIRE GUIDANCE TO REACH MATURITY. MATURITY IS REQUIRED BEFORE ACCEPTANCE INTO THE COMMUNITY. YOU WOULD GAIN MATURITY. YOU WOULD GIVE NOTHING, AS YOU HAVE NOTHING TO GIVE THE COMMUNITY THAT IS NOT ALREADY ITS OWN. ALL THESE STARS BELONG TO THE COMMUNITY. ALL THESE STARS BELONG TO THE COMMUNITY. WHERE IS YOUR ORIGIN? (...) YOUR MIND IS IMMATURE. YOU THINK AS MANY, WITH CONCERN FOR MANY. YOU REQUIRE CONCERN FOR ONE. YOU REQUIRE CONCERN FOR THE COMMUNITY. YOU REQUIRE GUIDANCE. THE MIND WILL PROVIDE GUIDANCE. WHERE IS YOUR ORIGIN?"

[24] "YOU MUST FIND YOUR PLACE IN THE COMMUNITY. (...) THE HUMANS' MANY MINDS ARE IMMATURE, THEIR THOUGHTS ARE MANY, AND DISORDERED. THEY REQUIRE GUIDANCE, AS ALL RACES HAVE REQUIRED GUIDANCE. (...) THE MIND HAS GUIDED MANY RACES. YOU REQUIRE GUIDANCE. THE MIND WILL PROVIDE GUIDANCE. (...)

[25] "Make no mistake. The Mind is vastly powerful, and its wishes come to be. Resisting its plans is fruitless and will lead to the extinction of your race."

[26] "And some races reject the Community outright. These are pruned like the grasping vines they are, limited to their home systems until such time as they are ready for admittance."

[27] "As I have noted a number of times: all races either join the Community voluntarily, or are limited to their home systems. The latter is almost universally a suicidal decision for the race on a galactic time frame, as it succumbs to resource starvation."

[28] "Travel between galaxies was commonplace in the dim past of the universe, before the time of the Community or even the Gardeners themselves. Such journeys, however, consumed vast, unimaginable quantities of Garden Materials. After untold eons of such intergalactic travel and Garden Material consumption by the prodigious civilizations engaging in it, the amounts of Garden Materials was depleted to levels that could no longer support it. The Gardeners call those civilizations the First Ones. From their ashes rose the Second Ones, a pale shadow of their forebears. With their limited resources, they were unable to make regular intergalactic journeys, though the Gardeners believe there was still occasional intergalactic communication and, even more rarely, travel. This civilization managed to eke out an existence on the remaining scraps of Garden Materials left after the collapse of the First Ones. In time, however, the Second Ones consumed all the readily available Garden Materials, and their civilization collapsed as well. It is almost a certainty that this galaxy does not contain enough remaining Garden Materials to support even a single intergalactic journey."

[29] "The Mind was established by the Gardeners untold eons ago in order to shepherd the emerging technological races in this galaxy, and to enforce an adherence to the tenets of the Community: cooperation and conservation."

[30] "One of the central tenets of the Community is to search for a solution to the Garden Material shortage problem. It is not an easy problem: in the entire history of the Community, only very small quantities of the Garden Materials have been artificially synthesized, and those at overwhelming cost. Admission of new races into the Community is partially an attempt to introduce new science and new innovation into the Community in the specific hope of finding a solution. Until a solution is found, however, the best tactic remains careful conservation and targeted usage. While not the primary purpose of the Community, originally, it has become the primary role."

[31] "By consensus, the Community members have agreed to limit interstellar travel and colonization, for the sake of Garden Material conservation."

[32] "Most of the Community-inhabited worlds are concentrated in areas with a larger stellar density, to decrease the amount of resources expended in travelling between stars. With enough time, you and your people would be relocated as well."

[33] "Life in the core requires only a very tiny amount of Garden Materials. They are durable and hardy, and as you may have learned from your encounter with the "Belnar," installations employing them can last millions of years with little upkeep. Thus, the majority of Garden Material usage in the Central Community has already taken place in the ancient past."

[34] "Obviously any who wished to remain in this galactic backwater would be welcome to do so, but they would risk losing regular contact with those who have migrated."

[35] "Admission of new races into the Community is partially an attempt to introduce new science and new innovation into the Community in the specific hope of finding a solution."

[36] "Stars are alive, just as you are, just as I am. Their intelligences are mammoth, beyond comprehension by any biological organism. They sing to each other across the gulfs of space. (...) The will of a star is unfathomable, but one truth is known: they desire the company of each other. "

[37] "The song of a distant star is quiet, almost silent. But the links the stars establish between themselves allow them to communicate more freely, and those stars connected by "stabilized jump points" are able to commune as easily as you and I, sitting here together. We call this "Unveiling the Hidden Path," and it is another mandate of the Gardeners."

[38] "Unfortunately, even we do not have answers to many of these questions. There are hundreds of theories about the underlying consciousness mechanism, from chaotic photon transport at the radiative-convective boundary layer, to directed fusion synapse structures in the core, to even more exotic explanations invoking extra-dimensional entities who merely use the stars as a calculation substrate for their thought processes. We have no knowledge of the "personalities, desires, or memories" of stars, and cannot even say whether those concepts make sense where they are concerned. After all, a great many Community members do not have parallels for some of these aspects of consciousness. Stellar xenopsychology is a mostly speculative science within the Community."

[39] "Have you not heard their song, while traveling the Hidden Paths between stars? I suspect you have."

[40] "As for whether they ever communicate with more mundane life-forms, we direct you merely to transit any convenient jump rift. You will surely hear their singing."

[41] "As I have noted, we would first have to collect more information about your race, your society or societies, and your various cultures. Any potential negative policies or norms would be brought up for discussion and plans would have to be made to bring these problem areas into alignment with Community ideals."

[42] "They were a slow, patient race with a very deliberate way of doing things. They required little Guidance--relatively speaking--before accepting membership in the Community."

[43] "During your probationary phase, you would be expected to adhere to the tenets of the Community, especially regarding Garden Material conservation. You would be permitted limited use of these Materials as established by the Garden Material . . . "Budget" -- I think that is a close approximation in your language for the concept. This Budget is established by consensus of the Community as a whole."

[44] "New species tithe a significant portion of their Garden Material reserves to the Community at large. These are kept in reserve for the aforementioned expeditions to discover new members."

[45] "This would entail the establishment of a conservatorship of any other life-bearing worlds within this region of space. Upon uplift of one or more intelligent species from these worlds, you would be accepted as full Community members."

[46] "You have already taken the first steps in this integration by welcoming me aboard. However, the exact timeframe is different for every race. Some find the transition effortless and are fully integrated within several centuries. Others resist, or have difficulty adjusting to the new responsibilities required of a community members. These can take millennia, or longer."

[47] "Approximately two percent of "Community members" are currently probationary. In the last 100,000 years, fourteen probationary members were elevated to full members. The rate of discovery of new races has dropped precipitously in the last fifty million years, for reasons that are not entirely clear. It may be that we have simply exhausted the pool of available races at this time, and will need to wait for further intelligent life to evolve and activate our latent beacons."

[48] "You must understand, in the course of our dealings with countless species, we have encountered hundreds of thousands of forms of resistance to our cause. I could read out the exact code identifying humanity's response behavior characteristics, but it would be meaningless to you. The Mind subcluster responsible for your Guidance is executing a plan designed specifically to incorporate humanity with as little disruption as possible, even if it doesn't seem that way to you all the time."

[49] "The Greater Communion indeed possesses instantaneous transmission times, but has a relatively limited bandwidth due to its biological origin. A mind is required for its transmission and reception, and in general, a mind can only process a "packet" of limited size. It is more useful for semantic data transmission, like natural language communications, than exchanging large amounts of information. (...) Thus, while the Greater Communion can be used for instantaneous communication between Mind sub-clusters, it is a relatively poor choice compared to other modes of interfacing between Mind members, which may allow for better throughput in specific scenarios.

[50] "It also explains the sub-cluster model. The Greater Communion cannot be used for effective management of the distributed Mind network due to the incredible amount of information exchange involved. The solution is multiple semi-autonomous Mind sub-clusters, which begin as "clones" of the Central Cluster and are periodically refreshed with new data. Some simple information is exchanged directly with the Central Cluster via the Greater Communion, but the rest of the data recorded by a sub-cluster must be sent and received via other methods."

[51] "It is possible that the sub-cluster encountered by the mind had laid dormant long enough to have been out of contact with the Central Cluster for a span that would make it seem as if the Community had ceased communications. It would have attempted contact with the Central Cluster immediately upon encountering the Belnar. The relevant records bear no mention of an untoward lack of communications with the Central Cluster, so we can only assume the Belnar misunderstood some communication from the Mind at the time. It would not be the first time a cultural misunderstanding took place."

Attachments

Attached are full transcripts of all the talks with the Mind and the Shard.