AN: This is a one shot story, my first. Please leave a review.
"Today, is the day that we as a species end. Today is the day, that we are wiped off the universe. Not another of us will live beyond this year, and by the time aliens reach us, our monuments to ourselves will have eroded into dust. So remember this, when the asteroid crashes through our atmosphere, striking the Earth ending all life on the planet, we may live on. Not in person, it was to sudden for us to prepare for it. We shall survive through our good friends, the Voyager Probes. With them they carry what will be our last proof of our existence beyond our solar system." Taking a gulp, feeling as though he is asphyxiating, the President of the United States finishes his message. "I encourage all of you in your final hours, to grab a bottle of whiskey, sit outside, light a cigar, and play a good song, for it will be your last. God Bless America."
The camera light turned off, the President exhaling as though it was the first time he had since he began speaking. From behind the camera stepped the First Lady, to which he beconned her to follow him to the roof of the White House. Where he had set up two chairs, and did exactly as he told all the American people to do. "I love you honey." Grabbing his wife's hand, and gazing out into the city proper. He instructed the secret service and the rest of the staff to go home and enjoy their time. They wanted him to live in a bunker, but he told them he refused to live miserably in a bunker while the rest of humanity dies.
"I love you too." The final words spoken between the two before a huge shockwave rushes over them, their death practically instant. The asteroid, bigger than any to come before, and only detected when it was too late. Twelve hours ago everything was normal, but now. Now the human race was taking its final breaths, before dying out forever.
The council had done it, they had defeated the Reapers. It was no easy feat, but thanks to a turian war hero, who was able to deal with them. Many years would pass since then, life occuring as normal. Yet, the need for expansion eventually pushed the council to allow the opening of new relays, the need for more land demanded it. Once it was determined it was safe enough, scouting vessels were sent out, in an attempt to establish first contact. Sometimes they met new races, sometimes they were peaceful, other times they were violent and ruthless. Occasionally they would find a planet with evidence that a race once lived there, but destroyed themselves with war. They encountered more of the last kind than they would like to admit, and when they did search the ruins, all they could find was proof of war like nature. A civilization of neverending brutal war, no care for the arts, or luxury, a society of death and combat. The scouting party felt little emotion to those civilizations, too violent and warlike.
On this day, they were investigating solar systems around the galaxy, after all not every species may be near a mass relay. "Captain, we are receiving radio signals from a small object appearing to be originating from system-128f, we believe it to be a probe." The Salarian linguistic expert, Vedart, told the captain of the ship, an asari named Sanao.
"Is it hostile?" The turian security guard, Arcus, the only one on the ship. Not really seeing the need for a huge security force on such a small ship. The salarian does some more tapping away at the holographic keypad.
"It doesn't appear to notice us, or interact with us in anyway. Should I attempt to intercept the radio signal?" Captain Sanao nods to the suggestion, seeming to like the idea. Upon intercepting the radio signals, nothing was heard, not audio whatsoever.
"What's wrong, I thought it was sending out radio signals, where are they?" Thoughts raced through the Salarians head, maybe the audio was outside of their hearing range.
"Maybe it doesn't transmit audio." Heads turned to Arcus. "The Turian military has used radio for video signals in the past, for drones and such." Vedart thought it wasn't sure, but it was worth a try. Playing the radio signal through the holographic monitor at the middle of the bridge. The picture came onto the screen, a video of what any of the group could see if they took a look through the bridges window. It was a video of space.
"It's a video feed of space, now I'm curious. Do we have room in the cargo bay to hold the probe." Captain Sanao asked Vedart, to which he had to check his omni tool.
"Yes Captain, we should have enough room. It will be tight though, our cargo bay was meant for supplies, not probes." The small space ship was purely made for practical purposes, it's mission was to scout. It wasn't even supposed to initiate first contact, but to call back for diplomatic envoys to be sent. "The only problem is securing the probe, we're going to have to send someone out to get it, it's not like we have a beam to draw things towards our ship."
"Someone will have to go out and do an EVA?" Sanao asked, full well knowing she didn't want to do it herself.
"Yes captain, we need someone to go out, and attach a tethering hook on a rope to the probe, allowing us to pull it in. Do you think the cargo bays airlock is big enough?" Vedart broke out into his own self thought. Talking to himself and contemplating various factors. "We definitely have to call this in to our superiors. We have discovered another space faring race, although they are still in their early stages if the purpose of this craft is observation."
"I guess by someone you mean me?" Arcus was completely unsurprised saying this. In the back of his head the words, "Oh no Arcus, some dangerous shit, put your body in the way so the rest of us don't get killed in a terribly horrible manner." He felt as if that perfectly described his job description. He was supposed to be a member of a security crew, but they all treated him as a guinea pig. They always send him out to do the unknown and dangerous things. Like and EVA with a probe of unknown origin. "I swear, if I go out there and it turns out to be nuclear powered, I better still be able to have kids." Marching off towards the cargo bay, to suit up for his mandatory, but still optional EVA. Legally they couldn't force him to do it, but they were forcing him to do it.
"Well, he got the point pretty quickly."
"Captain, when are you going to stop making Arcus do all the jobs with a less than acceptable probability of survival." Captain Sanao only responded with a shrug, making Vedart wonder how she ever became a captain in the first place, but more importantly why he was stuck with her.
"I guess we should head to the cargo bay, gives us the chance to shove Arcus out of an airlock faster." Vedart wanted to comment on how poorly Sanao had worded that, but thought against it.
Walking to the cargo bay, a walk which did not take more than thirty seconds due to the size of the craft. The opening of the door to the cargo bay had concluded that Arcus had already left, and the omni tool of Captain Sanao began to receive a message. "What is it Arcus?" Sanao picked up the radio and spoke into it.
"Tell Vedart that this thing won't fit into the cargo bay, the main body may just barely fit, but the amount of antennae sticking out. The size of the craft, including all the bits jutting out is just too much, I recommend calling back to get a bigger ship to pick it up."
"Thank you Arcus, I'll make sure to reel you in." Right before signing off Arcus had one last thing to say.
"It's strange, there appears to be, a strange look golden disc on the side. I don't know what the purpose of it is."
It was three galactic standard ours before a ship came to pick them, and the probe up. The ship easily containing the space required for both. On the ship were science teams and diplomats for first contact with the creators of the probe. First though, they wanted to study the probe, mainly to determine technological level, for all they know the probe could have been built fifty years ago, or a hundred years ago.
A salarian researcher by the name of Sepik Laran, an expert in electronic engineering, was looking over the craft. Many of the devices were of the scientific variety, but one had him quite puzzled. The golden disc on the side, was a mystery. The disc was covered in various etchings, of what he was quite unsure. Not holding any real purpose, the salarian had a choice to make, remove it for study, or let it be. Being a curious man he decided to remove it, grabbing the disc with his gloved hands to figure out if it was supposed to open. To his surprise the front fell off, leading the geiger counter on his omni tool to go off. The radiation wasn't from the RTGs, which if they weren't somehow still running, never would have powered the craft. Picking up the cover and inspecting it, he determined that some kind of radioactive material was on the cover. What the purpose was for, he couldn't tell.
"What are you looking at there?" Obviously to enraptured in thought to notice the door open, Laran looked behind him. The stood another researcher, a major in chemistry Cesoln Yilban.
"I'm inspecting the golden disc found on the craft, would you like to take a look at this." Handing the cover to Yilban, who looked at it with an inquisitive glare. "I'm not sure what to make of it, you can take a look at it while I look at what was inside of it."
"Well I already know what that is." Yilban pointed to a diagram on the disc. That is a crude diagram of a hydrogen atom changing states." Laran turned to him, his face one of glee.
"Do you know what anything else means?" Yilban shakes his head, proof of him not really knowing.
"All I know is that it's hydrogen transitioning states. Which if you don't know produces radiation with a wavelength of thirty five hundred picoseconds. In galactic standard time of course." The other diagrams mean nothing to him, he only understood that one diagram due to his degree in chemistry.
"I found another golden disc inside of the craft, I also found this… I don't know what to call it." Yilban looked over at what Laran found, noticing the unnamed object from one of the diagrams.
"Those two objects are on the diagram, I think the diagrams may be instructions of some kind."
"What do you think it means?" Yilban showed the diagram to Laran, who tried to make sense of it.
"It looks familiar." The diagram clearly showed the disc and the item on top of it, but he didn't understand what the dashes and bars meant. It dawned on him, if it was binary code, the number would be. "What if it was binary code?" Yilban looked at it and thought.
"It might be, but why though?"
"This disc may be a type of physical medium for holding information, and the diagram the instructions to play it. In which case, the number here in binary is just a little over five billion." Yilban was still confused though, not really understanding where Laren was going with this.
"Five billion what?" Laren just stood there and explained what he thought.
"Well it must be some kind of unit of time." Yilban had an idea.
"What if it was hydrogen transition periods." Running the numbers through his omni-tool. "If it is, it would be about one point eight seconds. Do you think it means per revolution of the disc?"
"There is a way to find out Yilban. I'm going to report my findings, you go to the fabrication shops and make something to run this through.' The two agreed to meet back in the lab later to play back the disc, this attracted the attention of Vedart, who asked if he could join. They obliged, but only because he was a linguist, and they wanted him for any help understanding anything said.
Two hours later they arrived, back in the lab. In Yilban's hands a device, presumably to follow the instructions to play the disc. "Shall we try it?" Vedart asked the two impatiently. Placing the disc on a housing made in order to spin it to the required speed, and then placing the other piece to an arm, Yilban put the piece onto the outermost groove, and turned on the machine. The disc began to spin, and sound began to come from the device, although it was minute, it was there. Immediately, Yilban grabbed a sound amplifier, and placed the end near the noise. Words, in an unknown language came through, until then words in another language, then another. "These languages are all different, some are more similar to others, but they are all different languages." A total of fifty five were counted.
The words were then changed and a variety of sounds started playing. Everything here was being recorded, but the three salarians listened to it as if it were going to phase out of existence when it was done playing. Various natural occurrences, synthetic sounds, animals, even the sounds of a jet engine was present. Then music started playing, all sorts of varieties, from orchestral to fast paced music with vocals. Again a variety of different languages were present with the music. Eventually the sounds ended, at which point the spinning was turned off by Yilban. "I believe that they were trying to send a portion of their culture into space, in the hopes it would encounter someone else, someone like us." Laren gave his thoughts.
"That still doesn't explain this diagram." Pointing to the one with more binary, which came out to five hundred and twelve.
"I think the disc also contains video signals, if we think about the technological level where they would send an analog form of audio recording. If they are sending the signal in analog, we might be able to make a converter box to transfer it into digital to display on our monitors." Laren finally putting his degree in electronics to the test, attempted to explain it to a bunch of people with only rudimentary understandings of it. "I'll build a box, you play disc when I tell you to." The two other salarians understanding, though begrudgingly. Salarians hate looking like idiots.
A couple of hours later Laren had hooked it up, and instructed Yilban to play the disc. "This should work, attuned to the frequency listed on the disc, and put through the converter box, this should work." An image came on. A circle, then the location of their star, then math. Images of planets, cars, members of their species. Diagrams, anatomy, aircraft, rockets, scientific equipment, and what is presumed to be one of their members in a suit. The man in the suit was doing an EVA above their home planet.
When the recordings of this were shown to the higher ups, they made it official, they were going to meet the species. They have determined the third planet from the systems star according to their diagrams.
When the diplomat team arrived, they came upon a dead world. The surface rendered uninhabitable by what can only be presumed to be a six hundred mile wide asteroid crashing into the planet's surface, due to the crater. Due to dating of the uranium on the cover, they have determined the date of manufacturer to be two hundred and eighty galactic years before the planet ago. In the blink of the cosmic eye, an entire civilization lived, touched the stars and died. The only proof they existed, recorded and documented. To be revealed to the public next week, but it didn't even make front page news. An article about how an exotic spice from a new garden world may help you lose weight. An entire species lived and died, trying to reach out to the stars, but never getting the chance to be noticed, for they had been annihilated before they got the chance. The rest of the world barely batted an eye. The golden record filed away, and the information long forgotten. Only ever being referenced in the occasional school paper, or scientific journal of dead civilizations.
They never even knew the name of the species, the legacy died, but so to did their name with them. Historians can only look back and wonder, would humanity have made a difference if it wasn't annihilated.
Space: the final frontier. The job of the Voyager to go out into the cosmos. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no man has gone before, and where no man ever will.
AN: Sucky, I know. I wrote this over the course of an hour at night, not including research. I'm not the most adept at Mass Effect lore, but I'm hoping this is good enough. Please leave a like and review.