IA IA disclaimer fhtagn!

Author's Note: I've seen alternate first contacts with the Turians, Quarians, Batarians, Geth, Asari, and I'm pretty sure the Salarians. Maybe even the Raloi or Collectors. But I don't think I've ever seen one with the Virtual Aliens. The problem is that there's so little material on the Virtual Aliens that I'm going to need to (as some may say) "Make $hit up". I hope you like my attempt at representing a starfish language.

This chapter is in the style of an after-action report.

~=Hab Ship O'neill's dream=~ (2234 AD/165ACC [After Close Call]) (Contact Coordinator's log)

We were in a fringe system around a type G dwarf about 2,000 light years out from Sol, and were about halfway through making a new Hab Ship when our sensor probes picked up an anomalous region of extremely hard gamma moving at 4,200 c and rapidly slowing. We were spooked, and sent word to the fleet that they might want to get ready to nuke it if it proved hostile. Just in case we died, we were also sending every byte of information we got to all the ships we had connections with. The anomalous contact slowed down to speeds below c just inside our sensor range relative to our location in a relatively dense asteroid field.

When the contact came to a stop, the sensors pinged it at about 40 kilometers long and 12 in diameter. It was obviously artificial, having a distinctly boxy shape and emitting levels of heat that inert substances just don't unless they were recently shot at a whole lot. It was decided that a Scout would be sent to within half a light second via its on-board Conduit drive and then approach the alien spacecraft at 15 km/s, stopping when it got 2,000 km away. This course of action was intended to show that we wanted to negotiate. If the scout went unmolested/un-contacted for a day by the aliens, it was to transmit a piece of music (namely the Hedgehog Song) {A/N: The hedgehog song is from the discworld series, which I do not own} as direct audio.

~=H̷͋͐ͦͩͤ̌҉̠ỷ̵̗͊̾͐̄̄ͬ͡t̨̜̦͙̹̫͔̥̟̤ͭͩ̒̒͆ͧ̆̉̀'̧̹͙͙̱̊̾͐̌́ͥ̚ġ̤̯̝̻͎̺̹̮ͭ̏͊ͯ͗͆ͪb̵̡̞̝ͪ̋̈́h̴̲͈̘̙̞͈ͣ͐ͦ civilization lifeboat=~ (Contact administrator's log)

The High administrators had determined that the system we were going to visit had an asteroid field we could mine for repair materials, though D̂͋̎͂̋ͮ̑͒͏̱̭̟͔͍̬f̺͉̺͙̠͑ͣͫ̈ͯͫ́͆̋ŗ̡̘͉̣ͨ͌̊͗̎̚y͎̳̥͔̞̔̋͆̈́͗͢b͈̠͈̦̼ͤͣͭͩ͒̔͟ thought there was something... off about the place, citing anomalous emissions. As we exited FTL, D̂͋̎͂̋ͮ̑͒͏̱̭̟͔͍̬f̺͉̺͙̠͑ͣͫ̈ͯͫ́͆̋ŗ̡̘͉̣ͨ͌̊͗̎̚y͎̳̥͔̞̔̋͆̈́͗͢b͈̠͈̦̼ͤͣͭͩ͒̔͟ was confirmed as our sensors picked up a [240 km] long behemoth of an obviously artificial object (nothing inert would EVER be radiating that much heat unless it was recently shot at), along with a smaller, colder one that was apparently under construction.

That was when an unexpected contact [100 meters] long just... blinked into existence [0.5 light-seconds] away with absolutely no warning. It didn't even have a light wake or any of the other signs of an FTL drive being used. After a little while we realized it was approaching at a fairly sedate pace of [15 km/s] giving us a bit less than 3 hours to come up with a response. Our Particle Beam Turbines render fuel concerns irrelevant, and are simple reliable technology. We therefore thought that the other craft would have similar capabilities given their undetectable FTL. This was proven false as it accelerated and course-corrected using a simple fusion torch drive.

After it came to a stop close enough to render communications delay negligible we were STILL trying to figure out what to do about it. The better part of a [day] later the debate was still raging and had turned into something you humans refer to as a "flame war". That was when we detected the transmission, it was strangely rythmic, but we simply lacked the context to know what it was. We decided to return the favor, though we are still confused as to why you categorized our message of "͔͎͚̗̗̲̤̽ͫ͢W̟͙̟̖͈̦̖ͭe͓ͬͥͨͮ̏ͬ̚ ̸͚̻̞͈͕̈́́̏w̝̪̭̄̎o̞͉̫̮͔̘͈ͦ̾ͯ͞u̖̳̞̻͚ͧl̔ͩ͠͏͕͔̜̮̱ͅd̶̳̖͔̰̜͖̙͊͒̂͘ ̒͗̔̅͂͡҉̳̯̫̖l̵̪̘̹ͩ͗̊͌i̡̗͓͎̱͌͡k̸̴̞̖̖̮̥̞̀̂͡ȩ͕̉̿͛͟ ̔͑̃̃ͭ̔͂̚҉̜͕̬͙̦̫̫̼̘t̯͇͍̝̪͕̘͙ͮ́̂͢ô̷͔ͣͫͪ̐̚ ̸͔͈̭̬̻̾͛ͩ̅͗ͥ̚i̩͇̘͔͇̺̙̟ͧ͗͂̊̕ͅn̙̻͔͖̦̱͉̓̃ͩ͌̄̀i̋ͭ̓̋̓̿ͧ̽̽҉̻̦̭͙̱̗̕ţ̰̝̺͍̅ͯ͋̓ͮ̇ͅị̸̯̈́̌͡a̹̯͗̿̓ͧ̎̍͘͟͝ţ̡̯̯̠̑ͨ̈̈̾̅͢e̸̹͖͕̭̪͓̜͛ͥ́ ̩͔͕͈ͨ͋̔͘n̵̺͚͖̈́͒̚͘ê̡̧͙̬̆̚͟g̖͙̠̳̲̲ͨ̑̇ͣ͢͡ơ̸̤̱̽͗̀̋͊̐ͫͮ͊͘ț̶̷͈͖̲͓͋ͯ͋͡i͖̰͍̗̳͚ͯ̇̐͆̐́a̴̯̣͕ͥ͛̍͆̇̽ͧ͞ṱ̶̣̠̩̖̞ͫ̎͗ͫͥ̑͗͛͂i̐ͦͦ̄̒҉͏̷͍̩̟ǒ̷̧̫̟̞͎̳͠n͔͇̻͖͈͎̰͉̎̈́͌̓̀̓ͫ̽̚s̱̹̜̩͂̌ͩ.̈͋̌͛͞͏̦͘"̬͖͖̉͊̿͐ͅ as Dubstep, whatever that is.

TRANSLATION ERROR OMAKE SLOT 1 (OPEN TO SUBMISSIONS)

TRANSLATION ERROR OMAKE SLOT 2 (OPEN TO SUBMISSIONS)

TRANSLATION ERROR OMAKE SLOT 3 (OPEN TO SUBMISSIONS)

Negotiatons (all parties attending via Virtual Reality)(Note, in-universe these talks went on for weeks, but they have been contracted for the Reader's benefit)

Human contact representative: Now that we've eliminated the vast majority of the glitches in our translation software, why don't we tell each other a bit about each other? We can go first.

H̷͋͐ͦͩͤ̌҉̠ỷ̵̗͊̾͐̄̄ͬ͡t̨̜̦͙̹̫͔̥̟̤ͭͩ̒̒͆ͧ̆̉̀'̧̹͙͙̱̊̾͐̌́ͥ̚ġ̤̯̝̻͎̺̹̮ͭ̏͊ͯ͗͆ͪb̵̡̞̝ͪ̋̈́h̴̲͈̘̙̞͈ͣ͐ͦ contact representative: No, we shall go first. We have only 1 ship. It was originally created to escape an impending ecological disaster as our system's sun reached its end. It had already entered its red giant phase by the time our people had achieved spaceflight, leading to our world heating up rapidly. We did not have the time to build a craft quite as well equipped as your own, so despite our abilities to effect repairs we cannot expand our holdings or efffectively upgrade our vessel. 1,000,000,000 of my people escaped, and have been traveling the galaxy for the last 8,000 years.

Human contact representative:1 question, how did you manage to cram 1,000,000,000 people in that ship? Not to mention feed them?

H̷͋͐ͦͩͤ̌҉̠ỷ̵̗͊̾͐̄̄ͬ͡t̨̜̦͙̹̫͔̥̟̤ͭͩ̒̒͆ͧ̆̉̀'̧̹͙͙̱̊̾͐̌́ͥ̚ġ̤̯̝̻͎̺̹̮ͭ̏͊ͯ͗͆ͪb̵̡̞̝ͪ̋̈́h̴̲͈̘̙̞͈ͣ͐ͦ contact representative: We have a means of transferring our minds to and from a digital medium.

Human contact representative: Understood, I do believe it's our turn to share a bit of our history. We first achieved interstellar travel 165 years ago after an object massing around 600 tons impacted one of the gas giants in our home system at 0.98 c. The results caused quite a bit of damage to our home world's biosphere, but we already had an interplanetary colony about 80% terraformed. We aren't sure if it was an accident or a deliberate attack, but we decided to take no chances. To that end we created the Hab Ships. Self-replicating starships with all the inhabitable landmass of a small continent, they've both rendered us virtually immune to RKKV attacks by virtue of moving around too much to get hit and freed us from dependence on planets. After that there were a couple internal wars we had, but we came out of those pretty well. Now that we've had our introductions Ms. ̧͉̻̗̓͊̂͛ͦ̈́ͮ͜͜ ͊̓ͥͫͯ̊ͫ̑̽҉͘͏̮̟̪͚͍̼ ̣̞̭͎̤̠͋̈̐͂̕̕ͅ ͎͚̝̠̟͖̥͐̐͑̆̿ͫ ̵̵̞̗͑̍͋͐ͧͬͨ̊ ̯̯̼̬̯ͫ̈ͯ̇̒̆̋͠ ̛̯̮̦̳̺̻̤̹̽̏͠͠ͅ ̸̣̬͓̓̐̓ͪͪͦ͋̀͝ ̨̰͒͆ͩͥ̇̋̎̚, how about we set about setting up a mutual benefit arrangement?

H̷͋͐ͦͩͤ̌҉̠ỷ̵̗͊̾͐̄̄ͬ͡t̨̜̦͙̹̫͔̥̟̤ͭͩ̒̒͆ͧ̆̉̀'̧̹͙͙̱̊̾͐̌́ͥ̚ġ̤̯̝̻͎̺̹̮ͭ̏͊ͯ͗͆ͪb̵̡̞̝ͪ̋̈́h̴̲͈̘̙̞͈ͣ͐ͦ contact representative: Such as?

Human contact representative: Simple, you want the ability to expand into a relevant galactic power by manufacturing new ships. We want that fancy uploading and AI tech you've admitted to having. To this end we can let you have that new Hab Ship we're about halfway through building.

H̷͋͐ͦͩͤ̌҉̠ỷ̵̗͊̾͐̄̄ͬ͡t̨̜̦͙̹̫͔̥̟̤ͭͩ̒̒͆ͧ̆̉̀'̧̹͙͙̱̊̾͐̌́ͥ̚ġ̤̯̝̻͎̺̹̮ͭ̏͊ͯ͗͆ͪb̵̡̞̝ͪ̋̈́h̴̲͈̘̙̞͈ͣ͐ͦ contact representative: We also require access to physical bodies, as we tire of the VR environment we have been trapped in for 8,000 years.

Human contact representative: I don't think we'll be able to find enough volunteers willing to swap bodies with you, but we should certainly be capable of re-purposing a certain line of Remotely Occupied Proxy Body android/gynoid that we originally designed for 'entertainment'.

H̷͋͐ͦͩͤ̌҉̠ỷ̵̗͊̾͐̄̄ͬ͡t̨̜̦͙̹̫͔̥̟̤ͭͩ̒̒͆ͧ̆̉̀'̧̹͙͙̱̊̾͐̌́ͥ̚ġ̤̯̝̻͎̺̹̮ͭ̏͊ͯ͗͆ͪb̵̡̞̝ͪ̋̈́h̴̲͈̘̙̞͈ͣ͐ͦ contact representative: This will be acceptable.