Dark Forest Fires:
A Three-Body Problem Novella
By
Ethan Rutta
Prologue:
This is a fanfiction story about the book, The Dark Forest book 2 in The Three Body Problem book series by Cixin Liu. This story is written around the idea called the dark forest. This introduction is meant to explain this idea to any reader who has not read the trilogy by Cixin Liu. This science fiction theory of the universe was brought up by Liu and creates a thought provoking and crazy idea of the state of the universe. The dark forest theory is a theory about the universe and how the mechanics of civilizations run throughout the universe. Here is a description of this idea for those who have not read the book series.
The dark forest theory. This theory starts with a few assumptions of the universe and civilizations.
Civilizations will grow and expand. They extend out into space and spread; they will consume more mass of the universe increasing its percentage size in the universe.
The mass of the universe will not change and will not increase.
Civilizations must expand and will do whatever it needs to for it to survive.
These are some of the starting principles for this theory. A civilization in the universe must expand in order to grow and survive, therefore they will take up more matter of the universe. The matter in the universe does not grow with any civilization. Two civilizations that exist in the universe are now enemies, they are each a threat to each other's expansion and safety. Each of them will need to grow, but the universe is like a box with limited space. These two civilizations will eventually meet each other and will push back on the other's growth and survival. Both these civilizations realize this and therefore they must destroy the other. They cannot communicate because of long distances in space and cannot trust each other. Both civilizations could attempt to communicate peace with each other, but they cannot know what the other civilization is thinking. They don't know if the other civilization truly wants peace, or simply wants to trick the other into lowering its guard so that it can later destroy it through a dark forest strike. So each civilization must attack first or risk being killed by a hunter or deceptive friend. This argument of reasoning becomes a chain that cannot come undone. A rule comes out of these findings. Every other civilization is a threat to you, and you are a threat to them. If you find one, you should destroy it as soon as you can before they find and destroy you. Even if they are technologically weaker than you currently, they may have a technological burst and gain an advantage over you. So even weaker civilizations are still a threat to your civilization. This creates the dark forest for the universe. Think of the universe as a forest at night, everything is dark, and no civilizations can see the others. Every civilization is a hunter, they are on the lookout for any signs of life, as soon as they see any, they will move in to make the kill. If a civilization makes known their presence in the universe, other civilizations will move in to destroy them. So, the universe is a dark forest and in that forest are many civilizations, all these hunters are moving quietly through the dark. They are hiding their own presence and looking out for signs of any prey. If a civilization lights a fire in the forest making known their presence in the universe, the hunters will see them and attack them with a dark forest strike. A dark forest strike is when a civilization attacks another for the reason of ensuring their own survival. Most dark forest strikes are initiated quickly and without warning by civilizations wanting to make sure that no threats come to them. Each civilization must decide how it will respond to this situation, will they become killers, or will they simply try to hide themselves from the rest of the universe, or will they try to do something more. They must each decide what type of civilization and people they will become. This is the dark forest theory of the universe as presented in the Three Body Problem book series.
Part 1
Chapter 1: Deep Space Observations
Cosmic civilization 137. This civilization lived in a three-planet system with a dwarf star as their sun. They lived on the planet Wayder.
General Tudor stood on the observation deck over the airport of the military base. He was thinking about how the military was upgrading, they had obtained new and unfolding technologies, and were now able to upgrade their military tools and weapons. He knew the future of their life was in the stars, whether they had to fight in space remained to be found out. They would be expanding and exploring into space on any account. They may not need the new military weapons, lasers and zero-G vacuum bombs, all these were compliments of Rise Industries. Rise Industries had been working hard for the past fifty years to get these tools into working production. They were one of the biggest companies on the planet and grabbed up most and the best trained of all engineers, physicists, and computer scientists. Many other companies only had bad things to say about this company, but the government loved them, especially the military branches. They were disliked for their success and competitiveness as a company. Tudor smiled as he thought about this, all those years and finally they would have a payoff. He may never get to use these weapons for a real war, but they could come in use to protect their spacecraft in general space exploration, space rocks and debris would need to be shot out of the path of space cruisers. The upgraded computers and automatic systems would definitely be coming into use all over the place for all reasons. Tudor began pacing back and forth on the observation deck. He ran the space military, as the people usually called it. They had many space stations orbiting the planet, 10 of them. They were created 100 years ago, back when civilization had reached the space age. They had been upgrading them throughout the years, about every 10 years they would upgrade and expand the space stations. New layers of protection and radiation shielding were added during these upgrades. They then resembled onions with many layers, the space station material getting older as you got deeper into the middle of it. The middle layers of radiation shielding were more broken down, but now they did not get as much radiation from the sun, so they were only backup protection. General Tudor looked down at his control watch, as he felt it buzz on his wrist. It read, "Emergency Meeting: Meet in conference One immediately." He walked briskly down the stairs to the conference room, opened the doors and walked inside. He looked around the room at all the other people around the table, some businessmen, some scientists. He took his seat. A young man stood up at the head of the long table, a huge screen behind him displaying only the military crest at the moment.
"Alright," said the young man. "Thank you all for coming to the meeting so quickly. This is urgent news that requires urgent action." He looked around the room, his eyes dark with seriousness. "This news is frightening, but not altogether unexpected. Our deep space scanners have picked up something. Just this morning the sensors picked up key search points and alerted our monitoring systems. Our astronomers have been reviewing the data for the past few hours and they have stated that they are 95% sure of their findings. They have stated that we have found another world that is inhabited." There was deep silence throughout the whole room. Only the sound of a computer whirring could be heard.
The man continued, "Our system, does in fact, contain other planets with sentient life."
Chapter 2: Weapons Construction
The conference room was silent for a full minute. Then the flood gates broke, and all of them started talking and asking questions. The young man pulled up images on the screen and began to explain what had been found by the deep space sensors. The planet Wayder had sensors that were located on 300 different satellites positioned around their star and orbital region. Some were positioned close by, observing the stars, comets, and nearby planets along with their regions of space. Other satellites were sent out of their system and had their sensors observing out into the deep regions of space, watching out for any signs of other civilizations or signs of alien life. Today those satellites had found something as they scanned and searched the dark abyss of space.
One of the deep space scanning probes was searching as it drifted through space. Its many sensors moved and calibrated. Its internal computers and systems were running smoothly. Analyzing, sorting, and broadcasting back to its home world. One of its radiation sensors picked up some unusual activity. It homed in its processing power onto this place. The focus was on a planet located in a system 7 light years away. This was civilization 338. The radiation sensor picked up high spikes of radiation levels on one of the planets orbiting the sun. Radiation spikes were a normal thing throughout the whole universe. Stars give off radiation all over the place, supernovas spray radiation out in big bursts. The key to analyzing radiation is where the spike is and where it's coming from. This radiation was coming from a planet orbiting the star. Planets do not give off radiation. The probe focused on this suspicious planet. The computer analyzed the radiation spike. It was not the levels that a star gives off. The computer analyzed probable sources for this radiation. As the sensors gathered more information, and more computing power was given to this situation, an answer began to form. The probe completed its analysis report. It believed that the radiation was coming from on the planet or in space that was in close proximity to the planet. The top list for the origin of the radiation was: Number one, Nuclear powered spacecraft, or large nuclear engines or machines on the surface of the planet. Number two, nuclear weapons being fired or tested. The computer observed the space within 2 AU of the planet and did not find any other sources of nuclear weapons or debris from a war in outer space. This made it believe that, if it was a nuclear weapon, it was only being tested or had only been used in a surface war on the planet. This was good news, the fact that there was no intergalactic war was good, that meant that hopefully this planet was not preparing for or working at a cosmic war with rivaling civilizations. The computer on the probe collected all this data, its calculations, and analysis. It then transmitted all this info back to Wayder, where real people would begin to dig into this info. They would work, wonder, and worry.
Back in the meeting room on Wayder, the group around the table read and looked at the info sent to them by the scientists. They looked at the radiation charts and the locations of planets and nearby stars. Not all the members of the group understood the info, and the young man giving the presentation was bombarded with many questions, most of which he referred to other people with a specialty about the question asked. The members of the group discussed the possibilities of the radiation spikes, there were only a few answers that made logical sense. One man spoke up on the aspect of nuclear weapons.
"I think that we can rule out nuclear weapons as a possibility. There is no debris cloud, which is usually left by a nuclear weapon in space. There also appears to be continual signs of radiation being picked up. Is that correct?" The middle-aged man speaking, asked. He looked around at the others.
"That is correct," one of the astronomy scientists said. "We have been receiving data of continual radiation. The probes have communicated that the radiation levels have been at a near constant."
"Alright," the middle-aged man began again. "With that being so, it shows that this is not a nuclear weapons test. A nuclear weapon would have had one large burst of radiation and it would not have continued to emit more radiation, if the weapon was detonated in space that is. Unlike on the surface of a planet, out in space there is not enough material to become radioactive. The debris and particles in space are too widespread and thin to be able to show radiation over a period of time. There just isn't enough condensed matter." The man looked down at some of the notes he had taken on his notepad. "I believe this data is showing that this planet is testing or has already built nuclear powered spacecraft."
All the members of the meeting discussed this problem thoroughly. They continued for 10 hours of discussion on the topic and their potential decisions. They talked through all the possibilities and analyzed all the data that had been collected. In the end they could only agree on one conclusion, this was indeed a sign of nuclear-powered spacecraft. This left the people of Wayder with one choice: if they wanted to make sure of their civilization's survival, they must destroy this planet.
The planet Wayder moved into full war preparation. The military was recruiting soldiers and pilots for spacecraft. They were building armored spacecraft as fast as they could. These were needed to grow the military; they were now very thankful that they had put so much work into the program already. They had enough trained troops, weapons, and spaceships in order to protect themselves and fight. They wanted to grow, so that they could combat any situation that would arise. General Tudor and all those under him were pushing weapons manufacturing as fast as they could. They now had well organized shifts, so that production was running around the clock. They were also running the weapons ideas and prototype making at increased speed. These new weapon ideas would be fundamental to their strategies and survival. They were prepared to fight. On the other side though, they had people thinking of how to destroy the other world before any war even began. If they could destroy the planet they had seen, along with all the spacecraft, then the danger to themselves would be gone, and they would not need to fight this war. The best scientists, engineers and creative thinkers were put to the task of finding or creating a weapon of mundicide. They needed to think of a way that would completely destroy the other planet before Wayder was threatened and its people became endangered. These thinkers had to think of a feasible intergalactic weapon that the people on this planet could make on their own and could make effectively. They had a few main ideas that they were focused on. One of them was launching a projectile at the planet or at the planet's sun. This plan would consist of taking an object and launching it at high speeds. A way to accelerate this object would need to be found, rockets and boosters alone could not complete this task, at least not the rockets they had at this time and because of the high velocity that they needed to achieve for this project. They could calculate the trajectory of their fired projectile and use the gravity wells of stars and galaxies in order to accelerate. Precise calculation would be needed in order to hit the planet with an object fired from Wayder. They would basically be shooting a target 7 light years away. They doubted their rocket precision and guidance systems were that good and could hit a target like that. All the planets, stars, and space debris between them added into an enormous number of gravities and variables. The second option that they focused on was a laser or energy beam. They would shoot a laser at the planet or even at its sun, this laser would hit into the core of the planet, it would superheat the core and cause a chain reaction of heating. The core would melt and expand causing the entire planet to melt into a slag pile from the inside out. The beam could also be directed at the sun which the planet was revolving around. It would do the same thing, causing a chain reaction in the sun and overheating it, creating massive amounts of energy. This energy would then be shot out of the sun like solar flares, but in this case, the solar flares would be countless, massive, and destructive. The heat and energy from the solar flares would reach out towards the planet. The planet would be destroyed, melted from the intense heat and energy coming at it from the sun. Picking the sun as the target would be easier, it was a much larger target and would be easier to hit. The outcome would be the same, but the odds of a successful hit were much higher when the sun was the target.
These were the theoretical plans, now the Intergalactic Demolitions Committee, or IDC for short, had to think up and design a functioning weapon. They had the ideas, now they only needed to make prototypes and turn their theory into facts. The IDC members met nearly every day for the next year. Throughout this time, much was accomplished. Designs for a DEW weapon had been created. DEW is a Direct Energy Weapon; in this case it was a Particle Beam. The weapon would fire a beam of particles in the direction of the planet or its sun. When hit, the particles in the beam would create large amounts of energy leading to destruction. The IDC was able to create designs for this massive and powerful weapon, within a single year. However, the building of this weapon would take much longer, just to have a prototype to test. In order for this weapon to reach across 7 light years of space, it needed to be very large to be capable of reaching a velocity that would gap the distance in a reasonable amount of time. The people of Wayder began construction on this weapon, factories went into production of material and pieces. The whole planet was in war production mode, all non-essential resources were diverted to the particle weapon. The military was putting all their manpower into the project, most especially the space section. Rise Industries had only built small scale weapons before, so their direct production was not needed. They did, however, have weapons experts and resources, these proved fundamental to the success of the weapon. The primary construction of this project was a particle accelerator. This accelerator would increase the velocity of the particle beam, before it was directly aimed and fired at the target, civilization 338. The particle accelerator was a large doughnut shaped loop, the particles making up the beam would be positioned inside of it and then accelerated around the loop until it had reached the needed velocity. At this point the aiming system of the accelerator could be calibrated and directed at civilization 338. The particles would be released, and the rest was just a matter of time. They were building this weapon in space, still inside the orbit of Wayder. It was being built in space, because this is where they would fire it. Once the accelerator was complete, they would move it outside the orbit of Wayder. Once it was outside the orbit, it could then be repositioned more freely. They could move around and aim at their target, then they could fire, once the computer on the weapon had made all the calculations of velocity and added in the impact of gravity and objects between Wayder and civilization 338. The IDC gave their designs to Rise Industries, who then worked on creating specific and important pieces. They worked on many of the parts that were a part of the weapon process. General manufacturing companies created the common and general pieces that were needed to build the particle accelerator, along with the necessary engines and space equipment. The military then ferried these parts up to space, where the assembly began to take shape. The military recruited general contractors and moved those men up into space to work on construction. The space stations that were already built in orbit around Wayder were used as housing for workers and as storage for supplies and supply drop off locations. Spaceships would launch from the planet with a cargo of supplies. Once they exited the atmosphere, they would head to a space station and unload their supplies, then they turned around and headed back to the planet's surface to reload. Once the structure of the accelerator was built enough, supplies could be dropped off directly at the build site and did not need to go through the space station phase. This allowed for more room on the space stations, this space could be filled with additional workers so the project could finish sooner. Therefore, as the project got closer to completion, the work was able to get done faster. Materials and tools were deposited directly on the weapon build site. All the construction workers slept and lived on the space stations that were in close proximity to the build site. The closer they were the better. The workers were ferried between these places by shuttles. They only ran the shuttles when needed, at the changing of shifts. The overseers and project leaders lived in small space stations that were movable, more like a spaceship, with a living space. These sleeping ships sat in space very near to the work site, so that overseeing could be done easily and quickly with the construction workers on shift. Extra scientists and engineers provided advice and designs from the surface of the planet.
Chapter 3: Space Fishing
A way to recycle as much waste as possible was also needed, in order to stop metals and materials from being depleted.
"We need a way to create the least amount of waste and reuse the most material possible, in order to save on time and shipping costs." Said Chuck Hower, the middle-aged man running the logistics of the building operations.
"What more can we do?" asked his young assistant Vlad Keefe. "We have already maximized the shipping areas on the spaceships bringing supplies from the planet's surface."
Chuck continued, an idea in his mind. "The best option is to not increase shipping from the surface, but instead to gather material from somewhere in space. All major costs of shipping come from the fuel costs to rocketing supplies up to space from the surface. Fuel consumption is a massive amount, when shipping loads of metal every day. Each spaceship takes about 950,000 gallons to reach orbit. The payload of metal is very heavy and burns a lot of fuel."
Vlad responded, "We could mine any asteroids that are passing near to us."
"That would take too long." Chuck said. "We would need to mine it first, and then we would also need to process and refine the metal ore. That would take a lot of time and work, as well as the creation of additional processing areas. I'm thinking that we are looking at a simpler and easier solution." He paused for a few seconds of suspense. "We reuse our previously junked material."
"But we already are doing that as much as we can. Junked material from the worksite is sent to the recycling center to be repurposed. Is there more we can do?"
"That is only reusing material we have shipped to the worksite, we need more material, not reused material. Wayder is surrounded with our scrapped material, all of our broken-down satellites and fuel tanks from the rockets that were caught into orbit. Not to mention all the space debris and general junk that is in orbit. I think that if we can gather this material, we can use it to add to the project."
"Wow!" Vlad pronounces. "I wasn't even thinking of that extra stuff. Only problem though, is how we are going to go about gathering that material."
"We will create a steel net and use it to collect debris and grab the reusable stuff." Chuck concludes as he pulls out some papers with hand drawn sketches on them. "Bring these to the engineers and tell them I need some designs, fast. I want this net up and collecting as soon as possible."
The Space Net Project began immediately, the IDC assigned people to begin designing as soon as they heard the plan was confirmed. It was created using flexible steel threads with one-inch diameters. This net did not need to be as strong as if it were on the surface of Wayder. It was not being used against gravity, it was being used perpendicular to gravity, it did not need to fight against Wayder's gravitational pull. The Space Net was placed in orbit around Wayder; each corner of the net had an engine to provide propulsion. The engines then provided thrust in the opposite direction of the planet's orbit. The net then scooped up any debris that was in the area of orbit. Its rotation was started next to the space stations sitting in orbit, once it had made three rotations around Wayder, they stopped it next to the stations and unloaded the haul. The space net was only unloaded every three revolutions, because there was not enough debris to fill the net in any less rotations. They shipped it over to the recycling center, which then reused the parts from broken chunks of spaceships and dead satellites. In this way, they were able to gather more supplies to utilize in their project.
Two years after the beginning of the DEW weapon project, it was ready for trial testing. Building a particle accelerator usually takes many years. This one however, took a short amount of time because of all the money that was funded for it, as well as all the manpower and work that could be diverted to the project. The IDC pulled resources like a V8 engine accelerating. All the workers and their shuttles pulled off from their positions working on the weapon. They fell back to the space stations, and stayed inside while all the work spaceships and freighters were docked outside. They were giving some space to the particle accelerator for its testing. There was only a small crew staying onboard the particle accelerator, a special area was created on it for some technicians to stay onboard, in order to fix small problems or do spacewalks in order to fix any structural damage. The accelerator was slowly moved upward and out of Wayder's orbit. The computers then began to move the DEW weapon, so that it would be ready for firing on the trial run. The computers had to test systems for a while, and the crew on board ran all the tests that they could, in order to make sure that all systems were running properly.
The computer tested the engines that were placed all around the structure, in order to move it around in space and to make adjustments while in use. The telescopes and deep space sensor were tested next, they zoomed in and out of focus. They looked at nearby objects and focused on passing asteroids, the tracking systems worked to keep objects continually in view even while everything in space orbited, moved and traveled all on their own courses throughout the galaxy. 3 AU away an asteroid traveled nearby, the computer observed it as soon as it came in reach of the sensors, it tracked it and used this object to help calibrate distance sensors, motion sensors, and direction sensors. The deep space sensors were then booted up to move from focusing on an object 3 AU away, in order to focus on something 1 light year away. They selected a star in a system that was 1 light year away. The sensor focused on it and maintained focus. The computers reported all systems as functioning well and ready to go.
Chapter 4: Firing the Laser
General Tudor stood in the command center of the surface-side military base. He had not been into space, for all his ideas and dreams of spaceflights and intergalactic conquests, he remained on the planet's surface, yet to float around in space. He watched the computer screens and displays on the wall. They displayed function stats and live video feeds from the particle accelerator, which was currently just outside of Wayder's orbit.
"Alrighty folks let's get this thing working!" Proclaimed Tudor in a strong voice.
"All systems are a go," said a computer tech from across the room.
"Hale, how are things for you? Anything going to give us a problem?" Tudor asked the group up in space.
"All good General, no problems showing up." Hale responded over the comms.
"Very good," said Tudor. "Start it up."
The computer systems whirred as they came to life. The targeting systems locked on, as the small drives all over the particle accelerator fired, moving and maintaining the correct position. They picked an asteroid that was 10 AU away. The target was locked onto. The accelerator fired up and dropped the particles into the accelerator. They circled through the accelerator faster and faster picking up speed. The computer calculated the trajectory of the asteroid's path through space and chose the precise coordinates to fire the DEW weapon at. The particles reached maximum speed. When this speed was achieved, the particles were now ready to do their job in this laser-based weapon. The accelerator fired the particles off into space at the speed of light.
The beam was maintained for a full minute, this was to make up for errors in the calculations, that not even the computers could eliminate. Throughout the minute, it traced a position through space along the path of the asteroid, this would ensure that the greatest amount of energy from the weapon would hit the asteroid and inflict the greatest amount of damage possible. The accelerator cut the beam and started to cool down. The cooling system was easy to run. Heated parts were either exposed to the -455 degree temperature of space, cooling the parts down rapidly. For more sensitive parts, a gas mixture of ammonia and carbon dioxide was run through tubing that was exposed to space. This cooled gas was then sent through the tubes to the heat affected areas, in order to provide some coolant.
The comms in the command center came to life with the voice of Hale.
"Firing is complete, now we only have 132.8 minutes to wait until we will see the effects of the weapon and know if the test was a success." The target was 8 AU away, this meant it would take the energy released from the weapon 66.4 minutes to reach the target. It would then take 66.4 minutes for the light from the effect of the weapon to travel back to Wayder.
"Keep us posted on the numbers." Tudor responded. "I want to see the countdown on the screen."
A tech on the computers pulled up the countdown and displayed it on the screen. 65 minutes 32 seconds. 65 minutes 31 seconds. 65 minutes 30 seconds. They all watched as the numbers counted down. They continued to stress and ponder potential results.
As the countdown neared the end, all the members in the command center were standing around looking at the screen, too excited to sit. The members of the IDC all watched from the surface, and the members who were located on spaceships in orbit watched on their screens. All of them were on the edge of their seats with nervousness. The timer reached 0 minutes 0 seconds. The screens displayed views from the deep space telescopes and sensors, showing the most detailed images that could be recorded from their distance. The screen was displaying many stars and blips of light all over the place, most of the people viewing did not see the tiny twinkle, just to the right of the screen's center.
"What happened?" asked an IDC member. "Did it work, I don't see anything?"
"Of course it didn't work, this project was way over its head from the beginning!" Threw in one of the skeptical IDC members. "We were doomed to end with failure!"
"Well, this was only test one!" the other added back.
"Everybody shut up!" Yelled General Tudor in order to bring some peace and quiet. "Get me computer reports, I want to know what the sensors found, it may have been a small change."
"It will have to be a small change." Hale added, his voice sounding certain and confident through the speakers. "We're looking for an asteroid exploding with a backdrop of a sea of stars burning with a size 2,000 times greater. Only our best sensor equipment will be able to determine a change."
They all stood around and muttered to each other for a while about their expectations. They sweated and stressed. The computer finally created its report of the findings and displayed it to them on the screen. They cheered and yelled for joy, as the readings told them what they wanted to hear, and feared they would not. The test of the particle accelerator DEW weapon was a success. The display showed that the asteroid had been completely destroyed.
The IDC now demanded that more systems checks and functions should be run; then the real target would be placed in the sight of this destructive weapon.
The next day the real firing of the weapon began. Civilization 338 was targeted and locked onto by the deep space sensors. They calculated the trajectories of the asteroids, planets and large debris that was between Wayder and civilization 338. It calculated where the DEW weapon needed to be focused and at what time it should be fired. It would be aiming ahead of the target because it was currently moving through space and would continue to do so. The orbits of all nearby planets and stars had to be accounted for, along with the flight paths of all nearby debris that would be large enough to halt or stop the work of the particle beam.
"Okay, DEW weapon trajectory path has been calculated." said Hale to the two computer scientists standing next to him. They were all looking at the computer readings and status. "The available times to fire are, today in 13 hours and 27 minutes, or the next opportunity is in 122 hours and 56 minutes."
"We should take the option to fire sooner than later." Said one of the scientists.
"Agreed, I'll notify the IDC immediately, for approval. Get me a report together and I'll send that along with it for them to review."
The earliest time was confirmed by the IDC. The time came and the weapon was booted up. The particles ran around the accelerator, reaching their needed speed. The drives on the outside of the particle accelerator made small adjustments for a precise aim. All was ready, the particle accelerator released the beam of energy from the barrel at the precisely designated and calculated time. The beam fired for ten full minutes. The engines moved and rotated the accelerator as needed, in order for the released energy to hit the star of civilization 338 as it traveled through space. The beam stopped and all was still. They had released their weapon upon another civilization, if they were successful, it would be destroyed. If they failed, they could only hope that they would not be destroyed.
The IDC and the military debated with the construction contractors. The IDC wanted to begin work on a secondary alternative weapon. The contractors did not think that was a good idea and argued to be done with weapons of mass destruction. The IDC would not back down and demanded to keep workers located in space to work on a new project. The contractors had to explain that the workers did not want any more assignments up in space at this time. They had been working non-stop for two years, and the workers had rarely seen their families throughout this time. Now that the DEW weapon was a success, they were expecting to be able to return to the planet, to finally see their families again. If they were told they must stay longer, there would be a mass revolt. The confined areas found on the spaceships and space stations only made this problem worse. Frequent arguments and brawls broke out between the cooped-up men. A break from work was needed. The IDC finally saw the point and reluctantly called it quits. Many of the spaceships were packed up and all the workers were shipped back down to their homes on the surface. The only people still up in space were those already on the space stations before this crisis had even happened. There was also a crew aboard the particle accelerator. They continued to make sure all systems would function well, until the results of their weapon were found and confirmed. The DEW weapon could be needed again, so its continued functionality was necessary. The spaceships had added numbers of scientists who were intensely focused on their jobs and did not have time to return home, this was only a small number of people though.
On the planet's surface, all the workers were happy to finally return home and see their families again. All over the planet, families were reunited after a very long and stressful two years. Most people were still stressed about whether the weapon would work, but now it was out of their hands. They could only sit at home and wait for any news to return to them from the cold and desolate depths of space. They had 14 long years to wait as the energy from the DEW weapon traveled across the galaxy at 11,160,000 miles per hour.
Chapter 5: Conclusion Comes
Wayder had not received any news about the condition of civilization 338 after 8 years had elapsed. They had sent out more deep space sensors and telescopes in order to try and learn the news sooner, they had yet to pick up a change. They sent reports back to Wayder every month and this month's report was due to arrive in a few minutes. A meeting was held to review the information and make any needed decisions. Many board members from the IDC were present in the meeting room. They met in the conference room of the military base on Wayder, at either head of the table sat Hale and Tudor, the project leaders.
"Okay, the deep space sensors have sent in their report, and we can review it now." Hale said to the group of people. "The computer has shown that the information is highly important, so this may just be the news that we've been waiting for. The deep space sensors not only watched civilization 338, but they were also watching all around Wayder for any unusual situations. They tracked and watched everything around the planet.
All the men in the meeting looked up at the wall screen awaiting the report. "I'm pulling up the message now," said Hale, as he typed on his keyboard. He opened the message sent from deep space. They all read the message and the words they read shocked them to their core. The message read:
Incoming object detected, dark forest strike imminent.
"This can't be happening," stated an IDC member in a stunned voice.
"Is someone attacking us!?" someone panickily asked.
"Are we going to die!" said another close to shouting.
Hale stared for a long while at the message. The voices of those around him faded into the distance and he only heard a buzzing in his ears, as he stared at the message. The words stood unmoving on the display, daring him to question their authority. His shock wore off and he began to type furiously onto his laptop, he pulled up communication with the space probes. He immediately sent a query asking when the dark forest strike was estimated to occur. The reply was given, the strike would impact in 32 hours. "It's over," he muttered to himself. The computer displayed the information that it had found, an object crossing space at an extremely high speed. Neither the materials nor the properties of the object could not be identified, the shape was barely discernible as a very lumpy asteroid. It was traveling at a speed of 99.99999999% of the speed of light. This was a speed of over 299.7 million meters per second. This level of speed was unheard of, and there was no defense against it.
"It's over Tudor," Hale said matter-of-factly. They did not have enough time to make any escape plan or retreat to safety. All the members in the room decided that it would be best not to tell the rest of the world, it would only cause chaos and panic, which would result in nothing.
In 32 hours, they were all watching the sky. Tudor looked over the military base and then up to the sky, he had built so many weapons and planned so many destructive plots, but now he would fall victim to another's. Hale sat in his backyard next to his wife, he watched his son and daughter playing around with their favorite toys in the grass. They jumped around and laughed. As Hale held his wife's hand, they both watched their children playing, he realized he had made a huge mistake. His work had led to the destruction of what he valued most. He spoke to his wife in a sad, but newly understanding tone, "We lived by the sword, so we will die by the sword."
"What does that mean?" she asked, a puzzled tone to her voice. They didn't even have time to comprehend what happened, when a 390 million ton object shot through the planet, turning Wayder into nothing but fire and debris.
Part 2
Chapter 6: Watch the Other Side
Civilization 224 lived on the planet Nepris; they didn't have incredibly advanced technology. They only had a few spaceships and had only recently been able to reach a small amount of space, they were in the beginning of their space exploration.
Civilization 656 lived on the planet Bilgar, they were at an equal level of technology, when compared to Nepris.
Nepris and Bilgar were in the same system, and they orbited the same star. In fact, they had the same orbit. They both orbited around their star at the same distance. They were on opposite sides of the star, and for many years neither had known the other was there. When the people of both worlds looked into the sky, they saw distant stars and some of the planets orbiting with them, a few AU away. When they created telescopes, they still didn't see each other, because as they orbited their star, they were moving at the same speed and were both in the same orbital line. With a big star in the middle of their orbit, they could never see what was on the other side. When math was advanced enough, along with astronomy and its equipment, they calculated that there must be another planet on the other side of their star. The way planets rotated and orbited, along with gravitational calculations, showed them that there must theoretically be another planet in their orbit, on the exact other side. So, they could guess that another planet of the same size in the same orbit was just on the other side of the star. They could not see it at all and could not find a way to gather images of the other side. Bilgar and Nepris had both recently created satellites and spaceships. This is when they were able to start to gather more information. They released their first satellites and used them to revolve around their own planet. Once they had improved their technology and communication devices, they were able to send satellite probes, in order to catch a glimpse of the far side of the star. When this great milestone marker in space exploration was achieved, they were finally able to catch a view of each other. They could now see the size of each other and were able to see what the planet looked like, they could see the weather and environment that the other world had.
Both worlds were now in a space exploration stage. They had both created spaceships and achieved the goal of placing their people in space. They both manufactured more advanced probes, in order to watch what was happening on the other.
Nepris was just slightly more advanced, they sent out the first probe and began watching Bilgar for 13 months sooner. The people of Bilgar did not like that they were being tracked for so long and so much. They decided that they wanted to destroy the probes coming from Nepris, so that they could live in peace. Bilgar armed a few of their satellites with small EMP projectiles. The satellites orbited Bilgar and whenever a probe from Nepris got close enough to begin watching what was happening on the surface of the planet, they would launch a small projectile at it. This projectile was a mini-probe and was just large enough to hold an EMP. It flew along through space with a small engine and when it was close to the enemy probe, it set off the EMP, disabling itself along with the probe. Both were now turned into pieces of space debris, usefulness gone and lost in space.
Nepris realized one of their probes was offline. Bernard Mirko was the head of space operations for Nepris, and he investigated what was happening out there. He checked to see if the communication functions were working or offline. Everything was down, so there was not a thing more he could check on that probe. He had to do scans with the probes that were positioned near to the unresponding one. He watched recordings and completed scans. He sent a probe to check out the last known location of the downed probe; he saw a small object approaching and then the new probe went offline. This was when he realized that the probes were intentionally disabled, it wasn't damaged or broken by space debris, they were forever offline. He talked with his team, and they decided that a response was needed in order to show that they would not be stepped on. They decided that they would shoot down the probes that were near to them. They organized their space crews together and set up a guard system. They had 4 space cruisers armed with weapons and crews living aboard them. They flew around the planet and shot down any objects or probes that came too near to the planet or themselves. Each cruiser would take a month-long shift of duty. The crews lived on the small ships and watched out for their own protection along with their planet's. After their shift, they would return to the space station and swap crews. They then lived on the space station doing maintenance or computer work.
They shot down 3 probes from Bilgar in the first month. They tried to chase down two others, but they pulled back until the cruisers had pushed them out of their patrol area and stopped the pursuit. At the planet Bilgar, they took out a third probe, before the rest of them began to pull back out of the attack distance. They were also keeping in touch with their own probes, three of them were destroyed before they pulled the other two away from the kill zone.
Both planets could still see each other now, but their perception was limited, and they could not make out details. They each began to design and create space probes that could see much farther. They created ones that would zoom in to see details, while still staying far enough away to avoid being shot down or destroyed by an EMP.
Chapter 7: Debris Zone
The hostilities between the two planets only increased. They became more antagonistic with each aggressive act from the other. They only escalated their attacks on the other. They both used their long-distance telescoping probes to spy on the other. The probes would sit around 1 AU out from the orbital path of the planets and fly along, observing what was happening and trying to anticipate any next moves that may be a threat. The council on Nepris decided to try and do some higher damage, in order to slow down the advancements and attacks of Bilgar. Bernard Mirko assigned his men to begin designs and fabrications of some stronger weapons. Mirko and his men talked through the options that they had available and decided on a relatively simple, but devastating idea. Bilgar was on the same orbital path as them around their star, so any debris they left in their path, Bilgar would collide into as they crossed that area of space in half a year. Amping up that idea they could launch missiles or objects from their planet and accelerate it along the orbital line, these objects would then hit Bilgar and cause the damage that they would design. They went with this idea, picking missiles as their objects. They took standard missiles and encased them in a space shell. This space shell would protect the warhead as it left Nepris' atmosphere, journeyed through space, and entered Bilgar's atmosphere. They wanted to make sure the missiles didn't burn up on entry into the atmosphere. They also protected the missile from the radiation in space along with space debris and particles. They manufactured 40 of these missiles, they really only wanted to use 30, the extra 10 were a safety factor to account for missiles that would be lost, broken, or defective when they made it to the other planet. They launched their missiles in the direction that they were going forward, this was in order to use some of the planet's rotation to provide some centripetal force to help increase the acceleration of the missiles as they began their journey along the orbital line toward the planet Bilgar. Because the missiles were accelerating in the opposite direction of Bilgar, the collision occurred sooner than half a year. The planet and the missiles had a velocity on a collision course with the other.
The people of Bilgar looked into the sky one evening and saw streaks of smoke scattered throughout the sky. They wondered if there was a meteor shower happening. Their thoughts changed when explosions began to rock the world all throughout that side of the planet. Smoke and debris spread across the land. 35 of the original 40 missiles did their jobs and exploded into the surface of the planet. Some of the missiles hit cities or important targets, however most of them landed in rural areas causing damage only to the landscape. The harm caused by the missiles was mostly to the morale of the people, widespread panic unrolled throughout the land, nobody knew if they would be hit next and killed.
The Bilgar leaders did not just sit around and wait to be bombed to smithereens. They took the same idea and struck back as hard as they could. They manufactured 45 cylinders. Each cylinder had a 20-foot diameter and was 800 feet tall, it was composed of tungsten metal with an iron core. The core was 7 feet in diameter and made of iron, because iron was much more common and cheaper to use. The 6.5 feet wall on either side of the core was composed of tungsten. Tungsten has a high density, and it can also withstand temperatures of up to 6,188 degrees Fahrenheit. These cylinders had rockets clamped around them, each had three clamps, one on the top, middle, and bottom. Each clamp had 4 course adjustment engines attached. Bilgar launched these cylinders out into the wake of their planet. These cylinders now sat in the orbital path, they were not accelerated, as the missiles had been, rather they sat still and waited for their target to approach them. The tips of the cylinders were all pointed towards the incoming planet, they sat like a field of giant sharpened needles waiting to penetrate.
Nepris approached the needle field. The planet could not divert from its orbital path and had no choice but to continue straight into the field. Once the planet was close, the engines on the cylinders made correction adjustments to make sure the target was dead ahead, the needles would strike headfirst. When this was completed, no more course adjustments were needed, and the engines burned all remaining fuel in order to accelerate the needle into the atmosphere of the planet. The needles entered the atmosphere, they did not melt and were not damaged. The tungsten metal could withstand much higher temperatures than the 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit that the atmosphere acted upon them during entry. The engines, however, were not protected, the engines along with the clamps were broken or melted off, as the needles descended through the atmosphere. Only the sleek tungsten cylinders remained, dropping towards the surface. These needles slid effortlessly through Nepris' atmosphere and slammed into the surface. The needles had a high weight due to the tungsten makeup, they also had high acceleration due to the engines as well as gravity from the planet pulling the needles into itself. When the needles hit the surface, they caused massive tremors and earthquakes. Ones that landed near cities, caused buildings to shake and collapse. The ones that landed in water created tsunamis that smashed against coastal cities, damaging large amounts of infrastructure and coastland. The needles were simpler in design than the missiles had been, but they were much more destructive and deadly.
This was a turning point for both worlds, they both knew that they wouldn't last long if these types of attacks were kept up. Nepris knew if they were hit with more attacks like this one, they wouldn't last long. Bilgar knew that after this attack, Nepris would strike back even harder, and this would mean certain destruction. They realized that a peace agreement must be reached.
Chapter 8: Peace Negotiations
Bernard Mirko decided to initiate peace attempts. He started with the easiest, and more importantly, the safest way. He simply used the probes to send radio signals towards Bilgar, these transmissions would be easily picked up. He only sent small range signals, he didn't want any signals being sent out into space, this would only cause the location of their planet to be broadcast to the universe. Whoever picked up this signal would be able to locate and destroy them in a dark forest strike. The radio signal was kept low, only enough to reach the planet they wanted to talk to. In this message, Nepris explained how they did not want to fight for reasons of mutual safety. They could in fact work together and help each other. They stated how as step one, they would stand down on any attacks. When the leaders of Bilgar received this message, they saw that it was their best option, and pursuing peace would be worth their effort. There would be a communication delay, due to the distance the radio waves had to travel. The radius of orbit was 1 AU which meant that the radio signal had to travel 2 AU in order to travel from one planet to the next. The speed of a radio signal is 3x108meters/sec, so the signal took 20 minutes to travel from one planet to the other. When one planet sent a message, a minimum of 40 minutes was needed to wait for a reply. The leaders of Bilgar sent their reply. They would continue with peace talks and they likewise would stand down any further attacks on their part. Slowly, both civilizations were able to lower the hostilities. No attacks were made on either world and no probes were destroyed. They let the probes move closer to their planets, so that general viewing and observation were possible.
As time passed, the friendly negotiations continued, and they were able to live in peace together. They even worked together and began to share knowledge and scientific breakthroughs together. As they began to work together, their advancements in many areas increased immensely. This greatly helped their advancement in space exploration and technology; deep space probes and exploration star craft were created and launched into space. This allowed them to see new areas of space, and they advanced their knowledge of the universe.
10 years had passed since Bilgar and Nepris joined their planets together in peace. They had been careful not to show themselves or their position in space, they had remained quiet and unmoving, as they looked out into the dark forest surrounding them. They had no threats upon them and felt as though they were safely hidden and would survive. One day their thoughts on this changed dramatically. A sleek shaped object was detected headed straight for Nepris. There was no time to react, the droplet shaped object was picked up by the deep space scanners and then it was gone, swiftly closing the gap from deep space to the planet. Shortly after the medium range probes detected it, and it was soon past even them. Soon the space stations and planetary satellites picked it up, the droplet was moving at near the speed of light. It sped through the atmosphere and reached the surface. It stopped. Glimmering silver and sparkling in the sunlight, the tip of the droplet hovered 100 feet above the ground. A group of rabbits quickly hopped away, frightened by the giant shadow covering them, after appearing from out of nowhere in less than a second. The droplet had defied physics, moving from near 670 million miles per hour to zero, in an infinitesimally small amount of time for that insane speed. The people of Nepris were relieved, they were still alive. They were shocked, how were they still alive? They were scared, what would happen to them now? Recon and investigation teams were immediately dispatched to the zone. They needed to know more about what this object was, and what exactly had just happened to them. The sleek body of the droplet shaped object was shiny with a silvery color, and no distinguishable markings. Nothing happened around the droplet for three days, there was no change, sound, or movement. Some people tried to break into it to get something to open. The guards quickly put this to a stop; they did not want to cause any damage or destruction, for fear it may bring bad results or retaliation. Their worry was needless, nothing done to the droplet had any effect. Hammers and pickaxes did nothing to the surface. The tools only broke if they were used hard enough. Some guns were even fired at it, by crazies taking potshots, not even a scratch was left on the surface. After it sat unmoving for three days though, something changed. A signal was broadcast from the droplet. It was sending out messages very fast. The military quickly started to record these broadcasts. They had dishes set up and had been watching out for any broadcast, they were prepared for this type of interaction. Their dishes held onto the signal and recorded what was being transmitted. It was saying messages in many different types of sounds. It played a couple seconds of one type of sound group and then switched to another. Then they eventually heard a message that they could understand. The message was in an ancient language from long ago, and it read: Choose a language. They were surprised, and excited that they had been able to understand the message. It was an old language that they didn't speak, but the computer had recognized it and translated it all for them. The droplet must have been sending out that message in all types of languages and communication sounds. They sent a message back to the droplet, in the language they knew. We understand this language. Once Nepris sent their reply, the broadcasting from the droplet stopped immediately, all the chatter and noise that they had been picking up ceased. Only the quiet buzz of the radio remained. The droplet sent another message, this time only in the mutually understood language. This message shook their civilization and changed their thoughts and ideas for the rest of the time they had to live.
Part 3
Chapter 9: Civilization's Trajectory
Lofodis was a planet of determined people, the people of civilization 129. This planet was vast and hilly, many green pastures and waving hills throughout the majority of the planet. Lakes were scattered around the planet also, some large, some small, there were no oceans. Brandon Kane was in charge of space operations; he was in his late thirties with brown hair and a stubbly face. He was in fit condition. Chuck Obaz was head of the computer science and technology division. Both these men worked well together and were good friends, even when not at work. Lofodis had many satellites in space, and many probes that they had sent out into deep space. They were not a violent society, and these probes were strictly for learning and scientific purposes only. Brandon Kane was a fanatic about space and wanted to know as much as he could of the world beyond what they could see.
"There's a whole sea of knowledge we can learn from, if we can only fish out into the deepness of that sea." Kane once said, at the beginning of the deep space probe program.
Through the space program, they only wished to explore and learn. This, however, changed when they spotted something out in the depths of darkness. Their probes had located something unusual, and the computers back on Lofodis had notified them immediately.
"What are we looking at here?" Kane asked the computer technician. The technician sat on a chair in front of the large desktop computer. Kane stood behind him looking over his shoulder at the screen.
"I'm pulling up the reports and summaries now." His mouse moved quickly back and forth on the screen. The computer system compiled the data and created a report. "Okay, here we are. It says…", he clicked on a few more buttons. "The deep space probes have detected signs of a civilization other than ours… What?! This can't be, it's so close to us, within an estimated 20-40 light years."
"So, there's someone or something else out there, and they are close." Kane replied with awe and excitement in his voice. "We knew this would happen at some point; it was only a matter of time. This could be a great help, especially when they are so close."
"Don't forget that this may be a very bad thing. They could be gearing up for a dark forest attack against us. They may have spotted us long ago and have only been working up a strategy along with technological strength."
"That may be so, we can only hope not. For both our safety and for the progression of science"
A couple weeks later, detailed reports came in, explaining the findings in detail. This was no ordinary civilization, just looking to explore and increase their knowledge; this was a civilization, wanting to rule, wanting to kill. They had been given a death sentence. They couldn't stop it, their technology and science were not good enough, they knew it and their newfound enemy knew it. Their probe had picked up a transmitted message shortly after discovering the existence of the other civilization. This transmission was simple in words and in meaning.
Destruction is coming.
The message was simply gloating from the attacker. A dark forest attack had been launched at Nepris, and the attacker had sent a message ahead of the attack. They were confident that nothing could be done to stop it, so they had decided to show off their power.
Lofodis needed to figure out an answer in order to live. At present, they would be dead no matter what, and if they did nothing, pretty soon they would have no time to even try a solution. They must act. Kane organized a crew to analyze the situation and begin ideas for a solution. The first priority was to find out what type of attack it would be, so that they could know what they needed to defend against, this would also provide them with a time estimate of when destruction would arrive on their doorstep.
Kane addressed his space crew and analysts.
"We must find out where their home planet is, in order to know where the attack had originated from. It's possible the attack was launched from a spaceship somewhere else, but I doubt it would be much farther out than the home world." He took a sip of water from his cup on the table. "We must move more probes into the area from where the message was received. Have the probes spread out and investigate all planets in the area. There can't be that many of them. We also want to know how close the attack is, so we can have a time estimate. The extra probes that we send can scan the route along the way there and see if the attack is somewhere in between. We will also have to send in probes just to stay in the middle area to be watching for any updates. Remember guys we need to work on solutions fast, this could be the end of us if we don't work well." He looked around the room at all the grim expressions on everyone's faces. "I believe in all of you, I believe that we can solve this and that we can survive. We have been working hard in science and learning, we are already doing what we need to do. We have the right mindset, so we are on the right path. We have been pursuing knowledge and science, we can only hope that our research and breakthroughs will continue. We got this!" He concluded his speech with a smile as he looked around at all the others.
They began work immediately. Probes were moved into the needed positions, some were watching and waiting for any signs of in-coming danger, others were on the offensive, out searching for the planet that was dead-set on destroying them. Meanwhile, back on the planet, everyone was getting ready for the work that was needed. Many research labs were opened, physics was being researched and strengthened. Computer science was being expanded upon, companies were being created whose only goal was to advance computer science and programming. New types of programming and programming methods were being researched and worked on. The engineering and aerospace engineering divisions were going ballistic. They were working as fast as they could, to test new designs and spacecraft models. Lofodis had only expanded a small amount into space, they did not have extended knowledge about how different types of spacecrafts worked. They had highly functioning probes that they were proud of. The probes, however, were slow moving, not designed for traveling and lots of accelerating and decelerating. Their purpose was for research, they merely observed the universe and recorded data. The space program for Lofodis needed to expand their knowledge on propulsion systems and long-term durable spacecraft. Better and more efficient space equipment was needed, so great focus was placed there.
Colleges around the planet saw a huge increase in new students. Thousands of people, young and old decided to go to school to learn. They wanted to be able to help save their homes, they knew that many jobs would be needed, and advanced learning was needed for many of them. It would be fundamental that the next generations be well educated, to continue the advancement of their civilization. There were some young people who didn't care about what would happen in the future. They saw the oncoming dark forest attack as an excuse to forget education and to only have parties, they didn't want to learn, and they didn't want to help. Thankfully, the majority of people saw the value to school; they studied, worked, and thought creatively. They did the best they could to help expand research, theory, and tests.
The original probe used its telescopes and scanned all around its designated search area; it was the first one in that region of space and therefore had to search the area that was farthest from Lofodis. It scanned and searched, it was not panicked or worried, its life was not in danger, it simply did its job, and did it well. It finally found what it was looking for. It picked up traces on a planet of life and space travel. It detected that the planet was able to support life and it also detected radiation and signals from space traveling near the planet. This was what it was looking for, it filled all the search criteria. It sent the location of the planet back to Lofodis, the message was sent back through the chain of probes that were scattered throughout space. As the message reached each probe, it passed the message along and then began to search the calculated trail for an object sent from the destroyer's planet to theirs. The planet was named Dolofonoi after those who inhabited it. A trajectory line was calculated, and all the probes searched along this line. This was the trail where they should find something headed for Lofodis. This was indeed what happened 2 months after the finding of the attacker's home world, an object was found. The dark forest attack was coming in the form of a slow-moving spacecraft, and by slow they were talking about 25% light speed. In the real sense, it was not slow but actually really fast, it was slow for a dark forest strike though. Dark forest strikes needed to happen fast and without warning, in order to effectively eliminate their target. Dolofonoi was 30 light years away, this meant that from the launch time, it would take 120 years to reach Lofodis. The Dolofonoians had sent the message soon after they had sent the spacecraft, the message was received a year before the attack was spotted. This gave the people of Lofodis just over 118 years to prepare for the assault. They must advance their technology far enough during this time, so that they could defend and protect themselves when the Dolofonoi Death Shuttle, as it was dubbed, arrived.
Chapter 10: Planning and Coding
All the leaders and many people throughout the whole world were working hard to advance their civilization in order to survive. Many stressful and important meetings were held in order to figure out strategies and next steps.
Kane was in a meeting with two of his advisors, Ralph and Reshi. They were talking about where their science and technology were at.
"I still don't get why they would warn us about what was coming." Ralph said questioningly. "I would have understood it if they wanted to gloat over what they were doing, but I would have only expected them to do that if their attack was quick, and we could do nothing to prevent it. But it doesn't make sense with their attack, they're going slow."
"Well 20% of light speed is not very slow." Reshi quipped.
"Yeah, but they're basically giving us 120 years to prepare. That's a long time in which technology for us could change. They are taking a big risk that we may be able to stop their attack by the time the strike arrives here. If they had said nothing, we probably wouldn't have known of the attack until it was too late."
"They may not have cared if our technology advanced." Kane said. "They sent us the message after we detected that they existed on Dolofonoi. If we already knew they existed, we might attack them with our weapons. They may have feared we would attack first, and they decided to use what they had to try to shock us with fear. They sent their Death Shuttle and then the situation was out of their hands, they can't change what will happen or what technology will surface during that time."
"I guess that makes some sense." Ralph said. "It still seems a bit weird to me that they would do that."
"Well anyway, whatever their reasons were, they did it, so now we gotta deal with it." Kane said. "Let's get down to business here. How are we doing and how are we going to get to where we need to be in 120 years?"
"Well…" Reshi took a breath. "There isn't really much we can do, until our technology and science are more advanced. We can only think up hypothetical ideas and hope that our technology in the future will be able to accomplish those goals. We can still work on those possible ideas, even as the scientific research is going on."
"Okay that sounds like a good plan, let's get that set up and moving. I want a hypothetical planning committee. I want them to think of possible ideas all over the board. Let's just make sure that the research and studies are not falling behind, all the labs must all be staffed and running at all times. We can't let a day of testing go to waste."
The Hypothetical Operations Procedures Squad, or HOPS for short, was formed and began working. Their main objective was to think of ways to protect the planet and launch a counterattack. All their work was merely hypothetical, since their society was not advanced enough. They made broad estimations to make sure that the ideas were at least reasonable and hopefully not out of the future question.
60 years in, and development was well on track. Lofodis had huge jumps in their knowledge and understanding of space and science. They were now undergoing real tests and experiments of solution ideas. HOPS was finally involved in reality and working on physical prototypes. Many of the original leaders of the world had died, or were now in their 80s and 90s, they were not able to do the work anymore. They watched as the next generations all continued to work and advance in the projects they had started. Kane saw science advancing in leaps and bounds, at this rate they would have a fighting chance to find a solution.
110 years in and Lofodis was almost jumping with joy. Their advancements were higher than they had even hoped to expect. They had multiple projects in the works, some were advanced defense systems, others were offensive weapons designed for a retaliation on Dolofonoi. They had all successfully passed design, prototype and testing phases. Final solutions were now being fabricated. Niel Brontez was a computer scientist, he was working on the core codes that would be running all the new equipment that was being produced. He leaned back on his desk chair, tilting his head back and resting his eyes. He sat motionless for a few seconds, and then sat back forward, he cleaned his glasses on his shirt before returning to work. He was doing research into the original computer programs that they had used. He wanted to work off the existing programs basing the new codes that he created on those old ones. As he analyzed the computer code, he found some strange codes running. There were some programming codes running in the background. He checked where it was coming from and what its function was, he discovered it had been running in the background for many years. Nobody had accessed or used it up front during that whole time.
"What is the use of this thing?" he muttered to himself. He grabbed his scanner laptop and opened it up. He connected his laptop up to his desktop; the desktop computer was connected to the central computing system. His laptop was a special device, it was a laptop running a programming program. He used it to analyze and inspect codes that were already in use, it provided important information about what the code was doing, when it was created, and how well it was functioning, including if outside help was needed in order to fix it. He booted up the analysis program on his laptop and selected the sections of code that he was wondering about. He clicked: Run Program Analysis. He worked on some other tasks as he waited for the results to come in. Finally, the program was done with its searching and produced the results. He read through the summary sheet. The words he read shocked him to his core. The summary stated that the program had been running for 116 years, also the program was not running a singular function on the computer, instead its purpose was controlling and modifying the actual running of the computer. This was not the shocking part, the bombshell was that this code was not created on Lofodis, or by anyone who lived there, it was an alien virus.
Chapter 11: Virus Deep Dive
Leadership on Lofodis quickly demanded full force research into the situation, programmers and computer specialists were pulled from every other project, leaving only skeleton crews. They immediately conducted an investigation into the code running the main computers. The bit of code that Neil had discovered was only the starting point, the tip of one root from a 200 year old oak tree. They followed trail after trail, the paths led them all over the digital world. The virus code had infected areas all over the place, on the main servers and computers. The virus was found on all the computers connected to the main servers, the code, however, did not seem to be doing anything. It was not slowing the computers down or causing any damage. As far as they could tell, it was just sitting there doing nothing, they would have to experiment with it, in order to find out what was really happening with it. Alien viruses don't just get dropped off to sit and do nothing. They weren't scared because it was an alien thing, they were used to that, they had an alien Death Shuttle on the way to their planet at that moment. The part that scared them was that this bit of alien relic was already on their planet, it was among them already, and they were not expecting this development, or prepared for the implication of what that meant.
They expanded their search and checked other laptops and computers not connected to the central servers, they needed to know if all the computers had the virus. They were not surprised to find the virus on every computer system that they checked. An alien civilization had sent a virus that had infected every computer on the planet Lofodis. Even the codes on the probes out in deep space had the virus hidden in them. The newer probes had caught the virus when they were built. The older probes out in deep space were built over 116 years ago, so these probes must have picked up the virus from outer space or they had gotten it through transmissions sent out from Lofodis. Either way, everything, including the probes out in the depths of deep space, had the virus.
They searched deep into the code and completed tests in order to figure out what the purpose of the code was. They were finally able to unlock a key that let them into the controls of the code. The firewalls had been meant to keep people out, they had finally broken in. The second security measure was that the code could not be changed or manipulated. Neil was head of the whole project, and he looked intently at the now more open code.
"Well, guess this alien civilization didn't want us messing with or using their code in any other way." Neil stated.
"There is one way in." a technician stated. "We have just now found a small gap in the code. We can't change anything, but we could send in a virus of our own. A code killer."
"A virus in a virus. That's ironic."
"We're thinking of calling it the antivirus. It would simply get in and shut down the code. We are working to create it as we speak."
"Very good." Niel said with a smile on his face. "We need to make sure that our 'antivirus' can travel easily. We need to make sure that it will clean all of our computers, we can't take the chance of letting this linger on."
"Agreed."
They worked on creating the antivirus, and they soon achieved their goal. They saved one computer with the virus on it and preserved it. They put their highest firewalls around it, they needed to keep one copy of the virus, just in case they needed to test it, or something incredibly bad happened when they killed it off from every single other computer. They even placed the infected computer into a faraday cage, this meant that the infected computer was no longer connected to the rest of the world, not even wirelessly, there would be no possible way to, the firewalls and faraday cage would ensure that.
Chapter 12: Cleaning House
The probes in space were tracking the Dolofonoian Death Shuttle as it traveled through space, headed to Lofodis. The probes moved in order to have at least three probes watching it at all times. They needed three in order to triangulate its position in space, any movement it made would be of the greatest importance to them. The shuttle was faster than the probes, so when the shuttle was out of reach of one probe, another probe would move in to take its place.
Neil stood with the other computer scientists looking at the code that would be launched. They all agreed that it looked good to go, it had already been double checked for errors many many times by crews of people. The alien virus sat on every computer. The antivirus sat ready to destroy, ready to clean.
"Launch antivirus." Neil said firmly.
The antivirus jumped out of its program and began to head to the nearest virus, the one on the same computer. It reached it and destroyed it, clearing the computer of any trace, as this was happening the antivirus was splitting off to multiply the number of viruses it was destroying. It began to spread around the world. There were a lot of computers, and it would take some time. In two and a half days all of the computers on Lofodis had been cleared of the virus, the antivirus was also sent to the probes out in space.
The probes watched and observed the Death Shuttles' path through space, no change in speed or direction. It was still on a collision course with Lofodis.
The antivirus reached the probes and cleared them of the virus.
The probes watched open space, there was no Death Shuttle to observe, there was simply empty space.
Chapter 13: Dark Forest Catalyst
Alarms went off for the probes, one of the biggest problems had just occurred, they had lost all visual contact and position tracking of the Death Shuttle. They immediately sent updates back to the planet.
Neil received an important message update. He was needed in the conference room; the probes had lost contact with the Death Shuttle. He hustled as fast as he could and finally made it to the conference room; he was wondering how this disastrous turn of events could have happened. He shoved the doors open as he entered the room, people sat all around the table, tablets and papers were spread out all over the tabletop.
"How could this have happened?" Neil asked loudly. "When did this happen?"
One of the members there stood up straight to answer him. "We have just received the news today. The probes are programmed to send notifications immediately in situations like this. This means that due to the probes' distances, they lost sight of the Death Shuttle on the same day that the antivirus code cleaned them of the alien virus. This means that these two events are surely connected to each other."
"Have the probes continued to look around for it? Has any trace been left behind?
"No, nothing has been found even through continued searches. We are getting a stream of updates from the probes constantly and there have been no further discoveries. They can find no trace of it. It is like it disappeared into thin air."
"Did it initiate a jump space sequence to a new area? How could it have moved so fast?" Neil asked, half to himself. "Had the Shuttle made any course adjustments or velocity changes at any time other than this?"
"No, this is the first time that the Shuttle has made any change at all. It has not strayed from its straight course to Lofodis."
They all thought and pondered the different solutions as to how and why they had lost their tracking of the Death Shuttle. They compiled their ideas and created a few options.
"So, our probes lost contact with the Shuttle." Neil started on the summary of ideas. "Option 1 is that the Shuttle jumped space and is now somewhere outside of the probes' range of detection. This option is probably the least probable, it would have had to basically teleport. There was no detection of movement, it was there one minute, gone the next. Teleportation is unheard of. Option 2 is that the virus had a backstabbing failsafe, and when we destroyed it, it initiated that failsafe causing the observation systems to malfunction or shut down. This is a very plausible reason and could be the answer. Option 3." There was a pause as he gathered himself together and took a deep breath. "Option 3 is the scariest option, the virus was manipulating our computers and making us see something that wasn't there. In this idea, there never was a Death Shuttle, the virus manipulated our probes and computers in order to make us believe that we were seeing something that wasn't even there. Now we must wait for more data to come in from our deepest space probes, the info from these will help us to determine what the cause actually is. From our hypotheses we will assume that option 2 or 3 are the most probable, jump space is a very very far reach and may not even be physically possible. That being said, we will assume that there is no Death Shuttle headed our way, and we are in no imminent danger. We will wait for further data to present itself before we make any further conclusions. All defense and weapons programs will continue as scheduled. We are not going to take the risk of making a wrong assumption."
In order to test their ideas, they sent another probe out into deep space to investigate the planet Dolofonoi. For creating this probe, they manufactured everything post-virus. This was to test option 3, to see if everything had been faked. This probe was created for speed and was rocketed out towards the planet, they didn't need it for long term observation they only wanted to see the planet Dolofonoi and get the results as soon as possible. The data from the deep space probes was the same, there was no threat to Lofodis.
The 120-year mark was reached, and it passed with no incident. The defense systems had all been successfully created and were fully operational. No incoming Death Shuttle was observed, so no actions were needed in order to save their planet. Either the shuttle had jumped space to some far-off area leaving Lofodis alone, or the whole threat was a manufactured hoax.
A few years later they received data back from the rocket probe. The answers they found out were a relief in part, it was also some of the scariest information they had ever learned. The rocket probe had reached Dolofonoi and scanned the planet, sending the information it found back to its home world. Back in the space intelligence room on Lofodis, the members analyzed the new data they received. The data showed that the planet Dolofonoi did exist, however the only life that was on the planet was unintelligent and primitive. They did not have a functioning civilization and most definitely did not have space travel. This proved some disturbing ideas and gave them new facts. It showed that all the interactions they had had with Dolofonoi were not real, there was no message sent from Dolofonoi to scare Lofodis about impending doom. There was no Death Shuttle sent through space in order to attack them. They were relieved because the threat of destruction was no longer over their heads. But this brought in darker implications. It was now proved that the virus that was placed on their computers had manipulated the computers and people of Lofodis into believing that the civilization on Dolofonoi was out to kill them. The only reason for this was to push Lofodis to amp up their protections and weapons; it would force them to advance in those areas and advance out into space to initiate attacks or a dark forest strike. Whatever small amounts of life that were on Dolofonoi were not dangerous, however whatever civilization created and sent out the virus was a threat to be reckoned with. This civilization was sending out viruses into space to infect other cosmic civilizations with their virus. The point of this was to edge and push Lofodis into increasing their power and aggression, to force the people into thinking that they were in danger and striking back. If Lofodis had not found the virus, they may have unleashed an attack on the planet Dolofonoi. This attack would have killed the primitive life on that planet. In short, an amoral civilization was sending out a virus that would manipulate other civilizations into commencing dark forest strikes, tricking them into thinking they were simply using self-defense. Small civilizations who were no threat to anyone would be killed off. Civilizations who would have just chosen to live in peace would be inadvertently pulled into the dark forest. This virus was being used to start and fuel dark forest wars across the universe.
The people of Lofodis were distraught to learn about these facts and the facts about the virus. They realized this experience had pushed them to advance hard; they would not waste what they had gained. They would use their strength to work against this dark forest. They would work to do what they could to help bring back peace. The people had enjoyed the peaceful times that they had before the threat had come upon them. They knew that dangerous civilizations were out there, but they had not yet come face to face with the reality of them. They wanted to continue to grow their knowledge and understanding of the universe, they would continue to do this and try to help and give back to the universe as best they could.
Chapter 14: Destroying Planets
In the following decades, Lofodis grew immensely. Their learning had greatly increased, and their advanced technology quickly followed. They were able to accomplish much more than they had ever hoped to, they could observe many distant reaches of space, and they could also send probes much further and faster than their past creations. They started off their cosmic project of helping to bring a communal light into the dark forest of the universe. They wanted to find another civilization and reach out a peaceful hand. They wanted to try to get these other civilizations to peacefully work together with them, they could share knowledge and they could also help protect each other. If they met with an openly hostile civilization or one that was initiating dark forest strikes, they would send something to destroy that civilization. They needed to stop the killers, and needed to help guide those who were not killers in the right direction. The peaceful and beneficial direction. The virus that they had found was working to divide civilizations and pit them against each other. The goal of Lofodis was to work against this dividing power, to help feed the light side of the forest. They wanted to create a raging fire that would spread light across the dark forest universe. Bringing a light to end the dark. They would also help to spread their antivirus across anywhere that they encountered the virus, the virus must be rooted out and destroyed from every corner of the universe. And if the creator of the virus was ever found, full scale war without mercy would be waged against that ungodly civilization.
Lofodis had many probes sent out in all directions out into space. They sent out more and more as they were created with more and newer technologies. These probes were their eyes and ears throughout space, they needed them, many of them in order to accomplish their immense task.
As these probes watched the universe, they discovered something. A large explosion was discovered at a star and its whole system. It was observed that a signal was broadcast and found, giving the location of the star. It was as though a spell of revealing had been cast on the whole star system, revealing the presence of a civilization living there. Lofodis had already discovered this star's whole system and it did not have any life on any of the planets, so why was it attacked? The virus was the first reason to come to mind, however the planets around the star did not even have any life at all, so it didn't make sense for the virus to attack it. It may have been due to a different cause. The star's name was 187J3X1, and they began to look closer at the whole system. The probes refocused onto the system of star 187J3X1, and they found that it was no longer there. Something had destroyed the star, which through its fiery explosion, had destroyed all the other planets that were revolving around it. Lofodis tried to track where the attack had come from, but they had no luck. This sort of explosion did not just happen; they knew it was a dark forest attack or potentially a dark forest weapon test. Either way there was a nearby hunter searching for prey.
Lofodis analyzed the wide area surrounding the destroyed star system to look for clues; they didn't find answers about the fate of 187J3X1, but they did discover something else they wouldn't have normally noticed, had they not been looking in that direction so elaborately. 187J3X1 was on the outskirts of their sight range, so as they were focusing their attention looking in that direction, they were able to spot something behind the destroyed star system. They saw an asteroid field, but something was wrong with it, there was a massive cut right through the center of it. Something had cut its way through the field in a straight line. Tracing the path from whatever cut through the field would lead them to another civilization. They traced the path in one of the indicated directions, this however led to a star that was partially destroyed. Something had hit the star and caused it to partially blow up, decreasing its mass size. However, the explosion was not large enough to completely destroy the star, only to reduce its mass by the partial explosion. This star had been attacked, and so if they traced the line in the other direction, they would find the aggressor. They did exactly that, and this time they found a planet with life that was entirely alive and thriving. This was civilization 137, who had destroyed another star, or at least tried to, it could not yet be figured out which. Lofodis knew that they must deal with this planet, a planet that had used a dark forest attack. They had given away because their strike had gone through the asteroid field, leaving a trail. The attack had probably been in the form of a laser or some sort of energy beam, as they calculated from the damage inflicted and the path it had traveled. The probes were also able to detect a large object orbiting around the planet, this must be the laser or particle accelerator that was used to destroy the other planet. They had detected the weapon that was used.
Lofodis acted quickly. They had stations set up in the deep space areas around them for just this situation. Each of these stations held high propulsion rockets. They gathered asteroids together and then connected their rockets onto the asteroid mass in order to accelerate it. The amount of progress their technology had advanced allowed them to accelerate objects up to 99.99999999% the speed of light. This was only possible in unmanned spacecraft because of the force that was exerted on everything inside. If something living was onboard, the extreme forces would kill it. They mostly used it to accelerate an object to use as a weapon against a planet that was attacking others. This object then became a planet destroying projectile. The mass of the planet was calculated to be 6.585 sextillion tons, so the mass of their object was 390 million tons. When they accelerated this object to near the speed of light, it slammed into the planet and the energy released by the impact was just enough to completely destroy the entire planet, leaving nothing but bits of debris and burning slag behind. Lofodis had destroyed their first enemy. They had killed one of the hunters, making their universe that much safer.
Chapter 15: Discovering the Droplet
Their probes scanned, looked, and analyzed. They waited for any signs of intelligent life. Sometimes they found signs of intelligence, but life was gone. One of these cases happened when the probes detected an object drifting through space. The object was drifting at a high cruising speed of 15% of light speed so this object had been launched somewhere and by someone, it was not just space debris. The probes investigated further, tracking it as it traveled through space. It was headed in the direction of Lofodis, and it came close to the planet, because it was so close, they were able to bring manned spaceships up close to it. The object was shaped like a droplet, the outside was rusted looking, and slightly chipped across its surface.
"What is that thing?" one of the men on the spaceship asked.
"I don't know," said one of the other men, removing a tablet from his uniform pocket. He began to write down information about what he was seeing outside their spaceship. "But it sure looks like nothing is controlling it. It's been moving with no change and no type of navigation or detection that we can tell."
The captain of the spaceship walked into the monitoring room. Captain Gonney spoke up to all his men, "We have just received orders to attempt contact with the droplet. We will move close enough to it to establish physical contact with the robotic arms. If all goes well, we will pick up the droplet in our cargo bay for further investigation. There are still no signs of life aboard the craft. Alright men, to your places!"
All the men on the spacecraft ran to their positions, ready to begin the maneuvers. They moved the craft closer to the droplet. No change. All was good so they moved in even closer and extended their robotic arms, the operator used the controller to manipulate both the arms to grasp around the slender body of the droplet. The arms clamped down and then had a full grip on the droplet. Then they waited. They waited 12 hours, and nothing had changed, the droplet remained the same.
Captain Gonney spoke up, "Alright, the safety time is up, and we are good to go to step 2. Pull the droplet into the cargo bay."
The operator moved the arms so that when they retracted into the cargo bay area, the droplet was pulled along also. Once inside, the cargo bay doors were closed and sealed shut. The droplet was carefully set down in an open area, where the arms retained their clamp in order to keep it from shifting around in the bay. A couple of specialized robots moved in to analyze the droplet up close. They performed tests in order to know what the droplet was made of, and if any electronics or signals were found. The robots only discovered some of the droplet's properties. The material was very hard, the molecules of what made it up were very close, the bonds holding them together were incredibly strong. The metal of the exterior though was rusted and flaking. The only noticeable gaps between molecules were the bits of rusted metal that flaked off, there were also a few lines crossing each other around the surface of the droplet, these indicated where multiple metal sections had been combined. The droplet did not respond or even sense anything that the robotics arms did to it. Finally, the go ahead was given for men to move in and observe the object themselves. The cargo bay was flooded with air. A crew of analysts moved in with caution to learn about the object. They studied it for a long time, using microscopes and making notes on their clipboards. They used other equipment for further analysis.
They eventually began to take the droplet apart in order to understand how it worked and what its purpose was. The lines across the surface were able to be lifted off, giving way to a hatchway access to the interior. They deconstructed it and recorded the computers that were running the droplet. The computers were all functional, they found a propulsion system that was also functional when tested with the computer array. They looked for any labeling or signs of who had owned or created this object, only found one word on the droplet. It was engraved on a couple of the motherboard housing systems, the word was: Trisolaris.
The whole system of the droplet seemed to be fully functional, it was as though the connection from the controller to this probe was simply cut, leaving the droplet to drift out in space, receiving no more commands. They got some computer scientists to come and work on the computers of the probe to see if they could get it working, they wanted to know if they could find data in the probe to know where it came from. The scientists worked hard and were able to unlock the computer systems that were controlling the droplet. They looked through the computer system to see what the coordinates were of where the droplet was headed, and they found the coordinates that lead right to their planet, Lofodis. The droplet had been headed toward their planet, whoever sent it must have wanted to make contact with them or knew that there was a civilization living on this world. They were slightly scared that this was a dark forest strike attempt, however their worries were soon forgotten due to the fact that the controls were shut off, whoever had been controlling this probe was no longer able to control it. Either the civilization who had sent the droplet was destroyed, cutting off communication to the droplet, or the droplet was shut off because the space travel was too much or too great a distance for the technology of the civilization to function. The technology of the droplet was well advanced, so they thought it was more likely that whoever sent this was killed before the droplet had reached Lofodis.
As the computer scientists dug into the computing system some messages were found, the final messages that the droplet had received before it was knocked offline. The message was translated as:
Earth sent out the signal from an unstopped dark forest broadcaster. Trisolaris will be destroyed. Continue with mission to find new world. When communication signal is gone, command control center has been destroyed, shutdown.
Whoever had sent this probe must have been in danger and was looking for a new home, they must have been too late.
Lofodis decided to try to reverse engineer this droplet and get it working so that they could use it and its technology, from what they could tell and test so far, it was highly advanced. They were excited to try to learn from this unknown civilization and increase their own understanding and effectiveness in space travel.
The scientists were able to get the computer systems and engines working again on the droplet. They worked to figure out all of the different features and workings of the droplet. They discovered a molecular tension system. When this system was turned on, it created some sort of magnetic field that pulled molecules closer together. They turned the system on, and the outside shell of the droplet tightened up, creating an even denser wall of metal than it previously was. All the rust pieces were torn apart into tiny dust particles, leaving a film layer all over the outside shell. They blew the dust off the outside of the droplet and discovered that it was now a shiny silver color, the molecules of the unknown metal now were too close and compact to fit any sort of pick or tool into the surface. The opening hatch lines were no longer visible. The surface was incredibly strong and could not be scratched by anything, it was harder than even diamond. They were able to convert the controlling systems to their own, so that they were easily able to control the droplet and its movement. Through their reverse engineering program, they were able to learn about how the droplet functioned and moved. They were eventually able to create and manufacture their own droplets, each one just like the original all the way down to its sleek shiny shape. The only thing they added was their own technology that allowed for higher velocities to be attained.
Through this newfound technology, they were able to create a fleet of these special probes. The best feature of the droplets was their maneuverability. They were able to change and alter their direction in the blink of an eye. They could be moving at 10% of light speed in one direction and it could turn 180 degrees and begin moving in the opposite direction in mere tens of seconds. This meant that they could be easily maneuvered through space to avoid any collisions with objects in their paths. This also meant that traveling time was much smaller, they did not need to spend much time in acceleration or deceleration. Lofodis would use this new technology in order to travel faster through space, they could reach distant star systems much faster and effectively. This meant they could observe and learn much more and faster than they previously could. The droplet was an effective tool to gather information and send it back to Lofodis. The droplet had another use other than as a probe, the un-scratchable surface. The droplet was virtually indestructible, no known substance could even scratch, let alone destroy the droplet. The people on Lofodis wondered how the creators of this technology could have been destroyed, the droplets were an amazing invention. The droplet could reach incredible velocities, combined with their indestructible shells they could be shot through planets as a destructive weapon. Its mass was not high enough to destroy a regular sized planet, but due to the maneuverability it possessed it could simply loop around and make multiple passes through the planet until there was nothing left to destroy. The droplet therefore was both a very effective communication device and weapon.
Chapter 16: Advanced Droplet Communication
Lofodis expanded their radius of observed and documented areas of space. As they discovered new planets and star systems, they documented what they saw and increased their knowledge of known areas of space. They learned all that they could from the wide variety of stars and planets that they encountered. They used their new droplets in order to spread out quickly. The transmission time was still the same as before, so it took them some time in order to receive reports back from the droplets. But the speed of the droplets allowed them to reach distant areas sooner and begin the transmission back to Lofodis. The people learned much faster by using the droplets and they were thankful for this technology that they had come upon.
A couple of the droplets came upon an interesting star system one time. They discovered a new star and went in closer to gather the new information and chart the new area of space for their reports. They discovered an unusual anomaly, they found that the star had two planets orbiting it in the same orbital ring. The star had many planets orbiting around it, but the interesting part was that two of these planets shared the same orbit, they revolved around the star on opposite sides of the star. They also seemed to be warring with each other. Attacks had been noticed by the droplets. Both planets had left bits of debris in their planet's wake, the other planet then had to travel through these debris fields causing damage. They did not see these battles happen; they only observed the remains of the debris fields. The droplets sent back the data and waited for a response of further steps that should be taken. The droplets observed new developments in the relations between the two planets. It was seen that both planets had begun to communicate peacefully and work together. Communications were being passed between the worlds, shortly after probes and satellites were sent. Both worlds had begun to work together, rather than fight each other. The droplets quickly sent the information of this new development back to Lofodis. They no longer had to deal with bloodthirsty planets, but instead with planets who were willing to work together. This gave Lofodis better odds and hopes of making peaceful contact. Lofodis received information about both new worlds. They were excited that they had discovered a new civilization that was working at peace also. They would try to contact these people and hopefully they would agree to work together peacefully, and mutually help each other. They decided to send in a droplet in order to attempt communication with them. The distance would be far too great for them to talk to the new dual-civilizations, the time delay for communication would be too long to work. So Lofodis had to pre-program the droplets to give the message that they desired for the dual-civilization to know. They also programmed the droplet with a few responses for some of the common replies or questions that may be asked.
After the droplet had received its orders, it zipped across space closing the gap between it and the two planets. It accelerated to close to the speed of light. It moved so quickly that as it passed sensors and probes from the new civilization, they barely had time to sense the presence of the probe before the next range of probes caught sight of it. It made it to the planet and began to decelerate as it entered the atmosphere of the first planet. By the time it reached the surface, it had stopped completely and hovered above the surface. It sat unmoving for three days in order for the people of the new world to make their observations and get used to its presence. It then began to work on communication, once it gathered a language that they understood, it gave the message.
This is not a dark forest strike. This droplet is from the planet Lofodis. This is a message that will hopefully bring peace and community between both our civilization and yours. We do not seek war; we want to work with you and help you. We can mutually help each other by increasing each other's knowledge and safety. We know that we can trust you because we have seen that you have been working peacefully with your neighboring planet, this shows that you are interested in peace and not war, so we can trust you. We did not destroy your planet with this droplet, so you know that you can trust us. If we really wanted to destroy your world with a dark forest strike, we would have simply shot our droplet at near light speed through your planet and destroyed it. We have not done this, and we have reached out to you. Therefore, we can both trust each other and we hope that you will come to the same conclusion and work together with our civilization.
Through this message Lofodis was able to break the chain of suspicion with Nepris. They showed that both civilizations could trust each other and could work together and help increase the safety of both.
The droplet moved from Nepris and completed the same procedures on Bilgar as they had done on Nepris, except the droplet only sat still for a single day before sending its message. Both Nepris and Bilgar had now received the peace message from Lofodis, they now had to decide how they would respond.
Chapter 17: End's Death
Nepris and Bilgar began to talk about their options. With this new and stunning development, they had to be careful with what they chose to do. The lives of their civilizations were on the line. They talked through whether they believed this message from the planet Lofodis, they thought through the chain of suspicion to see if the argument for peace was realistic and believable. They questioned and debated with each other. In the end they came to the same conclusion as Lofodis, they could trust each other. If Lofodis really wanted to send a dark forest strike, the droplet would have simply killed them, not tried to communicate and work with them. Nepris decided to test Lofodis about their strength to see if they could be believed, if their droplet was actually as strong as they said it was. If the droplet wasn't made of something strong, punching through a planet would not be an option. If it wasn't strong enough to do that, it meant that Lofodis did not have the power to destroy their civilization, therefore they could not be trusted, because Nepris would not know if they really wanted peace or if they were just trying to trick Nepris and Bilgar because they didn't have the power to carry out a dark forest strike. There would be no discernible difference between Lofodis wanting peace or just lacking kill power. Nepris and Bilgar needed to see a demonstration in order to be sure. They contacted the droplet with their reply. They stated that they would agree with the peace conditions and were willing to work together, and hopefully they could each mutually help the other out. They only had one condition to test first. They needed to see the true abilities of the droplet in order for them to believe and work along with Lofodis. They demanded a test demonstration. The droplet sent back its confirmation from its pre-programmed reply, and it agreed to the testing.
Nepris gave the coordinates of a moon that was orbiting Satrino, another planet that was in their system. It was close enough that the droplet could reach it in a short amount of time, but far enough away that if the droplet truly could destroy it, the debris would not harm or damage anything important to Bilgar and Nepris. They set up many probes to watch Satrino's moon, and record everything that happened. The droplet began its test. Launching away from the surface of Nepris it sped away into space, headed towards Satrino. As it neared the planet, it located and tracked the moons orbiting it, it locked onto the one that was its target. It continued its velocity of near light speed aiming for the direct center of the moon. The droplet closed the gap quickly and slammed into the moon, punching clean through the other side, the moon seemingly having no slowing impact on the droplet. Bits of the moon were sucked out into space in the vacuum of the droplet's wake. Cracks were formed on the surface spreading out from around the newly formed hole clear through the diameter of the moon. As soon as the droplet had exited the moon it began to decelerate and turn around, it was soon facing the moon again and accelerating to the surface again. It reached its top speed again and this time aimed at a point 90 degrees off from the first hole. It punched through the moon with the same ease as the first time. The material make-up of the moon did not make any difference to the droplet, it was only a matter of time and the number of passes needed to pull apart the moon. This moon verged on the side of smaller moons, so this second assault tore the moon to shreds; the cracks were completed across the entire surface and through the entire core. The whole moon was now broken up into chunks and pieces, the wake of the droplet however, created a force wave that sucked the many pieces after it out into space, this created a stream of broken chunks of debris that shot out into space in a line from where it had originated. The droplet had completed its test mission and quickly returned to Nepris. It landed in the same spot as previously, hovering over Nepris. The scientists there began examining the droplet for signs of damage, to see if its attack of the Satrino moon had caused any cracks or damage to the droplet showing the material was not as strong as it claimed. Nothing was found. The droplet was just as smooth and silvery as when it had first arrived, it was clearly strong enough to destroy a celestial body with no damage to itself. When Bilgar and Nepris saw the destruction of the moon and the results of the examination of the droplet, they agreed that the Lofodis droplet was strong enough to destroy them if it had wanted to. This showed them that Lofodis had the power to successfully complete dark forest strikes, but they had sought communication and peace instead. They could be trusted, and they agreed to work together with them. The droplet sent back all the information that it had gathered from its communications, it had sent broadcast signals back to Lofodis constantly, to keep them updated with the latest news of this important interaction with a new civilization.
Lofodis began to work together with Bilgar and Nepris. They shared information and technology with each other, increasing their knowledge and ability to complete more complex projects. Working together meant that science could advance much faster and efficiently. The schools on all three of the planets could now have much more information to work with and teach to students, they also had more information on alien civilizations. New types of classes were created in order to make work between the civilizations run smoother, Intergalactic Civilizations Communications was created to teach people how to best work alongside an alien civilization.
These civilizations worked together not only to increase their knowledge, but also to protect each other. Lofodis shared their advanced dark forest defense systems. Helped the other planets to set up tracking probes and systems in order to track what was happening in deep space. Lofodis made sure that their antivirus was in all systems of Bilgar and Nepris in order to clean it out. The virus had been there, but had done nothing yet, this was in part, due to the youthfulness of their technology and expansion into space. The virus could not have done much because the civilization was not advanced or mature enough to use that information well. Lofodis purged all the computer systems of the virus and set up firewalls to protect them from any further attacks. Keeping the antivirus and firewalls running strong was tremendously important in order to preserve the safety of all three worlds.
All three worlds worked together in order to create dark forest protection for all of them. They all had defense systems and tracking systems for any incoming objects. They could also watch each other's backs. The Lofodis system and the Nepris-Bilgar system had areas of deep space that they were closer to and could see more easily than the other could. When a star or planet blocked the view for one of them, the other had a cleaner line of sight. In this way they both had lookouts for dark forest strikes and combined their intel for more accurate and wider ranges of data. They worked to discover new civilizations and reach out to them. If the civilization was observed to be openly aggressive and trying to kill, Lofodis would send a dark forest strike in order to take out the hunter. If the civilization was seen as peaceful or teetering on being dark forest neutral, an offer of peace would be sent out. They would try to get more civilizations to join their group. New civilizations could trust the group because they would be able to see that multiple civilizations were already at peace and working together. The more civilizations that joined, the stronger the group would become, they would have more information and more eyes to watch across the universe. They wanted to work to bring the dark forest to an end, by joining forces with other civilizations they were creating a light in the dark forest universe. The more people that joined, the brighter the light would become, eventually bringing a fiery light to the entirety of the universe. When this happened, the dark forest state would be eliminated.
The chain of suspicion was created because communication over long distances took too long. However not all civilizations needed to talk to all the others, they only needed to talk to their neighbors, and this would create a chain of civilizations all working together, each one a link, each civilization only talking to the links of the chain next to them. Lofodis would talk to Nepris and Bilgar in one direction and also to the civilization in the opposite direction from the dual-planet system. Nepris and Bilgar would talk to Lofodis as well as the civilization in the opposite direction of them. Space is not linear like a chain, so the links of the chain would not simply extend in two directions but would extend 3-dimensionally in all directions. The speed of the droplets would also help to increase communication over long distances, they could travel quickly and could therefore decrease the travel time needed between civilizations.
The group of planets also had a mission to destroy the hunter civilizations; they needed to stop the killers. The civilizations working to generate the dark forest needed to be stopped. Most importantly, whoever sent out the virus must be stopped, they were feeding the dark forest with their virus and lies. Bringing a light to the dark forest would not work unless the virus was completely destroyed, in order to do this, the civilization who created and dispersed it must be stopped. Lofodis had already encountered this civilization through the virus, so they had a small lead that they could work with, they would start their search to find and stop this civilization. They would also search to find out the civilization that destroyed the star 187J3X1, this was the biggest lead they had, this civilization was probably close and would therefore be the easiest to find. It would be their best starting point in their project to end the dark forest.
Lofodis began the project to work on a solution for the dark forest problem. It started with three celestial bodies working together to end the night. This project though would not end there, it would take much more time, and many more civilizations working together in order to complete the full solution to the dark forest problem. But the movement to save the universe had begun, the fire would spread.
