2211
Fresh from the election, the political landscape of the Federation started to become more active with additional parties funded. Wade’s presidency marked a moment of stagnation from a political standpoint because the baby steps that the United System was undertaking in the galaxy were so big to, for the first time, unify hearts and souls in the endeavour.
Now after ten years in living as an intergalactic species, different opinions on how to deal with issues and challenges helped return to the normality of a very varied and colored mix of ideals and goals as seen in human history. A glimpse of the new party formations was already made public during the new elections, but in 2211 these became more clear:
- National Stability Lobby (NSL) - Lead by President Julia Paquette, focused on financial growth and stability through peaceful means.
- Free Elections Committee (FEC) - Lead by Scientist Haruna Yamazaki (Commander of the USV Kepler), that works for equality and justice for all denizens of the Federation.
- Council of High Technology (CHT) - Previously lead by Estelle Warner, the commander of the USV Hawking and, after the elections, by the General Secretary (and still VP, being confirmed by Paquette) Yekaterina Maksimushkina, pushing hard for the advancement of the sciences.
- Defensive Readiness Movement (DRM) - Lead by the head of the Research Department S, Aanya Patil, advocating for a more careful approach to exploration and a higher budget allocated to the Department of Defense.
- Alien Suffrage Center (ASC) - Lead by Claudia von Fritsch, commander of the USV Depuy de Lome, that looks for increasing the efforts towards searching for additional life forms in the galaxy
The former president Wade’s party, Citizens for Wade, remained at the Senate after the election results but announced that it will be disbanded at the end of the 10 year mandate.
As promised by the president, new energy was put to reinforce the exploration of the stars. In particular a new science ship, the USV Hubble (SSC-004), was launched, commanded by Jose Solano. More anomalies were found through the explored systems confirming that the “emptiness of space” was just a perception of mankind where space was, effectively, not reachable in its vastity. A non sapient worm-like life form was discovered living inside the core of an asteroid of the system SSD-DX-1 by the crew of the USV Dupuy de Lome. Organized in colonies, these 2 meters long worms were lithovores and able to sustain the coldness of space.
Science Officer Estelle Warner, onboard her trusty USV Hawking, managed to partially translate an alien mural on Gliese 823 Ic. It was a memorial for an extinct alien race that once maintained a small interstellar empire in the very same region of the Federation. The race was eventually exterminated by the creators of the mural, which was dated to be more than 300 million years old, leading to the conclusion that the “Writers'' don't exist anymore and somehow regretted their choice over the fate of the exterminated race. The mural seemed to be in remarkably good condition, which led to further analysis on its composition.
Lastly, an automated mining base was discovered, always by the USV Dupuy de Lome, built in close orbit around an asteroid in the SSD-DX-1 system. Large chunk of the hull of the base was missing, along with jagged holes, indicating damage sustained by most likely heavy weapons.
The news of the discoveries were generally available to the public in short time, and the last ones were quite concerning as they clearly show that, at least in the past, the galaxy was a very violent place.
But the discoveries were not over.
The third “missing probe” founded two years before in the Gliese 823 system was missing the central CPU and main storage drives, preventing any information retrieval. So the crew of the USV Hawking was investigating the region for clues.
On the eventing of September 3rd (Earth UTC and calendar was kept as galactic standard, with Centauria for example adapting to having a fluid way of measure time), the ship received a message:
Radio Operator Chapman [RO]: “Commander, we are receiving a video transmission from the system main star”
Commander Estelle Warner [EW]: “Put it on screen”
The ship bridge was illuminated by the holoscreen that was showing some sort of grotesque “bird-like” creature. And the creature was talking, in simple English:
Alien: “What you want, alien? This probe ours. Salvage. We find first! You leave now. Yes. Interrupting delicate operation, your ships are. Must concentrate. Or… if you want probe, we can sell. 100 credits and probe yours. Good deal. Very good. You get probe, less work for us, everybody wins. Especially us”
EW: “Hello...mmh.. alien, I’m Science Officer Estelle Warner of the United Systems Feder..”
She was cut short.
Alien: “no talk, no losing time, decide”
EW: “I need time”
Alien: “Take small time, we wait”.
The crew was in part terrified, in part astonished, all of them were standing still, in silence. The first contact with a sapient spacefaring civilization has been made. Estelle Warner run for her private quarters and established a connection back with the Secretary of the Department of Research that, in a matter of 10 minutes, plugged in with maximum emergency all the members of the Federal Council and the President. The alien was still waiting, still visible in the holoscreen on the ship’s bridge. One of the officers that was still on the bridge collapsed on the ground, unconscious due to a nervous breakdown.
It took 10 minutes for the Council to agree on Nick Harris, the Secretary of Defense, suggested approach which was to pay immediately the money while trying at the same time to keep the communications open and get more information from the aliens. In the meantime the Starfleet was put on high alert and Admiral Feng Gao ordered to move it to the USV Hawking position, an operation that would have taken 5 hyperdrive jumps for a total travel time of approximately a week.
Due to the credits being a currency based on energy, Warner ordered the crew to stock a ship accumulator and she immediately returned to the bridge to re-established a connection to the alien.
EW: “Can I ask you where you came from?”
Alien: “Yes or No?”
EW: “I need to know how to transfer the credits to you and to agree on what a unit means for you”
Alien: “We know, it’s ok, leave the accumulator, retreat to the system outskirts”
EW: “I cannot negotiate like that, I need to know..”
Cut short again
Alien: “We destroy probe, or system outskirts and we destroy not”
Estelle decided to agree and, after leaving the accumulator, ordered the ship to retreat. The alien ship, that was out of visual contact, was barely picked up by the Hawking radar. The ship reached the accumulator position and jumped away in a spark, leaving the crew of the Hawking clueless about its destination. No more contact was made from the aliens and the communication channel used before was static.
The Hawking then decided to go back and found a box, in plastic material, completely flat, with a very simple mechanism to unlock that contained the missing probe pieces.
The Department of Security, through the FIS, the Federal Information Service, ordered the full lockdown of any information regarding the alien encounter, everything was classified as galactic security matters and the ship had to go back to Earth where every crew member had to sign papers that imposed their total silence about the event.
In a very careful process, the information was made available just to the high ranking officials of the Federations and top scientists that could have helped understand more exactly what happened on Gliese 823, as information like this could have panicked the population in no time.
To sum up, in a matter of two hours, the United Systems discovered that alien spacefarers races exist and they knew more about humans than humans knew about them, clearly. Plus, these aliens had a more advanced technology, considering the inability for the Hawking to track the alien ship’s jump destination.
All the Federations governing bodies ended up being overwhelmed by the “Alien Birds” topic for the rest of the year, and were struggling to find a way to deal with the new revelation while keeping the information out of public eyes.