First Contact

G.Y. -15 – -1 (T.Y. 2210-2224)

In the early spring of 2210 A.D., a Russian teenager called Gregory Tchaikovsky noticed some strange readings on his P.C., while doing the routine analysis of S.E.T.I. data from the central data server. He immediately notified his nearest S.E.T.I. representative, who in turn got in touch with S.E.T.I. H.Q.

On analysis, it was found that receivers had picked up a strange spike of energy from somewhere on the further fringes of the Oort cloud. Pattern analysis revealed that the energy was some sort of a repeating sub-space radio signal, albeit of a previously unknown frequency. S.E.T.I. officials immediately got in touch with the S.D.A.

The S.D.A. re-programmed the Hubble II Telescope to re-orient itself away from its study of the recently discovered Mesozonic Cloud in Galaxy – 41, to focus its spectrum of visual and BVR receptors on the Oort cloud. Weeks passed away in anxious, painful anticipation, with no further signals received and no visual activity recorded. Then on 23.09.2210, IR imagery taken from Observation Outpost 12 on Pluto showed a craft of unknown origin passing near the planet. A week later, Hubble II picked up traces of the incoming ship and humanity was suddenly bracing for its first confirmed visitor from the stars.

For the next few weeks, this one alien ship was the target of focused communication from more than a dozen sources. Everything from focused communication lasers, to IR waves and even the trusty radio in all conceivable frequencies (as the frequency of the radio message received was too high to be duplicated) were aimed at the visitor from the heavens. All had the same message – the timeless introduction of humanity as a species, with special audio visual clips recording important stages of humanity’s development and graphs and numbers and so on. As mankind’s largest structure in space, it was felt that the International Space Station would be the target of the alien ship and so navigation instructions were also sent, guiding the ship to dock with it.

On the 18th of October 2210, the alien ship, nicknamed the Harbinger, docked with the ISS. A veritable army of scientists, politicians and military personnel waited anxiously outside the hatch leading into the station. After a long wait, the hatch hissed open and to the great surprise, awe and fear of the assembled audience, a group of 8 feet tall humanoids, with glowing green eyes and wearing a powerful yellow armour with blinking lights walked through.

They called themselves the Arceans, and according to them, were a relatively old space faring warrior race. They had traveled halfway across the galaxy to give mankind the gift of space travel, with the legendary technology of the Star Gate. These massive space structures would allow humanity’s ships to travel between them at many times the speed of light.

The Arceans also told of dozens of alien races scattered across the galaxy – confirming ancient theories of a universe positively teeming with life of all sorts.

It has often been speculated a million times by more than a dozen races, what was the actual reason…the actual motivation of the Arceans to travel such a long distance to hand over this awesome technological secret to such a relatively unknown and backward species as humanity. Did they actually believe themselves to be the Guardians of the Galaxy, carrying on the role of the ancient and extinct Precursors, whose signs of civilization were still found throughout the galaxy? Or did they have a much more sinister purpose in mind?

Proponents of the latter theory point out that the Arceans had themselves been tricked by the Drengin, who gave them the Star Gate technology, then attempted to invade the Arceans by using these same gates. The Arceans had realised the danger in time, and were thus able to soundly demolish the invading Drengin fleet. But had they looked upon this knowledge as an opportunity to expand their own borders? The Drengin had certainly tried again, this time with the Torians…and succeeded. Many centuries later the Torians had regained their freedom after a bloody struggle, but the lesson was not forgotten.

So, were the Arceans actually setting up humanity as a ripe target for invasion, in the guise of helping them expand to the stars? Would an unstoppable Arcean Battle Fleet come pouring through the Gate once it was constructed? Would this be the beginning of the end?

Poignant questions…but which would never be answered. Because once again, human ingenuity would come to the rescue. Very soon the idea occurred to people around the world that if this wonderful Star Gate technology could be combined with the limitless power potential of Fusion technology, then a more compact version of the Star Gate could be created…the much-touted Hyperdrive of lore.

In the summer of 2214, the first Hyperdrive was tested in the White Sands test range, in the United States and it was a disaster. The resulting explosion had the power of many Little Boys and instantly wiped out not only any nearby life, but also destroyed the Control Center itself. The wave disruption sent aircrafts tumbling out of the sky hundreds of miles away and the EMP blast fried the power grids of nearby cities, throwing large swathes of the country into darkness.

While the Hyperdrive engine was being tested, the S.D.A. had started the design of spaceships that would carry this revolutionary technology. The first design was of a gargantuan Colony ship, which would carry not only a hundred million colonists but also the infrastructure necessary to set up a colony on distant worlds.

The second design was inspired largely by the Star Trek saga – an ancient but extremely popular series of video-films of a genre called science fiction. The ship was based on the design of the Starship Enterprise, the lead ship in this saga. It was designed as an explorer ship, scouring the galaxy for signs of alien life and seeking out new worlds to colonize. Although designers at Solaris Tech, the company designing the ship, wouldn’t realize it at this time, this ship was so advanced that it would not be replicated for many years and would later form the basis of the Alliance’s first capital warships.

As with most such technologies, keeping it secret was a problem. So the Terran Alliance (which had renamed itself from the original United Alliance) made it a point to offer all the races encountered in later years this Hyperdrive technology free of cost. It was felt that they would have anyway acquired this technology through other means…so why not use it as a leverage to build up good relations with one’s galactic neighbours. And so it worked, for a time at least.