“Are you saying that they travel in these interstellar arks for generations?” I asked.
“You’d think so, but no. They’ve perfected perfect stasis. Really a localized freezing of time. And they can push these asteroids to about sixty-percent light speed. So while many members of the Federation are spaced so far apart the trip takes tens of thousands of years, it’s all but instantaneous for the passengers. The stasis field doesn’t work near large gravity fields, so they have to first get beyond a solar system to use it, but this approach has done wonders for intergalactic discourse over millions of years.”
“Even with perfect stasis,” I said, “the prospect of a one-way journey that long is pretty daunting.”
“Maybe so,” replied Schoenfeld. “But it has allowed a true intergalactic community to develop. Over the eons, each of the twenty-two members of the Federation have welcomed twenty-one asteroidal mini-planets into their solar systems, one from the star system of each member species. These asteroids harbor several million inhabitants, so every Federation member species has a community of all twenty-two species in its star system, free to interact with each other as they see fit. The visitors can stay for as long as they like, or can travel back to their home planets on a stasis ship whenever they want.”
The colonel paused for the full enormity of this setup to sink in.
“If we left Earth and returned thousands of years later,” he continued finally, “we wouldn’t recognize the place—or the technology. Hell, even if we left for twenty years we wouldn’t. But their cultures and technology are stagnant—basically frozen in place. When they return, everything is pretty much the same.”
My mind was now officially blown. The idea that spacefaring aliens had topped out, had settled into the ultimate technological and cultural rut, was something I could never have imagined.
And the colonel had only spoken about Federation members visiting other Federation members. But what about exploration? Expansion? Why weren’t they all dividing up the galaxy and spreading across it? Was their cultural paralysis and lack of ambition truly enough to account for it all? I decided not to interrupt the flow of conversation to ask about this just yet, but it was foremost in my mind.
Regardless of the answer to this question, the idea that the Galactics had set up large populations of twenty-two species in twenty-two solar systems, so each member race could have a full-fledged intergalactic community orbiting its star, was breathtaking in both its audacity and simplicity. It was truly a brilliant solution to the problem of cross-cultural exchange between species separated by unthinkable distances.
“And while Federation species have never cracked faster-than-light travel,” continued the colonel, “they have perfected instantaneous communication. This contributes to the intermingling of cultures, as well, since perfect holograms can engage in virtual interactions anywhere in the galaxy. Think next-level Zoom calling with someone on a planet many light years distant.”
“Wait,” said Tessa. “Let’s back up to these powered, hollowed-out asteroid ships. Are you saying that a bunch of these are now hanging out somewhere in our solar system?”
“Not a bunch,” replied the colonel. “But there is one. One only. An ark about fifteen miles in diameter that houses thousands of representatives from each of the twenty-two species. All are here as observers, and all are housed together inside the same asteroid, with climates and holographic environments adjusted to suit individual species needs.”
He paused. “But if humanity ever became the twenty-third member of their coalition, each sentient species would send their own mini-planets to orbit our sun. Although it would take tens of thousands of years for them all to arrive.”
“And we’d be sending millions of our own people to each of their systems, correct?” I said.
“Correct.”
At first blush, it sounded like a tall order to get millions of people to sign up to travel to a solar system thousands of light years away—twenty-two times over. But I was sure it would end up being easy. The travel would seem instantaneous. And while passengers would arrive knowing that all of their friends and loved ones back on Earth were dead, huge numbers would be willing to make almost any sacrifice for the opportunity to visit another star.
There were eight thousand million humans on Earth—give or take a few. So if only one percent of us were willing to make these journeys, that would be eighty million volunteers.
“Getting back to the here and now,” I said, “where is this spacefaring intergalactic UN headquarters located?”
“It’s hiding out in the rings of Saturn.”
I couldn’t help but smile. “Of course,” I said. “Good hiding place.”
“They also have an automated base and automated craft—what you’d call UFOs—on the dark side of the moon. Which is where the one that rescued you and Tessa hailed from. This allows for a faster response time in emergencies, since it still takes these ships three to four hours to get here from Saturn, even at about fifty percent of light speed.”
“How long to get here from the Moon?” asked Tessa.
“Eight or nine seconds,” replied the colonel.
There was a long silence in the room as Tessa and I digested everything we had been told so far, our injuries long forgotten.
“You’ve raised more questions than you’ve answered,” I said at last. “For example,” I continued, ticking them off with my fingers, “does the Federation have a governmental structure? What kind, and how is it all managed? How long have their representatives been in our solar system? What are they really doing here? Why did they ally with you? Why keep it secret from the rest of the world?”