“All alone in a crowded room” by Joseph West
The only thing worse than being in a room by yourself is being in a room full of people and having no one talk to you.
For most of modern mankind’s space exploration we assumed that although there might other life forms out there we would probably never meet due to the vast distances of space and time. This all changed when the pin point flashes in the night sky started to appear near Jupiter. At first scientist thought it was meteorites crashing into the Jovian system. But telescopes and time slowly revealed it was something much more fantastic… they were spaceships. It took awhile to get good pictures of what the ships looked like, their designs were as mixed and as creative as anything seen in science fiction movies or written about in books. We could see them flying to different large hubs that had been set up soon after their arrival. The flashes of light were later determined the means of travel from where ever they come (or where ever they go). There are always pinpoints of light now.
People seemed to take the idea that we were about to make contact with alien races pretty well, there wasn’t the panic that could have set in. All we had to do was make plans for the first contact. Everything including the red carpet treatment would be brought out to meet them… which was assumed would be soon after their arrival… every plan had been considered by many governments but in the end the countries of the world joined together in a great show of unity.
That was the plan. But as weeks, months and eventually years went by our world had not received any contact from the ships and stations that were set up in the Jovian system.
Over time scientist (who always have the best telescopes) gathered very detailed images of what was happening at what was now called the jump point zone. The ships of all shapes and sizes kept coming and going. Structures so massive they could hardly be believed to be real serviced all the vessels and seemed to house a very large and complex society.
Probes were sent with messages of peace in an attempt to make contact and gather intelligence but as they few by the jump point zone they were as ignored as our planet was. Photos taken by those probes showed stunning detail of the jump point stations and ships. Humanoid shapes could be seen in windows and flying around in space suits. Yet, images were all that we had. No signal of any other kind was ever received by earth.
As years went by anger and resentment began to emerge among the inhabitants of our planet. Plans were considered to attack the jump point with nuclear weapons in attempt to illicit any kind of response from them (who ever they may be). But gratefully interest in such attempts fell because we realized it would take years to even get the smallest of weapons there. For even then (and now) we never could develop a engine efficient and powerful enough to get us to Jupiter in any reasonable time.
So life on Earth goes on. Still no contact was ever made. Maybe they found us to primitive to be included in their society. Maybe they had strict guidelines on contacting societies of lesser technology (of course even they must have seen Star Trek). But the bottom line is that we (the People of Earth) feel like the guy at the party no one wants to talk to. So we’ll just have to sit back have a few drinks and listen to the music…
…at least we know that somebody’s having fun.
The only thing worse than being in a room by yourself is being in a room full of people and having no one talk to you.
For most of modern mankind’s space exploration we assumed that although there might other life forms out there we would probably never meet due to the vast distances of space and time. This all changed when the pin point flashes in the night sky started to appear near Jupiter. At first scientist thought it was meteorites crashing into the Jovian system. But telescopes and time slowly revealed it was something much more fantastic… they were spaceships. It took awhile to get good pictures of what the ships looked like, their designs were as mixed and as creative as anything seen in science fiction movies or written about in books. We could see them flying to different large hubs that had been set up soon after their arrival. The flashes of light were later determined the means of travel from where ever they come (or where ever they go). There are always pinpoints of light now.
People seemed to take the idea that we were about to make contact with alien races pretty well, there wasn’t the panic that could have set in. All we had to do was make plans for the first contact. Everything including the red carpet treatment would be brought out to meet them… which was assumed would be soon after their arrival… every plan had been considered by many governments but in the end the countries of the world joined together in a great show of unity.
That was the plan. But as weeks, months and eventually years went by our world had not received any contact from the ships and stations that were set up in the Jovian system.
Over time scientist (who always have the best telescopes) gathered very detailed images of what was happening at what was now called the jump point zone. The ships of all shapes and sizes kept coming and going. Structures so massive they could hardly be believed to be real serviced all the vessels and seemed to house a very large and complex society.
Probes were sent with messages of peace in an attempt to make contact and gather intelligence but as they few by the jump point zone they were as ignored as our planet was. Photos taken by those probes showed stunning detail of the jump point stations and ships. Humanoid shapes could be seen in windows and flying around in space suits. Yet, images were all that we had. No signal of any other kind was ever received by earth.
As years went by anger and resentment began to emerge among the inhabitants of our planet. Plans were considered to attack the jump point with nuclear weapons in attempt to illicit any kind of response from them (who ever they may be). But gratefully interest in such attempts fell because we realized it would take years to even get the smallest of weapons there. For even then (and now) we never could develop a engine efficient and powerful enough to get us to Jupiter in any reasonable time.
So life on Earth goes on. Still no contact was ever made. Maybe they found us to primitive to be included in their society. Maybe they had strict guidelines on contacting societies of lesser technology (of course even they must have seen Star Trek). But the bottom line is that we (the People of Earth) feel like the guy at the party no one wants to talk to. So we’ll just have to sit back have a few drinks and listen to the music…
…at least we know that somebody’s having fun.
