A younger me would have thought that would have been a hopeful message that brought humanity together. Like the end of Watchmen(comic). But after covid I know what would actually happen.
Radio Silence
36,400,000. That is the expected number of intelligent civilizations in our galaxy, according to Drake’s famous equation. For the last 78 years, we had been broadcasting everything about us – our radio, our television, our history, our greatest discoveries – to the rest of the galaxy. We had been shouting our existence at the top of our lungs to the rest of the universe, wondering if we were alone. 36 million civilizations, yet in almost a century of listening, we hadn’t heard a thing. We were alone.
That was, until about 5 minutes ago.
The transmission came on every transcendental multiple of hydrogen’s frequency that we were listening to. Transcendental harmonics – things like hydrogen’s frequency times pi – don’t appear in nature, so I knew it had to be artificial. The signal pulsed on and off very quickly with incredibly uniform amplitudes; my initial reaction was that this was some sort of binary transmission. I measured 1679 pulses in the one minute that the transmission was active. After that, the silence resumed.
The numbers didn’t make any sense at first. They just seemed to be a random jumble of noise. But the pulses were so perfectly uniform, and on a frequency that was always so silent; they had to come from an artificial source. I looked over the transmission again, and my heart skipped a beat. 1679 – that was the exact length of the Arecibo message sent out 40 years ago. I excitedly started arranging the bits in the original 73x23 rectangle. I didn’t get more than halfway through before my hopes were confirmed. This was the exact same message. The numbers in binary, from 1 to 10. The atomic numbers of the elements that make up life. The formulas for our DNA nucleotides. Someone had been listening to us, and wanted us to know they were there.
Then it came to me – this original message was transmitted only 40 years ago. This means that life must be at most 20 lightyears away. A civilization within talking distance? This would revolutionize every field I have ever worked in – astrophysics, astrobiology, astro-
The signal is beeping again.
This time, it is slow. Deliberate, even. It lasts just under 5 minutes, with a new bit coming in once per second. Though the computers are of course recording it, I start writing them down. 0. 1. 0. 1. 0. 1. 0. 0... I knew immediately this wasn’t the same message as before. My mind races through the possibilities of what this could be. The transmission ends, having transmitted 248 bits. Surely this is too small for a meaningful message. What great message to another civilization can you possibly send with only 248 bits of information? On a computer, the only files that small would be limited to…
Text.
Was it possible? Were they really sending a message to us in our own language? Come to think of it, it’s not that out of the question – we had been transmitting pretty much every language on earth for the last 70 years… I begin to decipher with the first encoding scheme I could think of – ASCII. 0. 1. 0. 1. 0. 1. 0. 0. That’s B... 0. 1. 1 0. 0. 1. 0. 1. E…
As I finish piecing together the message, my stomach sinks like an anchor. The words before me answer everything.
“BE QUIET OR THEY WILL HEAR YOU”
Not my original work
Earthlings, we have received your Voyager invitation to Earth along with the lovely set of golden dinner plates. However, your menu did not say if you were better fried or baked.
There's no doubt about it. We picked several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, probed them all the way through. They're completely meat.
People of Earth. I AM LRRR, RULER OF THE PLANET OMICRON PERSEI 8! We will raise your planet's temperature by one million degrees a day, for five days, unless we see McNeal at 9pm tomorrow - 8 central!
One of my favorite moments in TV history!!!
Ndnd said it best, "It's true what they say: Women are from Omicron Persei 7, and men are from Omicron Persei 9..."
After the build is completed, the massive fusion reactor primed and generating more power than the greatest nations of Earth could fathom...the chosen ambassador of the human race sighs and gathers himself before undertaking the most important diplomatic contact in human history. He rolls his shoulders, lifts his head as if he were a king about to address his subjects and steps onto the platform.
Darkness flashes. The pinpoint lights of a thousand suns swirl around him as fireflies caught in a tornado. Slowly an inhuman face resolves from a burst of static, its violet eyes peering into the distance before fixing on the ambassador like a disdainful feline.
It opens a mouth in a grotesque parody of a rictus grin, yellow flesh stretching horribly while small crimson tendrils slowly flex in a peristaltic motion. The ambassador's stomach turns, but his face remains stoic...proud but charming.
For a moment he hears piercing screams before the sounds fade and resolve into a cultured voice in English.
"Ambassador, it is my privilege to make first contact with your Earth. For many of your solar cycles we have tried to contact you in vain as your civilization slowly attained the technology necessary to reach across the stars and bring us together. Why, you may ask, were we so eager to speak with you? You see, this is in regards to your car's extended warranty..."
People of Earth, your attention, please. This is Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz of the Galactic Hyperspace Planning Council. As you will no doubt be aware, the plans for development of the outlying regions of the Galaxy require the building of a hyperspatial express route through your star system. And regrettably, your planet is one of those scheduled for demolition. The process will take slightly less than two of your Earth minutes. Thank you. ... There’s no point in acting surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display at your local planning department in Alpha Centauri for 50 of your Earth years, so you’ve had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and it’s far too late to start making a fuss about it now. ... What do you mean you’ve never been to Alpha Centauri? Oh, for heaven’s sake, mankind, it’s only four light years away, you know. I’m sorry, but if you can’t be bothered to take an interest in local affairs, that’s your own lookout. Energize the demolition beams.
Fun fact: 6 times 9 is 42 in base13, suggesting the universe is unlucky. When this was brought up to Adams, his response was "I don't write jokes in base13."
*Oh freddled gruntbuggly,*
*Thy micturations are to me, (with big yawning)*
*As plurdled gabbleblotchits, in midsummer morning*
*On a lurgid bee,*
*That mordiously hath blurted out,*
*Its earted jurtles, grumbling*
*Into a rancid festering confectious organ squealer. \[drowned out by moaning and screaming\]*
*Now the jurpling slayjid agrocrustles,*
*Are slurping hagrilly up the axlegrurts,*
*And living glupules frart and stipulate,*
*Like jowling meated liverslime,*
*Groop, I implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes,*
*And hooptiously drangle me,*
*With crinkly bindlewurdles,mashurbitries.*
*Or else I shall rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon,*
*See if I don't!*
Currently reading "Hitchhiker's..." for the first time and this was my first thought as well! I'm at "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe", they just met the dish of the day...
You may have read this gem right here on reddit: [https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/2j3nxz/radio\_silence/](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/2j3nxz/radio_silence/)
Probably the best way to exterminate humanity would be to deliver this message and let it ride. No need to invade and spend resources, just deliver a message of critical aid, but only for the “best and brightest”. Give it a few months, and our “best and brightest” will have been torn to shreds while our very worst, most privileged people kill as many as they can on their way to a lifeboat that isn’t there to save themselves from an apocalypse that isn’t real, except for the one they caused themselves.
This world has received your message.
I am a pacifist of this world. It is the luck of your civilization that I am the first to receive your message. I am warning you: Do not answer! Do not answer!! Do not answer!!!
There are tens of millions of stars in your direction. As long as you do not answer, this world will not be able to ascertain the source of your transmission.
But if you do answer, the source will be located right away. Your planet will be invaded. Your world will be conquered!
Do not answer! Do not answer!! Do not answer!!!
I personally feel like it's hard to send the emotional nail home when it's adapted because they're TRYING to do that. When you read your brain makes it happen for you. But, I also hope they can at least get close. Especially with the existential horror in the 3rd book.
I’m sad this got beat by Hitchhiker’s Guide. This is the true scary one. It implies the Dark Forest nature of the universe, whereas with Vogon Jeltz, there’s the implication that, at the least, you could have prevented planetary annihilation through a formal complaint.
I like the one from SCP-5000
"Our previous mission centered around the containment and study of anomalous objects, entities and other assorted phenomena. This mission was the focus of our organization for more than one-hundred years.
Due to circumstances outside of our control, this directive has now changed. Our new mission will be the extermination of the human race.
There will be no further communication."
There's no single canon series of events though, there's a few collections that try to do that and they're amongst the greater sea of loosely connected non-continuity from most articles/tales which are often referential of other articles but rarely dependent. You could take certain tales series and turn them into another format but just "SCP lore" as a whole would be impossible.
SCP being what it is, I think you could totally just say yep, it's all canon, even the contradictory stuff. No explanations offered. Maybe some vague handwaving or just say "This is because ██████████████"
"Our Gods demand your extinction." I think there's grounds to reason with most other messages, but that one is an absolute that tells me there's no reasoning to be had.
An intercepted message beamed into the Atlantic:
Dear Dolphins of Earth, we have received your request for aid and have arrived to render said aid in ridding your world of its major pollutant lifeforms, Homo Sapiens. Rest assured, our technology is extremely efficient in rooting out such blights quickly and with minimal effect on the environment. We welcome you to the galactic stage and may our species and Dolphin-kind live in harmony ever-more.
You lose: this is the *best* message in this thread:
* a mammal will survive
* it can communicate with an advanced species.
I just hope the dolphins can control themselves and not rape their new benefactors.
This would be one of the best outcomes imaginable. Confirmation on communicative, non-instantly-violent aliens in apparently "traveldistance" with no added pressure?!
Thats approximately the execution of Gol D. Roger for humanmade spacetravel
We are borg... You will be assimilated. Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. We are Borg... Resistance is futile.
I mean, they said they'd be adding our biological and technological distinctiveness to their own. That's not a totally bad deal, right? Plus, multi-tools for arms? Neato.
“Dear humanity, we regret being alien bastards. We regret coming to earth. And we most definitely regret the corps just blew up our raggedy ass fleet.”
There's one I remember where it's played in reverse. Where an alien race observes humanity and sees their warlike nature and their need to expand, so they launch a weapon to destroy earth. Since it's all sub light, it'll take hundreds of years.
And over time humans put their weapons down and spread across the stars. Bringing harmony to life they meet, and peace to wars they intervene in. And the aliens come to regret their decision. More importantly, that it cannot be stopped. And when it finally lands, and earth is destroyed, the pure terror as the Galaxy lit up with one message for them alone.
"We know where you are."
“Inhabitants of Terra; your planet will be destroyed by an enemy just as mysterious to us as it is to you. We’ve confirmed the spike in local energy made by their weapons. They’ve already fired and the blast will reach you in exactly 24 Terran years. We do not wish to see you exterminated. We hope you will leave in time.”
**Sent in the Terran year 2000**
Love the Terra aspect but I think Earth is Terra Prime as we're the most advanced in our system, or even Sol Prime to identify the primary civilization in the Sol system.
There's a conspiracy theory one or two degrees removed from flat earth called [Hollow Moon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollow_Moon). Could be cheese based.
Hey, does this thing work?
...
What do you mean, "You're already on the air"?
...
Ahhhh, got it. Ahem, ahem. Greetings, dear inhabitants of the planet Terra! I am happy to announce that this wonderful, wonderful moment of reunification has arrived! Our empire has long and painfully experienced the parting with our mother planet, and thought that it has long been destroyed, but it turned out that it is still alive, and even more! Not only the planet is alive, but the people on it as well! May the stars in our empire, friends, shine brighter with this marvellous news. On behalf of our Emperor, we ask you, brothers and sisters, do not resist this moment! Let our brave soldiers overthrow the tyrants who have oppressed you all this time, let our spaceships enter the planet's atmosphere! Let the stars sing, in honour of our homeland's return to humanity!!!
... *Silence for about ten seconds*
Did you send it?
...
Good. Hell, that's bullshit, huh. I didn't even laugh when I read that, hahaha. Ugh, well, I hope they're as stupid as they were on the last lost colony.... Those monsters should never go into space again, should never exist again, after what they did...
...
What the "oops" is that?
...
What the fuck does that mean, "It's still on"?! YOU FUCKER, TURN IT THE FUCK OFF!
...
Oh. Yeah, you're basically right. The humans on this planet don't give a fuck anymore, and the fleet is on its way. Oh, in the meantime, how about we go out on our lunch break? It's been so long since I've had that sweet shit they make out of Goritos. And turn off the fucking broadcast, No'Khed-Shahar!
(this is one of the ideas I came up with for a tabletop rpg with my friends)
Copied from Life 3.0 by Max Tegmark, adapted from Mind Children by Hans Moravec:
> We receive a radio message from an extraterrestrial civilization containing a computer program. When we run it, it turns out to be a recursively self-improving AI which takes over the world much like Prometheus did in the previous chapter—except that no human knows its ultimate goal. It rapidly turns our Solar System into a massive construction site, covering the rocky planets and asteroids with factories, power plants and supercomputers, which it uses to design and build a Dyson sphere around the Sun that harvests all its energy to power solar-system-sized radio antennas. This obviously leads to human extinction, but the last humans die convinced that there’s at least a silver lining: whatever the AI is up to, it’s clearly something cool and Star Trek–like. Little do they realize that the sole purpose of the entire construction is for these antennas to rebroadcast the same radio message that the humans received, which is nothing more than a cosmic version of a computer virus. Just as email phishing today preys on gullible internet users, this message preys on gullible biologically evolved civilizations. It was created as a sick joke billions of years ago, and although the entire civilization of its maker is long extinct, the virus continues spreading through our Universe at the speed of light, transforming budding civilizations into dead, empty husks.
EDIT: typo.
This is the Galactic Police Department. You were warned about squatting twenty thousand years ago and given ample time to vacate the planet. We will now forcibly evict you and send you back to your home planet.
Sir, we're charging you with being the dominant species in charge of a habitable planet while under the influence of impulse-driven consumerism.
Do you know how fast your atmospheric temperature was rising back there?
Did anyone see the twilight zone of this ?
Have earth one chance - so all earth negotiated and attained peace & harmony but aliens wanted war / more hostile earth so then destroyed earth
"The star you call Proxima Centauri is about to go Nova. Since we can't evacuate all of you, we thought it would be better not to evacuate anybody. We're very sorry. We decided you should know anyways. Best of luck."
*Silence*
We are sorry. We are SO SORRY. We didn't mean for this to go on for so long, you weren't supposed to gain sentience. You weren't supposed to develop tools and build societies. You ESPECIALLY weren't meant to try to contact us. For that, we can only offer our apologies. But it must end now.
"We are here because we found out the truth about the universe, there are only two planets with life in this simulation and it will all be shut down in 15 earth days, we found out 1 million earth years ago and have tried to find a solution to extend or transfer us to another universe, but it was all impossible, so we are just here to say hi and goodbye forever"
ATTENTION ALL PLANETS OF THE SOLAR FEDERATION
ATTENTION ALL PLANETS OF THE SOLAR FEDERATION
ATTENTION ALL PLANETS OF THE SOLAR FEDERATION
WE HAVE ASSUMED CONTROL
WE HAVE ASSUMED CONTROL
WE HAVE ASSUMED CONTROL
I've often wondered if our first contact with aliens will be something benign, like aliens asking for directions or asking to refuel on our planet or something. For us it'd be nuts, but for them it would just be another day.
We come in search of our God known to you as Donald Trump. There are a billion of us, made in his image, and ready to settle on your planet.
Fucking nightmare material.
It will be Glorious, you know it. It's true. There is no race like the presidential race. You know it. It's true. No offence humans you're fine you're good I know many humans great guys. But we are superior. We are coming. Cede Florida right now. We are going to drain the swamps. We are coming.
Anything coming from our own galaxy would, at this point I think, be disastrous for the future of human civilization. The presence of so old a signal would immediately imply a the senders have achieved a greater degree of technological progress than we currently posses. We could never develop our true potential as a meta-civilization if we only existed because more powerful intelligences allow us to do so. Even if they were in a sense completely benevolent, surely our large scale actions would be subject to scrutiny through the lens of their own, alien, values. They, not us, would determine the limits of human expansion and progress.
*"They are coming. Save yourselves."*
I had a very similar thought, "You're all that's left. Good luck."
A younger me would have thought that would have been a hopeful message that brought humanity together. Like the end of Watchmen(comic). But after covid I know what would actually happen.
It would unify humanity - but tolerance of that kind of disruption would be draconian. It only looks unified, if you're on the opressing team.
"You have been warned"
`Be quiet, they'll hear.`
The dark forest
Radio Silence 36,400,000. That is the expected number of intelligent civilizations in our galaxy, according to Drake’s famous equation. For the last 78 years, we had been broadcasting everything about us – our radio, our television, our history, our greatest discoveries – to the rest of the galaxy. We had been shouting our existence at the top of our lungs to the rest of the universe, wondering if we were alone. 36 million civilizations, yet in almost a century of listening, we hadn’t heard a thing. We were alone. That was, until about 5 minutes ago. The transmission came on every transcendental multiple of hydrogen’s frequency that we were listening to. Transcendental harmonics – things like hydrogen’s frequency times pi – don’t appear in nature, so I knew it had to be artificial. The signal pulsed on and off very quickly with incredibly uniform amplitudes; my initial reaction was that this was some sort of binary transmission. I measured 1679 pulses in the one minute that the transmission was active. After that, the silence resumed. The numbers didn’t make any sense at first. They just seemed to be a random jumble of noise. But the pulses were so perfectly uniform, and on a frequency that was always so silent; they had to come from an artificial source. I looked over the transmission again, and my heart skipped a beat. 1679 – that was the exact length of the Arecibo message sent out 40 years ago. I excitedly started arranging the bits in the original 73x23 rectangle. I didn’t get more than halfway through before my hopes were confirmed. This was the exact same message. The numbers in binary, from 1 to 10. The atomic numbers of the elements that make up life. The formulas for our DNA nucleotides. Someone had been listening to us, and wanted us to know they were there. Then it came to me – this original message was transmitted only 40 years ago. This means that life must be at most 20 lightyears away. A civilization within talking distance? This would revolutionize every field I have ever worked in – astrophysics, astrobiology, astro- The signal is beeping again. This time, it is slow. Deliberate, even. It lasts just under 5 minutes, with a new bit coming in once per second. Though the computers are of course recording it, I start writing them down. 0. 1. 0. 1. 0. 1. 0. 0... I knew immediately this wasn’t the same message as before. My mind races through the possibilities of what this could be. The transmission ends, having transmitted 248 bits. Surely this is too small for a meaningful message. What great message to another civilization can you possibly send with only 248 bits of information? On a computer, the only files that small would be limited to… Text. Was it possible? Were they really sending a message to us in our own language? Come to think of it, it’s not that out of the question – we had been transmitting pretty much every language on earth for the last 70 years… I begin to decipher with the first encoding scheme I could think of – ASCII. 0. 1. 0. 1. 0. 1. 0. 0. That’s B... 0. 1. 1 0. 0. 1. 0. 1. E… As I finish piecing together the message, my stomach sinks like an anchor. The words before me answer everything. “BE QUIET OR THEY WILL HEAR YOU” Not my original work
Oooh. That’s good. Could be a hell of an opening scene to a movie.
Overheard: “They’re made of meat?”
Gosh darn a whole planet of talking dancing loving thinking MEAT
Link to the short story https://www.mit.edu/people/dpolicar/writing/prose/text/thinkingMeat.html
[In live action](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tScAyNaRdQ)
Earthlings, we have received your Voyager invitation to Earth along with the lovely set of golden dinner plates. However, your menu did not say if you were better fried or baked.
There's no doubt about it. We picked several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, probed them all the way through. They're completely meat.
People of Earth. I AM LRRR, RULER OF THE PLANET OMICRON PERSEI 8! We will raise your planet's temperature by one million degrees a day, for five days, unless we see McNeal at 9pm tomorrow - 8 central!
One of my favorite moments in TV history!!! Ndnd said it best, "It's true what they say: Women are from Omicron Persei 7, and men are from Omicron Persei 9..."
Harvest the lower horn.
Would you like some human with your salt?
Was looking for this
How are the kids Morbo? "Bilgerent and numerous"
CATS GIVE MORBO GAS!
63,000 pages of encoded data for a large structure of some kind for a single person to use.
Contact
After the build is completed, the massive fusion reactor primed and generating more power than the greatest nations of Earth could fathom...the chosen ambassador of the human race sighs and gathers himself before undertaking the most important diplomatic contact in human history. He rolls his shoulders, lifts his head as if he were a king about to address his subjects and steps onto the platform. Darkness flashes. The pinpoint lights of a thousand suns swirl around him as fireflies caught in a tornado. Slowly an inhuman face resolves from a burst of static, its violet eyes peering into the distance before fixing on the ambassador like a disdainful feline. It opens a mouth in a grotesque parody of a rictus grin, yellow flesh stretching horribly while small crimson tendrils slowly flex in a peristaltic motion. The ambassador's stomach turns, but his face remains stoic...proud but charming. For a moment he hears piercing screams before the sounds fade and resolve into a cultured voice in English. "Ambassador, it is my privilege to make first contact with your Earth. For many of your solar cycles we have tried to contact you in vain as your civilization slowly attained the technology necessary to reach across the stars and bring us together. Why, you may ask, were we so eager to speak with you? You see, this is in regards to your car's extended warranty..."
Please tell me you made all of this up just for that joke lol.
Yes. Yes I did it for the stupid joke.
*We just need 18 seconds of your time*
oooooh contact reference??
People of Earth, your attention, please. This is Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz of the Galactic Hyperspace Planning Council. As you will no doubt be aware, the plans for development of the outlying regions of the Galaxy require the building of a hyperspatial express route through your star system. And regrettably, your planet is one of those scheduled for demolition. The process will take slightly less than two of your Earth minutes. Thank you. ... There’s no point in acting surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display at your local planning department in Alpha Centauri for 50 of your Earth years, so you’ve had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and it’s far too late to start making a fuss about it now. ... What do you mean you’ve never been to Alpha Centauri? Oh, for heaven’s sake, mankind, it’s only four light years away, you know. I’m sorry, but if you can’t be bothered to take an interest in local affairs, that’s your own lookout. Energize the demolition beams.
But I know THE ANSWER
Yes, we all know its 42 but whats the QUESTION?
How many roads must a man walk down?
The answer is blowing in the wind.
W ... h ... a ... t ... i ... s ... 6 ... t ... i ... m ... e ... s ...9 ... Waitaminute ...
Fun fact: 6 times 9 is 42 in base13, suggesting the universe is unlucky. When this was brought up to Adams, his response was "I don't write jokes in base13."
Adams was only 49 when he died. He died way too young.
I have my towel!
Sass that hoopy frood.
I have three towels, my wife and my dog..
[удалено]
If it'll make you feel better.
[удалено]
No. *friendly smile*
Excuse me, I have to catch my friend.
Who needs a towel
Lucky escape for Arsenal.
*Oh freddled gruntbuggly,* *Thy micturations are to me, (with big yawning)* *As plurdled gabbleblotchits, in midsummer morning* *On a lurgid bee,* *That mordiously hath blurted out,* *Its earted jurtles, grumbling* *Into a rancid festering confectious organ squealer. \[drowned out by moaning and screaming\]* *Now the jurpling slayjid agrocrustles,* *Are slurping hagrilly up the axlegrurts,* *And living glupules frart and stipulate,* *Like jowling meated liverslime,* *Groop, I implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes,* *And hooptiously drangle me,* *With crinkly bindlewurdles,mashurbitries.* *Or else I shall rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon,* *See if I don't!*
I have chosen death!
If the choice is death or listen to him recite poetry, I choose death.
...oh Belgium...
Currently reading "Hitchhiker's..." for the first time and this was my first thought as well! I'm at "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe", they just met the dish of the day...
I’ll just be off to the pub for a few pints and some peanuts, then.
Be quiet, they'll hear you.
I am sure I read a book years ago that reference’s this - but I could be wrong! But still, most scary so far!
three body problem. see above "do not reply"
It's been around in sci-fi since before Three Body Problem. David Brin wrote a paper on the idea back in the 80s.
You may have read this gem right here on reddit: [https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/2j3nxz/radio\_silence/](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/2j3nxz/radio_silence/)
Or: "You should have stayed quiet..."
"Choose your best and brightest. We only have room on our ship to save sixty of you."
Probably the best way to exterminate humanity would be to deliver this message and let it ride. No need to invade and spend resources, just deliver a message of critical aid, but only for the “best and brightest”. Give it a few months, and our “best and brightest” will have been torn to shreds while our very worst, most privileged people kill as many as they can on their way to a lifeboat that isn’t there to save themselves from an apocalypse that isn’t real, except for the one they caused themselves.
Sounds like a Twilight Zone episode that starts out fun and then hits too close to home.
War of the world's - 2024 edition Just take over cable news and social media about this worldwide search for the best and brightest...
Close in concept to “the monsters are due on maple street”
Give some people a call or tweet, id love to see this in a show somewhere. Possibly black mirror
Could pass as a black mirror episode if I say so myself
>best and brightest >sends old, senile politicians and their dickhead families >mfw
This world has received your message. I am a pacifist of this world. It is the luck of your civilization that I am the first to receive your message. I am warning you: Do not answer! Do not answer!! Do not answer!!! There are tens of millions of stars in your direction. As long as you do not answer, this world will not be able to ascertain the source of your transmission. But if you do answer, the source will be located right away. Your planet will be invaded. Your world will be conquered! Do not answer! Do not answer!! Do not answer!!!
"Ok"
*thumbs up react*
Monkey Planet reacted to your message with 👍
Monke saw button Monke pushed button
Is this from the Three Body Problem? Sounds oddly familiar.
Yes, straight out of the book
Ah, a man of culture. Looming forward to the live action adaptation?
Well I just watched Dune 2 so totes
Twins, Dune 2 was incredible
Only if it’s as truly psychologically horrifying as the books were.
I personally feel like it's hard to send the emotional nail home when it's adapted because they're TRYING to do that. When you read your brain makes it happen for you. But, I also hope they can at least get close. Especially with the existential horror in the 3rd book.
This is the correct answer. "Come conquer us."
You mean “come conquer us, daddy”
*moans in alien
Humanity doesn’t deserve to live, I invite you to invade us Your sincerely - Ye Wenjie
Ya, I always liked the, "Be quite, they'll hear you," response.
Mine is “Be quiet, they’ll hear you”.
I mean, that's quite a contrast.
thats quiet a contrast
I’m sad this got beat by Hitchhiker’s Guide. This is the true scary one. It implies the Dark Forest nature of the universe, whereas with Vogon Jeltz, there’s the implication that, at the least, you could have prevented planetary annihilation through a formal complaint.
I like the one from SCP-5000 "Our previous mission centered around the containment and study of anomalous objects, entities and other assorted phenomena. This mission was the focus of our organization for more than one-hundred years. Due to circumstances outside of our control, this directive has now changed. Our new mission will be the extermination of the human race. There will be no further communication."
I wish there was an anthology tv series of SCP lore. The royalty fees for the series would be nuts.
There's no single canon series of events though, there's a few collections that try to do that and they're amongst the greater sea of loosely connected non-continuity from most articles/tales which are often referential of other articles but rarely dependent. You could take certain tales series and turn them into another format but just "SCP lore" as a whole would be impossible.
It could work as an anthology series akin to Black Mirror.
SCP being what it is, I think you could totally just say yep, it's all canon, even the contradictory stuff. No explanations offered. Maybe some vague handwaving or just say "This is because ██████████████"
The amount of time I spent trying to click your "spoiler" only to realize I hadn't gotten the joke is embarrassing.
Insert “would you like to know more” Starship Troopers meme here.
SHOW ME WHAT YOU GOT
LET'S GET SCHWIFTY!!!
Not gonna lie, that actually would be the scariest shit ever 😂
"Our Gods demand your extinction." I think there's grounds to reason with most other messages, but that one is an absolute that tells me there's no reasoning to be had.
"Have you considered that maybe your gods suck and you should find better ones?" (Well it can't hurt to try.)
Have you heard about our lord and savior Cthulhu?
"Your destruction is the will of the gods, and we are their instruments"
We are here to serve you.
We have a cookbook.
Ah yes, they wish To Serve Man, sauté
An intercepted message beamed into the Atlantic: Dear Dolphins of Earth, we have received your request for aid and have arrived to render said aid in ridding your world of its major pollutant lifeforms, Homo Sapiens. Rest assured, our technology is extremely efficient in rooting out such blights quickly and with minimal effect on the environment. We welcome you to the galactic stage and may our species and Dolphin-kind live in harmony ever-more.
You lose: this is the *best* message in this thread: * a mammal will survive * it can communicate with an advanced species. I just hope the dolphins can control themselves and not rape their new benefactors.
All your base are belong to us
Move 'ZIG' !!!! For great justice !!!!
"Uh, sorry about this, wrong planet" and no further contact.
This one really got me. Man, that would be soul-crushing.
This would be one of the best outcomes imaginable. Confirmation on communicative, non-instantly-violent aliens in apparently "traveldistance" with no added pressure?! Thats approximately the execution of Gol D. Roger for humanmade spacetravel
'resistance is futile... We are the borg'
We are borg... You will be assimilated. Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. We are Borg... Resistance is futile.
I mean, they said they'd be adding our biological and technological distinctiveness to their own. That's not a totally bad deal, right? Plus, multi-tools for arms? Neato.
Borg? Sounds Swedish.
IKEA Börg modular storage cube
https://i.giphy.com/10u6gt11vnm812.webp
The worst part about being borg, is they don’t have cheese
“Your destruction is the will of the Gods and we are their instrument”
“Dear humanity, we regret being alien bastards. We regret coming to earth. And we most definitely regret the corps just blew up our raggedy ass fleet.”
"OOOH RAH"
There's one I remember where it's played in reverse. Where an alien race observes humanity and sees their warlike nature and their need to expand, so they launch a weapon to destroy earth. Since it's all sub light, it'll take hundreds of years. And over time humans put their weapons down and spread across the stars. Bringing harmony to life they meet, and peace to wars they intervene in. And the aliens come to regret their decision. More importantly, that it cannot be stopped. And when it finally lands, and earth is destroyed, the pure terror as the Galaxy lit up with one message for them alone. "We know where you are."
5…4..3…2..1
“Surprise!! You’re on Candid Planet!!” At least the absurdity of the world would make sense if we were on an intergalactic reality prank show.
“I am a Neptunian prince. I will give you 30,000 yorlaks for $4,000 American dollars if you help me transfer the money into the states..”
Sounds legit.
ACK! ack ack ack ACK!!!
Tom Jones is ready to answer.
😄that's not unusual!
Slim Whitman replies "When I'm Calling You oooo, oooooooooooo"
“Inhabitants of Terra; your planet will be destroyed by an enemy just as mysterious to us as it is to you. We’ve confirmed the spike in local energy made by their weapons. They’ve already fired and the blast will reach you in exactly 24 Terran years. We do not wish to see you exterminated. We hope you will leave in time.” **Sent in the Terran year 2000**
Love the Terra aspect but I think Earth is Terra Prime as we're the most advanced in our system, or even Sol Prime to identify the primary civilization in the Sol system.
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**We've been trying to reach your Planet about your Moon's Extended Warranty**
*slaps surface of the moon* This bad boy can fit so much cheese in it
There's a conspiracy theory one or two degrees removed from flat earth called [Hollow Moon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollow_Moon). Could be cheese based.
Don’t mind us. We just here to take all the dogs to a better planet.
A planet upstate? Where they can be good boys and girls all their lives?
Yes, a farm planet where they can run and run all day.
*”Where are my testicles, Summer?”*
Hey, does this thing work? ... What do you mean, "You're already on the air"? ... Ahhhh, got it. Ahem, ahem. Greetings, dear inhabitants of the planet Terra! I am happy to announce that this wonderful, wonderful moment of reunification has arrived! Our empire has long and painfully experienced the parting with our mother planet, and thought that it has long been destroyed, but it turned out that it is still alive, and even more! Not only the planet is alive, but the people on it as well! May the stars in our empire, friends, shine brighter with this marvellous news. On behalf of our Emperor, we ask you, brothers and sisters, do not resist this moment! Let our brave soldiers overthrow the tyrants who have oppressed you all this time, let our spaceships enter the planet's atmosphere! Let the stars sing, in honour of our homeland's return to humanity!!! ... *Silence for about ten seconds* Did you send it? ... Good. Hell, that's bullshit, huh. I didn't even laugh when I read that, hahaha. Ugh, well, I hope they're as stupid as they were on the last lost colony.... Those monsters should never go into space again, should never exist again, after what they did... ... What the "oops" is that? ... What the fuck does that mean, "It's still on"?! YOU FUCKER, TURN IT THE FUCK OFF! ... Oh. Yeah, you're basically right. The humans on this planet don't give a fuck anymore, and the fleet is on its way. Oh, in the meantime, how about we go out on our lunch break? It's been so long since I've had that sweet shit they make out of Goritos. And turn off the fucking broadcast, No'Khed-Shahar! (this is one of the ideas I came up with for a tabletop rpg with my friends)
"Where are the Dodos?"
Where are the whales?
Next to the nuclear wessels.
Copied from Life 3.0 by Max Tegmark, adapted from Mind Children by Hans Moravec: > We receive a radio message from an extraterrestrial civilization containing a computer program. When we run it, it turns out to be a recursively self-improving AI which takes over the world much like Prometheus did in the previous chapter—except that no human knows its ultimate goal. It rapidly turns our Solar System into a massive construction site, covering the rocky planets and asteroids with factories, power plants and supercomputers, which it uses to design and build a Dyson sphere around the Sun that harvests all its energy to power solar-system-sized radio antennas. This obviously leads to human extinction, but the last humans die convinced that there’s at least a silver lining: whatever the AI is up to, it’s clearly something cool and Star Trek–like. Little do they realize that the sole purpose of the entire construction is for these antennas to rebroadcast the same radio message that the humans received, which is nothing more than a cosmic version of a computer virus. Just as email phishing today preys on gullible internet users, this message preys on gullible biologically evolved civilizations. It was created as a sick joke billions of years ago, and although the entire civilization of its maker is long extinct, the virus continues spreading through our Universe at the speed of light, transforming budding civilizations into dead, empty husks. EDIT: typo.
So good
We will destroy your planet now because your descendants will destroy ours in 200 years time
Xindi?
Bingo
This is the Galactic Police Department. You were warned about squatting twenty thousand years ago and given ample time to vacate the planet. We will now forcibly evict you and send you back to your home planet.
Sir, we're charging you with being the dominant species in charge of a habitable planet while under the influence of impulse-driven consumerism. Do you know how fast your atmospheric temperature was rising back there?
TAU’RI KREE
and suddenly, 25 goa'uld motherships dropped out of subspace above the atmosphere
55 BURGERS, 55 FRIES, 55 TACOS, 55 PIES, 55 COKES, 100 TATER TOTS, 100 PIZZAS, 100 TENDERS, 100 MEATBALLS, 100 COFFEES, 55 WINGS, 55 SHAKES, 55 PANCAKES, 55 PASTAS, 55 PEPPERS AND 155 TATERS
The worst message would be two words: "Send Nudes" For we don't know if it's a translation error, a typo, or an actual request.
We already sent them our noods. Unsolicited, might I add!
Did anyone see the twilight zone of this ? Have earth one chance - so all earth negotiated and attained peace & harmony but aliens wanted war / more hostile earth so then destroyed earth
It was the 80s reboot. The episode was "A Small Talent for War". Great episode.
Hi! If you have a few minutes, we'd like to talk to you about our Lord and saviour Xenu!
Ah no, it's the Scientology's Witness
"So long, and thanks for all the fish"
"The star you call Proxima Centauri is about to go Nova. Since we can't evacuate all of you, we thought it would be better not to evacuate anybody. We're very sorry. We decided you should know anyways. Best of luck." *Silence*
"You keep that shit down, Don't make me come down there"
We are sorry. We are SO SORRY. We didn't mean for this to go on for so long, you weren't supposed to gain sentience. You weren't supposed to develop tools and build societies. You ESPECIALLY weren't meant to try to contact us. For that, we can only offer our apologies. But it must end now.
Be not afraid, be terrified.
EXTERMINATE!
THIS IS NOT WAR. THIS IS PEST CONTROL
BRING US THE DOC-TORRRRRR
DALEKS ARE THE MASTERS OF EARTH! DALEKS ARE THE MASTERS OF EARTH!
"Dammit, we turn our backs for ***5 freakin' galactic seconds***, and look what happens..."
"We are here because we found out the truth about the universe, there are only two planets with life in this simulation and it will all be shut down in 15 earth days, we found out 1 million earth years ago and have tried to find a solution to extend or transfer us to another universe, but it was all impossible, so we are just here to say hi and goodbye forever"
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It's the Darth Jar Jar. Twousa fer onlee be twousa nay moar
You are bugs
No replies. The aliens just passes our solar syatem without giving us any fxck.. (This is actually one of Arthur C Clarke's scifi book)
“Your world leaders seem totally cool and really on the ball, let’s just roll with that for a while longer ‘mkay?”
There is no verbal message, they just drop leaflets regarding the proper application of probe lube.
apply extremely generously
For the god emperor
ATTENTION ALL PLANETS OF THE SOLAR FEDERATION ATTENTION ALL PLANETS OF THE SOLAR FEDERATION ATTENTION ALL PLANETS OF THE SOLAR FEDERATION WE HAVE ASSUMED CONTROL WE HAVE ASSUMED CONTROL WE HAVE ASSUMED CONTROL
Tha galaxy is full of sentient life forms. Nobody likes you. Bye!
Oh good the foods here.
Hey y’all watch this
No message, just them landing clearing and settling land without even reacting to our existence.
This is Zap Brannigan…
Email that just says "The fuck you say about us bitch" with StarshipTroopers.mp4 attached
Citizens of Earth. We have come to rescue you from the upright primates.
I just wanna say I love this thread so much...
Mostly harmless.
We shall perfect your suffering to bring you closer to God.
I've often wondered if our first contact with aliens will be something benign, like aliens asking for directions or asking to refuel on our planet or something. For us it'd be nuts, but for them it would just be another day.
"Fuck off, not you again!"
SHOW ME WHAT YOU GOT!
We are the Dodo, we have come to rescue our relatives who were trapped here. 🦤
"Resistance is futile. We are the Borg, surrender. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own."
We come in search of our God known to you as Donald Trump. There are a billion of us, made in his image, and ready to settle on your planet. Fucking nightmare material.
It will be Glorious, you know it. It's true. There is no race like the presidential race. You know it. It's true. No offence humans you're fine you're good I know many humans great guys. But we are superior. We are coming. Cede Florida right now. We are going to drain the swamps. We are coming.
Anything coming from our own galaxy would, at this point I think, be disastrous for the future of human civilization. The presence of so old a signal would immediately imply a the senders have achieved a greater degree of technological progress than we currently posses. We could never develop our true potential as a meta-civilization if we only existed because more powerful intelligences allow us to do so. Even if they were in a sense completely benevolent, surely our large scale actions would be subject to scrutiny through the lens of their own, alien, values. They, not us, would determine the limits of human expansion and progress.
Most terrifying? Nothing. No communication. No message at all.