Message from the future

I writes:It's more like in EVERY instantiation of 2005, there's this note from the aliens. If it's here in ANY instantiation of 2005, then it was there for all versions.

{Added by edit: The message has disappeared. Is this what was meant with the message being "lost soon after its appearance"?}

but I was able to retrieve the text from cache

This message has been edited by [omitted], 30-Sep-2005 05:38 PM

It's more like in EVERY instantiation of 2005, there's this note from the aliens. If it's here in ANY instantiation of 2005, then it was there for all versions.

In response to the aliens' warning, we built a settlement--one settlement--on Mars; it was destroyed by an asteroid strike. Thus, "all our apes in one dome" like all our eggs in one basket.

CS writes: Then the earthlings all die and the marslings live on. The problem with this is that if the marslings live then they don't send the message and we end up not knowing about the asteroid in the first place, or do we?

parasomnium writes:Here is an interesting little story I found yesterday

{Added by edit: The message has disappeared. Is this what was meant with the message being "lost soon after its appearance"?}

This is a message from the future. We arrived in your solar system in what would have been your year 9194, if your civilization had still existed. We found evidence of your existence on the third planet, which we have determined to have been your home planet. We also found remains of your civilization on the fourth planet and on your moon. In the databanks of one of your moonbases, which were much better preserved than anything we found on your homeplanet, our scientists discovered a message from the last remaining humans. After deciphering it, we decided to use technology we have developed to manipulate information through time to relay the message back to their ancestors in the past, i.e. you. The human message is as follows:

quote:

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Quote:
In 2005, the earth received a "message from the future", which contained a warning that humanity would be wiped out by a viral pandemic in 2114. It took a while before the message was taken seriously and resulted in an international effort to start a human colony on Mars. In 2076 the first settlement on Mars was established. In just over three decades it expanded to a city-sized colony, containing about 23,000 people. About two and a half years ago, however, it was devastated by an asteroid impact. There were only 17 survivors, all of them from a well sheltered hospital. Without resources and with no time left to start another viable colony off earth before the predicted pandemic, they got to a space station in orbit around Mars, awaiting rescue. Earth launched a mission to retrieve them and they made it back to earth in six months time. Then, in december 2113, the viral infection started. It all happened so quickly that by mid march 2114, more than half of the world's population had died. We have sought desparately for a cure, but there was too little time and none was found before it was too late. The pandemic did indeed wipe out humanity. We are the last humans, we number only 11 now, and all of us are infected.

​

The only way out for humanity we can think of at this point, is to realise that we originally became aware of what awaited us, via a message from the future. The message itself was somehow lost very soon after it first appeared on what was then called the 'internet'. But the stories about the message have become part of our cultural history, and folklore has it that the original message was somehow sent back in time, by aliens who discovered the traces of our civilization. We think that if we leave a message ourselves, it might be found by these aliens. In fact, we think this is the original message. We will beam this message to one of our automated data facilities on the moon, where we think it will have the best chance of ever being found.

​

If this message reaches our ancestors back in 2005, we urge them to analyse what has happened and to somehow try and avert the disaster.

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arachnophilia writes:smartass. i think you wrote it!

(So yes, I did write it.)

Is the message causing the problem, or isn't it?

arachnophilia writes:you didn't seem happy when i said it was poorly written

I think the fact that you made a grammatical error yourself in the very remark about it, was the straw.

but i wasn't trying to be mean -- had no idea you wrote it. sorry.