Advanced space-faring extraterrestrials are present in the Eagle Nebula (M16), according to a news article found in the Ghost Net in the Orion's Arm universe.[1] Their technology, specially in the field of propulsion, far surpasses that of Terragens.
History[]
All information about these extraterrestrials was provided by the "REALNEWS COOPERATIVE" correspondants in the Trifid Nebula as they interviewed the crew of the contactee ship, the Minu Queretanios.
The Minu Queretanios was carrying out a routine survey in the Eagle Nebula, when at UT 23:16:42 of 16 Hippocrates 8973 (17 February 10,942 CE)[2] they noticed the emergence of a huge object (19,233 meters long and 3,680 meters at its widest) from a flash of radiation (X and gamma rays lasting for 1,264.8 milliseconds). The ship's attempts to scan the object in the following days proved futile, and it appeared to simply ignore the Minu Queretanios. Then, the object changed course to intercept the Minu Queretanios, travelling at 0.9998c across space until stopping instantaneously at 62.9 million kilometers from the ship.
In less than 17 minutes, the object communicated with the ship, revealing that it contained three extraterrestrial occupants never seen before by the crew. Amazingly, the occupants spoke to the crew in fluent Anglic (the future English-derived language in Orion's Arm) and simply stated that the Minu Queretanios had infiltrated a region of space they assigned as "Sector 137" but that they were allowed to proceed as long as their intentions were not hostile. Later, the object continued to switch between standing still and travelling at 0.99c. Hours later, it sped up again and disappeared emitting a burst of radiation.
After the encounter, the AI of Minu Queretanios realized that its memory had been copied by the aliens in a routine self-diagnostic, as well as now having a mysterious set of data files. Some time later, the Special Programs Section of the Eden Institute of Xenoscience got to know about the incident, asking the crew to keep the incident under secrecy. They also hopelessly tried to convince the crew that the ship they saw was nothing more than the experimental prototype of a new ship of ultimately Terragen origin.
Canonicity[]
Whether this species is actually "real" in-universe is very disputable, as they do not seem to conform to the worldbuilding laws of Orion's Arm. Despite being highly speculative, the hard sci-fi setting aims to avoid showing anything that current scientific understanding deems impossible.[3] As such, relativity and causality still hold in Orion's Arm, excluding faster-than-light propulsion and time travel. In addition, Orion's Arm is also governed by invented laws that clarify what the beings in-universe can or cannot do, and have no exception.
The Eagle Nebula aliens seem to contradict both sets of limitations. Their ships are remarkably fast, able to achieve speeds just shyly below that of light instantaneously. For comparison, ships built by the most advanced Earth-derived beings achieve accelerations of a 1,000 g,[4] which while impressive are orders of magnitude slower. Extreme acceleration and the ability to vanish suggest that they are some kind void ships, but much faster and somehow move through space without leaving metric ghosts behind.
The aliens themselves appear to have remarkable linguistic abilities. Although Orion's Arm does not tackle on how long does it takes to learn an alien language, the fact that these aliens learnt English in mere days is implausible for a hard sci-fi setting; unless they are meant to be taken as an "in-universe hoax". What is even more remarkable is that the aliens did it so without any sort of interaction with the Terragen crew.
In conclusion, it is more than likely that these extraterrestrials are meant to be taken as a parody of real life conspiracy theory websites.
References[]
- ↑ "RealNews - SUPER ADVANCED ALIENS FOUND!". GhostNet (Orion's Arm). 15 May 2010.
- ↑ Gregorian-Tranquility calendar converting tool. Orion's Arm.
- ↑ "Orion's Arm Canon". orionsarm.com. Retrieved 27 January 2019.
- ↑ "Propulsion Performance Statistics". Encyclopedia Galactica. 28 April 2009. Retrieved 27 January 2019.