Voyager’s Return
Honorable Mention
Outer Space 2019, Blank Space, NY.
Net Eclipse
September 5, 2177. Net Eclipse. Comet (Yellow Tint). Europa.
We are far, but you may say this is part of our privilege, to see the breadth of humanity’s progress in space.
When you look closely to the sun today, you can see the internet align.
All the relay stations that make up the interplanetary network.
The connection is quick today. Isn’t it hard to imagine that 200 years ago it took decades for that voyager craft to get to where we are. It’s kind of romantic, isn’t it, something designed to outlast humanity: voices and images from the earth, encoded in a golden record, a disc engraved with analogue waveforms.
“You wonder if anyone has picked it up yet?” My partner asked. It has been a while since we last heard from it.
The Array
October 3, 2177. Clear. Asteroid Belt. It was the loneliest job, to expand the interplanetary link, with the 67a array we were sent to inspect areas around the belt and alter asteroids to orbit between Mars and Jupiter. The aim is to increase the number of bundle stations between planets to reduce the network's latency.
Vesta was our latest addition to the array; three relay satellites and storages were added to the magnificent asteroid. Life at the array is especially dry during the time of the year where planets, mainly Earth and Mars are furthest apart. Staying at the relay stations felt a bit like operating the smoke signaling of ancient Earthlings warfare.
It’s funny to think that, at this very instant, I am the only one that holds this message, it might be a love letter, a farewell, and it could also be just pictures of some Martian cats.
Today we heard that we are closer to getting our first image from the solar telescope project - which utilises the radius of the solar orbit for deep space observations. The increase in the number of satellites that orbit the sun between planets has increased the range significantly.
Some scientists suggested it may be able to let us see the voyager we sent 200 years ago. There’s no sign just yet, space is dark after all.
The Tail
November 21, 2177. Storm. Near Mars.
The EM (Earth-Mars) array 354b encountered a near collision, the obstacle appeared similar to a comet from afar, with a slight yellow tint. With close observation, it appeared to be an array of gold-plated discs, laid out in a cone-shaped arrangement. Each of the discs appeared to be large, approximately 1 km in diameter.
o physical damages recorded on the array, however, severe disruption of signals detected. Major delay expected for Earth-Mars communication.
Play
January 7, 2178. Clear. Towards Earth.
We were sent to investigate the unknown object reported from EM 354. It appeared as an array of gold-covered storage devices, possibly contain information from non-solar beings. Ways to decode still unclear.
The press has been all over this. The siren silence when we first entered it was quite something, it was hard to get a grasp of the scale – which was much larger than we expected. Each of the discs have a sub-structure connecting to the next one, like a spider web.
As we move towards the tip of the cone, it was also towards darkness, the gaps between each disc closes in gently. To our surprise, it seemed like something historically… human. A triangular truss sticks out from the dark... “It looks like one of those ancient spaceships you see in the museum.” One of the crews suggested.
They thought I was crazy when I suggested this looks like some of those plastic discs I found in my family house back on Earth, why on earth would an interstellar civilization use something ... so ... analogue? We had to reverse engineer a needle to hook up to the recorder. It was difficult, none of this is being made anymore, not even nostalgic bunch remember them. There I went, drifting slowly towards the strange sphere, placing the needle on the closest discs that I found. This disc is also strangely huge...almost in a comical size… compared to those in the museums.
“//./’’..\\\/.. /// .\\||\\//.,,“
Strange Maps, Ghost Moon
March 21, 2178. Shade. Earth’s Moon.
Second inspection at the golden array. At this point we realised something strange, the spacing between discs appeared to be moving, in an expanding manner, it spaces out very slightly, as we return.
It appeared that the cluster as a whole is shifting into a spherical form as it makes its way closer to earth.
Reports from Earth was of something described as a flickering skeleton of the size of the moon appearing in night skies.
The strange sound coming out of the disc was yet to be understood. An attempt was to decode the waveform with an ancient method, the same way as some historic tele(vision) would work - that would be translating such waveforms into images. Fade impressions of terrains and road appeared, sometimes cities.
The sphere slowly unfolded into an image of a planet…