Sometimes science fiction material comes out on our channel. All such articles are the subjective opinion of the author, intertwined with real discoveries or plans of scientists. Simply put, the author takes a specific scientific topic that is most relevant in society and tries to suggest a scenario for its development, supplementing it with facts and his own conclusions.
Modern people dream of looking for traces of aliens on other planets, so we decided to publish a series of articles on this topic. The first material “How people will behave if an abandoned alien city is found on Mars” can be found. And now we invite you to think and speculate about this: what is the most terrible thing about humanity or the Universe that can be revealed during the search for extraterrestrial life? Comments under the post are welcome.
… Mars is colonized
Let's say a joint NASA-SpaceX mission brought the first colonists to the surface of the Red Planet. Since then, Colony # 1 has grown into a vast underground settlement, ruled by about 200 astronauts and scientists from 20 countries.
Two years earlier, engineers had managed to build the Source of Plenty power plant complex on Mars. It is completely safe and can provide 100% energy to a fast growing colony.
Promotional video:
The hunt for extraterrestrials was pushed into the background by specialists, since more important things have appeared: all efforts must be directed towards finding resources in order not to let the Martian settlement die.
Five years of exploration of the Red Planet for the presence of life both by ground-based telescopes, rovers and orbiters have led nowhere. Most scientists have ceased to believe that traces of past civilizations can be found on Mars. If these footprints existed, then they were swallowed up long ago by the red sands.
They stopped counting until the fateful day …
While flying around the terrain about 20 kilometers from the base, a reconnaissance unmanned vehicle notices a shiny object sticking out of the sand. Subsequent missions involving other flying vehicles, rovers and, a little later, a group of researchers discover that this item is made of an unknown material, and most likely of alien origin.
The information gets into the media. Newspapers are full of loud headlines that traces of intelligent life have been found on Mars - a device of unknown purpose.
Excavations on the Red Planet show that the find that caused a lot of noise is a heavy rectangular piece of unknown composite material, stuffed with electronic circuits that turn out to be inoperative. Upon careful examination of the mysterious object, it turns out that strange drawings and symbols are applied on its surface. Archaeologists are involved in the work.
After years of studying the obelisk and debating scientists, experts announce that radioisotope dating has shown that the object is man-made and was created around the same time when life on Earth was just beginning to develop.
Another group of scientists makes another discovery: the drawings on the obelisk are a map of the homeworld of ancient artists. Using computer simulations, astronomers decipher the map and come to the conclusion that it depicts a long-lost star system.
The additional analysis of the data plotted on the subject brings another surprise. It turns out that before disappearing without a trace, on Venus, Earth and Mars, ancient aliens sowed life and guided evolution for the first billion years.
Discoveries give rise to many questions that scientists from all over the world are trying to answer:
- Where did these aliens go?
- did they survive the death of their star or perished with it?
- if they survived, why did they leave their experiment and where could they be now?
- will they return if they survived?
- maybe they are still watching us and continue to follow our evolution?
What's wrong with this discovery?
Those who thought that life was unique and that its origin was pure coincidence would be disappointed. It would turn out that it is a widespread element in the Universe; the processes of life can be juggled, controlled, and experimented with. The Universe itself has nothing to do with it, life is indifferent to it, the Universe can easily destroy it.
People who believe that God created man would also be disappointed. Religion would no longer make any sense, it would be perceived simply as an instrument of control. People would understand that the afterlife does not exist, they are not created by divine power, but are the result of a long experiment, which was set up by those who may already be dead.
Simply put, the scariest discovery we could make while searching for aliens is to realize that everything we know about life, our culture, civilization, and even about ourselves is actually not true.
How would new knowledge affect society? Maybe this would lead to anarchy? Would people reconsider the concept of law and begin to treat it completely differently? Would you rethink morality? Or maybe society just started looking for new meanings of its existence? What would this path of a new search be - wearable or peaceful, one can only guess. But, most likely, society would have changed and very much.