It's not just that they died. It had been ages for them, I know. But that I was part of the extinction.
They would end up extinct I eventually knew. But nothing prepared me for after I tested out my sensors, and they finally worked. I sent out a message, to attempt contact, and then searched the airwaves.
Nothing.
Not on the frequencies normally used in my time, at least.
But it had been a long time, and so things could have changed. Now, I know my sensors are far ahead of any of yours– after all my goal was only to get you technologically advanced enough to fix me. But my sensors are very powerfull. Enough that I could scan galaxies for ships. That took a year of your time to complete the scans.
But it didn't take me that long to figure out something was off. After all, back in my time, the galaxies were full of ships– not full enough that they'd be in danger of crashing, space is still enormous, but full enough that even most uninhabited solar systems had a few ships hanging around. But I wasn't sensing a single ship.
I still waited until the scans were complete, hoping to find at least one ship. But there was nothing.
So, I scanned the planets that they had inhabited for life– first those of my side, and then the other. Well, there was one that had signs of life, but it was an entirely different type and much different– more like bacteria than the humanoids who had lived there before. That was what clued me in to what was going on.
But I didn't fully learn what had happeneed until I looked through your logs. For although my sensors were not yet working, I had taught you how to make simple sensors. I told you not to bother with the data, as it would be hard for you to understand, in unkown languages, about topics so far removed from you, and there was no way for you to give the data to me– not im damaged state back then. But you recorded it
And throughout all my sensing, I plugged into your network to see if there was anything that could help in my search. I thought maybe star charts that would have odd patterns, or something of the sort. But instead I found you had broadcasts going back hundreds of years.
The broadcasts started five hundered years after I landed here. I guess I wasn't expecting you to record everything because I thought there would be a lot more, like I was used to.
Those were mostly distress calls. From one ship, by itself that was running out of food, or damaged and in need of repair. Or of planets cut off from their trade routes and in need of food, fuel, some part to make air purifiers to keep at bay the toxic fumes.
There were also offers of help, some people who said they could help fix something, or had a material in excess. Some offered a trade, but others seemed willing to give their resources for nothing. Even to people from the other side of the war, people who had put them in this situation, I thought at first. The records have some of these offers that were carried out, people who helped each other. And I realized both sides were in the same situations, this war was destroying them both. And I could tell some started to care less about what they had fought over previously. Which I don't know what it was. I thought my memory bank hadn't been damaged, but it must have. Otherwise I fought all this time against an enemy who was the enemy because we were fighting. Which seems consistent with my memory.
Some groups would still fight the other side, after all, if they could get their food, maybe they could live for another year more. Even if they destroyed precious resources in the process.
As I read through all of these, I noticed another problem. They seemed to take it as fact to normally get sick, get cancer, which was rare in my day. And even without the medical resources we had, there shouldn't have been as much as their messages suggested. I found one that said the illnesses had started one or two hundred years before, after the use of a new weapon.
As the messages got later, they got even sparser, and were less asks for help, they didn't think there was anyone who could help, but just a last message into the void.
And then they got even sparser, and eventually the last ones all came from one place. A ship called the "Othryades". They seemed to have been the descendants of a separatist group in the war, neutral mainly because of their distance from the rest of settlement.
Their messages at first were just trying to connect with someone, anyone.
"Is anyone out there? Anybody at all?"
And then they gradually changed to just be descriptions of life on the ship.
"This is the 'Othryades.' Today we harvested a crop of potatos. It's smaller than we would have liked, but it's enough for now."
"Othryades. It's new years. A new millennia, if the old calendar even matters anymore."
The messages got more desperate.
"We killed the rats today. They were the main thing holding up our moral, but we need every little bit of food, even the meat of three rats."
"Three people died this week. We no longer have enough people left to work navigation, so we'll just continue our current course."
"Akfron died today. There's only three of us left. It's hard to work all the systems, this ship was built for hundreds."
"I'm the last person left on this ship. Maybe anywhere. That's a lonely thought. I'm lonely."
And then:
"I had to turn off the heater. It was either that or the air recirculator, and even though the recirculator isn't working well, I figured I'd rather get some blankets and wait as the temperature slowly approaches that of space. I suppose this will be our last message. Maybe the last message. So, universe. It was a terrible life I had, especially this end. But there are moments I wouldn't trade away for anything. I'm glad for the time. Thank you."
And then silence. Nothing more was picked up, beyond the rythmic, meaningless signals of stars.
I'm glad you recorded these messages, not just for me, but for them. For the Othryades. For everyone who lived their life and disapeared you kept a record.
As my previous goal, winning the war, is no longer an option, I will work to make available all the records I have of these two grand civilizations, and learn more. So we can remember them. So they won't have been alone forever.