In case the world ends
12/20
X is the most beautiful city in the galaxy. I imagine it dwarfs even our biggest cities like New York. Its buildings are thousands of times taller; autonomous vehicles carry its residents around; robots move fluidly through the streets delivering food and goods; and, the glass and steel towers contrast with beautiful, twisting trees of the brightest colors all around the streets. There is no suffering; there is no war; there is no disease. When you zoom out to see the rest of their planet, there are space ships coming and going with frequency, some heading to gigantic space colonies, others setting off for interstellar travel to share their technology. In X, people do what makes them happy, and that’s about it. Of course, I don’t really know all this. It will be millenia before we see it. Or maybe we will never see it. And I should mention I just call it X. They haven’t told me the name. But I like to imagine it when I lay in my bed at night, thinking about Alfred and his crew coming toward Earth. Probably the most important detail, for whoever decides to read this journal, is that they have achieved the holy grail of science: Artificial General Intelligence, or AGI. An AI that has surpassed human level intelligence, giving them extraordinary capabilities to manipulate space-time at their will, to upload their consciousnesses to computers in case of damage to their physical form, and much much more. After having mastered biology and physics with the help of AGI, they decided to explore the universe, giving their technology to their neighbors to work toward a larger goal: understanding the nature of reality and creating a colony of civilizations working together to achieve that goal.
12/29
I guess it’s lonely here on Earth today. This information is getting to me – the fate of the world and all that.
1/1
Yesterday was New Year’s – the themed parties I saw on social media were mostly “The End of the World”. The war in Europe has escalated. 160,000 dead in the last month alone. I fear the use of nuclear weapons is likely imminent, causing a chain reaction of attacks that would likely end life here on Earth, at least for humans. Even if we survive the war, natural disasters have been getting worse. A scientist recently discovered a weakening in Earth’s upper atmosphere, meaning meteors, bigger than we have ever seen, have been striking Earth with far more frequency. Even worse, the lack of protection means that more of the sun’s beams are hitting the surface of the Earth. Our global temperature has risen 1 degree in a decade as an effect. At this pace, the Earth will not be habitable by the end of the century. Each day, the United States congress signs another bill, spending trillions to try and combat these problems. I worry that all of their actions are reactionary. You can’t stop a tsunami once it has started.
1/7
About 80 years ago now, Alfred and his crew began detecting radio signals coming from Earth. They heard Winston Churchill on the radio, speaking to the Allies, encouraging them to march on as the future of humanity depends on it; they heard the radio transmission in the days after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They began immediately sending messages toward Earth, explaining that they had built a technology so advanced that they could end our wars, disease, and suffering, and that they were on their way, roughly 100 years away. They are racing here thinking that World War II has been raging on for the last few decades, and they are hoping to arrive before it ends the world. Little do they know of our newest problems.
I received these messages about 5 years ago, as I operate an old giant radio telescope in Argentina. It was built in the Apollo era, an era where we still looked out to the stars, before the dawn of stagnation and decadence. Its budget only has another few years of operation. Here I am, knowing that a group of aliens is coming toward Earth with a technology to solve all of our problems. I have been threatened with life in prison if I share any of this with the world.
I am mostly writing this today because today is the first day that I have hope. When I first discovered the messages coming from the ship, I calculated that it would be about 20 more years before they arrive on Earth. By then, any number of Earth’s problems will have destroyed a substantial part, if not all, of Earth. However, I recently discovered that if we send one of our own old rockets out to intercept them, we could have our hands on AGI in less than 10 years. Now, of course it will still take another 10 to get back. But I believe that if people here on Earth knew how close we are to utopia, it would end petty conflict and unite us under a common goal. I have submitted this proposal to the president’s office.
1/12
Just got an alert. Tomorrow, we travel to Russia, the only country that did not cancel their rocket programs. I will be accompanying a handful of cabinet members. Supposedly our rockets were not well maintained. Alas, we are traveling to enemy territory. Under normal circumstances I would fear for my life. Now, weirdly enough, I feel numbed to the idea of dying. Let’s see how this goes.
Two days later I am at the Baikonur Cosmodrome. We have liftoff. The weight of the world depends on the success of this mission. Given their advanced technology, we are assuming they should be able to detect a ship traveling toward them despite the massive distance. In that case, they will adjust course to ensure we can meet them there. The project that was so secretive just days before is now spreading around the world. Millions are gathering in New York City, Moscow, Tokyo, Rio, and anywhere else. War has come to a halt. For the first time in several decades there is hope, hope that our worst days are behind us.
2/15
It has been just over a month since we launched our rocket with three astronauts, heading off for a journey into interstellar space to meet our saviors. There was relative peace for about a week. Being so close to such a grand technology made us silly humans forget about our struggles. But tensions are rising again. There is also a growing movement that does not believe the evidence of communication between us and the aliens. Fair enough, for all they know I just wrote the message to try and unite the world. I’m not that creative though and I would never even think to manipulate the world like that. They give me too much credit.
I started writing this diary because I was one of the few people in the world who knew about the potential of saving Earth. But now that everyone knows it, I am not totally sure what the purpose of this is. Initially, the government was keeping no record, and I just thought that someone should have a written record of what could have been. Anyway, now that this journal will only be for me, I guess I can talk more about my own life. It’s been years since I have seen my husband. I initially went to Argentina to operate our new telescope, meant to see further into the past than any telescope before it. It was meant to be a 3 month job before I went back, but it was only on my second week that I discovered the messages. I became completely obsessed with it. And for a while, I loved it. For the first time in a long time, I felt this spark, the sort of spark I felt at the beginning of my relationship with my husband. The calls got less frequent, and he could tell something was up. But he has always been the shy one, too afraid to confront me. He probably thought I was cheating on him. I don’t think it’s technically cheating if I love my work more than my husband.
But now that my work is mostly finished, other than using our telescope to monitor the trajectories of each rocket to estimate a contact date, I’m finding it hard to know what to do. I don’t really need to be back here, but I’m not sure what to expect when I return home.
2/20
I spent the last 5 days just thinking about what to say to my husband. I have finally built up enough courage to go home. Yesterday, the largest ever earthquake struck southeast Asia. It is estimated that 300,000 people are dead, and hundreds of thousands more are missing. On top of that, the war that started in eastern Europe has finally reached the west, France and England both joining this week. The United States is preparing for war. My nephews have all been drafted to begin training. All hope from just a month ago is nearly gone. I do not think our fragile Earth has much longer. There is no question that humans will obtain AGI. I just worry that no one here on Earth will be alive to experience all the greatness that comes out of it. The three astronauts will begin their immortality anew on a different planet. Our species will survive. With that technology, they will be able to build an unimaginably beautiful civilization in a matter of weeks. Repopulation will take decades but when you have infinite time, a decade is not very much.
2/25
International travel has been stopped so I spent the last 5 days traveling home via train and car through South America. There was mostly desperation. People have been displaced by natural disasters, most have stopped working, and the food supply is disappearing. There are no more end of the world parties, just a bunch of people who seem to be waiting eagerly for the end of the world so that they can stop their suffering. I saw so many people packing up their belongings and driving. I’m not really sure where they are going. Maybe they are heading toward the middle of the continent to protect themselves from tsunamis. Some other disaster will no doubt reach them – they are just delaying the inevitable.
2/26
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6/1
It has been eight years since I’ve written in this notebook. In the last years, I have spent my time in and out of bomb shelters. It’s funny reading the last entry in this notebook. I guess I forgot to update you all: my husband was not at home when I arrived there. As the world descended into chaos, data centers and phone lines were all destroyed and communication became impossible right around the time I got home. So I was unable to find him. Maybe that’s why I stopped writing. With no family left, it felt pointless.
I’m writing here today because, based on the last calculations I made, we are approaching contact. It will take a couple more years to get back to Earth, but I suspect we will know when contact is reached. A technology so powerful, so unknown will be given to the human species.
8/8
Today is contact. And so far nothing. I went over my calculations again and again. I’m certain it is correct. It is only 11:30. My morning rituals usually consist of me moving quickly through town, trading my intelligence for food. I help people repair their weapons mostly and in return I eat. Then I head back into the bomb shelter. Today, however, I am just staring up at the sky, hoping for a sign. I do not know what to expect.
8/9
I can’t explain it but contact was made. And I’m not the only one who knows. For the survivors, when yesterday all hope was lost, today people are outside celebrating. I have not seen smiles in a long time. No one can explain it. But given a technology so powerful, I wouldn’t doubt if our astronauts and AGI together figured out a way to send this message. Billions are dead, but now there is hope.
People have begun cleaning up. Our civilization will be rebuilt, and we will surpass our greatest achievements by a million fold. We will build gigantic cities and rebuild our economy; we will repopulate Earth and stabilize our environment; we will colonize the moon and Mars, and begin our expansion to the stars; we will discover our place in the universe, and go even further. This is the beginning of a new dawn of human ambition, a future molded by our greatest hopes.
We now define ourselves by our ability to overcome the impossible. We remember that we are still pioneers, that we have barely begun, that our greatest accomplishments cannot be behind us, that our destiny lies above us.