Humans are not the sole intelligent species of the universe, yet Earth is the only planet in the universe to have produced intelligent life. When humanity learns this, and why the others fled, their reaction is not alarm, but, “Oh… Yeah, that tracks.”
First Contact was with Neanderthals. Literal, actual Neanderthals. They were descended from tribes evacuated by a mixed species crew that also turned out to also be descended from Earth species. One was vaguely amphibian, and two species were saurian.
According to the Ast, Koract, and Amia, they had been either evacuated (Ast and Koract) or made First Contact after achieving space flight. (Amia) The species they contacted were also from Earth, and had been evacuated or made First Contact with a previous species at various points in their technology level.
The chain of evacuation/desertion after making First Contact goes back through epochs, starting off with some species no one has a lot of information on except it could supposedly live in vacuum. (And all the information we have on them is possibly religious artwork featuring creatures that are probably sentients that evolved on Earth being carried in a bowl by a wispy representation of a nebula.)
(Mystery species is probably not a sentient gas cloud. We think. No one has seen or heard from them in literal epochs.)
Anyway the Neanderthals (they call themselves Orloway) made First Contact after rescuing the Mars mission. (Well also slightly kidnapping them so they could learn human languages.) They were more than happy to give humanity a leg up into the stars, offering all kinds of information in exchange for pretty much nothing.
Which we didn’t trust. “It’s a cookbook,” and all that. Plus, “help we’ll be imperialized!”
The Orloway are a little pissy because of course they didn’t realize how paranoid and suspicious humans can be at first. And suspicious humans are dangerous humans. After a few really stupid attacks on their embassy, they withdrew a bit, and shut down communications for about a week, which in turns panics everyone who hadn’t been suspicious before.
The Orloway Speaker sets up a press conference at the end of the week. She’s an impressive woman, solid and blocky, her hair short and dyed the same deep forest green as the Western style skirt suit she’s wearing. (The Orloway dye their hair all kinds of colors, and pierce. They look like punk salarymen in their suits.) “The captain and crew of Seabird wish to issue an apology,” she says, clicking a jade bracelet that’s also some kind of computer because a holographic screen pops up.
“Cousins,” she reads. “Forgive our eagerness to render assistance to you. It is a natural impulse to render aid, so we opened the floodgates as if you were the Atchai People, who are aquatic, instead of Humans, who are not especially so, without great assistance.
“Please do not fear a hidden cost to the knowledge we are willing to provide. It is the custom of our family to assist our younger cousins. In our attempt to enact this obligation, we accidentally triggered the fear our ancestral home instills in each of our cousin species.
“We wish to continue assisting you, and introducing you to the wider universe and our family. Please tell us what you need to be made more comfortable, what you require by way of assistance, or if we should withdraw for time.”
There were a lot of questions of course, about “cousins” and “our family.” There were in particular questions about our “ancestral home” instilling fear. The Speaker explains that in galactic culture, familial terms are often used when addressing a member of another species. The Orloway had chosen to use “cousin,” not knowing how “sibling” would be received.
She further explained her remarks on instilling fear. “Earth is unique in being the origin point for all intelligent life. It is also unique in being one of the most dangerous planets, with the most active tectonic activity and the highest average of extinction events due to environmental disasters, while still being habitable. We’d suspect one had something to do with the other, but we’ve yet to see any intelligent life develop on similar planets, and we’ve made extensive field work and research in hopes of finding intelligent life outside ‘the family’.”
“Having evolved on such a world, we are often suspicious and untrusting beyond what is reasonable,” The Speaker says. “It is a kind of trauma, and it can take generations on a more stable planet before the fear has passed.” She smiles. “I can see some of you wondering if you should be insulted or feel patronized. But I promise that crew that evacuated the Orloway had their own stories of how suspicious and obstinate we were before they were able to convince us–which we should have remembered.”
I think no one was really surprised. And I think you aren’t surprised either. We left you with a lot of supplies because we knew you’d need it. We did not leave Earth in mint condition, and we were sorry about that. You deserved a head start on the path to sentience, and some guide posts because your kind evolved alongside two other species, which according to the Ast and Koract can be…stressful.
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