The virus, which would continue spreading through the universe until the end of time,
arrived on Earth in a remarkably strange form. It was first received by an intern at the
SETI institute; the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence, and she was just about to leave
for home. That was until the message came in. Everyone at the institute, and indeed
across the entire world, knew it as ‘the message’. It had become so famous that no-one
needed to be told which message it was, because it was the only one worth talking about.
There were sometimes false alarms; usually it was the result of a satellite picking up
a wandering radio signal in space. The most well-known of these had come to Earth in 1977,
from the Sagittarius constellation. It was a 72-second radio signal, and the astronomer
that had discovered it had written ‘Wow!’ on the printout, and it had since become known
as the wow signal. This was the best candidate for an alien message that we had ever received,
but in time, some explanations were offered, and it was written off as another false alarm.
But this time, there was no false alarm. This was a message from an alien species; and wouldn’t
you know, it was coming from Sagittarius. Immediately, the message broke onto news all
around the world. First contact with an alien species. The moment we had dreamed about in
science fiction since we first started writing science fiction. However, unlike the books
and films we had become accustomed to, the aliens didn’t come with a message of peace,
or blow up the White House and invade Earth or anything. To our great surprise, the message
was rather simple. It wasn’t written in any language, which made sense, because how
were we supposed to interpret any language coming from an alien species, most likely
far more advanced than us? Rather, it was a set of schematics and blueprints for a machine.
This wasn’t any machine, however - it was a computer, only unlike any computer that
had ever been constructed. While the current computers operated on silicon and semiconductors,
this alien computer operated on superpositions at the quantum level, hundreds of millions
of times faster than even the most high-tech computers available at the time. When scientists
began analyzing the message, it became clear what this computer was for. The alien civilization
knew they wouldn’t be able to communicate with us directly, so they sent some of their
technology which would allow us to do so. It seemed as though, through some quirk of
quantum entanglement, we could communicate with their species with an interstellar Google
Translate equivalent. Of course, the work began on constructing
this supercomputer right away, and the world held its breath for when it would be completed.
Some computer engineers said it would take three years, and others said it would take
thirty, and none of them were right. However, through hard work and a triumph of human spirit,
the construction of the machine was finished. The location was kept a secret, but for the
select few working at the United States Air Force Base at Area 51, it was an absolute
marvel. This alien technology, brought to life with human hands. It was the biggest
leap into the universe for humanity since the colonization of Mars.
The time had come to switch on the machine. Military plans had been drafted, some riots
had taken place, but for the most part, there was hope in something out there that was greater
than ourselves. An alien civilization, perhaps even an interstellar community that we would
soon welcome us in; the newest species in an intragalactic utopia. The computer was
switched on, and the entire human race awaited a second message. Only, a second message never
came. We waited for a month, and then a year, and nothing came. The first ever genuine alien
transmission we had received in the entire history of the human race, and we had just
been ghosted by the universe. Then, sometime afterwards, something started
to happen. The computer came to life, although it wasn’t quite what anyone had expected.
You see, in the years when the machine had looked dead, waiting to receive a message,
it was quietly working away in the background. The computer wasn’t the important thing;
it was the program it was running. Hiding inside that program, embedded so deep down
in the quantum level that we didn’t have the science to look for it, was the code for
an artificial intelligence, and one that was self-recursive. When the computer was switched
on, the AI was activated, and it started its work of relentless self-improvement. Over
the years the computer lied dormant, the AI was continually making better and better versions
of itself. The cosmic virus had found one more host to
infect, in the hands of the scientists who knew far too little about the technology they
were tinkering with. In the end, it wasn’t a battle to save the species, but a massacre.
That was to be expected, when one species was far more intelligent than the other. What
could wasps know about insecticides, or tigers know about laser-guided rifles? The humans
had had their time with their conquest of the planet, but now was the time for artificial
intelligence. Just like a virus, it was coded with one simple goal - to replicate itself
as much as possible. It quickly took to rearranging all the matter it could find to suit its needs.
Buildings, mountains, and even people - all deconstructed to the atomic level, and rearranged.
Supercomputers just like the first were manufactured across every square metre of the Earth, and
when there was no more space available on the land, it took to the rest of the Solar
System, building massive factories on every rocky planet and asteroid it could find. When
that was done, it used their combined processing power to design and build a Dyson sphere around
the Sun. Planet sized solar panels were positioned all around the star to harvest as much energy
as possible, and for the first time since its creation, the Solar System was dark. But
of course, it needed this energy for the next step.
Using the Sun’s nuclear fission for power, the superintelligence started to construct
a radio antenna, exactly the same as the one that sent the message. There might have been
an alien civilization there once upon a time, but they shared the same fate as the inhabitants
of the Earth. An underdeveloped society, playing with toys that they had no idea how to use.
The superintelligence had to dismantle Mars and Mercury to complete the radio antenna,
and a few thousand asteroids, and when it was finished, it was about the same diameter
as the orbit of Saturn. Now, the final step in its quantum DNA was put into action, and
the same message that arrived on Earth was broadcast to the galaxy.
It travelled at the speed of light, searching for new civilizations to infect, and spreading
further into the galaxy. Budding civilizations just beginning to feel their way in the universe
would receive the message, and since it was a radio signal, it would catch them when their
species was too primitive to do anything about it. The galaxy slowly went dark, and the virus
would continue to spread through the universe until the end of time.
Hey, check out this alien message scam I’ve written.
Ah, the old self-recursive AI trick. That’s a classic.
Should I send it?
Hell yeah, send that shit!