Member-only story
This is mostly fiction. I hope. Sadly, some of it isn’t. How much may be up to you.
So, now you have our message. This isn’t our first message to you, but it will be our last. We sent a probe called Voyager some years back. If you got that, you know what we look like and where we are. Or did. And were.
Like you, we had really good scientists. And talented engineers. That must be true for you, too, or you wouldn’t be able to get this message, much less understand it. We want to warn you:
Excellent science and engineering capabilities are necessary but not sufficient for survival.
We send you this warning in hopes that you do not suffer our fate. Life is precious and should never be extinguished through foolishness. We knew better but did not listen to our scientists and engineers. Instead, we left it up to our leaders. That was the fatal mistake.
We let our leaders make excuses instead of taking corrective action. In our case, we destroyed ourselves by pouring endless gigatons of C02 into the ecosphere mostly by burning fossil fuels. Petroleum, the most popular fossil fuel up to our demise, was the product of dead dinosaurs, giant creatures who went extinct after an asteroid hit our planet. We derided dinosaurs for having tiny brains, the size of a walnut. We used dinosaur remains to make ourselves…
