The original post: /r/television by /u/shinobu-k on 2025-11-13 06:14:01+00:00.

What we know:

439 days before “the joining,” an alien transmission approximately 600 light years away from earth beamed a 78 second-long radio transmission to earth containing an encoded RNA sequence. The transmission persisted for three hours straight without any indication of ceasing.

The Implications:

Clearly, this broadcast was initiated by an alien civilization sign significantly more advanced than our own. How much more advanced remains in question ranging from “we’re fucked” to “were so beyond fucked it’s stupid.” Let’s explore the possibilities.

1   Radio signals travel at the speed of light, and the human race has been broadcasting radio signals for approximately 100 years (give or take a few decades, and it could therefore only have travelled 100 light years in any direction. The signals would’ve degraded into indecipherable noise at this point, and even if they hadn’t, they’d only have made it 1/6 of the distance to the origin of the extraterrestrial broadcast. While there’s nothing that could be done about the speed the signals travel, the signal can be greatly strengthened by using using a directional antenna to beam a signal in a specific direction; this would only be effective if you knew exactly where to beam the signal. The extraterrestrial transmission would have taken took an extraordinary amount of power to be broadcasted, with one character describing that the antenna must be “the size of Africa.” This is a strong indication that the aliens were targeting earth specifically, which opens up further and ultimately more chilling possibilities.

2   The aliens themselves have been planning this for at least six centuries, as that is the minimum length of time it would’ve taken for the broadcast to reach earth at the speed of light from an origin 600 lightyears away. The implications of this are quite terrifying: they would’ve somehow had to know that an intelligent species dominated the planet, yet the year 1400 was firmly pre-industrial, any signs of organic life what are detectible using current human methods would be unable to discern the difference between a pre-industrial a industrial society and a planet inhabited by dinosaurs. If they somehow possessed the most insane camera imaginable and could observe us directly, they would still see the human race as it existed 600 years prior; observing us in the year 1400 would’ve shown them human society during the ninth century. Yet somehow the aliens were able to deduce when human society would be advanced enough to both receive their message, interpret it, and act on it contents with enough precision to start transmitting the signal 600 years before we would have even been capable of hearing it. This further demonstrates the massive gap in technological capabilities between us and them; there’s no telling how much more advanced their civilization has become in the 600 years since when they were already capable of  broadcasting an extremely powerful signal to an extremely precise location over such a vast distance.

3   This brings us to the contents of the message itself. An RNA chain that was able to effectively pacify earth’s dominant species. There are two possibilities for this, neither of which are good for us. This alien civilization is sufficiently advanced enough that it knows earth harbors lifeforms that are based on DNA - either they themselves and every species they have encountered utilize DNA, their advanced science has determined that the only type of life possible utilizes DNA, or they somehow have much more intimate knowledge of life on earth than we can conceive as possible. Whichever the reason, it is clear our adversary is extraordinarily more advanced than us, to the point that they can design an RNA chain that completely pacifies us, knowing we can and will produce it and use it on ourselves.

Based on this level of technological capability, it’s fair to say that this civilization could have a hucked a piece of space rock at us at a not-insignificant percent of the speed of light and wiped us out of the galaxy, if the goal was simply to eliminate possible threats, and yet they don’t. Why? To enslave us? To make their eventual takeover easier? The post-joining humans already seem completely incapable of inflicting any pain or suffering even in self-defence, going so far as to refuse to be the cause of emotional pain between two non-joined humans. Would they just roll out the red carpet for the invaders when they arrive?

The inherent problem with interstellar warfare is the time and the distance; if you can manage to send an invasion fleet at 1/3 the speed of light, it’ll take 1800 years for it to arrive at a planet 600 light years away, at which point the planet you are invading has already surpassed the technological capabilities of the invasion fleet, even if they’ll never surpass your entire civilization’s technological capabilities as a whole. Even at the speed of light, that’s still 600 years for humanity’s scientific advancement to reach a point where it could produce adequate defences. Unless of course, you’ve already pacified the populace and expect no resistance and no scientific advancement. 

What do y’all think? What do these aliens want, and can we realistically come out on top?