Alien Archaeology Report

TRANSMISSION LOG: PLANET SOL-3
Galactic Archive Reference 74.992.A through 74.992.M
Investigator: Unit 9X-Helian, Observation Core Theta-3

TRANSMISSION 74.992.A
Day 1, Initial Survey

What luck! Gravitational error brought us to an uncharted system. Third planet shows obvious signs of technological civilization. Abundant water. Oxygen-rich atmosphere. Structures visible from orbit.

No radio chatter, though. We're going down for a closer look.

The ruins are... playful? Colorful. One settlement features identical pink birds, each standing on a single leg in small patches of cultivated ground. Clearly ceremonial. Perhaps these birds were sacred? Or perhaps the residents were marking territory, the way some species mark scent posts.

I collected one for analysis. Hollow. Lightweight. Eternal. Made of a polymer that will outlast stars.

They wanted these birds to last forever.

TRANSMISSION 74.992.B
Day 3

I have been walking through what I believe was a commercial district. The structures are identical: large rectangular buildings surrounded by black stone fields marked with white lines. Inside each building, row after row of products, still on shelves. All labeled. All preserved.

One entire aisle contained nothing but variations of a wheat-based loop, each box showing a different cartoon character. Hundreds of variations. I estimate forty-seven distinct mascots, each with its own mythology.

The loops are identical. Only the mythology changes.

I think they worshipped choice.

TRANSMISSION 74.992.C
Day 5, Coastal Region

The water is higher than their structures anticipated. I am wading through what was clearly a residential area. The buildings here have large openings facing the ocean, as if they wanted to watch it.

They built with the assumption the ocean would stay where it was.

Found a small handheld device, waterproof case mostly intact. When I applied power, it illuminated. The screen showed thousands of images, all of the same two humans in various locations: beaches, mountains, restaurants. Each image is nearly identical. They are smiling in all of them.

Why did they need thousands of images of the same smile?

I'm beginning to think they were afraid of forgetting.

TRANSMISSION 74.992.D
Day 8

Today I accessed what appears to be a central data repository. They called it "The Internet Archive." It contains... everything. Every thought they had, every argument, every recipe, every conspiracy, every joke, every scream into the void.

It is still running. Solar backup systems, incredibly resilient. They built this to survive them.

I have been reading for six hours. I cannot stop. It's like watching a star collapse in real time.

They knew. They knew exactly what was happening. There are millions of documents explaining the physics of atmospheric carbon, the trajectory of sea level rise, the cascade failures of ecosystem collapse. The science was settled. The math was clear.

And they just... kept arguing about it.

They treated physics like it was a matter of opinion.

TRANSMISSION 74.992.E
Day 12

I found something called a "social media server farm." Rows and rows of machines, still humming on geothermal power. They're serving nothing. No one is connected. But they're still hosting billions of profiles, frozen in time.

I accessed one at random. A human named Marcus, age 34, Denver. His last post was a picture of his breakfast. Fourteen people indicated approval. He posted seventeen pictures of meals in his final month. No pictures of family. No words of importance.

Just... breakfast.

His final post said: "Might hit the gym later idk"

That was three days before the coastal evacuations began.

I don't think he hit the gym.

TRANSMISSION 74.992.F
Day 15, Mountain Facility

Found a sealed bunker, high elevation. This one was intentional. Someone knew what was coming.

Inside: a skeleton, sitting at a desk. Around them, carefully organized: seeds in climate-controlled storage, technical manuals, medical supplies, a hand-crank radio.

And books. Thousands of books. Fiction, mostly. They saved stories.

On the desk, a child's diary. The handwriting gets shakier toward the end. I will transcribe the final entry:

"Mom said the rain will stop when the air gets tired. I think the air is never tired. I hope whoever finds this knows we tried to tell them. We really did try. Maybe you'll listen better than we did. My name was Sofia and I liked butterflies."

She was nine.

The rain didn't stop.

TRANSMISSION 74.992.G
Day 18, Financial District

Found what appears to be a corporate headquarters, upper floors still above water. The executive level has a large table, chairs for twenty. On the wall, a display frozen mid-presentation: "Q4 Projections: +12% Growth."

The date stamp is eleven days before the first mandatory coastal evacuation order.

In the corner, someone left a handwritten note on company letterhead: "Per board decision: infrastructure hardening proposals tabled until next fiscal year. Shareholder confidence remains priority one."

The building's foundation is cracked. Seawater is pooling in the stairwell.

TRANSMISSION 74.992.H
Day 22

I keep finding the same pattern. Warnings ignored. Reports filed and forgotten. Committees formed to study problems that required action, not study.

They had a phrase for this: "kicking the can down the road."

The road ended.

The can is still sitting there.

TRANSMISSION 74.992.I
Day 25, Final Report

I am leaving now.

Before departure, I returned to the mountain facility. I wanted to see Sofia's diary again. To confirm the final entry.

It's still there. "Maybe you'll listen better than we did."

I have reviewed our own atmospheric models. The Council debates about economic disruption versus preventive measures.

The phrasing is different.

The math is the same.

Submitting full dataset for Academy review.

ACADEMY RESPONSE 74.992.FINAL
Received Cycle 74.993

Investigator 9X-Helian,

Your report has been filed under "Anthropological Case Studies: Failed Civilizations, Carbon-Based."

The Council has reviewed your recommendations. While your concerns are noted, the economic analysis suggests that immediate action would be... disruptive. We have commissioned a committee to study the issue further.

The committee will report findings in fifteen cycles.

Your next assignment is ready. Please proceed to Grid Sector 88 for mineral survey.

Safe travels.

PERSONAL LOG, 9X-HELIAN
Not transmitted

They didn't listen.

Sofia was right about one thing, though.

The rain doesn't stop when the air gets tired.

It stops when there's nothing left to fall on.