You want to hear a ghost story, cadets? Sure, I’ll tell you a real spacers’ ghost story.
No, everyone’s heard tell of zombie cyborgs or cybernetic hiveminds that impress people against their will, so I’ll spare you another take on that — and just point out that without ansible, they’re limited to local-space networks anyway.
Let me tell you a different sort of tale… about the Twinkling Star.
Have you heard of it? No? Well, that’s understandable, given that ansible and other FTL communication proved a Myth. It’s hard to spread the word across parsecs and light years when those who’ve heard of the star are only those who’ve been warned — and none who’ve ever been there. And there’s no guarantee even those civilizations that have been warned won’t collapse and forget in the intervening centuries until their resurgence.
Yeah, I was getting to why it’s called the Twinkling Star — it’s got a partial Dyson swarm around the primary, just big enough that as it swings around in orbit, it causes the light of the visible spectrum to twinkle, as it were. But that’s only been in the last few centuries or so, “objective” time, that it’s grown so big — so only those in the local neighborhood within a couple hundred light years can even see this twinkling. Anyone farther out who sets course for it won’t see the twinkle at all until too late.
Why go? And why not? Which shall I answer first?
First, those unaware of its nature — who are either too far to see it twinkle or who’ve forgotten or never known its evil — might hear the call and go. For of old, the Lorelei Culture of the Twinkling Star sent out invitations to every other culture in their local cluster and beyond to send ships for a great exchange of technology and knowledge in the spirit of the galactic unions and utopian confederations of myth and legend — you know the kind of tales I’m talking about.
They even sent specifications for interstellar vessels of a type they’d proven were feasible — modified Bussard ramscoops and interstellar windjammers and the like. This invitation extended to anyone willing to come, even the old transtellar trader cultures.
And here’s the thing — these invitations, sent out by radio and every other medium, are still spreading from the local cluster to stars far beyond; and within the local cluster, new invitations are constantly being sent, for anyone who’ll listen — tramp freighters, new trader fleets, or emergent or re-emergent civilizations — new invitations and ads promising fantasies like ansible, generalized AI, or FTL propulsion, or others of the great myths.
Maybe you’ve guessed the reason for these sirenic invitations by now?
Oh, aye — they’re building the Dyson swarm with the ships that come in. Exactly.
The Lorelei Culture knew that a Dyson sphere, or swarm, or shell, was the next step to really jump-start their civilization — but that instead of waiting until they themselves had the infrastructure to build it, they figured they could bring others in and use them for their own purposes.
You may guess well that the first small fleets and scout ships from the local cluster were all captured by force. The Lorelei Culture, expecting the need, had built a fleet of battlewagons in the years awaiting their victims’ arrival. Captured ships were dropped into orbital formation around the primary and equipped with vast radiators to take in the star’s energy, and transmitters to beam it to the Von Neuman factories pumping out additional drone satellites for the Dyson swarm.
But imagine being a crew that shows up in-system now. Your ship would be steered into a moorage with the swarm, and you’d be invited off — to spend the rest of your days in asylum with others captured by the Loreleis — assimilated, one way or another, or just jettisoned into space. There’s no getting out after that initial capture, right? So you might as well do your best to assimilate to whatever customs are current and kiss goodbye your dreams of starhopping.
These days, as I understand it, they don’t even have to rely on force at all.
Last I’d heard, they were sending out software packages and encryption packets, all promising the moon in myths, one way or another. The original Lorelei Culture that started the Dyson swarm has long since collapsed, replaced by new local cultures, but the AI systems they set up to run their swarm’s construction, and the scheme to keep ships coming in has continued without any need for guidance — or interference — from biological intelligences. It just throws out billions of billions of ads, promising myth after myth, or at least a timeshare at a paradise world. Malware is rife in these communications, as are shibboleths that open back doors buried in old ships’ software centuries ago —
So none of you cadets would have opened any such ads promising a working ansible or generalized AI, right? Have you?
Cullen Groves lives with his family in Moscow, Idaho, where he graduated studied at the University of Idaho and graduated with a Bachelor’s in Philosophy in 2011. He has had poems published here or there, including by Asimov’s and Apex magazines, as well as by Heroic Fantasy Quarterly.
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