John C. Wright's Journal

Second Contact is now posted.

Chapter Four of Four

• Chapter Four: Judgment, Compassion

Of alien races, the Shfathshfain have formed the closest bond to humanity, despite remarkable differences in intellectual, sexual, and individual neural organization. The emotional compatibility from the first is remarkable, as was reflected by repeated contacts during the war centuries, most notably in the person of sealwife of The Alverin Cumae.

Of course, as one wag observed, it is easier for humans to get along with creatures that look like harp seals, warm and fuzzy with big, soft eyes, than with the silicon-based dendrites, blind flower-creatures, methane-breathing manta-rays, liquid-nitrogen-swimming cephalopods, or titanic, armored monster-worms.

Second Contact is now posted.

Chapter Three of Four

• Chapter Three: Memorial, Oblivion

The dialog here is taken from the unedited transcript recovered after the war, but the wording follows the Laureate translation, rather than the machine-translation actually in use at the time. The musical notation has been lost, so the alien’s lyrics are presented here as text.

Second Contact is now posted.

Chapter Two of Four

• Chapter Two: Sorrowing, Mourning

For the record, Langstrom’s mortal encounter during Second Contact with the spore-explosive Sfath, as a matter of dramatic license, has been conflated with the tragic death of Dietrich during First Contact. These events occurred, but not in this order, nor this rapidly.

Second Contact is now posted.

This is a unpublished tale from my Unconquered Earth Cycle, and takes place in the same background universe as Farthest Man from Earth, Not Born a Man, and Twilight of the Gods.

Chapter One of Four

• Chapter One: Unarmed, Unafraid

These events date from 3250 A.D.

The entry for this century from the Historical Institute Analects reads only:
At about this time, the privately funded expedition multigeneration starship Aristotelian makes contact with the hidden Sfathshfain colony at Procyon.

However, the records kept by the Aristotelian expedition, including journals recording personal information, were meticulous, shared with the Sfaths, who revered them, and added them to first-priority long term memory chains. These records were later recovered intact by The Evelyn Drake and shared with The Alverin Cumae via the intercession of his sealwife.

The events have been compressed, and some dialog altered or added, for ease of reading or dramatic effect.