A few satellites were employed to the Earth’s orbit. Their goal was to mass scan the biosignature of life on the surface for further research. However, in 2063, there was a mistake and a few of them scanned an alien planet far away, instead of the Earth. These satellites were made to receive biological signals, so normally this accidental scan would not yield any data. That did not happen. They detected, albeit with not such great precision due to the target being far away, an unknown biological signal. Teams of scientists began to test the satellites and soon found out that the data was true - the first certain evidence that aliens are out there. This was the day that changed humanity, and even the Earth as a whole.
Science Publishing
First evidence of biological signature from the deep space
Rebecca Goldstein, Yumi Rei, Nia Alto, Michael Saltzmund
Abstract
Roughly five months ago, multiple of our Long Range Biosensitive Satellites (LRBSs), intended to collect data from the surface of Earth for fast biodiversity measurments,
have detected unusal signatures of supposedly biological origin from an area roughly ~170 light years away from our Sun. In this study, we run multiple tests on LRBSs to
test the hypothesis that these were data coming from an extra terrestrial object possibly populated by living organisms. We have concluded that none of our software or hardware
has run into known issues and the data collected on the 26th of January 2063 by Reynold et al. were, in fact, of extra terrestrial origin.
Introduction
LRBSs have been created to precisely detect, isolate and distinguish various types of biological signatures over the distance of two to three and a half thousand kilometers, and are
therefore very sensitive. With increasing distance, their precision decreases exponentialy, but their ability to detect and isolate these traces decreases less significantly.
The society reacted in many ways. After a while though, when the news got popularized, and the reinterpretations of reinterpretations shared, the humanity started dwelling into mass panic, which was then abused by many people to exploit what they could. The average person perceived all potential alien lifeforms as threatening, even if they knew the ones from the satellites would most likely be as primitive as worms. For most people, this discovery was like a wakeup call. Research into ways of preserving humanity began, it was a global race. Most of these projects were focused on humanity as a whole, rather than the individual, accordingly to the global mindset after the alien discovery. And this is where the most insane, yet crucial technology comes to play. A team has invented nanites that infect everything organic and randomly mutate the organism’s offspring so that after generations, the species would become entirely human-like.
A nanite’s mechanics are well thought out. People at the time knew that evolution doesn’t operate with a goal in mind, so setting up one would be problematic and even if it held up for a while, it could lead to species going extinct. They have made their nanites in such a way that works in harmony with an organism’s adaptability in order to surpass it:
After infecting a host, the nanites head right into the reproductive system where they start building copies of each other and attach themselves to the reproductive cells. In the body, they can mask themselves and hide from the host’s immune system. When there are already nanites that fully colonized the reproductive system of the host, no “new” nanites can enter. The ones that colonized the reproductive cells lay dormant until it’s time for the host to reproduce. Then they make a tiny mutation on the developing embryo’s cells, altering its development. Lastly, they will again migrate to its reproductive system and lay dormant until the offspring reproduces and the cycle repeats. The hosts that can live with their nanite-caused mutations pass it down to their own offspring, the ones who don’t, die. These nanites also spread through faeces and saliva.
Despite all the effort, and maybe even because of it, humanity has wiped itself out and left the Earth devastated. The nanites however, continued their journey through time, having a significant impact on the creatures around. The mutations caused some lineages to go extinct, some to develop an immunity. And for those who are affected by the nanites to this day, even though humans did everything they could to surpass the laws of nature, none of the creatures are quite what they were supposed to be, and most likely will never be.