It took the Barnard System probes 31 years to get there and six more years for their reports to reach Earth. After several months of exploring, one of the probes made a surprising discovery: small quantities of statheros on the shores of the methane seas of Pogo.

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Statheros, commonly called stath, is element 126, and more specifically, isotope st354. It was first created in particle accelerators but never in more than microscopic quantities. The deposits on Pogo were the first natural source ever discovered. 

Thanks to its extreme density, stath is capable of deflecting gamma rays while absorbing almost no heat, which would make it ideal for shielding fusion engines if it could be produced in quantity. A single kilogram of stath could replace 200 kilograms of tungsten and reduce the “dry mass” (a ship’s mass with everything but fuel) of a typical ship by half or more. A warship with stath shields would be able to accelerate twice as fast as one without; a freighter would be able to carry two-thirds more cargo. Ships without stath would be obsolete.

Pamex military scientists thought the small deposits of stath on Pogo’s shores might be indicative of large quantities beneath the seas, but to look for this they had to provide revised instructions to the Barnard probes to divert attention from the rest of the star system and focus on this one difficult task—surveying all the liquid methane seabeds mining on Pogo to estimate the quantity of available stath. It would take 12 more years to get results back from this deeper exploration. 

In the meantime Pamex took extraordinary measures to keep the discovery of stath secret. The number of people in the know was probably fewer than 30. If it turned out there were indeed large quantities of stath on Pogo, and Pamex could get a significant head start on mining it, they might be able to take control of Pogo and monopolize stath, which would give Pamex hegemony over space travel and all that entailed.

It was immediately understood that mining stath on Pogo would be a monumental challenge, mainly because of the distance from Earth—six light-years. Even with the fastest fusion-engine ships, a round trip to Pogo, including deceleration, would take more than 60 years.

Despite the existence of sophisticated automated mining systems, it was not feasible for a robotic mining operation with a six-year communication lag to self-maintain for more than a year or two. People would be required on-site, people who could not realistically expect to come home. Ever. The long-term feasibility of such an endeavor would require, not just an outpost, but a complete society. 

So Pamex started taking small steps—mostly R&D—to prepare for a possible stath-mining colony. If realized, it would be humanity’s first interstellar settlement. 

All the R&D had to be dual-use so even the people doing the work didn’t know it had anything to do with stath. Pamex invested in the development of more autonomous machines for mining asteroids and manufacturing colony tubes, and increased funding for academic research into the sociological, economic, and governing requirements for establishing stable colonies in other star systems.

In 2139—about a decade after Pamex learned of the presence of stath on Pogo—the first data started reaching Earth from the probes that had gone to the star system Wolf 359. For the first several months, all the data that trickled in was relatively unremarkable. Then one probe’s optical scanner picked up an anomalous object—an asteroid with a very high albedo, meaning it was highly reflective, unlike anything in the Sol System. Early images were just a few pixels and indicated an object about 120 meters across. If it hadn’t happened to be relatively close, the probe would have missed it. 

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The probe’s IA decided this was worth investigating and proceeded to adjust its orbit to get a closer look. None of this generated much attention on Earth—just another interesting-looking space rock. 

As the probe got closer over the next few weeks and the data became more detailed, it gradually became clear that the albedo was too high to be explained by either a layer of ice or a high concentration of metals in the rock. It was almost like polished metal. It also appeared to be quite spherical, which would be very odd for an asteroid this small; asteroids needed to be over a thousand times bigger to have the gravity necessary to overcome their internal resistance and form a sphere (which is the reason planets and most moons are spheres). 

The story was now attracting a lot more attention. Government and university scientists offered possible natural explanations. The popular press, picking up on the fact that astronomers were having a hard time explaining it, sought out technical people—typically those without a professional reputation to worry about—who were willing to speculate publicly about possible extraterrestrial origins. 

As the probe got even closer, it became clear the object actually was an almost perfect sphere with a shiny surface. It was now the subject of daily headlines. Eventually the probe pulled up in an orbit less than a hundred kilometers away and the photos left no doubt. 

The sphere, which was spinning slowly, had a smooth surface but with hundreds of dimples of various sizes, sort of like an odd-looking golf ball. It also had what appeared to be scarring—streaks on the shiny surface—presumably from random glancing collisions with space rocks. Otherwise the surface was unblemished and unbroken. There were no openings or protrusions, nothing that looked like hatches, nozzles, or sensors. 

In the academic community, while this discovery was obviously surprising, it wasn’t shocking. Scientists had long believed that extraterrestrial life was likely. It was a simple matter of statistics. With a trillion planets in the Milky Way alone, there might be more than ten billion with conditions conducive to the emergence of life. With such huge numbers, it was reasonable to think a tiny percentage might actually have led to some form of life, and that a tiny percentage of those life forms might have evolved into spacefaring civilizations. In addition, the universe had been around for more than 13 billion years, while Earth had been exploring space for less than 300. If just one spacefaring civilization came into existence every hundred thousand years on one of those trillion planets, there would have been 130,000 of them in the history of the Milky Way. And spacefaring civilizations might be expected to send out probes to other star systems, just as Earth had.

So before launching its probes, Pamex military had to decide what the probes would do if they came across signs of an extraterrestrial civilization. This was a question with potentially existential ramifications for humanity because there was no way to know whether any civilization they found would be friendly or hostile. In fact, there was a whole body of work making the case that a civilization would be more likely to be hostile. Humans had been interstellar for less than a hundred years; any other interstellar race was likely to be hundreds, thousands, even millions of years more advanced. If they encountered humans, assuming their primary concern was their own survival, their safest course might be to wipe us out before we could advance technologically and become a threat. Even if one disagreed with this logic and thought there was a high probability they would be friendly, it just wasn’t worth the risk of total annihilation.

Given this risk, it was prudent for humans, when exploring, to do so stealthily. In fact, this logic is one possible answer to the famous Fermi Paradox, which poses a question: with billions of habitable planets and billions of years to evolve, there should be plenty of spacefaring civilizations out there, so why haven’t we seen them? The answer, perhaps, was that other civilizations were also being stealthy so as not to draw the attention of more advanced ones. An alternative answer was that one or a few super-advanced civilizations had wiped out all the others, and Earth just hadn’t come to their attention yet.

One option the military planners had considered was that if the probes discovered something, they could simply stay away and even go silent. On the other hand, passing up the opportunity to gather intel on a potential threat carried its own risks. 

Instead, it was decided the probes would gather intel, but discreetly, in a way that disclosed as little as possible about themselves. They wouldn’t make physical contact or use directed radiation, as they normally would when exploring a moon or asteroid. They would examine from a distance, using only passive sensors. 

When the Wolf 359 probe encountered the presumably extraterrestrial orb, it used visual and hyperspectral imaging, gravimetric analysis, neutrino transmetrics, and passive spectrometry based on radiation reflected off the orb from external sources. It was determined that the surface was composed of an unknown alloy of titanium, nickel, chromium, and traces of other metals woven with carbon. The orb was apparently not creating any energy internally, either thermal or vibrational, and didn’t seem to be communicating or adjusting its orbit. Based on a statistical analysis of the impact scarring, scientists estimated it had been in orbit for 450 million years, give or take a hundred million. 

Given its age and apparent inertness, it came to be popularly known as the Relic, despite the fact that scientists warned there was no reason to be sure it wasn’t just in a dormant state, and that the age didn’t mean the civilization that had built it wasn’t still around. Indeed, although scientists didn’t know if or how it propelled itself, it was possible it could have arrived in the system from somewhere else just recently, and could even head elsewhere at any time. 

There was widespread speculation about what function the Relic served; it was tempting to assume it was some kind of probe, but there really wasn’t any evidence one way or another. 

Gravitational analysis determined the total mass, from which the overall density was calculated as roughly 4,000 kilograms per cubic meter, which was in between that of aluminum and titanium. The grav and neutrino sensors were expected to yield information about the internal structure, but the data they collected was completely undifferentiated. This meant that either the orb was uniformly solid, which seemed unlikely, or the gravitational and neutrino signals were somehow being blocked, which would imply the Relic had technology or materials far more advanced than anything on Earth. 

Decisions about the probes’ original programming had been made decades ago when no one thought an encounter with aliens was likely. But now those decisions were being relitigated intensely and on a global scale. Many people wanted Pamex to send the probe new instructions to investigate more aggressively, arguing we should learn as much as we could about what was quite possibly the most significant discovery in history. At the other extreme, India and China proposed that Pamex be internationally banned from investigating further so as not to put humanity at further risk—which conveniently aligned with their interest in preventing Pamex from discovering any advanced alien technology that it could keep for itself. 

Ultimately Pamex leadership stuck with its original reasoning that more aggressive measures would be too risky. The probe continued to monitor the Relic, but only passively. 

While all this was going on with the Relic at Wolf 359, data from the Barnard probes,  which had been sent instructions to focus on how much stath was on Pogo, started to come in. By the beginning of 2141 it was clear there was a lot of stath on Pogo, readily available in nodules on the seabeds, with more buried underneath. 

A view from the surface of Pogo showing stath nodules on the shore of one of its liquid methane seas, with Moira and Barnard's Star in the background.  

Still only a very small group of people in Pamex knew about the stath. The development of a mining colony would eventually require large public appropriations, at which point the whole endeavor would have to be disclosed, but they hoped to maintain secrecy for as long as possible to extend their head start on their adversaries. By shifting some existing budget allocations and securing additional black funding, they now significantly stepped up their planning and R&D.

The bigger the program got, the harder it was to keep secret. Soon there was speculation in the Western press about it and indications that foreign intelligence services were poking around. Then an opportunity presented itself. 

A year after the confirmation of stath and two years after the discovery of the Wolf Relic, a probe in the Lalande system reported spotting an asteroid with extremely high albedo. The probe (which, due to the distances involved, knew nothing of the Wolf Relic) investigated. The object turned out to be a giant metallic golf ball, identical to the first in most respects. It was the same size, had the same kind of dimpling, and appeared to be roughly the same age, 450 million years old. It also showed no signs of activity, and passive sensors again failed to reveal anything about its interior. 

There were two differences. First, while the dimples on Relic-2 were roughly the same in size and number as those on Relic-1, they were in a different pattern, implying some unknown difference in function. And second, whereas Relic-1’s orbit was significantly elliptical and 20 degrees off the ecliptic, Relic-2’s orbit was nearly circular and on the ecliptic. 

Typically, random gravitational interactions with passing asteroids or planetary alignments would eventually disturb the orbits of small bodies like this. Relic-2’s seemingly undisturbed orbit might imply it had arrived in this system relatively recently, sometime in the last million years or so. Alternatively, it might have been doing station-keeping—maintaining its orbit using hidden thrusters or some more exotic means of propulsion. Or it was possible the circular orbit was just a matter of natural chance. 

The two Relics’ proximity to Earth’s solar system didn’t mean the alien civilization was in the immediate vicinity. The fact that they were in two nearby star systems might be a coincidence—450 million years ago the two stars would have been much farther away from each other and from Earth. In addition, for all anyone knew, the civilization that had built these two might have sent out thousands or even millions of them. In fact, this raised the disturbing possibility that one could be orbiting undetected in the far reaches of Earth’s Solar System, although scientists deemed this unlikely due to how reflective and thus noticeable they were. 

Within six months of the discovery of Relic-2, a series of stories appeared in the mainstream press quoting unnamed sources saying Pamex had set up teams of engineers tasked with investigating a third Relic that had secretly been discovered in the Barnard System. Pamex officials denied it. Follow-up stories claimed the third Relic was in a more “open” condition than the first two and that Pamex thought it could extract technology from it. Pamex issued more denials. Tabloids published outlandish stories that Relic-3 was alive and moving and communicating, which may have contributed to a decline in interest from the mainstream press. 

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A year later China and India formally complained at the United Nations that Pamex was secretly planning to send a mission to BS to take control of Relic-3 and acquire sophisticated technology, a destabilizing act that could also attract the attention of a potentially hostile alien civilization. Pamex was forced to respond in detail, saying they had no evidence of a new Relic in the BS or anywhere else, and so had no plans for a mission to retrieve it. But the complaint revived interest from the Western press, which uncovered details about specific Pamex programs that seemed to be geared toward an interstellar colony mission. The response from Pamex was that these programs had nothing to do with Relics, but that Pamex was seriously interested in the possibility of establishing colonies in other star systems at some time in the future, an ambition that enjoyed broad popular support. 

Pamex was governed by a council made up of representatives of the member countries, but until now the stath secret was known only to a small management group plus the Select Intelligence Committee of the Council. By 2155—seven years after the confirmation of plentiful stath—they’d reached the point where they had to start building ships and recruiting and training colonists, which could not be done in secret. They publicly released a comprehensive budget for the stath-mining colony and presented it to the full Council.

Their plan required a huge investment, which would be financed with long-term bonds, and which would be recouped from the stath profits. They made the case that Pamex had paid 100% of the cost of the probes that discovered stath, and thus deserved to control it. The plan met with high levels of support from Pamex’s member nations. 

The other three space powers weren’t happy. China was particularly belligerent, accusing Pamex of deceiving the whole world and saying it considered this a hostile act. It declared that it could never allow Pamex to have exclusive control of stath.  

After a period of escalating diplomatic tensions and fleet maneuvers, China attacked Pamex’s lunar shipyard, where work had already begun on the colony fleet. Pamex struck back, and the conflict spiraled into the first war between two major powers in over a century, as well as the first significant space combat in history. The Shipyard War ultimately resulted in more than 12,000 fatalities, including civilians, and massive damage to ships and facilities.

The war ended with the Treaty of Bangalore, which established rules for the colonization of the Barnard System and the mining of stath on Pogo. 

The Western press, and later historians, dissected the origins of the Relic-3 story, but never settled who the sources were and why they were considered credible. Nor was it ever determined with certainty what caused China and India to reopen the controversy a year after the original story had fizzled out. Some people clung to the belief that there really was a Relic-3. Others attributed the whole thing to sloppy reporting and derisively called it the case of the AWOL Aliens. But the most popular theory was that it was an elaborate misdirection: Pamex had planted the original story and took further, clandestine steps to convince China and India it was true, all to preserve the stath secret. The popularity of this theory was cemented by a star-studded movie in the 2160s called The Emerson Deception. (The probe that went to the Barnard System was named the Emerson after the astronomer Edward Emerson Barnard.)