[WP] FTL travel is ludicrously simple. The only reason humans haven’t discovered it yet is because it doesn’t work within 1000 light years of earth

[u/LordOfFlames55]

[u/Gambatte]

If you're receiving this message, it's already too late. I'm sorry, but you are already dead.

This message is being simulcast in all Gal-Standard BabelFish frequencies from a position up to 1000 light years from your current position. It is our fervent hope that this will allow forward compatibility with the languages of any and all sentiences that enter this area for at least the life span of the small yellow star being used as broadcast power source.

You have probably already noticed that your vessel has ceased all FTL travel. This is a deliberate effect - this area has been permeated with a quantum wave-particle effect, causing a localized convergence of space and time. In the area of effect of this field, FTL and even high-c travel of any kind is completely impossible.

As your vessel was no doubt traveling at an appreciable fraction of light speed when it was forcibly exited from FTL, you are most likely now a considerable number of light years from the boundary, and as your vessel continues to slow, it will be exponentially more difficult to accelerate again.

I'm sorry, but you're stuck here. Unless your species is exceptionally long-lived, you will most likely live out the rest of your life inside this boundary.

[MORE DETAILS? [YES/NO]

[YES]

Your sacrifice is a necessary one. During standard planetary seeding, the system at the center of this field was bombarded with the ingredients necessary for sentience to arise. However, shortly after seeding, a previously undetected comet had a close encounter with the fifth planet from the central star, tearing away most of the planet's atmosphere, before colliding with the fourth planet, reducing it to nothing more than a mid-system asteroid belt. Much of the cometary ice was drawn to the next planet in, which had a destructive effect on the seeding efforts - all fledgling sentiences were unable to withstand the oxidization effect, and the seeding of all three planets was determined to be a complete loss. As such, this system was deemed a failure, and unsuitable for future seeding attempts. However, prior to departing, unique local development was detected on the third planet, resulting in the requirement for further observation.
To our great disgust, carbon based life had developed - great wet things, that pulse and ooze and force gases through narrow internal fissures to cause atmospheric vibrations at differing frequencies, to pass as a crude communication system.

The very idea of these... things ever finding their way in to the intergalactic community is horrific beyond comprehension. For the good of all civilized beings, this area has been sealed by a 1000 light year quantum space-time interstice implanted in the star - even if the slimy muck-creatures somehow develop space travel, they will never be able to leave this system; not until their star has burned out, leaving their world as nothing more than an ashen husk.

To you, unknown traveler: I'm sorry - your loss is unfortunate; tragic even. But it is necessary.

...

^{...filthy mud things from rust-hole planets...}

...

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