And so, for the next five years, The Site became a very busy place once more. I notified my boss, Mad Ellie, and sent her all the data pertaining to Mare and I’s secret project, including the Piet’s proposal. Of course, Ellie was frothing at the mouth, ecstatic at our findings. She was only angry at that we didn’t tell her sooner.

  Ellie is a brilliant and passionate scientist. We both knew she was responsible enough to keep the secret, but after she came down from her initial bout of mania, she realized why I kept it from her; the secret would have eaten her up inside for years. She would have been miserable, keeping such a discovery to herself. So she forgave me, especially since we let her present our findings to the rest of the Fleet Council.

  After our reports were fully declassified and released, the collective of the 436th Sector, Fleet and Colony, voted digitally on whether to accept the piet’s proposal, after we hammered out all the finer details and made it into a proper legal document.

  The proposal was accepted with overwhelming approval. The piets were welcomed by the 436th with open arms. Which was no surprise. I was never worried about us. I know the 436th. They are my family.

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  It’s the rest of humanity that I am worried about.

  We, the entire human species, have been branching out in all directions for over five-hundred years. Our immense distance from each other creating gaps in communication, relativity, and isolation; so much so that we will soon start branching off from each other and become alien to even ourselves, both figuratively and literally. If we are to avoid constant strife and conflict, it starts by accepting this truly alien species as our brothers and sisters. Not as part of humanity, for that word will lose its meaning in time, but as a fellow sentient life form.

  So I send this message out to everyone in the Web. Using the AI designed by my friends, both human and piet, to reproduce and deliver this message to every isolated corner of humanity's reach, across every form of media possible, so together, maybe we can navigate these uncharted waters.

  And if we were able to keep the secret of the piets for so long, who knows what other secrets are out there? Who knows the other Sectors are hiding?