It all started in the 2050s.
A signal pulse was detected and recorded, incredibly similar to the WOW signal, but more detailed and repeated for four days and three hours. It took five years to decode it, but it was decoded.
It was contact with another civilization in the stars, one who had harnessed their sun in an attempt to end their loneliness that had sent it. As scientists decoded it another burst that was emanating from the same star started. This burst wasn't a burst, weaker but continuous. It was a stream of data, detailing the aliens' history, how they evolved, their first cities, how they modernized. It continued for a year and told us everything about them. Then it ended by asking for some time before the next message.
Humanity waited with baited breath. Factions of people arose who disbelieved the message or thought it a work of fiction. They were not a minority but those that had first found the message made the location of the system that sent the message public knowledge and how to translate it. It took another year for those groups to dwindle, but they did, and just in time for the next message.
This second message was not a history or social commentary on the aliens but a love letter in its most simple description. It talked of how the aliens had longed for neighbors like themselves to meet, know and be richer for, even if the universe was a dark forest it was a risk they did not think twice about. How they relentlessly catalogued the stars in search of others in their early days, hoping like humanity to be on the receiving end of a message from someone unknown.
Until one day they saw something. Not a message or a signal but a flash of something destroying a system they thought could harbour life. They knew in their souls they wouldn't be able to sit idly by. Their own star was an old one and there was no telling what random unfortunate miracle would end them before their deepest desire would be reached. So they studied their sciences and prepared. They harnessed their waning star's energy, altered planets in their systems into industry. Then they prepared their messages, their prayers to those yet unknown.
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They laid bare their past errors first, then sent their hopes, and how they longed to meet us and others. How they imagined we would be, what we may look like, and how we would be different from them.
The second message was full of hope and wanderlost. It renewed the interest in Human society expanding beyond earth when it ended. It said there would be another message but it would be some time before it came. So humanity did exactly that. They spent the time waiting for the third message colonizing their home system, improving their rockets to different types of vessels. Sending out probes beyond the Heliopause again, researching potential ways to respond to the message, even if it was impossible for it to reach the original senders, or even the original race.
Thirty years humanity waited for the third message. We feared something had happened to them and there would never be a third message. That our beloved pen pals that we may never meet, were gone.
It did come, but it was not good.
They were dying. Sending their message had drained their star and they couldn't make it to the nearest habitable system, some unfortunate chance had caused their system to be bombarded with harsh cosmic rays and leaving the safety of their own planet's protective atmosphere was a death sentence. The cosmic event wouldn't end before their star went supernova. They wished they had more time, not to live but to talk more with us. Alas they were using the last gasp of their star to send us whatever scientific knowledge they had gained.
For four years the third message relayed scientific data, concepts and how to understand them without stop.
Then as the last message ended, humanity watched the system the messages had come from, end in a flash. Not in a great cosmic explosion heralding the death of a civilization but in a small light that barely registered.
It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that those we had listened to and learned from, loved despite their distance, would end with us unable to do anything but watch and listen. So we humans made a promise. That next time we would be closer, and if not closer, able to get there and help. We would continue our lost friends legacy. So we studied, we learned, we experimented. Ceres was lost but we did it. We found a way to be closer and we will be there for those that we find.
This is our message to you, whoever you are. We will be closer, and we cannot wait to meet you.