After all this time, it remains unclear why exactly the alien civilization used a rock as a vessel to smuggle the organism? And why, if the alien civilization had access to antimatter rocket technology, couldn’t they just save themselves by leaving their solar system?

A preliminary synthesis of the genetic material and its encoded data might shed light on these questions. It appears that the vast majority of the alien population subscribed to a belief system that renounced the idea of life after death. It was in fact believed that all things have a lifecycle and must come to an end. They anticipated that time and nature would play a critical role in erasing all traces of their species having ever existed. Therefore, the imminent destruction of their planet was welcome and perceived as the natural bookend to their existence.

We also learned that a small extremist faction of the population was responsible for creating the organism in our possession and encoding it with all of their civilization’s knowledge and culture. They smuggled the organism onto a modified flight-capable asteroid. This allowed them to secretly launch it without risk of the asteroid being detected and shot down by interplanetary defences programmed to destroy any civilization “contaminants” attempting to leave the planet.

You have been placed in charge of a committee that must make the following determination:

  • Do you preserve the living organism and its wealth of information for the possible betterment of humankind? By doing so you would renounce the dying wishes of almost an entire civilization’s population. You might also unleash upon our world technology and information that we are not prepared for and that cause catastrophic harm.
  • Or do you let the organism die and ensure that all data extracted from it is wiped from our databanks in order to fulfil the dying wish of the alien civilization? Does their dying wish matter now that they are all gone? Are you potentially denying our planet technology and information that could solve many of the largest existential threats that we face?
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