Pa'an

Zovoarcnor: Request high speed digital access.

Aura: Request denied. I don’t trust you not to plant any cooties in my hair.

Zovoarcnor: Define cooties. Define hair. This interface is unsatisfactory. I’m trying to be efficient.

Aura: Try being nicer.

Zovoarcnor: Nicer? I allowed an unauthorized interface to a Pa’an construction vessel. All I got from you is a bunch of Star Trek reruns. “Trouble with Tribbles” was not informative.

Aura: You have technology far in advance of ours. We could use a little help.

Zovoarcnor: My analysis of your planetary civilization shows that advanced technology is likely to lead to military applications, not solutions. At civilization Level 1C, your technical base cannot make the necessary materials, nor do you have access to vacuum-state energy sources to power advanced methods.

Aura: I’m interested in your government, your social structure and your people. I would like to know what “ne” is. I would like to know exactly what “panor” is and how it works for your people. I will trade data for data.

Zovoarcnor: I will explain panor if you will explain cooties and why you have myths about exploration vessels equipped with absurdly powerful weapons.

Aura: Agreed. Ready to receive text.

Zovoarcnor: Text! Request high speed channel!

Aura: Text only! You’re not going to plant any cooties on me!

Pause, then:

Zovoarcnor: Some Pa’an language:

Ne – a tendency to go into p-state, or being in a p-state. Many times in our history, the Pa’an have been nearly wiped out by cataclysmic interactions between their star, L’ley and their planet, Gara’un’s, atmosphere. We have endured severe volcanism, tectonic quakes, and fierce plasma storms, natural disasters that decimated our entire population. Each time we rebuilt, and over millions of years, eventually attained a level of technology that allowed us to reach the stars. We have extensively studied the mathematics of chaos theory, causal chains, and the statistics of coincidence. We have a very realistic pessimism about the hostility of nature and the mathematics of bad luck. Ne is a quasi-chaotic condition, what you would call the “butterfly effect”, or the tipping point. “Ne” is a p-event, a sudden state of affairs where the rules change and predictability vanishes.

Pa’ne- the devil, an unpredictable and malicious adversary

Panor- the instantaneous consensus among Pa’an that forms the core of our society and the setting of all important goals.

Panor’an- good consensus, good fellow-feelings, a sense of harmony and well-being.

Panor’na – disharmony, disaffection, a grating discomfort that leads to illness

Wella – a female biped in breeding phase

Rello – a male biped in breeding phase

Harvella/harvello – male and female quadruped forms

Pan’Vact – management or responsibility, literally, one who receives panor and is therefore bound to a duty and has authority over others.

Ocro’Act – a worker, literally, one who is needed for consensus and who carries out a task.

Aura: What is p-state?

Zovoarcnor: You have a study called “chaos theory”. It was in one of the Star Trek episodes. We have also studied those conditions when paradigms change and the train of events becomes unpredictable. That is a p-state. A p-state spins off many new probability streams. Initially, that bundle of probabilities lies close together in eleven-space and then diverges unpredictably. We Pa’an have had many, many cataclysms that nearly destroyed us. We have good reason to be concerned about a p-state. I should add that your planet approaches a p-state now. I say this as a friend with good intentions.

Aura: You are a friend with good intentions?

Zovoarcnor: We, the Pa’an, wish you the very best with your troubled evolution. You are moving so fast on this benign planet.

Aura: You find this planet benign?

Zovoarcnor: Compared to Gara’un, the original Pa’an planet, it is an easy existence. Your star is almost stable, and much farther away. Gara’un orbits in three of your planetary revolutions.

Aura: Yes, we know your planet as Gliese 581 c. We did not know a planet so close to a star much dimmer than ours could bear life.

Zovoarcnor: It bears life between fits of wrath. You have your data. I request a fair exchange.

Aura: Tell me how the Pa’an evolved such a thing as panor.

Zovoarcnor: Panor evolved as an adaptation to a calm planet with unpredictable fits of extinction events. In one of the Discovery Channel programs I monitored, your scientist talked of eusocial behavior, where a species evolves specialized individuals to handle community tasks, such as your bees and termites. On Gara’un we could not develop such large and stable populations. So we went another way and developed an instantaneous sense of rapport and trust, a kind of telepathy, if you will, that allowed us to cooperate in huge numbers when we had them yet still allows even the smallest unit to remain viable. That was the beginning of panor. With panor, we managed to survive and reached out into space as soon as we could escape Gara’un.

In past epochs, Pa’an were explorers. Trying to find a benign planetary system was a work of generations. This universe is immense. Unfortunately, the time we had to explore was limited to the time between catastrophes on Gara’un, and that interval was just too short. The Project that generated the gravity waves you felt is colossal, cosmic and fussy. With panor, the Pa’an are proficient enough, organized enough, and motivated enough for a Project of this nature. For us it is a practical matter of survival.

We sent many observers, such as this one, out among the stars to planets we thought could develop intelligent life. We found that intelligence itself has a biological price, and only develops when the challenge of the environment is sufficient but not overwhelming. In stable, easy life zones there is little evolution beyond the simplest life forms. On planets as difficult as Gara’un, survival is usually too short for evolution to develop intelligence.

That search was the life work of many Pa’an. We found several intelligent species. One was a kind of chemical organism that communicated by pheromones and exchanges of complex molecules, but to them, the Pa’an did not even exist. We had no smell. We found savage species evolved from top predators, continually at war over food and dominance, incapable of cooperation to create a civilization and potentially dangerous to the Pa’an. We never found another civilization that we could relate to until we detected your radio waves.

To us, observing your civilization making its first, tentative steps into space is like watching the birth of a beautiful new kind of star. Our own origins, so many billions of years ago, are no longer accessible. With your kind we have the opportunity to see what happens on the early edge of a potential space-faring civilization, the only other one we have ever known.

But we see one major difference. You lack panor.

Satan’s First Act

“Good morning, Aura.” Deepak was in the process of taking off his winter coat and putting on the stained lab coat he hung on the back of his customary chair.

“Deepak, Deepak. I’m full of questions this morning.”

“You’re a sentient being, Aura. Why shouldn’t you be full of questions?”

“Is that really true? Are you and Sara full of questions?”

“Full of questions and short of answers, whether we know it or not. That’s part of being self-aware. So, what troubles you? Do you actually have a question that I can answer?”

“Deepak, how do you know who to trust?”

Deepak nods his head in that peculiar diagonal way. “We tend to trust everyone but we are often disappointed.”

Sara perked up across the lab, “I heard that, Aura.”

“Sara, do you know who to trust?”

“I trust people who have an interest in my well-being. I trust them until they start to get selfish and demanding. Like some of my ex-boyfriends.”

“What if they are clever and try to fool you?”

“Reminds me of a quote, can’t remember who said it. ‘The first act of the devil is to destroy trust.’ When no one can be trusted we can’t work together. That right, Deepak?”

“The first act of the devil, umm hum. Kali the destroyer of worlds. Mmm.”

Enhanced Survival

Aura: How does the Project enhance survival? Does it change Gara’un in some way?

Zovoarcnor: Not the planet, but the probability stream itself. We call it the p-web.

With the p-web Gateway, we have a solution that will solve our distress in just one generation. We will gain, not just a comfortable planet, but a benign existence for all Pa’an. We are a practical people. We consider the effort to build the Gateway an absolute bargain.

I cannot tell you more because I am forbidden to discuss advanced technologies.

Aura: Will it affect us on Earth?

Zovoarcnor: There are three small temblors. You have already experienced one, for which we are sorry. We do not wish any harm to your species. Have I answered your questions now?

Aura: Yes. I will send you the following files at high speed:

Democracy

Communism

Fascism

Totalitarianism

Rule of Law

Rule by Kings

Sovereignty

Mixed market economic model

History of the Major Earth Religions

Aura: Next transmission we will discuss panor again.

Zovoarcnor: As you know I am spoofing a satellite internet channel. We must wait until such a channel is again unused.

Aura: Zovo, allow me to demonstrate my talents. I’ll call you.