(Okay, I’m putting this down because I want it to be on record.

What we’re looking at are radio pules from space.

They’re encoded English in Morse code. I’m not kidding about that.

The entire astronomy community is in a furor over this. For a bunch of people who
want to know more about space and what’s in it, there’s a huge swath of the profes-
sion that seems to take it rather personally when anyone suggests there might be
someone or something else out there at least as smart as us.

The case isn’t quite helped by the fact that the radio signals seemed to be coming
from Sirius B. I know when most astronomers say things like that, they’re conve-
niently saying in shorthand, “somewhere around Sirius B, like on a planet or other
body.” Not this time: these pulses were generated by the star itself, it would seem.
Again, all the scientists who haven’t waved the situation off as a hoax are por-
ing over the data, doing parallax analysis and combing through their recordings to
make sure.

It’s my belief that this is genuine contact by life from beyond our planet. That’s a
big deal in itself, obviously. What’s more intriguing to me, if that’s possible, and
is also frustrating and confusing me, is the content of the message. I have to admit
that I would find a deeply amusing irony in the fact that the first contact human-
ity makes with another intelligence reads like a cross between e-mail spam and a
message board post. “The guy at the deli”? “The Hippocratic Oath”? “Mongoose”? It’s
like we’re getting a message from some random person on the internet, only he or
she hijacked a STAR to broadcast it. I’m half surprised that a spectrogram of the
data didn’t yield a funny captioned cat picture.

It’s hard to say if or when this will ever go public. Most people might not even
believe it. I hope it will anyway, and I’m taking the initiative to put this out so
that people start talking about it. (Does that mean I’m playing the game? Am I a
phenomengineer now?) I’ve taken the liberty of attaching the transcript of the de-
coded message below. Sirius B has gone back to being a perfectly normal, non-trans-
mitting-English-in-Morse-code star, so apart from the radio telescope data, this is
all we’ve got to go on. Apart from a little aesthetic formatting, what you see below
is exactly what we received.

One last thing: I’d love to figure out a way to communicate back to whomever sent
this, if just to find out whether they won their pod’s latest competition.)

--- BEGIN ---

SUMMARY

“Phenomengineers” are artists whose paints are ideas and whose canvas is the web
of social interaction. A group of phenomengineers is called a “pod”. A popular game
among phenomengineers is to compete within their pods to effectively seed ideas
into the population.
RULES

Each phenomengineer creates a “seed,” an idea they wish to distribute in society. It

must be an idea that does not already discretely exist; unique ideas are necessary
to play the game. Simpler ideas work better, such as coining new words, but seeding
a complicated idea such as a style of music or a new game into the population de-
notes a skillful phenomengineer.

The phenomengineers each show their seeds to the other members of their pod so the
others may acknowledge that their creation, attest that it is unique, and to verify
success when the game concludes.

Each phenomengineer then tries to get their seed to take hold as a meme, within
the three restrictions. The winner is the first member of the pod whose seed is
successfully encountered “in the wild,” meaning it is distributed back to them or to
a member of their pod unsolicited by somebody they don’t know and who did not re-
ceive the seed from the phenomengineer. Telling the guy behind the counter at the
deli your idea and then having him repeat it back to you the next day when you
come in doesn’t count, but hearing a stranger in an elevator repeat your seed to
somebody does.

As a tie-breaker, if two phenomengineers encounter their seeds in situ within a

short time span, then the one that has passed through the most verifiable degrees
of separation wins. This is a difficult criterion when working in large social net-
works, but for small communities this method works quite well, and can be used ap-
plied as a point system: one point per degree of separation through which the seed
was passed, that can be traced by the phenomengineer.

RESTRICTIONS

There are three restrictions by which phenomengineers have to abide during play.

First Restriction

As the Hippocratic Oath says, “Do no harm.” A seed must not be harmful to any indi-
vidual or group. Anything that would be considered hate speech, slander or libel in
any jurisdiction is off-limits as a valid seed, including slurs or pejoratives, as is
any seed which encourages harmful or dangerous behavior.

Second Restriction

If anyone asks you directly whether the seed is true, you must be honest and admit
that it is a fabrication. You may consider that person immune to further attempts
to spread the seed. You may, however, continue to distribute the same seed via other
methods.

Third Restriction

A phenomengineer may not fabricate evidence for their seed: the exercise is one of
crafting ideas suited to swim through the streams of interpersonal interaction, not
to craft new truths from falsehoods.

COMMENTARY

As a corollary to the First and Third Restrictions, one may not attribute a seed to
an existing individual or group. One may invoke fictitious authorities, individu-
als or organizations to which to attribute the idea, but may not generate support
for those claims under the Third Restriction; phenomengineers are advised that at-
tempting such a stratagem often leads to the listener invoking a “second restric-
tion” situation.

Good seeds for beginning phenomengineers are completely untrue, often nonsensical
ideas, but plausible and easily remembered, as well as easy to track. “The mongoose
is allergic to mangoes.” More complicated seeds often require support or evidence,
which falls afoul of the Third Restriction.

It is not forbidden by the restrictions to interfere with the spread of another

phenomengineer’s idea by sabotaging their work or distributing counter-ideas, but
such tactics is considered extremely bad form, and likely to result in being kicked
out of the pod.

Phenomengineers who choose seeds for which they have a personal attachment or in-
terest tend to burn out. The skills cultivated by a good phenomengineer are useful
in campaigning for personal causes outside of the pod, but make for poor competi-
tions.

--- END ---

Written by Neal Stidham - parenthesispress.com -