“Do we tell them?”

“What good would it do?”

“Well, they could perhaps live their lives differently”

“This universe is dying Jen. We can’t continue pumping more matter — it’s all gone”

“I get that, Jerry, I get that. But maybe they …” She was cut off by Jerry

“No, no maybe! We’re going to be the last two watching our universe decay into a vast simmering emptiness endlessly expanding through space. We’re going to watch it happen Jen. It’s our burden, not theirs.”

A long silence took place when Jen considered Jerry’s point. She hated the fact that he was right. Telling them would only make them suffer, weep for their assured demise as we have done for the past six hundred trillion years, or so… ever since we figured out how to manipulate matter to energy and energy to matter. It’s at that time we started drowning in the sorrow of the realization that eventually, even after what seemed back then an unimaginable length of time, we would no longer be able to postpone the eventual heat death of our universe.

Our ancestors began searching for ways to cheat time, to try and maneuver existence to continue forever. The pessimists laughed, and cried, and built large, complex pleasure farms to indulge everyone until the inevitable inexistence takes hold and nothing more exists.

The optimists tried to find a cure; they could not accept the fatality of the situation and believed they could find ways around the problem, maybe avoiding it altogether. They built epic matter transporters that brought matter from every corner of the universe to the middle, trying to fight entropy.

And here we are Jerry and I, waiting for the last epoch to begin. Our entire existence is devoted to documenting the end of existence, to observe it. After our greatest minds gave up trying to exploit our knowledge of everything the universe has to offer into reshaping it to stay alive forever, we’ve turned to obsessively documenting everything there could possibly be.

We’ve figured out that we might not survive in any form or way, but we’ve decided to make sure that if anything ever exists in the far future, it should be able to know that we were here, that we too once existed as he does now.

We’ve decided to encode everything that we’ve documented and transmit it to the universe in the form of gravitational waves. Those waves will continue traveling space and time for all eternity enduring the death of the universe itself, traveling to infinity in all directions.

Should we tell them? Should we tell them that we are here? Hearing them? Seeing them? Amazed by them?

Should we share with them the burden of our knowledge? Because if we tell them that were here, just a few light minutes away, they will start asking questions sooner or later. Questions that will lead to more questions, and then to answers that will devastate them.

No. We shouldn’t. They have billions of years ahead of them, they can be happy, they can explore the entire universe before they realize what’s going on, and by then who cares? The universe will be dark by then.

No. They shouldn’t suffer as we did.

“No Jerry, you’re right. We shouldn’t tell them.”

“Good. Can we get back to documenting please?”

After a long pause Jen finally replied

“We’re passing Sector 13.8b” another long pause and she continues.

“Passing 13.8b, The solar system of the Orion Arm of the Milky Way Galaxy, as it is referred to by the locals — a species of carbon-based lifeforms, it’s sensory organs are small 1–2m in size on average, that primarily inhabit a very thin layer on what is called by them Earth.”

Another long pause, Jerry was starting to suspect that Jen was employing the long pauses to try and signal the locals of their existence. But after considering it, he concluded that it was not practically viable, since the species was still years before they would be able to read through their transmissions. So he just waited for her to continue. She did a couple of minutes later.

“The species seems to be primitive in technology and understanding. The sensory organs adapted to believe that they’re individuals who serve their own purpose. They’re young undoubtedly. By their records, the sensory organs began to communicate outwards 100 years ago. They have yet to encounter any similar species developing nearby. Perhaps their limited math is hiding basic communication forms from them.”

“A little less opinion and more facts please. But really, let’s move on Jen. They’re not that interesting… Really…”

Jen was quiet.

“See this for example: A black hole is a region of spacetime exhibiting such strong gravitational effects that nothing — including particles and electromagnetic radiation such as light — can escape from inside it.”

Jen burst in laughter.

“I’m not kidding! This is what their digital archive says about black holes! They have no clue what we are! They don’t even comprehend that we’re just 3AUs away from their planet, two of us! Do you imagine the panic it would cause if they knew that we’re here now?”

Jen couldn’t stop laughing.

“Here! They just registered your laugh as two black holes merging! At least they’re in the right direction…”

Jen immediately began examining the information coming from the small blue planet, and there it was — the same gravitational waves that she just laughed away were recorded for the first time on earth detectors — her laugh was the thing they would forever keep in their records as the first gravitational wave detected. It made her feel better, hopeful even.

“Continuing to Sector 12.9a moving deeper into spiral 9e, or as the local refer to it, “The Center of the Milky Way Galaxy”.” Jen paused again.

Jerry picked up on her playful tone and said,

“To boldly go where no man has gone before…”