The Exodus-9 mission was nearly two centuries into its journey. The astronauts, who had recently awakened from hibernation, were ready to make history: humanity was on the verge of colonizing Proxima Centauri B.

Or at least, that’s what they thought.

As they approached their destination, the ship’s radars detected a strange object floating in the void. Small, metallic, archaic in shape. The ship’s AI, trained using paranoid protocols against any extraterrestrial contact, immediately alerted: —”Unidentified object! Potential alien threat!” —

Commander Vasquez, raised in an environment of military simulations with no contact with reality, applied standard procedure: PANIC. —”Gentlemen! This is a first contact encounter! We were trained for this!” — No one mentioned that the training had been designed by bureaucrats who had never set foot in a spaceship.

The first order was to send a friendly message using standard interstellar communication protocol. Lights were lit on the ship and a message was transmitted over the radio waves that essentially said, “Please don’t kill us.”

The object, of course, did not respond.

—“They’re ignoring us!” shouted Lieutenant Grober . “It’s a psychological domination tactic! “