Seeker

by Douglas E. Richards

“Even so, intelligent species do arise. But almost all of these, forged in the cauldron of endless conflict, are too aggressive, and self-destruct shortly after developing the technological wherewithal to create weapons of mass destruction. “Still other intelligent species retreat from external reality, living out their existences in a matrix-like virtual reality of their own making. “Finally, many others, who have more sheep-like dispositions, like the Androms, stagnate and die out over millions of years, without ever achieving technology that would allow them to escape their planet. The Androms were very unique in managing to avoid this eternal stagnation, despite their docile natures, for a host of reasons I won’t go into. “All of these factors make the chances of finding a species like yours vanishingly small. Especially one this close to either its own self-destruction, or its hyper-evolution via a singularity event. I navigated near many thousands of solar systems inimical to life. But I did also encounter rare Sol-like systems, with Earth-like planets orbiting within the Goldilocks Zone. But all of these were either too young for complex life, had been the victim of devastating extinction-level catastrophic events, or showed evidence of once hosting a sentient species that had self-destructed eons earlier. “The bottom line is that a species like yours is exceedingly rare. It may be that another civilization within the Milky Way will reach the singularity on its own—...