The Artifact

"The Artifact" is based on the idea of an alien civilization on a rogue planet finding Voyager. Below is the very first rough draft. It is a bit too technical but for those who enjoy that, enjoy.

The Artifact: By Gabe Bentz

A thorough analysis shown that the artifact had existed for several thousand years. It contained a primitive nuclear system and what appeared to be a communications array of some kind. It seems to be very ancient technology. Some type of binary system controlled the communications array.

What was most comical about the system was the disk. The metal had  been damaged in areas from contact with space dust but the ridges could be distinguished. Each concentric circle contained a series of indentations. A laughable technology. The creators must have manually inscribed the patterns onto the disk, this is but one step up from a chisel. The machine was likely launched with a catapult or some equally violent event. Several simulations were able to define pattern. The indentations were the mechanical recording of sound waves. The noises which were created seemed to be voices. The speech was incomprehensible. There was no analysis which could decode the phonetics. Speech without mathematical reason or foundation.

A few musical-like sounds arose. Both were unimpressive again lacking understanding of the art in any form.

The only other portion of the artifact which might reveal more about the species that created it was a piece of metal. Unfortunately it was impacted by debris so much as to make it incomprehensible. The only viewable symbols are “\ O Y /- G |- R”

Clearly this was an object that was sent from some primitive species. They were likely in their final days of civilization and this artifact was meant to be a time capsule for their civilization.
The puzzle is in where the object came from. Its trajectory and dynamics were analyzed and simulated within the gravitation parameters of the galaxy. The solar system it appears to originate from could not possibly harbor life.

The solar system contains a Phase 2 star. Such a radiation source is certain death for any advanced life. It would not be able to develop advanced biological systems without having them obliterated by radiation.

The analysis of the planets shows that almost none of them has a sufficient atmosphere to protect from the radiation. But any sufficient atmosphere would surely bake any organic matter on the ground.

There is also the issue of how dirty the system is. Any planet on it would likely be impacted by any number of asteroids which would constantly wipe out life. Intelligent life would not have time to develop before it was wiped out.

Our own planet, Terra,  is devoid of a star. It was formed from a rogue cloud of dust from a supernova. This dust cloud created our planetary system. A single core planet with dozens of moons. Several of the moons were collected millions of years ago during our traversal of the galaxy. They were collected much like this object which entered our system several years ago.
Life was able to form on Terra because of its subterranean system. Our planet is likely ten times larger than the largest planet in the system where the artifact came from. Only Terra is entirely solid. But the planet is riddled with caverns. These subterranean areas allowed the early biological molecules to develop into complex cells without being disrupted by radiation or impacts.

Truly this artifact is a conundrum. It is likely that it originated from another wanderer planet like our own and simply passed through the system we observed.