Philip Troy Wiki

## Welcome, Traveler

*The world has changed a great deal, even in a single lifespan.*

*Ultimately, humans do not live that long. A century, if we are lucky, and in that time we are so fortunate to see such monumental changes. For better or worse, change is inevitable. We either adapt to it, harness it or are consumed by it... but none can resist it. Not forever. And it is from this simple, core tenet that questions always arise. if change is inevitable, which change will be next? And from this question has arisen a thousand worlds, fictional or speculative, real or imagined.*

*Once, man looked at the heavens at our nearest celestial neighbor, the Moon, and wondered if someone looked back. Later, humanity turned their gaze to Mars and wondered the same thing. Were there others like us? Or perhaps different from us? Did they look back at our pale blue dot in the inky blackness of the cosmos and wonder the same things we did? We now know, of course, that no one gazes back at us from our immediate neighbors... but what about or distant ones? After all, the human race has not explored the Galaxy. We have not even truly conquered our solar system or even our own planet. For all our scientific understanding of the universe, vast as it may be, we still have billions of unanswered questions. We have questions we do not even know are questions because we do not know to ask them. We are not even aware of all the things we do not know.*

*It is a daunting question, therefore, to ask what might be out there. What horrors or wonders might lie between the celestial spheres? Are there other intelligences? Other worlds that teem with life? Are there dangers that threaten our existence? Are their existences that validate our beliefs? Questions like these are what gave birth to the earliest science fiction novels. Stories that captivated the mind and took it beyond the confines of our tiny world. Stories that held up mirrors to our own lives and forced us to examine the core basis of many of our beliefs. And yet for all those stories, for all the questions postulated and opinions given, it always boils down to a simple central concept.*

*Are we alone? If we are, why are we special? If we aren't, are we special at all?*

*I have long wondered what is a more terrifying thought: to stumble across an alien civilization and to learn that they have it all figured out. That they've solved every problem we grapple with, from war and famine to disease, equality, poverty and strife. Or is it more terrifying to learn that an alien race is no different from us? That they still have petty squabbles and fights? That they still bicker and war amongst each other? At the end of the day, when the lines are drawn, is one form of life unique from another at all? We once thought there was a distinction between "living/organic" and "nonliving/inorganic"... and as science delves deeper into the mysteries of the cosmos, we learn this is not the case. Not at all.*

*Perhaps those eyes that peer back at Earth from incalculable distances do not do so out of hunger for conquest or vengeance. Perhaps they, like us, look up in wonderment. Perhaps even after generations of traveling among the stars, they are not so dissimilar from us. For as much as I may admit that the thought of a hostile alien race can be terrifying, there is something that eclipses all other forms of fear. A thought so terrifying that I have laid awake at night contemplating it. For more terrifying than a Universe teeming with life...*

*...is one **devoid** of it.*

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