“Where there is an observatory and a telescope, we expect that any eyes will see new worlds at once” - Henry David Thoreau

Zach’s father takes him through many series of Corridors. A lot of the hallways needed a long pin to enter. Once they finally made it to the Daedalus Observatory, the General explains that the place has been shut down for over two decades and is marked off-limits. He was able to figure out how to open it for himself without alerting EDA.

One side of the room was covered in notes, diagrams, drawings, computer printouts, etc. Then Zach’s father started to explain his wild conspiracy theory about Europans.

Zach’s father was the primary military consultant for the Chaos Terrain Team. The CEO of Chaos Terrain linked his computer network with his so they can test builds. When doing so, Zach’s father was able to get classified information of Chaos Terrain’s computers that his higher-ups gave them.

The Aliens have been intercepting all broadcasts. They were able to clip together showing a human conflict. They stop sending them back after the first Jovian Opposition. In the clips, it appears that the Europans couldn’t tell the difference between real life and science fiction. All of them included a hostile alien invasion, nothing from a friendly alien.

Zach’s father explains, it like them trying to hold up a mirror. This is how we see you. He believes that they have been studying humans long before the first contact. They realized our worst species’ fear, so they set out to make it a reality.

He argues that the Europans are manipulating us into this entire conflict that they created themselves, as a test. They made us mad by using a swastika, to get our attention. It’s like a weird arms race. They gradually let us catch up in the technological gap. He explains like the Aliens are putting the humans on trial. To see how humans would react if it encounters intelligent species.

“Life imitates art, … Does any of this feel like something that could happen in real life to you? Or do events seem to be unfolding the way they would in a story, or a movie? Perfectly timed for dramatic effect?”

He then shows a picture of the Death Star and a sketch of Disrupter. He explains that the Disrupter is their version of the death star.

“Why is it so difficult to destroy, when we have no problem plowing through their other drones? Why not make all of their drones that hard to destroy? Because the Disrupter is a level boss, that’s why!”

He proceeds to make the correlation to everything that they only have been doing is exactly what it would be like in a video game. The test could be to see if we behave in the way we portray ourselves in our culture. He also brings up the point that QComm tech came from the aliens and could be used now to spy on us.

His point was, if we attempt to destroy them we are ensuring that they are going to destroy us, or we could show our moral reasoning and try to stop the Icebreaker. If they wanted to exterminate us for real, they would have done it already.

Zach points out that his father was not part of the Icebreaker when he played. Zach didn’t believe his father at first. He realizes that he was right in his journals that basically describe the EDA all those years ago. It seems crazy then too, but it was right.