Universal Transmission

A scan of Planet 3 finds intelligent life, a primitive computer network, and a dominant species called human. The report gives humans a 95.5 percent chance of extinction by self-annihilation.

Then all first contact directives are suspended. Every computer, voice, screen, satellite, and mind on every known world is taken over at once. The message begins with a plea: remain calm, stop, listen.

The speakers say they are not God. They are messengers. They address every listener as "Those of 1," and begin with what they remember from before there was space or time, when they were alone and did not know there could be others.

A first contact short story by Kristopher Mallory, first published on Stealth Fiction in 2007.