The Crab world had been long suspicious. It used to be called A99Hz for the 99 Hertz radio anomaly discovered way back in the early years of radio astronomy. It took the development of the right kind of processing algorithms, but it was in radio frequencies that a primordial form of scanning interferometry first filtered out the noise and found a signal, not far from Earth, of a planet with a weird harmonic emission. 99 Hertz fluctuating on a 20.6 hour cycle -- the daily rotational period of the source planet.
Although the technology has changed, the human part of science has the same familiar outlines. One small bit of data generates a thousand hypotheses, each vehemently supported at the expense of others, and yet -- in some cases -- none of them right. The consensus at some point was "crystalline resonance," an idea that doesn't even make sense in retrospect and yet accepted because it didn't require "agency." It was really only the great science popularizer Drake Carrel who held fast to the idea that the anomaly was of technological origin. His carefully-argued case stands the test of time, and yet why was he not believed?
The sage says that "man is the measure of all things," and in matters of intelligence that is not just rhetoric. After all, before the discovery of Crabs what other yardstick did humans have but themselves? It was unimaginable that a technological species would have machines but no radio communication. You would be laughed off the stage if you argued that intelligent life might not be conscious. Unthinkable! And yet it was true.
When loop drive made interstellar exploration possible, naturally A99Hz was one of the first targets. When the probe fell into Cancera's inner system and found it teeming with orbital colonies and active spacecraft it panicked. It was programmed for 4 years of observation, and yet it seemed likely that it would not be able to perform the task without being discovered. The probe's A.I. found a novel solution: it split in two. The stardrive returned to the outer system and prepared for return, while the active core of the probe fell deeper into the system, finally coming to rest on Cancera's minor moon. So much of what we ended up knowing depended on that lucky bit of programming.
It's easy for us, knowing what we know now, to look back and laugh. But you have to put yourselves into the shoes of those smart but limited scientists, limited not only by lack of data but ultimately by their imaginations. If you had told them that they would find a planet with a globe-spanning network of electric cog railways running on four-phase alternating current at 99 Hertz, they would accept it. If you told them that the railway was invented and operated by a species no smarter than a cat they would probably push you away or punch you, depending on how persistent you were. It's easier to accept the truth when you are forced by the facts.
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