Epilogue

Message to Galactic Command From: Survey Ship 372 JX

A few cycles ago, we surveyed Planet Delta-D8228-3, which the inhabitants call Earth. The sentient life forms are bisexual mammalian bipeds call Humans. They are typical almost the point of being cliché. We did the standard genetic scan of the planet from high orbit and left.

As our scientists analyzed the data, they were impressed with the extreme biodiversity, and asked that we return for more study. We surveyed a few other solar systems in the area then returned.

When we got back, we were stunned to learn that our planetary scan had damaged the chromosomes of the male half of the sentient humans. This resulted in their extinction. As a result, the whole race was on the brink of obliteration. This was unexpected and without precedent.

The scientific team swung into action. They developed an elegant solution. They developed a semi-virus that they implanted in twelve just-pubescent females, in various parts of the planet. This gave them the sexual abilities of the missing males. The semi-virus was spread to other females through sexual contact. Only one female in five has the correct genetic markers to acquire the semi-virus, but that should be enough to create a new population of males. The semi-virus will stop being contagious about the time the first males come into sexual maturity.

Preliminary results show that this solution is working even better than expected. The governments are moving the infected subjects around in order to infect as many people in their area as possible.

My main concern right now is the possibility that this side effect of the genetic scan has happened before. The only reason we caught this incident is the fact that the species affected was the sentient species of the planet. If it had been a non-sentient species in the middle of the food chain, we would never have noticed, though the consequences to the planet's ecosystem would be just as dire.

I formally request that we change our ship's mission from planetary survey, to checking back through the planets we have already surveyed and looking for potential ecological damage.

The scientific community needs to find a new way to do genetic surveys of primitive planets, without causing irreparable harm to the planet's bio and ecosystems. We were fortunate we got back to Earth in time to pull the humans back from the brink of extinction.

Sincerely, Captain of Survey Ship 372 JX