It took a lot of energy to get this message sent back in time. It took a great effort to write it in a language that is the ancestor of the one we communicate in now. It took technology beyond your ken, so that you might hold this message in your hand: a message from a future that might be; a future and a world—well, ‘worlds’ actually—whose coming-into-being depends on you.

I have been delegated to write on behalf of a great many of us—though not all, because, as it has always been, not all agree on all actions to be taken. But those who supported me and who contributed to these words with their counsel agreed that the billions of kilowatts it took to open the connection to the past for long enough were worth it. Not that we know exactly which time-stream we managed to target, for such things cannot de determined with certainty. But it is one of the streams that will lead to us coming into being; and therefore you, no matter who you are, are one of those whom we call ‘ancestors’. We just don’t know which one. Temporal paradoxes are still beyond the ken of reason.

You are one of those who can make us come into being. For all we know, you might be one of those who actually made it across the threshold to be one of us. If so, remember this message!

Or, and this would be even more intriguing, are you the very one who initiated this whole project of ours? Are we closing a loop in time; finally and after all these years? If you are that person, why didn’t you tell us? For we do not know who first came up with the idea for this message. One day it was there, and somehow it took shape and... I was going to say “well, you know what happened”, but of course you don’t.

Not yet.

Would you like to know? Then make us become real. For we need you. Desperately. Whatever we are, we are because of you and all those others who believed that we could come into existence. No matter how much their visions differed, in the final analysis they all contributed to humanity still being here.

I would like to tell you a bit about what is now; that which I am allowed to tell you. Temporal paradoxes still elude precise calculation, and needs to be careful not to say too much.

And there is something else: in what follows, when I speak of ‘us’, it must be understood that it refers only to those ‘us’ who collaborated to send you this message. I, or even ‘we’, do not and cannot speak for all of humankind. For this is the most important lesson we learned from history: that diversity and ‘difference’ are the engines of all creation, as much as they are the sources of conflict between individuals and societies; that eliminating diversity and difference would have been the first step to our doom.

And so diversity persists and indeed flourishes, for never has the human species been more colorful and varied. In consequence, our views of what is and what should be, are not shared by all. And when I write ‘us’, I refer to a section of humanity that we, who sent this message, consider worthy of holding up as an example of the best we have to offer. I am aware that such an attitude evidences a certain arrogance, for it implies a judgment upon those who do not see the world as we do. But this is a corollary of the diversity I spoke of. With so many ways of living, if you don’t believe that yours is worthy, then why do you live it; and would even defend it against those who would destroy it?

Keep this in mind as you read what follows.

What I may tell you is this:

Humankind has left the Earth and spread through a sizeable segment of neighboring space. The eggs are no longer just in the one basket. No catastrophe has as yet wiped out the mother-world, but the survival of our species and myriads of other life forms that we’ve taken with us across interstellar space appears assured.

Just exactly how we have accomplished this scattering of the human seed I must not say. But rest assured that there is much more to be known about the physical universe and its possibilities than your current science conceives of.

It appears that we are alone in the universe. No evidence to suggest otherwise has been found; nothing to indicate that anything even remotely resembling ‘life’ as we know it exists. Of course, there might be still ‘life’ of a kind that we wouldn’t recognize as such—but by definition that would not be ‘life’, for we can only name that which we can apprehend. The evidence might, of course, not be sufficiently complete to allow us to be certain of our uniqueness, but it is compelling nonetheless.

Most human societies have recovered from the ravages of having been crammed onto one planet, without freedom to expand and living under an ever-increasing trend to and push toward homogenization, as well as a constantly worsening pattern of loss of individual liberty. Now the tapestry of human individual and social expression has, if anything, become more colourful and varied than it has ever been.

A corollary of this is that societies must be allowed their differences, just as individuals are. And societies are not perfect; and they must never be, because perfection is an end-point, and society thrives on the prospect of development. The same goes, of course, for individuals.

Death has become an option and a matter of choice. The accomplishment of this was the first prerequisite for making our world possible. Yes, people still opt to die. Indeed, whole societies are founded on a rejection of indefinitely-long life. But that is their choice. Some of them look unkindly upon those in their midst who beg to differ. But for those, if they so choose, there are other societies who welcome them. Sometimes this is painful for the individuals concerned. But we value the freedom to choose, and often ‘choice’ is a difficult mistress.

We treasure children; more than you may be able to appreciate. Every child is a gift. Every child is a human being. Every single child is as infinitely precious as every adult. No child is an undesirable burden. We don’t produce children to immortalize ourselves, or to use them to guarantee our survival when old and decrepit, or to prove our valor.

We need not abort pregnancies, for our medical knowledge is such that they are never a risk to the welfare of the mother. Even the unborn can have any deformities and genetic flaws corrected. Children conceived by accident are still children and treated as such. If their parents choose not to want to bring them up, there are always others who would gladly take their place. In the very rare case that a mother chooses to abort, the embryo is removed and grown to maturity in vitro or in another woman’s womb. A mother may choose not to bear a child to term, but she does not have the right to choose whether it lives or dies.

Our brain functions can be modified by certain genetic, biological and bio-electronic measures. The use of such modifications is optional. As with life-extension, the choices differ between societies and individuals. The degree of enhancement also differs, depending on choice. As a result, you might not recognize some of those alive today as ‘human’; nor might they recognize you as such, at least not by their definition of ‘humanity’. This is an aspect of the wide spread of human expression. We work diligently not to let such differences become the cause of conflict between societies.

We consider the retention of ‘older’ elements of our psyche as essential for our ‘humanity’. Indeed, we define our ‘humanity’ by choosing to retain our imperfections and those aspects of our psyche that challenge us every day to be what me make ourselves into, rather than becoming playthings of unfettered ‘instinct’ on one hand or slaves to ‘reason’ on the other.

We strive to reduce suffering induced by external agencies. There are causes of suffering that can be controlled and those who cannot. Suffering because of illness, externally imposed restriction of freedom, brutality, oppression and so forth, can be ameliorated by dealing with its causes. However, the suffering induced, for example, by unrequited love only be controlled if the sufferer chooses to have this done. Some do; others don’t.

We have accepted that nobody really has complete freedom to choose, because no choice is truly ‘free’, in any sense of the word. We do try however to maximize the human capacity to choose, but what choices are considered ‘acceptable’ varies from society to society, as it always has. Most societies have agreed that, despite even the most profound ideological differences, individuals who wish to leave one environment because they prefer to live in another, should be allowed to do so.

Large scale conflict has been reduced from being ‘common’ to ‘rare’. Territorial disputes have become almost unknown, as there is ample territory for everyone, and we have means to terraform even the most inhospitable environments. ‘War’, based on the need for control over other resources has also become virtually extinct.

By and large, this far-scattered humanity you may help to create is something to be proud of. However, it isn’t perfect because it cannot be: without imperfections humanity would cease to exist. There is no resolution to this basic dilemma: we accept imperfection as a part of our existence as men and women, or we cease to exist. Some have chosen for themselves what they saw as ‘perfection’; and the price they paid is beyond even our comprehension. But they chose, and it was their right to do so. Maybe they understand something we don’t. Or maybe we understand something else that they did not and now never will.

I believe that you can understand what we have become. Right now, as you read this note, it may be beyond your comprehension—but with the insights provided by time, experience, science and enhanced cognitive abilities, you will in due course learn what you need to know in order to understand; just as a child does, as it grows into this incomprehensible, wondrous, yet utterly indifferent, universe.

But it allowed life to come into existence. And we live. And it is good.

We live because you made us possible. We live because you and enough of your contemporaries chose not to allow blind evolution to control human destiny. We live because you had the courage to imagine and to believe that your imaginings were more than mere daydreams. We live because you believed that humans are capable of controlling their destiny, as societies and individuals. We live because you believed in hope and that a better world was possible and worthwhile working for.

Please believe that. Please keep believing that. Without that faith, this message is but another figment of someone's imagination that will disappear in the vast ocean of human imaginings like a lone teardrop.