Chapter No.75 Exploration
The unknown is only unknown to you.
Now that we had settled the Andromeda situation with the robotic species, I decided that it was time to go back to exploration, but I waited until we had eaten supper and relaxed in my living area to discuss my ideas.
"I think that we should begin exploring further out," I said. "The Virgo Cluster has around 1500 galaxies in it and it's only 48 million light years away."
"Only 48 million light years," Marie said. "I can remember when that would have been like saying infinity."
"We could go much further," I said. "However, we know a bit more about the Virgo Cluster than some of the galactic clusters much further away."
"What about the possible candidate systems in Andromeda and The Triangulum Galaxy?" Margaret asked.
"The problem with Andromeda is that it has suffered several recent super novae explosions that have wiped out life on many habitable planets. The Milky Way galaxy has about a hundred intelligent species, situated in systems along the Orion Arm. Andromeda, which is a much larger galaxy, has maybe fifty intelligent species. We investigated some of them but found that they were not good galactic neighbors."
"I thought that the Virgo Cluster is part of a larger Supercluster that is headed at thousands of kilometers per second toward the Great Attractor," Margaret said. "I don't know when they'll get there, but no one knows what will happen when they do."
"The Great Attractor is a gravitational abnormality not something like a black hole, and it's about 250 million light years away. The Local Group, which includes the Milky Way, is headed to the same location. In fact, there seems to be a lot of super clusters headed to that attractor and another, which slips my mind."
"It's the Sharpley Attractor," Molly reminded me.
"Yeah, that's it. Maybe we could determine what's in these attractors regions."
"I can't believe that we're the only ones exploring the universe," Alexa said. "Surely, intelligent species have arisen in some of the trillions of galaxies in this universe that have discovered the technology that we have."
"There is a possibility that we are the only ones," I said.
"Why do you think that?"
"I think it's because we are androids that still have our biological memories and imaginations. It also could be because we are not in conflict and have all these androids and robotic creatures to help us achieve the nearly impossible."
Molly gave me a smirk. "I think that we're even more like the Borg you keep talking about. We are like the Borg Queen, which would make us avatars of the android collective."
I smiled. "Ah, you know more about it than I do."
The others looked at us as if we had lost our minds.
Molly chuckled. "Okay, I admit that I watched those Star Trek episodes. I thought it would provide me with a better understanding of androids. One of them was represented by Data. He's probably the model that the Phoenix Project engineers used to create the androids we now have."
"That's a distinct possibility," I said. "He was able to mimic human emotions and he was fully functional."
"I think they fashioned our female androids to resemble the Barbie Doll." Marie said.
We laughed.
"Actually, I think they modeled them after Jane Mansfield."
"Who the hell was that?" Marie blurted.
"She was the big-breasted, blond bombshell from the 1950's who represented the epitome of female sexuality at the time."
"That figures!" she replied. "Because of some crazy sex-starved engineer, we have to put up with big boobs."
"Yeah, that's what's wrong with them!" Margaret said. "These boobs are nothing more than an entertainment for men."
"I think that was the original design intent," I said, trying to avoid a smile.
"Stupid idiots went too far," Marie complained.
"Well," I said. "Those stupid idiots are long gone."
"I hope they rot in hell!" she added.
I thought it time to change the subject.
"Seriously," I said. "We need to determine which galaxies we should explore in the Virgo Cluster."
"We can deploy the improved virtual mirror on this vessel," Molly said. "I should think that the best galaxies to find intelligent life would be perfect spirals without bars. They would be less active as far as their supermassive black holes are concerned. One in particular is M-99."
"That sounds like a good plan," I said. "We'll go there tomorrow."
"What vessels will we take along?" Molly asked.
"I think we should take two Myst and two Scath vessels. That gives us an edge in case we come under attack."
They didn't complain, so I assumed that they approved.