The first aliens to contact us were the Amarathi, who arrived in the consulship of Fabius and Theano, in the Forty-Eighth Year of the City, seventeen years after the Relocation of the cities to Plato. Their language was exceedingly difficult to learn, and without Arete’s special powers we would have been unable to communicate. There was much excitement at first, followed by many perplexities. We have mutually beneficial trade with the Amarathi, who provide us with many useful things in return for natural resources we extract from the planet.

The Saeli contacted us in the consulship of Maia and Androkles, in the Fifty-Second Year of the City. They said the Amarathi had suggested us as appropriate partners. At first Arete translated for them, as she had been doing for the Amarathi, but the Saeli soon learned Greek. They began to settle among us, at first only a few pods who stayed behind when their ships left, and then in larger numbers. In the Fifty-Sixth Year of the City, when I was consul for the third time, sharing the honor with Timon of Sokratea, the first pod of Saeli asked if they could stay permanently and study to become citizens. After much debate, in the Fifty-Seventh Year it was decided that this decision was one that should be settled by each city individually. Here in the Remnant, we decided that they and any other Saeli settlers who wished to could become citizens, provided they took the same course our ephebes took and upon its conclusion swore their oaths and accepted a classification. The argument that prevailed was that if the Saeli wished to dedicate themselves to Platonism and to philosophy, it would be wrong of us to prevent them. Saeli pods, which are family units with five members, were at the same time accepted as one of our approved forms of family.

We also agreed for the first time then to allow Saeli and humans who held citizenship elsewhere to live here, if they chose, as metics, subject to our laws but without taking oath or being classified. Metics can be expelled at any time, but the only time any have been expelled in practice was if they refused to live by our laws.

In the consulship of Marsilia and Diotima, in the Seventy-Third Year of the City, a human spaceship arrived in our solar system and began broadcasting to our planet. Communication was established, and the protocols were put into place which had been long prepared for such an eventuality.

We always knew that we would come into contact with Earth sooner or later. Zeus had promised Arete posterity, and how else might it be achieved? Besides, Porphyry had prophesied that such a thing would happen. We did not, however, know in advance exactly when it would occur. Nor could we have predicted what would follow from this recontact.

VI. On the Nature of the Gods