Challenge #00534 - A159: Exceptions to the Rule

An Outside Context Problem is the sort of thing most civilisations encounter just once, and which they tend to encounter rather in the same way a sentence encounters a full stop.

-“Excession,” definition of an OCP c/- RecklessPrudence

Thus it is that the Cogniscent Rights Committee has passed numerous laws to prevent them. Shipping through inhabited systems with recognised intelligent life native to them is generally forbidden until such time as that native population has regular and reliable space flight.

Similarly, leaving an inhabited planet to face disaster without aid is criminal.

Thusly, interstellar groups are extremely careful when they encounter an inhabited system. First contact situations are usually kept to a minimum and, if possible, orchestrated.

There are two exceptions: the humans, which is self-explanatory, and a species known only as the Greys.

Little is factually known about them, save that they are a plague to pre-interstellar systems, and vanish without a trace once those civilisations stretch beyond their own star.

The Cogniscent Rights Committee has an outstanding reward for anyone who finds the Grey’s base of operations and brings the species to justice. There are nigh-infinite counts of purposely engineering Outside Context Problems for civilisations unprepared to encounter them.

The humans want to talk to them about numerous human-made landmarks. But that’s humans for you.

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