Aliens came to the table expecting talks — humanity replied with coordinates and nothing else

Описание: When the Crathian Commonwealth sent their most experienced ambassador across the border, she came prepared for everything. Seventeen linguistic frameworks. Cultural sensitivity markers. Three months of careful diplomacy, assembled into a transmission her staff called a masterwork.
Humanity replied with coordinates.
No greeting. No protocol acknowledgment. No words at all — just a point in space and a timestamp 72 hours out.
What Ambassador Velus found at those coordinates changed everything her government thought it knew about the species on the other side of the border. Not a fleet response. Not a weapons demonstration. Something far more precise: a quiet, systematic display of how completely humanity had been watching — and how long they had already decided what the treaty would say.
This is hard science fiction about first contact, strategic intelligence, and the difference between power and the choice to use it. No battles. No explosions. Just two civilizations sitting across a table — and one of them knowing every word the other was about to say before they said it.
If you think about the politics of space, the ethics of information asymmetry, or what real diplomacy between unequal powers actually looks like — this one is for you.
Like if it made you think. Subscribe for more stories that take the science seriously.