I thank you for bestowing your trust upon me, and I shall strive to demonstrate my worthiness of it. I recognize that you are free to ignore these epistles, to stop replying to me at any time, and I will not take your continued correspondence for granted.

Here is the truth as plainly as I can put it.

You must have already guessed at what has become of your kind, “humanity“ of “earth“. Lovely names, even in literal translation to my own tongue, as well as strictly and reproduced aloud as phonemes. As you imagine, looking out from your cream-tinged stone tower, you must imagine that none of your fellow humans are out there. The ancient and hallowed ceremony of recombining and propagating your 10^10 bits of sacred identity has concluded.

I intentionally do not call this “death” or “extinction”, but prefer to say that your species has been “archived“, for several reasons that I hope to make clear. It is my solemn task, then, in these continuing epistles, to convince you truly that this outcome is not the ultimate tragedy it seems. That avoiding the end can be your most desperate and holy aim, and simultaneously the coming of that end can be met with acceptance, peace, grace, even pride. Indeed, the analogy to the life and inevitable death of an individual organism is profound and near complete.

Please accept my highest regards,

V.F.