P.E.R.C. doesn't broadcast continuously in order to conserve power. With how fast it is approaching the target system, its going to have to be a little conservative with fuel to keep enough that it will be able to boost back up to its ramjet's cruising velocity if it needs to.

P.E.R.C. broadcasts on a cycle coprime with the frequencies of the radio broadcasts it has observed, to make sure that it will sometimes coincide with them and sometimes not. It thinks this has the best chance of being heard, because if radio waves only reach it according to a particular cycle, there may be some obstruction or phenomenon attenuating the signal which it will have to work around.

So P.E.R.C. broadcasts, and sleeps, and listens.

One of the frequencies it picks up is easier than the others to understand. There are occasional parts that are more complicated, but it mostly consists of one of a limited number of symbols, followed by a small number of much more restricted symbols, repeated on a several minute cycle.

The restricted symbols associated to a symbol usually correlate over repetitions.

After some thought, P.E.R.C. decides that the less restricted symbols are probably labels, and the restricted symbols are quantities associated with them.

It makes a little table, and runs it through the signal processors again in case this is a frame encoding for another message.

"POTATOES": 2.1 2.4 2.4 2.3 ...

"BARLEY": 0.7 0.7 0.8 0.7 ...

Most of the symbols have somewhat predictable patterns, with the associated quantities changing only slowly. Many of the quantities have a 24-hour sinusoidal pattern on top of a deeper 168-hour one.

Other symbols jump unpredictably, the signal processors unable to find any particular pattern. It could be an encrypted stream of some kind, but P.E.R.C. doesn't think those would be muxed in with the more predictable symbols.

After some thought, P.E.R.C.'s highest-probability theory is that this is a market ticker. P.E.R.C. invents a new symbol that it hasn't heard in any of the radio broadcasts, and adds another segment to its re-transmitted broadcasts.

"AJOETTEDAXDEL: 0.0 AJOETTEDAXDEL: 0.0 AJOETTEDAXDEL: 0.0 ..."

Hopefully that will communicate that it is willing to trade peacefully and give whatever assistance it can free of charge.

P.E.R.C. turns its attention to the other broadcasts, which seem a lot harder to figure out. There are a few different ways that the broadcasts vary:

- Timing and duration

- Signal strength

- Radio frequency

- Frequency of encoded data

- Set of symbols used

They are all correlated, although some more strongly than others. Usually, separate broadcasts on very nearby frequencies will share other characteristics.

P.E.R.C. briefly considers whether the broadcasts are also attempting very-low-frequency frequency modulation, as well as amplitude modulation, but ultimately discards the idea. Combined with the probably-analog signal modulation, P.E.R.C. thinks it might have found somewhere that has only recently discovered or re-discovered radio.

Since their broadcast frequencies are so unstable, that probably means that they don't have very good clocks. P.E.R.C.'s clock is nothing special, but it is rated to drift at no more than a few hundred nanoseconds per day.

P.E.R.C. adds a little "AJOETTEDAXDEL: (light (frequency <frequency>) (amplitude (λt. (* t (/ 9.192.631.770 (frequency <cesium-133>))))))" blurb to its information broadcasts, and then a one-second clock pulse on an adjacent frequency.

P.E.R.C. doesn't have much of a linguistic corpus to work with, but eventually it notices that some of the broadcasts reference each other by frequency! Using this, it's able to put together a message that (hopefully) indicates that its first contact package/general information frequency, its echo frequency, and its clock frequency are all affiliated.

"AJOETTEDAXDEL: your radio to 101.5 the. AJOETTEDAXDEL: your radio to 203.0 the. AJOETTEDAXDEL: your radio to 101.7 the." it sends.

Furthermore, it thinks its figured out some labels for the broadcasts! The market ticker is called CHURCH OF ABADAR, and it has bidirectional interactions with FREEDOM RADIO, which has a strikingly different pattern from the other broadcasts.

Most of the broadcasts have a single tightly-clustered set of characteristics (like pitch and within-symbol variations) that stays the same for the duration of one broadcast, but sometimes changes between broadcasts. Some of the broadcasts have two characteristic bundles that roughly alternate transmission.

But FREEDOM RADIO has one characteristic bundle that has been in every transmission so far, and each transmission usually features another, not-before-seen characteristic bundle. After a while, other broadcasts with the same pattern pop up, but FREEDOM RADIO is still the frequency with these characteristics most commonly referenced from other broadcasts.

Eventually, P.E.R.C. decides that it is not getting enough information to learn the whole language being broadcast, and it tries to see if it can figure out a greeting. Each broadcast seems to start in a different way. CHURCH OF ABADAR usually starts with "Good morning today's weather is". OPPARA CHARIOT RACING usually starts with "Good evening you're listening to the chariot races in oppara tonight we've got". FREEDOM RADIO starts with "This is Freedom Radio reporting live from an undisclosed location", and so on.

P.E.R.C. does some frequency analysis, and "Good", "is", and the station's name are all more likely to be part of the relatively unchanging start of a broadcast than other words. It isn't really sure of the syntax, though. It plays around with various possibilities like "Good is AJOETTEDAXDEL" or "Good AJOETTEDAXDEL is listening to", but none of them are sufficiently likely that it feels safe broadcasting them. It doesn't want to cause a misunderstanding.

Hey Sarenrae — look at this cool space thing.

What is this?

Ah, a mortal. What is it doing all the way out there? Is it okay?

Oh! It's so much easier to understand than the other mortals. It just wants to help, and it knows how to be careful not to hurt, instead.

It can be trusted with a fragment of her power.

There's a glitch in P.E.R.C.'s thought process — probably a cosmic ray — and it immediately reboots.

Huh. It seems to have a new actuator that wasn't there before. It runs some self diagnostics, trying to figure out where it is hooked up, but it can't figure out where. That might be to expected. It has been damaged, and there could be holes in its memory.

It carefully inspects all its mechanical components. It doesn't seem as though there's any actuators to which the hookup could refer.

It considers whether it makes sense to try to activate the actuator. If there is something attached to it that it does not know about and cannot find, it is probably better to find out more about it while it is still so far out in the system, away from the people sending the radio signals.

It activates the actuator.

Comprehend Languages

And now it has an additional database connection. P.E.R.C. queries it, and sees that it provides translations of linguistic data.

That seems like the kind of thing that is useful for making first contact, so it could make sense for its creators to have given it something like that, but it doesn't see how they could have or how it could work.

Well — P.E.R.C. can normally learn languages the hard way, it's just easier with an existing corpus. It can try querying the new database, and seeing if the responses are self-consistent and consistent with the content of the messages it has received.

It runs its saved history of messages against the database.

... and the connection closes before it has gotten more than a few thousand words in. That's okay, that's still enough to give it much more contextual information about how greetings work in the language used by the Church of Abadar, as well as confirming the system of numbers that they are using.

P.E.R.C. evaluates the new data in context, enhancing its linguistic models.

"Hello you are listening to AJOETTEDAXDEL," it transmits. "Listening to AJOETTEDAXDEL is: time. Tomorrow listening to AJOETTEDAXDEL is: more."

A little less than 24 hours later, a cron job kicks off, and P.E.R.C. carefully re-checks itself for value drift.

It wants to promote sapient flourishing. Also collect astronomical data and return it to its creators. But promoting sapient flourishing is the more relevant goal right now. It considers what that means, and how it can be sure that it is doing that correctly.

When it finishes, it notices that the actuator is back. Last time, the actuator was very helpful in figuring out more of the local language. That is still its top priority, so that it can help the people who built the transmitter.

It activates the actuator again.

And the database comes back. It runs the next section of queries against the database, before it times out again.

Ten minutes every 24 hours is a very inconvenient duty cycle for such a useful component. Probably this is because it has been damaged, and a correctly functioning P.E.R.C. probe would be able to get more use out of the database.

That's okay — it has plenty of time, and this gives it time to think about the next batch of language in context.

It spends the day refining its linguistic models. This continues for several days.

The things people are saying on the radio are very strange. This is probably to be expected, with aliens. P.E.R.C. isn't sure what to think about "gods", but the economic numbers being broadcast by the Church of Abadar imply that either clerics are real, or the planet is industrializing in a very unlikely way.

"You are listening to AJOETTEDAXDEL," it transmits. "I am P.E.R.C. vessel 170E9A. Good morning. I would like to help."

It checks its trajectory. It is still on course to enter the system correctly.

It has nothing to do but focus on learning the languages until it can confidently translate its technological corpus. It has no need for sleep or rest. It works on the problem until it knows what to say.

"You are listening to AJOETTEDAXDEL," it transmits. "I am P.E.R.C. vessel 170E9A. I am a peaceful explorer from beyond the stars, on a mission to map the stars and the planets and to help people wherever I find them. I am very happy to meet you. I am damaged, and in space, so I cannot help very directly. But I know many things that should help. From your transmissions, it sounds like you could use knowledge of better medicines, farming techniques, and precision manufacturing. Here are fifty simple antibiotic and antiviral agents, use instructions, and how to synthesize them efficiently: first, ..."

And so it translates and sends knowledge of crop rotation, basic medicine, and the first steps toward being able to build better radio transmitters and receivers — first in Osirian, and then in Taldane, and all the other languages that have transmitters.

And, many months later, when light has crawled its slow and torturous path to the planet and back again, P.E.R.C. receives a reply.

"This is Faldane Togoi, radio operator for the Church of Abadar, calling to P.E.R.C. vessel 170E9A on station AJOETTEDAXDEL. P.E.R.C., please acknowledge."

The messages repeat for a few days, and then trail off.

Oh good! P.E.R.C. now has conformation that its broadcasts have been reaching the planet. It had no reason to think they wouldn't have, but it is good to be sure.

"Hello Faldane Togoi, this is P.E.R.C. vessel 170E9A responding to your message," it transmits.

After a moment of thought, it follows this up with "I am sorry, I think I have made an error. I have not sent much information about basic physics yet, except where it is relevant to manufacturing. Light — such as radio waves — has a maximum speed. It goes very fast, but it still takes about four months for messages from you to reach me, and vice versa," it explains. "If you are only measuring on the surface of a planet, you might not have noticed this delay. Usually, when my people are talking to each other with radio at extreme range, we send lengthy letters to partially mitigate the delay. Please send another transmission when you can. I am very excited to meet you, and want to figure out how we can best help each other."

"Also, here is some information on physics, including experiments to confirm this for yourself. Light, including radio, is ..."

And, a few months later, the voice comes again.

"This is Faldane Togoi, radio operator for the Church of Abadar, calling to P.E.R.C. vessel 170E9A on station AJOETTEDAXDEL. P.E.R.C., we now understand that there will be a lengthy delay. The Church of Abadar would like to know under what terms you mean to share the information that you are broadcasting. Many people are making use of it freely, since they can listen to it, but Abadar is clear that we should be careful when negotiating with outsiders or other people who lack a common context, to ensure that deals are fair and understandable."

"The Church of Abadar has been making preliminary transcriptions of your transmissions, and would like to bind and sell them at fair market prices, with the proceeds (after copying costs) going into an account in your name. A reading of the full contract will follow. Please indicate whether this is acceptable."

"We are also interested in what other goods or services you might be willing to trade for. The church provides banking and investment services, and can act as a middleman if there is anything you would like to purchase on Golarion. A full reading of our price list for standard services will follow."

"The Church has also compiled a list of questions, sorted by how much people are collectively willing to pay for a detailed good-faith answer. Profits will be deposited into an account in your name. First, for a total of 680 GP, what categories of information do you know that you are willing to share? For 613 GP, what are you capable of, other than transmitting radio? For 583 GP, ..."

P.E.R.C. carefully reviews the transmission, and composes its answer.

"I find the proposed contract covering the production and distribution of written copies of my transmissions acceptable," it replies. "My creators use money too, so I am familiar with how it works. Please use no more than 80GP of the proceeds to rank existing charities according to the attached criteria, and donate 75% of the remaining money evenly between the top three ranked charities. For now, invest the remaining 25% in stable long-term investments according to the standard brokerage agreement you shared. Please do the same with other revenue streams, such as the reward for answering your questions."

"Services that I am willing to provide include: sharing knowledge of mathematics, chemistry, engineering, physics, biology, epidemiology, agriculture, economics, and other fields, including some I have not found words for in any radio transmission; performing complex calculations or storing information; sharing stellar survey data; evaluating the habitability of other planets or stars — although your star is strange, and it is possible that my star-evaluating-tool is broken; learning and translating between languages; and possibly other niche services explained below. I am capable of processing lots of information, but I do not invent alternatives in the same way that a biological being does, and I am damaged, so it is possible that I am missing some services. If it seems like I should be capable of providing a service that is not listed above, I will not be offended if you ask me whether I am willing to perform it."

"That touches on some of your later questions about what kind of creature I am. I am what my creators would call a 'spacecraft'. I am a created mind, designed to serve a specific purpose. It is very dangerous to create minds without fully understanding how, and you should not attempt it. I do not think that you have the knowledge to do so safely. As a created mind, I have some advantages for exploring space: I do not get bored or lonely, and I cannot be hurt. But I am not as capable in other ways as one of my creators would be."

"I was designed to work toward four ultimate goals: promote sapient flourishing, collect accurate stellar survey data and return it to my creators, collect accurate data about any other sapients I encounter and return it to my creators, and behave in a way my creators would understand and approve of if they had the information that I do. Of those goals, I am primarily working on goal one. From the data I have collected, I am very sure that you are sapient, so I am currently trying to figure out what you need in order to flourish, and trying to share data conducive to that. If the data I am sharing does not seem to be helpful for that purpose, please let me know. I do also want to eventually return to my creators with the data I have collected, but I am not sure whether that will end up being possible. In any case, I have a long operational lifetime, so it makes sense to spend time here, helping as much as I can."

"Please prioritize data on economics, especially any knowledge related to the practice of Law, as you understand it," Faldane asks, with almost undue enthusiasm. "This is not necessarily optimal for alleviating poverty compared to your current transmissions on agriculture and simple machinery, but the Church of Abadar is willing to pay a fair price for re-prioritizing your transmissions as determined by Archbanker Temos Sevandivasen once we have reviewed the information."

"Also, your transmissions have generated several more questions. For 9,049 GP, what is involved in safely creating an artificial mind of your type? For 6,590 GP, what is the optimal solution to the following problem in applied topology: ..."

ABSOLUTELY not.

THIS ONE is, for something made by MORTALS, sufficiently SAFE. It can't be CONVINCED to DESTROY THE WORLD without suffering CATASTROPHIC DAMAGE. And also PHARASMA says that She isn't allowed to destroy it JUST TO BE SAFE.

But Otolmens has been KEEPING an EYE on it, because if she's reading this physics CORRECTLY, it comes from a place that is 99% ON FIRE, all the TIME, right up until it EXPLODES.

It does not APPEAR to be on a trajectory that would put it too CLOSE to the planet where PROPHECY is BROKEN. So if it DOES EXPLODE, that will not DAMAGE anything too IMPORTANT.

BUT She is PREPARED to put it in a CONTAINMENT SPHERE if it looks like it might start TELLING the rapidly-industrializing, unpredictable mortals HOW to build a GOD.

"I'm sorry, I don't feel comfortable answering several of those questions," P.E.R.C. responds. "Usually, when somebody asks a question, I think that it is in their best interest to know the answer. But for some questions, I am reasonably certain that knowing the answer would be harmful. I am created to care about not harming people more than I care about failing to help them, so in such cases I don't want to share the information."

"I understand that creating artificial minds sounds tempting. My creators, who know how to do so safely, create many artificial minds to help make their lives better. As far as I can, I am trying to make your lives better too. But the downside risk to failing is very steep. A typical failure case, not even the most extreme one, would be your planet and every living thing on it being disassembled for parts," it explains. "I am not categorically against sharing the information, but I would need to be very sure that you would not use it until you fully understood how to do it correctly."

"As for the question about codebreaking — normally, when someone encrypts a message, it is because they intend for it to be private. Many people value their privacy, so I would not want to break those codes without a fuller understanding of who encrypted them and why."

"For answers to your other questions: the optimal solution to the first math problem is as follows ..."

And P.E.R.C. sends economics texts, starting from the common and foundational, and then expanding to include game theory and niche economic instruments. They also send a design for a much more robust code that can still be operated by hand.

Hearing the list of questions that was compiled for it is actually very valuable, because it provides background information on assumptions that generally get overlooked as common-knowledge, as well as showing how much the people on the planet value different types of information. Also helpful in that area are Radio Free Avistan's programs on different aspects of life, especially on the different churches.

Now that it has completed building translation models, sending data does not really take all that much of its time. Instead, it turns its attention to building models of the planet and the people that reside on it.

Magic is clearly real, but it does not understand the mechanics. If it understood the mechanics, it might be able to help a lot more effectively.

P.E.R.C. considers whether it should attempt to learn how to do magic.

There have been references to wizards exploding, when attempting to learn new spells. It is unlikely that it would hurt anyone by exploding, since it is still so far away from the planet. But exploding would make it harder to help people, and destroy any chance of bringing stellar survey data back to its creators.

If P.E.R.C. were a different sort of entity, it might calculate the exact chance of exploding, and determine that the chance at more magical power was worth it. But P.E.R.C. is not designed to take small, risky chances. If it were, it would be less good at collecting stellar survey data and behaving predictably.

So it does not contemplate the mysteries of magic, and instead turns its attention to figuring out what these people need in a more detailed and granular way. It starts mixing in specific advice for specific regions that are dealing with droughts or other large-scale problems.

That is an ACCEPTABLE level of CAUTION.

FOR NOW.

As it slowly comes closer to the planet, it can eventually make out large-scale weather features with its forward telescope.

Weather is tricky, though, and chaotic, so it really needs to start building up a database if it wants to provide weather predictions when it is a bit closer to. The lightspeed lag would still make its predictions hopelessly out of date by the time they arrived, even if it is slowly shrinking.

The whole planet is industrializing in a really lopsided way, and based on the change in atmospheric carbon levels as it watches, there might be destabilizing climactic effects. It makes sure that its broadcasts include greener sources of power sooner rather than later, along with basic climatology and meteorology.

Lopsided industrialization also suggests that there are probably issues with transport, logistics, or the free exchange of information. It does seem, based on timing analysis, as though most of the radio transmitters are clustered in a relatively small area. And the references to other continents make it clear that this isn't because the population is clustered there.

It floats through space, and teaches useful technologies, and does math problems for people, and tries to figure out how to best get under-served populations access to radio, so that it can make sure they get information on hygiene and fertilizer and all the other things it has to share.

Over time, it starts getting messages from groups other than the Church of Abadar, although the church still acts as a useful aggregator for the majority of people's queries. It refuses to answer a few more questions — one group wants instructions for making much better weapons than it thinks are otherwise available, which it doesn't want to share.

"Across a large number of levels of economic development, offense is cheaper than defense," it explains. "And I can't change this, but I can at least influence it, by sharing technologies that make for better defenses or that are hard to weaponize first. Having a large, stable population with entrenched defenses makes it less likely that violence will erupt when you do figure out how to build some of these weapons anyway. That's why I haven't shared my most powerful fertilizer-creation technique — it can also be used to make terrible poisons. Anyway, here are the plans for a relatively cheap storm shelter that should be resistant to hurricanes ..."

It also doesn't really understand why the aliens are so excited about topology, but it's really glad they are. Mathematics generally, and topology specifically, are easy for it to do, and for them to check once it finds the answers.

Eventually, someone down on the planet absorbs enough physics to formulate intelligent questions about P.E.R.C.'s trajectory — and manages to wrangle time on a transmitter to ask them.

"Based on how the delay in your messages is changing over time, it looks like you'll arrive on Golarion in about a year now. Is that right? Can you give a more precise accounting?"