Utopia.

Every night, I wake up aboard a hovering contraption. It is both silver and disc-shaped, just like the crafts that the dominant species of this planet imagines my people might use to travel.

Unidentified flying objects, or UFOs, they call them.

They claim to have seen them. They say they have photos, videos, scars.

They don’t. And the scars are mostly self-inflicted.

I’ve been here for many cycles. I was convinced that they would notice me on the first day. Then, the first week. Then, months passed. Then, nothing. 

I assumed they didn’t have the technology, and so I gave it to them. 

I beamed myself off my absurdly disguised ship and found the one they called Steve Jobs. He was a dying man, and he knew enough to want it, so I gave him a small piece of old communications tech, which he called the iPhone. Many similar ones followed, based on that primitive design. 

It changed everything for them.

I used the subspace link to more closely observe them, as fair compensation for my trouble. They sense I am watching, but they don’t understand it. They find themselves fascinated by the glow, and like any flame, it is at times destructive. 

I have sustained myself with the hope that it’s only a matter of time. I am still fascinated, but only because I have seen their potential. Their brains, their hearts, are capable of so much, and yet, they dull them both with an intention that is almost frightening. They come close to understanding, and then pull away, loath to experience the pain it may bring.

They scroll into oblivion. They give in to cowardice, making the wrong choices over and over again.

I have been here for many cycles, but this is not the first time I have come. 

Once, they were called Rome.