The last joint declaration issued by the regional Galactic Joint Administrative Bodies under the Goodwill Unified Government. Of the 8,204 member regions belonging to the joint administrative system at the time, 5,991 ratified the declaration. It could not be determined whether the remaining regions opposed it. A considerable number were unable to participate in the vote because communications had been severed. Its official title was Joint Confirmation on the Sustainability of Civilization. The title by which it is known today was given to it by citizens shortly after its announcement.
Joint Confirmation on the Sustainability of Civilization
Galactic Standard Year 91,440, Cycle 3. The civilization of our galaxy is not undergoing extinction. Recently, certain observatories and unauthorized recorders have described the present situation as “galactic extinction,” citing a long-term decline in the proportion of usable energy, the contraction of interstellar passages, and the fragmentation of inhabited regions. This expression has not been scientifically established and risks increasing social anxiety. Accordingly, the Joint Administrative Bodies confirm the following facts.
First, the total energy of the galaxy has not decreased. Within measurable limits, the principle of energy conservation has never been violated. A decline in available energy has been observed in certain regions, but this does not mean that energy itself has ceased to exist. Energy may have moved to another location, taken another form, or entered a state not directly accessible to present measurement systems.
Second, there is no evidence that all civilizations are disappearing simultaneously. The ecological zones of the oldest Sector 7 remain operational, and the artificial consciousness settlements of Sector 133 have 83 percent of their designed service life remaining. The disconnection of certain routes and settlements must not be extended into a conclusion about the end of the entire galaxy. The galaxy has no single present shared by all regions, and therefore a crisis in any one region cannot establish the time of extinction of galactic civilization.
Third, there is no way to establish the total population of human and nonhuman intelligences. It is inappropriate to count communities that have disappeared from communications as having ceased to exist. They may have chosen independence, transitioned to low-energy survival systems, or entered a state in which they are under no obligation to respond. Silence is not evidence of death.
Fourth, major infrastructure remains operational. At present, 41 percent of transgalactic wormholes, 37 percent of the stellar ignition support network, and 62 percent of long-term memory repositories remain in operation. These figures are lower than at the height of civilization, but they do not justify a determination of “extinction.” Civilization may diminish in scale, but contraction is not the same as disappearance.
Fifth, the present crisis is manageable. The Joint Administrative Bodies recommend that each inhabited region voluntarily reduce unnecessary travel, adjust the operating periods of duplicate bodies and reserve realities, and progressively place unused passages into dormancy. These measures do not constitute an abandonment of life but are rational adjustments intended to sustain it.
Sixth, premature judgments concerning responsibility must be avoided. Interstellar travel, multiple bodies, supermassive computational entities, and triple life-support networks were all lawfully authorized according to the needs of their respective eras. Every project genuinely ensured the mobility and survival of citizens. Identifying any one of them as the sole cause of the present crisis would be inconsistent with the historical record.
Seventh, the public use of the term “extinction” is temporarily suspended. Henceforth, administrative documents and public broadcasts shall refer to the present situation as the “long-term energy transition period.” This measure is not intended to minimize or conceal reality. It is intended to protect citizens' judgment from inaccurate conclusions until a definitive diagnosis has been established.
Eighth, all citizens have the right to continue their daily lives. Travel remains permitted, performances will continue, and births will not be restricted. Individuals must not be required to assume responsibility for the future of civilization on its behalf. The Joint Administrative Bodies will abandon no region and exclude no life from their calculations.
We therefore reaffirm: Galactic civilization is not undergoing extinction. Galactic civilization is changing. The final destination of that change has not yet been determined. What has not been determined is not established. An end that has not been established is not an end.
None of the statements in the declaration could be clearly refuted by the evidence available at the time. No evidence had been found that energy had ceased to exist. Nor had the citizens of every region died simultaneously. Some cities that had lost contact transmitted brief signals hundreds of years later. The infrastructure, too, was operating at the stated percentages on the day of the announcement. The central dispute concerned not only the facts but also the arrangement of the sentences. Could individually true statements, brought together in one place, produce a single false sense of reassurance? This question persisted for a thousand years after the declaration was issued.
The Joint Administrative Bodies lost their quorum in the forty-third year after the declaration. A resolution to dissolve them was introduced but could not be adopted because there was no quorum. Therefore, as a matter of law, the Joint Administrative Bodies continued to exist until the very end. The automated public broadcasting system continued to transmit the declaration's opening sentence every cycle. “The civilization of our galaxy is not undergoing extinction.” The broadcasts continued even after all confirmed recipients had disappeared. Under the broadcasting system's rules, the absence of reception records was not grounds for terminating transmission.