I had a similar thought, actually. Except more twisted along other lines that I was contemplating for a story I'm kinda-sorta working on.

The Traveler (and the people who made it) have reached a technological dead end. It's not that the technology has reached a dead end, but the people's ability to find new applications for it have. However, culture helps dictate creative paths, and perhaps the best way to jump start new creative paths is to expose a new culture to a technology.

The Traveler itself isn't all that interesting; just bits and bobs of tech. A... primer, if you will. You destroy a good portion of the civilization, and offer this primer as a safe haven to collect up the remnants. Once they're secured and have defenses in place, you put some pressure on them. Bad guys outside, things that want humanity dead.

Humanity has traditionally shown an increase in innovation and research capabilities in times of war or conflict. The eggh... er... people in the labs come up with something, the boys in the field modify it, and technology increases by leaps in bounds. And in ways that this malignant race can't predict. Meanwhile, the Traveler transmits all these discoveries and weird, crazy ideas back to the race, allowing them to laugh and then go "Wait..." as they come up with new ideas themselves.

It's a nice system for somebody who's reached the limits of their creativity, allowing them to keep their superiority without fear and still get a lot of new ideas for their own tech. And if the Traveler still has enough energy to float like that without causing some wicked tidal forces... Well. In case of emergency, you can either shut it down and crush the safe haven underneath, or make it go boom.

It certainly possible. Something knocked us down hard. We weren't told what. Then we have this heavily damaged moon size object floating too close to our planet. Why couldn't it be damage we caused?

The only thing is, why are all these other aliens after us? If they were trying to save us they'd be talking to us, not looking to get past the fortified walls of our city.

But then again, maybe we've been deluded by and aligned ourselves with the ultimate evil in the galaxy. Maybe finishing off one insignificant race is worth preventing the Traveler from wrecking havoc in the galaxy again.

Interesting stuff. :)

Save humanity. Have them collect all the good stuff. Keep it for self. Toss humanity back to the wolves. Imagine the guy who taught Half-Life's Gman everything he knows.

I mean, right now we're kind of assuming it's benevolent, aren't we?

I've also considered something like this.

Click here

- CC

Save humanity. Have them collect all the good stuff. Keep it for self. Toss humanity back to the wolves. Imagine the guy who taught Half-Life's Gman everything he knows.

I mean, right now we're kind of assuming it's benevolent, aren't we?

What if the Traveler is not a unique entity? Or maybe we could have simply been in the way during a larger conflict between the Traveler and something else. Or perhaps WE saved IT. The Traveler could have been our ally.

What if the Traveler is like the big kid who's really good at the game, playing with a group of younger/less competent kids. He switches to whichever team isn't doing as well. The only reason they're with Humanity now is because we were getting our butts kicked. But as soon as we start stomping the space baddies, BAM! Traveler switches to their side to even up the match!

What if humans have been cannibalizing the Traveler, causing the damage to near the bottom. The Traveler either wakes up, or origin species arrives and takes offense to the treatment, starting a new war?

I'd like that. But not up front.

Make us respect the Traveler, believe in the Traveler, worship the Traveler and then have him/her/it turn out to be the bad guy all along, the one that ended humanity's Golden Age. And even better if it turns out that all we're doing is making it worse for humanity.

That would be cool, IMO. But I don't think any sane publisher would allow that on such a grand scale of marketing.

I'm still getting over that The Tourist actually did it, for example. I thought "hey, you know what would be cool? If he really was the guy.". And then I laughed, because no way they would do that on such a big budget. And then they did.

So yeah, I would love if they did that. It's about time we get shaken up hard.

I mean forerunner. I mean.. wait what?

This would be an interesting twist.

Perhaps the Traveler could be part of a far stronger, and more far more dangerous, evil power of the Universe. Maybe this Traveler has chosen to part ways with the greater evil faction in order to help the human race.

Or it's just a giant Pokeball. :)

That might be interesting... A-la Citadel from Mass Effect? SPOILERS FOR MASS EFFECT!

Humanity and other races assumed it to be rather innocuous, and it turned out to be a tool to be used by the Reapers. Might be an interesting plotline to follow. Hopefully it's not phoned in and they don't go with the whole "Humanity's use of the Traveler's power has dire consequences since they didn't fully understand what they were dealing with blah blah blah" type of thing.