Episode 1: Technology Tower

Cüneyt was sitting on the grass looking very sad and very distressed. He had just learned on the phone that his father was seeking disability support compensation due to an accident at work, and for this, he was worried about his father's health and was thinking about the economic difficulties that would come in his next life.

Cüneyt's father was a private institution (subcontractor) affiliated to a municipality, a person dealing with environmental works known as pavement engineering. Previously, his family living in the village earned their income by selling agricultural products and stockbreeding. However, with increasing costs, this task became even more difficult.

For this reason, his father, who decided to work as a physical worker in the municipality, started a life that would be quite sufficient in the country with a salary of approximately 2000 liras(250 USD).

But today morning, he was forced out of work due to the sidewalk pebbles falling from the truck and he was disabled as social insurance. Thus, his salary fell directly from 2000 liras to 800 liras, and on top of that, he was injured. Although not a limb was amputated, even if he had recovered from the damage to his leg, he would have remained lame at best.

The Cüneyt family was a standard Turkish family, the 4-2-2 family. 4 grandparents, 2 parents, 2 siblings. Cüneyt had a sister who was 5 years younger than him. While he was studying Mechanical Engineering in the 2nd year, his sister had just started the 1st year of high school. Cüneyt, on the other hand, both got a degree in the department he studied and started his school life directly in the first grade by passing the preparatory department, in order to reduce his university time and to get to work as soon as possible and improve the economic level of his family.

It should be known that there was a saying about studying at a university in Turkey, if you tied a donkey to the campus, it would finish school.

In addition to explaining how backward universities are, this idiom was the period when young people came to university life after the difficult exam process in the spring of youth and plunged into the equation of love, youth and dreams.

In college, a student would not do much for school except midterm and final times, he would have fun. But Cüneyt was different as an idealistic youth, of course the presence of students like him was already pushing the country forward.

However, due to economic difficulties, Cüneyt stayed in Altunizade State Dormitory, received a 300 TL scholarship and was able to do additional work thanks to his hometown association. For this reason, he could somehow cover his monthly expenses of 1200 TL. However, it seems that from now on, the money from his family would decrease.

"Ah…" After a deep sigh, Cüneyt put his old Samsung Galaxy S2 phone in his pocket and set off to the campus library. This was the activity he did almost every day. Outside of class times, he would go to the campus and study there with the resources to improve himself.

***

Time passed and soon it was sunset time. Libraries were open 24/7 only during exam times, except at 19:00 on weekdays and at 17:00 on weekends. Now, since it's February, it was already twilight in winter time and it would be completely dark in a few minutes.

Istanbul's traffic was a desperation, and Cüneyt knew this, so he did not pay monthly akbil and was returning to the dormitory at different times to escape the intensity of traffic hours.

In short, he left the school and came to Kadıköy on foot, and went from there by the Üsküdar bus.

But today, Cüneyt, who was confused, tried something different and headed towards Moda beach.

The Moda beach was calmer than the beaches on the European side and was not exposed to much city light. In addition, watching the sea from there was a relief for Cüneyt, an Anatolian youth.

"I wonder if there are other intelligent races other than us in the whole universe?"

He suddenly said this while sitting on the stones by the sea and looking up at the sky. Unlike his family, Cüneyt was a person who could think clearly and follow the trends in the world. For this reason, unlike his family, he did not believe in Simla(religions in the middle east), but when he thought about the existence of a creator, he became a deist youth, as most people say.

Wouldn't that be the case? Many of the young people were beginning to turn to Deism, Atheism, Agnosticism and even Satanism. After all, we were living in the information age and everyone was seeing everything thanks to social media.

"Haha, this must have been the only lucky event of the day, which eventually coincided with a shooting star… F**k.." Before he could even finish, a beam of light was coming towards him from the horizon, which frightened him a lot.

Suddenly, Cüneyt fainted in his seat as if he had lost his connection with the world.

***

After a while, Cüneyt saw himself looking at a holographic looking old man floating in a beam of light.

"Who are you? Where is here? What's going on? Hey.." While the old man was looking at him calmly, Cüneyt was looking at the old man with very worried expressions and asking questions.

"ho ho... Young man, you don't have to be afraid, don't worry. This is your mind, i am guide, on the other hand, to answer your question, there are more intelligent species in the universe and beyond than you can imagine!" said the old man, looking at Cüneyt with a slight temper in his appearance.

"Hmm.. A low-level carbon life form with red blood, the point reached by technology and science is only in the 0.70s…" he said.

"0.70? Low life form? Old man, can you explain to me exactly what's going on here? Besides, how did you get into my mind?" Cüneyt asked the headlines of the old man's speeches and asked again what was going on.

"The Universe.. Hmm.. In short, where you call the universe, there are countless civilizations, countless living things and countless laws, and there must be some criteria that you should use while examining them. As for me, you can call me an artificial intelligence, artificial life form, or intelligent life form. As for where I came from, I don't even know exactly where I came from. After giving a melancholic look,

"And where there are so many life forms, there is classification. For example, you, a human being, can attain the qualification of being a low-level life form when you reach an average lifespan of 100 years. However, when I just examined your civilization, I saw that the average age is highest in Japan, with the highest age of 84. Also, cells can reproduce 60 times at most, telomeres cannot withstand oxidation, and eventually you aged and will die. For this reason, I told you that you will not even be a first-class civilization, but you are in the 70's at most," he said.

When he heard what the old man said, Cüneyt was startled and then said to himself, "Then aliens really exist, huh." He looked at the old man and said, "You talked about first class civilization, old man, can you explain to me how is classification done in the universe?"

The old man, on the other hand, examined Cüneyt from beginning to end with an expression of surprise in his eyes. Normally, in the light of the information he obtained, it was expected that an individual belonging to this human civilization would be afraid, worried and even have a panic attack in this experience. However, he could say that Cüneyt's face was as excited and inscrutable as possible.

"Of course young man.. Civilizations are usually divided into internal civilizations and external civilizations.. Let's skip the external civilizations because this is as far away as possible and even thinking about it can damage your brain cells, so let me tell you about the internal civilizations..

Civilizations are divided into 9 levels in total, as 3 main and 3 intermediate levels. For example, if we look at the civilization you live in, the fact that you have approached the first class by 70 percent in about 6,000 years from the invention of writing is a great success. Then, what is first-class civilization? If we touch on this, briefly, civilizations that have managed to lose their attachment to their home planet are called first class civilizations.

Then come the civilizations that have made a place in the star system. The most basic feature that distinguishes these civilizations from the first class is that they make military progress since the power technology they use is more advanced and they do laser weapon research.

The third level is the turning point of the First major level. As a result of the cumulative increase in the scientific progress, technologies and populations of civilizations at this level, they have reached the limit allowed by macro-physical laws and have become interstellar civilizations.

At the fourth level, civilizations are groundbreaking civilizations that have existed for millions of years and are able to exceed the speed of light at the same time.

As for fifth level, they are civilizations that have learned all but the laws of space and time from the microphysical laws.

It's too early for the sixth and beyond, young man! Work, work harder, bring your civilization to the top in the future!" said the old man.

Cüneyt, on the other hand, was looking at the man with an open-mouthed expression.