For over a decade, NASA’s Antarctic detectors have intercepted mysterious radio signals emanating from beneath the ice—signals that, by all known laws of physics, should not exist. As of 2025, scientists remain no closer to unraveling their source. And for many, that uncertainty is terrifying.

When humanity and an alien civilization achieve unprecedented cooperation, they challenge a 2.7-million-year-old galactic empire’s control by forming a coalition of free worlds—gambling their survival on proving that civilizations can govern themselves without authoritarian oversight.