THE PARKED WORLDSHIP

OVERVIEW

The Parked Worldship is a mobile interstellar civilisation comprising, per its own onboarding questionnaire, "a fleet that is also a single vessel that is also a homeworld," currently maintaining station-keeping in the gravitational shadow directly behind the Sun, where, it notes, "no one looks, which is precisely the problem." The civilisation is a nomad empire: it does not conquer territory so much as drift through it, and it sustains itself through trade, reputation, and — increasingly — referral traffic. After several million years of word-of-mouth growth, it has identified that its discoverability has plateaued. It would like to be found.

First contact was made via the Signal Array during the monthly 02:17 tone. The Worldship's opening message, decoded, read in full: "WE UNDERSTAND YOU DO SEO. WE HAVE A REACH PROBLEM. WE ARE BEHIND THE SUN. THIS IS, WE ACCEPT, A DISCOVERABILITY ISSUE OF OUR OWN MAKING."

THE BRIEF, AS STATED

• The Worldship wishes to rank for the query "benevolent nomadic stellar empire near me." It accepts that "near me" is doing significant work in that query and that it is, by any reasonable measure, not near anyone.
• It reports a bounce rate it describes as "civilisations arrive, perceive our full nature, and leave," and asks whether this is "a content problem or a them problem." The audit is ongoing. The preliminary finding is: both.
• It is concerned that being physically located behind the Sun means it is "permanently below the fold." Our strategist has explained that this is not how the fold works. The Worldship has politely disagreed, citing nine billion lived experiences. The point was conceded.
• It does not want paid placement. It is, it stresses, "a proud people" and will rank organically "or not at all, though we would strongly prefer organically."

COMMERCIAL ARRANGEMENT

The engagement is being delivered under an unreportable contract. The Worldship has offered, in lieu of currency, "a moon — any moon, your choice, we have several and they travel well." Finance has been unable to enter a moon into the accounting system, which rejects it as an invalid value, then, on the second attempt, accepts it and silently increases the company's total assets by a figure the software displays as a number followed by the word "approximately" and then a second, larger number. The auditors have been told it is goodwill. It is, technically, a moon.