We keep finding space stations, and we don't know why yet.
Most are in orbit around planets, but plenty more are orbiting moons, stars, the odd black hole, or just floating in deep space.
Their age varies, some are so old that just getting close enough to dock makes them shatter like glass, others are so recently constructed that the lights are still on and the reactors are still fueled. All are empty of any life or robots smarter than a roomba.
The ones orbiting planets are orbiting dead worlds, or living worlds where nothing on them is smart enough to launch a space station.
The stations in deep space are weirder. The most information came from the one by Epsilon Eridani. A massive installation, it had docking rings for hundreds of vessels, all empty. It was in remarkable shape for how old it was (from the unrepaired micrometeorite impacts, we estimate it has been abandoned for about 3000 years), so we were able to access a lot of information from its main computer. We found the coordinates of several home planets, and visited them all. All were dead, empty, or in one case, simply missing. The star was still there, the other uninhabitable planets mentioned in the databanks were there, but their homeworld? Gone. No debris or expanding gas cloud, it's just missing.
And that's the thing: if we found space stations along with abandoned ruins of ground-based installations, that'd make sense. If we met dozens of living races, amongst a few empty satellites of long dead races, that'd also be expected. But this is all the evidence we're not alone in the universe we've found.
We've sent probes to over half the stars in this galaxy and visited hundreds in crewed spacecraft, but the empty space stations are the only evidence of alien life. Every planet is either a sterile husk, a gas giant, or a vibrant living world with nothing smarter than a giraffe living on it. Oh, there's strange life forms of every kind! But none of them seem sapient, certainly not sapient enough to build a space station.
Where is everyone? We've been asking that question since we first understood the Drake Equation and the Fermi paradox, but the question has taken on a new form as we've gone to the stars and found endless empty houses in the sky.
It's the difference between looking at an empty desert and walking through an abandoned city. In both cases, there's a silent emptiness, but in the latter case, it seems to contain a sinister element. This place is empty, but it shouldn't be. Something made it empty, and we haven't found out why yet.
We keep looking, and keep listening to the echoes of our own footsteps in the silent habitats.
One time I was explaining to my dad how unfair it is that every big city has at least a couple gay bars but there are only like 20ish lesbian bars left in the country and he responded with "That's cause gay men have a good party culture. Lesbians don't have time to party, they're too busy debating the sociological implications of things and studying for postgrad degrees" and as much as I wanted to tell him he was out of line for that, as a lesbian who spends all her free time on Tumblr debating sociological implications and messaging other lesbians in discord servers where everyone has a PhD or masters for some reason I felt like I might not be the best person to make that argument
cannot watch the return of the king without thinking of that bad bootleg with the fucked up subtitles that said “this will be the end of Gender as we know it” instead of “this will be the end of Gondor as we know it”
whenever my sister, cousin, and I are into new media, we play a game where we assign each other a husband, wife, and a best friend from the show/game/series etc.
it's fun bc we have to justify our choices with everything we have, because the husband my cousin assigns to me from some series might not be the one I see myself with, so she has to basically orate her thesis on why I'm getting married to that guy. over all it's a fun glimpse into how your friends see you and think of you etc.
highly recommend this game. also, get funky with the gender however you like. we do a husband and wife for most mainstream media that is extremely gendered, but do whatever. spouse works as well.
above all, it's about submitting your friends to the mortifying ordeal of being known via betrothal.
that beautiful tall dommy ukrainian cosplayer lady who's big with the chinese lesbians is so awesome because she probably drowned her abusive husband in the indonesian ocean and no one cares
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