This post inspired by another conversation I had with my friend about her writing.

She was telling me about her next book that she has just finished revising, and she was explaining stuff about it to me and how between X time and Y time in the novel (X time being when aliens sent a missive to Earth and Y time being when Earth actually responded), all the aliens died. The characters/story are taking place after Y time, when humans have come to this abandoned alien planet. And I said, “what hap...