I stared at the plaque for a long time, pondering the words. Some were names and dates, from an age long ago. Our explorers recovered the relic recently and our scientists examined it carefully. An ordinary metal, some simple etching, nothing extraordinary about the plaque.

We looked across the vista before us, up at the orb above us and the larger one below. I wondered about the people that created the plaque, “What were they like?” I didn’t mean to say it out loud.

“Like all the rest, I imagine,” one of the plaque finders said. “Just like all the rest. Dreamers, idealists, ironic.”

“Ironic,” I thought silently. I reread the plaque. I didn’t think they meant to be ironic, but there it was. I bet they didn’t even know. The important words on the plaque were:

“Here Men From The Planet Earth First Set Foot Upon the Moon, July 1969 A.D. We Came in Peace For All Mankind.”

We lost their radio signals and came from far away to see why.

Soon after that time religious wars wiped them out. Not peace.