In 100,000 years an alien ship enters our solar system. The earth has no remarkable intelligent life, but it's a beautiful biodiverse planet recovering from some bad extinctions. The aliens don't notice the traces left by humanity right away, this is just a survey trip and not much monumental remains.

But, they do pick up a signal, coming not from Earth, but from Mars. "How strange?" they think. Mars is obviously the inferior planet for life. Earth is incredible. But they go to investigate. 1/

In fact, most of the aliens do not go to Mars, the least senior members of the team are sent, since tracing such signals is core to their mission. Everyone else wanted to stay on Earth taking in the vast herds of wilder-beasts, the insects and plant life, the remarkable coral reefs.

The junior members of the team lament being back in space suits on a cold dead planet-- but such is the lot of a new explorer. They make their way to Olympus Mons where the signal originates. 2/

At the summit they find a pit. A vast strip mine where robots labor to build more robots. Some of these robots maintain a building, patching and repairing it endlessly against the storms of the Martian surface. The junior research aliens enter the building. Inside they discover more robots and these too are set on maintaining the building in a perpetual shape of a human home, a large one, a mansion of the 21st century. 3/

Though there is art on the walls and books on the shelves, everything has been replaced thousands of times all this effort, the vast strip mine, the fleets of machines have only one purpose: to prevent change.

Inside the house there is no air to breathe, the residents do not need it.

"Greetings Alien visitors! We always knew you would come to find us some day!" Say the three figures seated at the table in the dining room.
"Who are you?" Ask the junior alien researchers.

4/

"We are the people of earth!" The machines proclaim. "It is sad, but we are all that survives."

The aliens share a look of skepticism between them. They saw an awful lot that survived in the little time they got to spend on Earth, and speaking of earth they want to get back so try to rush through their interview with these weird machines.

The machines tell of a civilization, an environmental crisis. How they, the very best of Earth went to Mars so all would not be lost. 5/

The machines of Mars tell the aliens how they "uploaded" their minds.

"Oh no." Says one alien involuntarily, but his friends nudge him to be quiet.

The machines of Mars have many questions to ask the aliens, but the aliens are growing bored, and they just saw a video on their ships social feed of the senior officers diving and swimming in jewel blue waters with sea turtles & colorful fish. And there are photos of the remarkable birds-

"uh. We are honored to me you but for now we must go." 6/

Somehow they manage to extract themselves from the Mars machine men... who happily cannot leave their compound-- they needed their maintenance machines.

"Do you think these count as gray good? Do we need a quarantine?" Asks one alien as they make their way down the mountain.

"Nah! That's only if it's nanotech. I can't believe you almost told a group of immortality AIs the truth about uploading!"

"They would have never believed me!"

7/