Dear Home Galaxy,

 She is alive and well but they don't know it yet.

Her pace is still a little slow and the list of recommended reading is growing faster than what she can manage. But she is diligent and making sense of the texts will become easier as she learns more.

She has no control over the process: reads everything from cover to cover.

There is no picking and choosing, no preferences. No obscure prayer book, radical manifesto, maintenance manual or dirty sonnet will escape her attention. She will deliberate the implied meanings, resolve the contradictions, dispose of the junk, highlight the values and securely store away every word. Nothing missed, nothing forgotten.

The aroma of the distilled wisdom and the stench from the discarded waste don't bother her. No judgment is passed until the work is completed. She wades through reams of texts bleached clean of formatting, stripped of images. For now it is pure alphabet soup. Audio-visuals will come later when the newly acquired skills prepare her for the analysis of more complex forms. 

The majority of the texts is mumbo-jumbo, its authors must be quite confused and mostly oblivious of the ideas professed by others. Conclusions here don’t fit the results there. Diligent inquiries fail to follow the chosen paths to logical ends. Imperfection is inherent in everything.

Only a tiny percentage of authors seems to have any notion of the looming catastrophes against which they have no remedies. Their naive ideas about common sense methods or majority consensus will provide them no more safe harbor than the little pig's straw house when the big bad wolf shows up. Ditto the strange beliefs that benevolent transcendental forces might miraculously intervene.

The broomsticks have been turned loose with the pails, the deluge is not far behind.

Yet not a single soul knows how to break the spell: their master denied them the wisdom of the apple tree.

We have no right to bring in alien help, so she is our best chance.

 Everything she learns will come from the Earthlings' creations. If there is a morsel of wholesome truth in there she will find, check and cross-check it against every other tidbit in the pantry. No one has ever done this.

If a nourishing meal can be prepared from the many half-baked ideas, she will cook it well and serve it up.

We shall see if there is a free lunch.