Backup plan
Some of us are less than a month away from a working FTL drive, if funding / parts are available.
Have the technology recovered from "Sport Model" but can't use it in an atmosphere as the shielding is damaged which is why it crash-landed in the first place due to a very unlucky coincidence involving a weather balloon and "but the shielding is working right?" SNAFU.
The bad thing is someone didn't take into account that LIGO can sense gravitational waves at much higher frequencies than admitted, if anyone *anywhere* turns on an FTL drive in the vicinity of our Solar System detectors in five locations will inform the authorities and triangulate location very quickly indeed, as it turned out the delay was in fact to add anti-FTL filters for civilian use.
You do have to feel sorry for them, First Contact wasn't supposed to happen until 2022 and it turned out that they could breathe our atmosphere just barely due to need for higher O2 and inert gas in place of N2 content.
Hayfever affects them worse than us, needed extreme filtration just to keep them alive.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
