"Hey [Bob]."

"Yeah [Frank]?"

"Where do ya think dat um, souez signal came from?"

"Oh dat was one of dem Precursors, pretty sure." [Bob] idly wiped some slime off his head with a tentacle as he took another slurp of [beer].

"What, the Tlaxiwhatever guys?"

"No no, the cool Precursors."

"Oh, so da humans than."

"And it isn't a 'Souez' signal, it's an 'Ess Oh Ess' signal"

"Huh" [Frank] undulated a tentacle in idle thought, before extending it to order another pitcher of [beer]. "So just some law handed down over the millennia since the first Federation?"

"Nah, it's universal actually. They went around and imprinted it every thinking species they could find that wasn't spacey yet, and quite a few species that weren't even smart yet."

"Wonder why they went to all the effort to do that..." [Frank] now had two tentacles undulating, a sign that he was approaching the limit of how much he had ever thought about something before.

"Guess they thought everyone should be able to say 'Help' or surrender if they needed to, especially against someone who didn't speak no language."

"Yeah that makes sense." [Frank]'s tentacles continued to undulate for a few more seconds, before stopping. "Hey [Bob]."

"Yeah [Frank]?"

"Bet yur [Mum] was one of those species who weren't even smart yet."

"We're the same damn species [Frank]. So that would mean it's your [Mum] too."

"Shit. Got myself on that one. I should [call] her sometime."

"Yeah, me too. Been putting it off."

"How 'bout another [beer] first?"

"Yeah, another [beer] sounds great."