Automation proceeds, but people still seem to be just as busy as they were before, and no richer for it. The expected savior of strong AI keeps receding into the future, a new failure every year.
Then - as if specifically orchestrated to serve a ridiculous plot wholly subservient to a “fun” game, something happens. Contact is made.
Something clearly alien is heading towards the solar system, successfully traveling at light speed [Wait we couldn’t know that could we? I dunno]. A fleet of ships enter the orbit of Uranus and begin to create an enormous ring using materials from anything nearby. They work tirelessly, leading most to believe they are automated drones. Debate rages on Earth about the nature of the gate being constructed (as its shape seems to make it obvious), but ultimately nothing is done. When the ring is complete, the drones construct another in the orbit of [LOCATION]. Then they immediately leave the system at light speed.
Within a day of VEA-Lan-Sol-1's formation, something comes through. They are the excited emissaries to one race of an intergalactic community, the Samsari.
[Samsari provide exposition on VEA gates]