Most works of fiction that suggest Altair is a welcoming system for life don’t realize that the sun is all wrong for it.  There were planets there, but they’d gone downhill long before we found them.  After Contact though, we went there with far more advanced Peloran terraforming technologies.  It took a few years, but we managed to make them breathable and habitable for humanity.  That was when the crazy started.  That was when the Voice of Altair thanked us.