Technically Speaking, I Am Terrified Of That...

so true. i was just changing my feelings from one to the other from time to time.

Wish we were actually that wise when we meet the aliens

"How can you still have hope in your kind?", the alien asked, as their ships decorated the blue skies with gray.

"We need each other", the human ambassador replied.

"Your kind is one of war".

"I know".

"Your kind is one that silences itself".

"I know".

"Your kind got used to its cruelty".

"And yet, we can still be delighted by sunlight".

"You are close, yet divided and distant from each other".

"From our differences we find harmony and reasons to connect. This is more prevalent than our hate".

"All I see is your kind spiraling down to nothing. Your planet is dying, you hate each other, and you do not believe in a future anymore".

The ambassador did not reply.

"Your museums are filled with relics of ruin, ambassador, and your own body has scars from the wars you inflict upon each other. Your kind can never discover all living creatures on Earth, for you have already killed too many things you will never have the pleasure of knowing".

The alien shook their/its head.

"Your punishment is solitude and guilt".

"No".

The aliens looked down upon the human.

"Spiraling down our minds, you still saw something good. Otherwise, you would have killed us on sight, like you did with others in the past. In our darkest moments, we learned how to make fire. You saw a fossil of an old woman without teeth, and yet, she lived for long enough for her wounds to heal. If we were truly cruel, she would have been killed. If we were truly crooked, she would have been abandoned. Yet, she was kept alive, and someone was kind enough to feed her, even when she was toothless".

The human rose his/her/their voice.

"What is real resists the lies of convenience".

"You speak with fancy words, but I cannot believe any of them. We saw what you did".

"You saw war and how it can disappear from your mind as you get used to it, but you are still watching us fight against it".

"You can make a bad person fall, but you cannot stop your own nature".

"Our love and our caring is our nature, and it finds a way".

"Describe how it does so, then. Prove it. Show us what you can do, even after everything you saw".

"We cannot describe our care, and the more we try, the more we fail. We look at those we love and all we can do is think about how distant we are from them, and how utterly incapable we are of showing them how much we love them. When I go to sleep next to my partner and I see their back, and I hug them close to me and listen as their breathe in and breathe out, all I can do is think about how I will never be able to hold them as much as I need to. I can make all the poetry in the world and do the impossible, and yet this wont satisfy me.

I could scream at the top of my lungs and paint a canvas with romantic pink and save the world. I could do all of that and it would never be enough. My partner will tell me, when I go back home, that they know I love them and I know they love me back, and I will agree, but still cry as I say 'I am sorry for not showing you enough'.

My partner does not take away from me. They do not fulfill me. They simply make me understand that I cannot stop caring for them".

Silence in the courtroom of aliens that think they can judge others.

"You listened to our songs, you saw your movies, you read our books and listened to our stories. You saw us die and live. You saw everything that mades us ourselves and you refuse to accept us, because you cannot fathom the idea of an alien species that both care and hate and live and die and create and destroy. You cannot live with the idea of choosing to be better. You want to be born good and pure of cruelty so you can feel less guilty about your own mistakes".

And the aliens could not say anything back, nor the billions of humans that were watching their own judgement through screens, nor the other many alien species that survived the invaders cruel purity.

"You can kill me. But humanity won the moment we realized death may only exist as long as we are alive to name it".

a corpse is nevertheless a corpse, Thorin. Take care of your skin.

Bilbo: You look like a corpse that was just pulled out of the river.

Thorin: Wrong. I look like a cool rock star who just OD'd in their own pool. Big difference.

Humans are symbiotes

When we met humans we were naïve enough to assume they were like us. We thought each of them was a single entity until our ships systems completed their routine scans.

Of course we offered to rid them of the parasites they carried, it was politeness or so we thought. It took some careful explaining, we expected they would be horrified by the realisation there were microscopic creatures living within them. Instead they were horrified at the thought of losing them.

Humans are each a chorum. Do not be fooled by their use of the singular, the body you see is a vehicle carrying a population of billions.

All the bacteria and viruses we worked so hard to eradicate, humans instead invited in and made a part of them. The relationship is so profound they will deliberately cultivate and ingest the species they prefer to have inside them, and their digestion of food (another horror with their definition of food including a lengthy list of poisons) relies on of having the right population mix.

They create and alter viruses at whim to do many chores, and easily tolerate micro-organisms deadly to us.

They are each a walking army, deadly in the most terrifying way imaginable.

How do I know this?

We thought our systems isolated everything, we thought we were safe and their protective suits were sterilised. Somehow, we missed it. One of the suits had clinging to it a tiny virus colony.

When the Captain realised what was happening they closed every airlock and isolated each section to halt the spread. I got stuck on the lower storage deck for almost two cycles.

The humans did all they could to reassure me from a distance, sharing their knowledge to cleanse the ship for the rescue party. They knew they could not come in, but they would speak to me, make sure I knew what was happening and that they had called for rescue on my behalf, and how long it would be until I could be released.

They were mortified by the actions of one of the feral viruses they consider little more than an irritating pest.

I think they were sad to realise they can never safely interact with us or fully join our union. They can watch from a distance, but never walk on our worlds or share our ships. For a symbiotic ensemble that isolation must be painful even knowing it is vital for life.

I am one of the only members of the union to have met humans in person.

I alone survived the plague the humans later identified as ‘the common cold’.

Aragorn, gardening: Hey, can you bring me a hoe? Gimli: Yeah, sure. *A few minutes later* Gimli: Here you go. Aragorn: Gimli: Legolas: Why am I here?

The elves being carnivores makes the dinner scene in the hobbit so much funnier actually

“Lindir what the fuck do dwarves eat?!”

“I’m not entirely sure my lord, I-“

“Do they eat meat?! Should we serve them meat?! We still have some human flesh over from that hunting party last week!”

“Well, I’m not sure my lord. Their teeth are fairly round”

“Fuck you’re right, they probably don’t eat meat. What about that other stuff? The green things that grow from the ground that’s edible?”

“I believe it’s called Wedge Table”

“Right. Do we have any of that?!”

“No”

“Fuck it, just throw some leaves on a plate, it’s probably the same thing”

Balin: Bilbo, if you want to court Thorin, you must first understand how truly literal minded dwarves can be. You really have to spell it out if you want to tell him you're interested. Bilbo: Ok. I've got this. *turns to Thorin* I'm extremely attracted to you and I want to be your boyfriend. Thorin: *looking sad* Are you rehearsing so you can propose to your hobbit love back home? Bilbo: Wow.

Aliens are floored by tardigrades

Life is pretty resilient. It has to be, especially if the rest of the Galaxy thinks we're from a Deathworld. In comparison then, if their planets are not as demanding, would life there ever be under enough pressure to survive to go to the extreme lengths that some Earth creatures do? I think one of the most profound things aliens might learn from Earth and Humanity is just how powerful life itself can be.

That itself could shake their understanding of themselves - a billion year old civilization could never even conceive of a thing we accept as simple fact, ushering a revolution in thinking not seen in eons.

___________________________

The Galactic Coalition scientists are busying themselves with obtaining, analyzing, categorizing, and integrating the libraries of information Humanity has brought with them as they incorporate into the greater space faring matrix of civilizations.

A good grasp of Physics, though lacking in certain fields for now; unmatched Engineering doctrines, they really do think of everything, although, perhaps, better to say - they really do attempt everything, then take notes and improve for the next attempt.

Chemistry is another fine addition to the collective knowledge base, a disproportionate part of the catalogue is comprised entirely of explosive reagents and combinations - always good to know more about what NOT to do.

And Biology. Oh boy. What a chaotic but beautiful but also disturbing mess. Life on most planets has a long period of just chugging along, surviving as best it can, until eventually something has the bright idea to evolve the ability to have bright ideas. Then in almost no time at all (on a cosmic scale) a dominant intelligence emerges and civilization alongside it, and in the blink of an eye it finds itself exploring the stars.

A similar pattern happened on Earth, but interrupted alarmingly often by utter catastrophes. Humans call them Mass Extinctions. It is exceedingly rare to find life that can talk about its own extinction events. Kind of deflates the term a bit. Life on planets as inhospitable (by Galactic norms) as Earth tends to be found only as fossils, and almost always on the microscopic level - very rarely do they get the chance to form more complex and advanced lifeforms before the planet with its harsh conditions and scarce resources kills it just as randomly as it spawned it.

We were incredibly saddened to learn from the Humans that the biodiversity of Earth had dwindled by roughly 85% since they accidentally created that giant hole on their planet, and that it had already been on a steady decline before then. Even so, when they revealed there were still 2.4 million species alive on Earth was a shockingly high number. Most are on the brink of extinction, yes, but the fact remains that Earth is easily one of the most biodiverse planets in the Galaxy.

Then we started looking at each individual species and learned about the Tardigrade.

what

It is literally the toughest creature ever discovered, and it's not even close. At least, so far, we haven't looked at absolutely everything Earth has or had yet.

It can just... basically turn itself off and then back on again when the outside becomes livable again - Cryptobiosis, or suspending their metabolism, something we considered only possible through artificial means. And the levels of various extreme they can endure and still be alive would just be utterly ridiculous if they didn't give us samples to confirm for ourselves.

Then we came across the term Extremophile and just decided to take a day off.

BUT imagine some Mexican cartels focused on capturing wildlife on planets around, let's say, Alpha Centauri.

JUST imagine the discussion about such a mission.

------------------------

Boss: Hey, you know, these creatures are kind of popular, what do you think about smuggling them? One would go for like half a million.

Advisor (or sb who is at least mildly respected in the organization's structures): Sounds like a good business. Where are they based?

Boss: You know Alpha Centauri?

Advisor: Like the star, Alpha Centauri?

Boss: Exactly that one. So, somewhere around that.

Advisor: what

Advisor: ...Are they willing to pay for the shipping cost?

Humans really like space wildlife

As Humanity integrates itself within the Galactic Coalition ever further, trade and travel between Sol and neighboring member systems is growing at exponential rates. In particular, their interest in the native wildlife of other planets is the most widely expanding sector for tourism and commerce.

Even though it is also the most heavily regulated and restricted one, Humans, who typically display a desire to subvert the normal procedures to expedite any process they can, for this they are surprisingly willing and eager to fill in all the necessary paperwork and spend hours upon days making sure they follow and adhere to all the requirements to import some of these creatures.

While such level of determination is not uncommon for new member species who discover a certain non-native creature or something that to the respective natives is commonplace but for them is the pinnacle of exotic, the variety of requests made by Humans is nearly as great as the entire list of known fauna species. And the reasons listed on the forms are even more diverse:

"That's a unicorn! I've always dreamed of having a unicorn and you're telling me there's a dozen subspecies?! Yes, please!!!"

"After reviewing their behavior, this bear-sized fluff-ball is the perfect cat I've always wanted, but couldn't because of allergies. I'll treat them with love and care, my life is incomplete without this fella."

"Tiny. Elephant-duck. Want."

"Our company was looking for a mascot, and these six-legged spindly beaver-crabs are perfect. Here's our mission statement and prepared accommodations for a flock."

"They all said I hallucinated the lizard sasquatch when I was on that acid trip, but now I'll show 'em. It's real. I knew it all along!"

"Aww, these baby puppies are so adorable (referring to the four meter, 800kg Fanged Widowmaker of Abyss Valley predator). My kids were looking through your alien picture books and instantly fell in love with these ones."

And so on. At first we had to reject quite a few, mainly because half of them were deadly beasts from Deathworlds that are almost impossible to capture in the first place. Then the Human officials informed us that, while they will try to stop it from happening, if we don't make importing and adopting even the most dangerous animals in the known Galaxy reasonably possible for them with Human help and expertise in the field, some Humans will set up illegal smuggling rings to "fill the market gap" as they said. Historically, they explained, that causes more problems and expenses than just handling it through official channels.

Reluctantly we were persuaded and have set up a new organization to quell this, apparently, unquenchable Human pack bonding condition. Even if said pet can kill them. We think, as horrible as it may be, that for some that is part of the appeal. Even the ones that breathe out literal poison.

"We'll wear a mask around them. This wendigo-like one is too cute to not get belly rubs."

Said the OFFICIAL Human Representative of a monstrosity that can only be described as the living incarnation of countless teeth, fangs, claws, vivid seizure inducing iridescent feathers, and a body that extends from a inconspicuous ambush pose to a fully 8 meter tall six limbed nightmare machine of Death!