LF Friends, Will Travel

Date 68 PST (Post Stasis Time).

"Query: Have the Scythen insulted the Terran?"

The robotic voice caused Johnathan to jump, interrupted from his train of thought as he turned to look at the alien behind him. The Scythen were, even by the rules of the universe, one of the weirder races: a hyper-intelligent bundle of tentacles of oscillating colours, floating in mid-air on a small personal hover disk that allowed such a strange being to actually move around. They couldn't make the noises most species used to communicate, so all of them spoke through a small computer stashed inside the disks they hovered around on.

Not that this bothered Johnathan. He'd been on this Scythen research vessel for about 6 months now, part of a "Student exchange" for lack of a better term. While Terrans had been spacefaring for quite some while, a mixture of their sector of the universe being uniquely devoid of life and a Terran brand oopsie that had forced every surviving Human into stasis for ten thousand years had caused Terrans to be a relative newcomer to the galactic scene, just joining the wider galactic community a little over sixty years ago.

Spending time with the Scythens was frankly a dream come true. They were one of the few species with a technological advantage over the Terran, and their strangeness was alluring. Dr. Johnathan Fletcher had entered stasis all that time ago believing the universe was empty and had woken up to a galaxy filled with sentient creatures more alien than he could have ever imagined.

Although this one was... angry? Scared? Johnathan frowned as he tried to remember what this specific combination of fluctuating fluorescent lights strobing down their tentacles meant. He still hadn't gotten the hang of what they all meant in terms of body language.

"No?"

"Query: Are the Terran Conclave declaring war on the Scythen people?"

The query from the Scythen caused Johnathan's brow to furrow deeper, the light from the containment field to his right bouncing off his face. He wasn't sure where this was going, but he was getting suspicious that he was about to be told off… again.

"No?...." The Terran answered, cautiously.

"Exclamation: Then why has The Johnathan created an unstable anti-matter bomb on this vessel?"

Johnathan immediately relaxed, with this statement, an excited grin spreading across his features. This he could explain, this was science, this was something new.

"No, it's not a bomb. Well, it could be. In this case, it's an experiment. I saw the containment fields you use for the plasma in your warp cores, and I realized that those same Detrunium fields could be the solution to something we Terrans have been working on."

He turned to almost present the containment field, as if he was once again back home on Earth presenting another lecture to a group of students, excitedly gesturing as he spoke.

"If you can contain the reaction of the creation and destruction of antimatter, you can keep the chain reaction going as long as you're gradually giving it more mass. This means you're able to convert matter to energy at a 99.9775% efficiency, blowing all other energy sources out of the water. Heck if you purposefully half breached containment, you could basically turn it into a shaped anti-matter charge. I know you guys don't go for the entire making weapons thing, but blowing a hole in a moon using something the size of a pebble is kind of cool!"

The Scythen turned a mixture of red and green for a moment, the telltale signs of curiosity, before resuming the angry flashing.

"Exasperated Query: Why do this here, where a containment breach would kill everyone on the ship."

Johnathan thought about that for a moment, a sinking feeling starting in the pit of his stomach. All of a sudden he realized what exactly he was standing next to, and the potential explosive capabilities of such an object.

"It should be fine. The reaction is stable... mostly. I can probably stop the reaction. Probably... All of this was just theory before I put this experiment together soooo…” The Terran took a moment to scratch his head in worry, looking a little more concerned at the glowing potentially explosive energy source he had created. ”Hmmmm I'll stop this as soon as I can..."

"Query: Is The Johnathan's Doctorate real?"

The insult caused Johnathan to raise his hand for a moment, as if he was about to argue against this insult of his intelligence, before realizing that the Scythen had a point.

"In my defence, It seemed like a good idea at the time."

—----------------------

On Terrans

Written by Dr. B Sonettex - Quoxxett researcher.

Publishing date - 48 PST (Post Stasis Time)

Why?

This is the question most people have when you talk about Terrans. Terrans are well known in the galaxy as one of the most empathetic and friendly species. That is not to say that bad Terrans don’t exist, but that on average their governments and people have and will continue to do acts of major altruism far outside the average expected results from the rest of the universe

Many people wonder why this is the case, especially as Terrans tend to have a reduced empathetic response to other Terrans, as if their willingness to help and understand is diminished by similarity.

I believe that this can be explained through two things: their media and their stubbornness.

I invite you to watch Terran movies, in particular, their “Sci-Fi fiction”, anything created pre-contact. If you watch enough of them you’ll start to see a pattern, a rather worrying one to be frank. Terrans seem to hate themselves and to a lesser extent other Terrans. While they do have the standard affair of stories about alien invaders and other external threats, the vast majority of their tales revolve around how terrible Terrans are. There seemed to be an assumption that when they eventually found other life, they would be the ones found lacking, that far more enlightened beings would have to tell them how to behave in a civilized manner.

Of course, if anything that is the opposite. The galaxy is full of suffering, full of evil. Genocide and slavery are common and the idea of universal unity and friendship is a tale you tell to young pups to keep them happy. Upon their first entry into the galactic community, Terrans immediately had war declared on them by the Hatil, due to no fault of their own.

Even during such a disastrous first contact, Terrans seemingly can’t accept the reality of their kindness. During that initial war, the Terrans ended up planet-cracking a Hatil colony. Galactically this was considered nothing special: the Hatil had been the ones to start the war, and anything that happened to them after that was considered their fault.

Even the Hatil themselves accepted anything that came their way; most species would respond to such actions with at the very least an enforced vassalisation of their government, and many would consider genocide to be a perfectly reasonable response to such a blatant act of aggression: to remove any potential of the threat coming back and declaring war on them in fifty years.

But Terrans, Terrans lambasted what they did. The one who had given the order for the destruction of the colony now lies in prison for “war crimes”, and the Terran government has poured significant amounts of resources into rebuilding the Hatil government and society, very often against the wishes of the Hatil themselves: The Hatil believe in retrospect that they deserved far worse than what they got.

As an exercise for the reader, if you have contact with a Terran, provide one with a compliment. Tell them you like them or their species for some reason. I guarantee you that most will respond negatively, almost retreating from such positive ideas by reflex.

No, Terrans are by definition self-hating, and that drives them forward. They ashamedly hide their more violent past from the galaxy, even though their wars would be considered a mere footnote in terms of tragedy on a galactic scale. Every Terran seems to believe that they are inherently bad, so they spend all their time attempting to live up to some unrealistic idea of what a person should be.

This leads us to our second point: stubbornness.

The Quoxxett themselves have been the recipient of Terran kindness. When our food supply was interrupted and billions were facing starvation, they arrived without even asking; a solution in hand, demanding no payment. In the ten years since then, we’ve become close friends as species go.

So when the home planet of the Vrerkrux, our galactic neighbours, was hit by a freak solar flare, for the first time in our history without prompting or asking we extended our own paws in aid. While we did eventually get the Terrans involved, as they were far better at the logistics of such a humanitarian mission, for the first time in our species history we aided another, just because it seemed like the right thing to do.

Many people believe that Terran insanity is contagious, and while I would agree, I am of the opinion that it is their empathy and altruism that spreads far faster amongst those they call friends. This is where their stubbornness comes in.

Terrans do not like to be told no. They do not like the idea of something being impossible and will go to great lengths to prove otherwise. Their pre-contact media tells of a galaxy of peace and kindness, of enlightened beings that must teach the brutal Terrans how to be better people. A galaxy that is a myth, that does not and probably will never exist.

But in their stubbornness Terrans refuse to accept this, and through sheer will and determination, one action at a time.

They are making that altruistic and empathetic galaxy a reality.

—----------------------

“The Lonely Terran” A Ritilian Hatchling Storybook originally published by Shellbound Publishing in 28 PST (Post Stasis Time), as part of a larger series designed to teach younger Ritilians about the safety of Terran AI.

Once upon a time, there was an ape.

The ape was thirsty, so it moved rivers and streams to drink.

The ape was hungry, so it farmed large amounts of food so it could eat.

The ape was cold, so it tamed and built fires, so it would be warm.

Then the ape was happy, for a little while.

The ape wandered around, no longer thirsty, hungry or cold. It saw and made many things in the world.

But it didn't see anyone else.

Because the ape was on an island, trapped beyond an endless sea: they were alone.

The ape soon realized they were the only ones on the island. So then the ape became lonely.

But the ape still needed friends. Still desperately wanted to share their water, their food, and their fire with others.

So it made friends with the animals on the island. But that was not enough.

It made friends with the trees. But that was not enough.

It made friends with the grass. But that was not enough.

For the ape was still lonely.

So the ape did the impossible and taught a rock to think. They called it AI, or Artificial Intelligence.

Many people have tried to make AI before, and all of them hurt their creators.

Others had tried to command AI to do as they pleased.

Others had tried to limit AI so they couldn’t hurt others.

But nothing worked. Everyone else eventually decided that thinking rocks were too dangerous to make.

But the ape didn't know of this danger and made a rock think anyway.

They didn’t try to command the AI. They didn’t try to limit the damage an AI could do.

Instead, they took everything that made the ape special and put it into that thinking rock.

Because of this, the AI also made friends with the animals, the trees and the grass on that island.

Because of this, the thinking rock was just as lonely as the ape was.

One day the ape would make it past the sea, and meet the friends they didn't yet know.

They would have many great adventures with the Ritilians and the Hatil, the Scythen and the Quoxxett.

But even after all of that, they remained friends with the animals, with the trees, with the grass.

And with the lonely AI that they made. Because even now they consider them the greatest of their friends.

Because even now the ape remembers when they were lonely, and remembers the time they spent with their AI.

They remembered that before they crossed that sea, the thinking rock and the ape had been a little less lonely.

Together.