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Zork'ak reached Wren’ quarters just before the agreed sunlight. Xe had been reguarly meeting with Wren and walking with her even though xe now knew were the room was. Xe interpreted it as a bonding experience, and xe wanted to be part of their pack, partially to learn more about the species and partially because xe was beginning to grow fond of the humans. It was an unusual emotion for Klyls to experience.
Wren was running around the room, clothes thrown everywhere, throwing more around the space when she noticed Zork'ak standing there.
“Hold on! I can’t find my other shoe.” She continued to dig through one of the piles. “Where is the damn thing!” She tripped over something on the ground falling over.
“Wren,” Zork'ak asked from where xe stood, “why does your quarters not have organized bins?”
She was under the bed now. “Don’t need ‘em.”
“I would be happy to help you label bins for this so you could find each item.”
“Nah. I can find it.” Zork'ak was about to offer xer help again when Wren popped out from under the bed. “Found it!” She held up her shoe before pulling it onto her foot. Zork'ak could not comprehend out Wren found anything in her quarters, but xe understood little of humans. They were not the most efficient species, far from it. Their decision did not match the evolutionary process in the slightest.
Zork'ak turned away to leave the quarters when xe caught a glimpse a small table in the corner. The table had a piece one leg missing and books stacked underneath the table to level it out. “Wren, if your table is broke, we can provide a replacement.”
She slipped passed Zork'ak. “Nah. I fixed it. Let’s go.”
“I do not believe you have ‘fixed it.’” Zork'ak was not sure if this was how humans improved objects.
“Well, it works doesn’t it?”
Zork'ak thought about that one. “I suppose it must.” Wren grinned wildly, and Zork'ak remembered the other part of xer confusion over Wren’s room. “Wren?” She looked back at xem, a smirk still on her face. “Why is it that you own so many covering devices?”
“You mean clothes?” Zork'ak “shrugged.” Xe had learned how to move xer upper body in the human-like gesture. “Well, I can’t wear the same ones every day.”
“And why is that?”
“Well, they get dirty.”
“Do you often partake in activities that stain and soil your coverings?”
Wren was staring up at Zork'ak now quite confused. “Well, no, but there’s sweat and dirt and oil. So we wear different clothes every day to be clean.”
“I do not see how you secrete these fluids and they cause your clothes to become unwearable.”
“I guess. Well, you know how humans secrete oils and sweat?” Zork'ak nodded. This the Klyls did know about humans. “It gets on our clothes and so we want fresh ones instead of piling the oils and sweat on top of more.”
“And why is it you need these coverings? Would it not be more efficient to not cover your body instead of catching the secretions and trapping them on your skin?”
“Well, on Earth, it is not allowed to be naked. Humans believe we should cover certain parts. They say it is not acceptable to see the entirety of another person if you are not like, well, kind of really good friends with them.”
Zork'ak looked down at xer body. Xe were covered in protective scales and did not see a reason to cover the body. Earth customs did make little sense. “Is it because your body is easily harmed?”
“Partly. We protect our body from cold or the sun or the rain. Different things.”
“I suppose you would need coverings considering your, um,” Zork'ak looked down at Wren,“ your skin is not particularly effective at defense.”
Wren giggled at that, for some unknown reason, and stopped in the hallway, turning left. Zork'ak followed her into the “grappling room,” where Faradae was standing in the center of the room, using his hands to fight with another individual. It was an interesting and interesting movement. When they finished and invited them in, Faradae approached Zork'ak to discuss a new tactic to introduce this class. Zork'ak quickly relayed the information, focusing on Faradae’s hands.
"Are you hurt?” Zork'ak asked after finishing his report.
Faradae looked down at his hands. There was a thin, white material wrapped around several of his fingers. “Eh. I had to tape my fingers. Hurt a few of them when I was boxing.”
“And you continue to practice with your extremities damaged?”
“I mean, it’s not that bad. It’ll heal.” Zork'ak began to wonder how all of their bones seemed to heal.
After the class, the group went to third meal, sitting at a table with Zork'ak. Carrie took a bite into her mixed spices and grains, making a face that looked quite unpleasant.
“Oh, that smells terrible.”
Adam leaned over breathing it in deeply. “You’re right.” He proceeded to take a bite. “Pretty bad, too.”
Several of the other humans passed the bowl around to smell and taste the food, each announcing what the others had already claimed: that it both smelled and tasted bad.
“If the food is unpleasant, xe can find you something more suitable.”
Carrie shook her head, reclaiming her bowl, and continued to eat the substance. “It’s not that bad.”
“Did you not all agree that the food was not to your liking?”
Carrie shrugged, shoveling more in her mouth. “The more you eat, the better it gets.” Adam leaned over to steal another spoonful and agreed that it did taste better the second time.
“Why is it that you all feel the need to smell and eat the food. Do you not trust Carrie’s opinion?”
Steve laughed. “We just like to also experience it.”
“You like to experience something you know you will not enjoy.”
Steve and Adam looked at each. “Well, yeah.” Adam said.
Zork'ak was continuing to learn that the Klyl’s knew nothing about these humans.
Original Author - nonbinarygaymergirl
Journal of an Alien Diplomat
Entry One
The delegation will meet for the first time today. I'm keeping this record as ordered. though I don't see the point. The humans aren't exactly reclusive, but the hoops they made themselves jump through before they even returned our first contact message were absurd. I heard second-hand that they nearly went into a civil war over the possibility of our message being bait for some sort of trap. Are they just naturally paranoid, or have they run into some other species of non-humans that gave them trouble? I rather suspect the former, their military, for just having one star system, is pretty numerous.
Entry Two
The humans sent up some civilian diplomat instead of a military leader. I was surprised: they seem to value martial prowess fairly highly, so why do they have a civilian leader? Apparently, this guy was selected after a brief voting period. which wasn't made open to the general population, but was only open to national leaders. That's troubling: national leaders in a spacefaring species? That can only mean delays in the future.
Entry Three
A few more diplomats came up today. with huge stacks of portable computers. Our translators already added the one language they have used so far to the universal system, so we didn't have any trouble deciphering the data from the computers. Apparently they want to know as much as possible about us, and in exchange, they provided a bunch of information about themselves, their history, some more language dialects we didn't have covered yet, and some of their own starmaps. I was stunned. Why are they being so trusting? They were on the verge of a civil war when we contacted them.
No. it was because we contacted them.
Entry Four
I know it's been several weeks since I last updated this thing, but the human's data is taking up all of my time. Apparently they have been in a state of what we would consider constant civil war since their people evolved far enough to grasp fire. Over the dumbest things, too, from religion to territory. Nearly a fifth of all of their most important technology, including their relativistic drive technology, was derived from something designed to kill other humans. No wonder they're being so open, our people wouldn't engage in an internal war on the scale these humans have, ever. They've killed more of themselves in the last thousand years than my people have ever died. Total.
Entry Five
The ninth week of the contact meeting is ending now. The reactions from the humans on their worlds have been more interesting than all the data they gave us, by now: they're starting to get back to routine. They have their own planet, another planet, and about five moons in their system colonized to some degree, and each has a distinct culture and way of life. The reaction on each when we made contact was the same: they flipped out, and their peoples were seized by everything ranging from panic to joy. But now? Their reactions have stabilized to the extent that I don't think we're going to get a reaction out of them unless we create some further provocation. The most-read news articles on their electronic communication networks are more about domestic problems and entertainment and their economies than they are about us. Are humans just more comfortable in routines, or are they frustrated with our lack of diplomatic progress? I'm confused. The humans I've met seem unconcerned, but I know the Ambassador from our people is getting worried.
Entry Six
I'm relieved. The human ambassador met me personally, today, informally, here on the ship. He said that he could tell that I was getting worried about the negotiations, and he wanted to address me personally. I asked how he could tell I was worried when he had only met our species for the first time less than one hundred Solar cycles ago, and he replied that it was all part of being a diplomat. I stated outright that I was confused by the seeming lack of disruption on the part of the people below. He said that there were plenty of people who were disrupted, but that most of the humans in the system had already decided to wait and see what the outcome of the negotiations were before doing anything. ‘After all,” he said, “even if my species becomes an active member of the galactic community, most humans will stay right here, living their lives. We'll be affected by galactic politics, new technology, and colonization, even assuming that we could find new Earth-type worlds out there, but most will want to stay right where they are.” I asked him how he could say that when so many of his people had colonized the rest of the system, and he laughed. I think. “It's completely different when you can see Earth out your window."
Entry Seven
Things have picked up so much. We got our translators working to the effect that nuance of speech, not just content, can be translated appropriately. The human ambassador's speech and conversation were suddenly so much clearer. To his credit, he told us that he had been refraining from common speech, slang, and aphorism as much as possible. “I wouldn't want to use a saying or phrase that had a clear meaning to another human, but made no sense — or worse. insulted — one of your people. Now. I can speak freely.” I have to wonder if this faster-paced dialogue will negatively affect the negotiations. The Ambassador broached the toughest topic today: Faster Than Light travel.
Entry Eight
Generally, species are content to create FTL on their own, before they even contact us, or vice-versa. Humans are the exception. They colonized their entire star system, with seven inhabited bodies and over a thousand mined, explored, probed, or mapped bodies with no habitation in their system. So much of their population lives in their orbital platforms that their own homeworld barely even supports two thirds of their species. They did this without FTL. Clearly, the fact that they have reacted peacefully to our presence rather than precipitously fighting or ignoring us indicates that they are mature enough to handle Faster Than Light travel...but I am privately concerned. One of the human diplomats has already begun copying our speech and movement patterns. I found myself opening up to him without even realizing it until afterwards. He must be doing it on purpose, to set us at ease. After one hundred twenty of their days, they're copying the behavior of their first alien contact. This is one of their finest diplomatic minds, of course, but still. If they can do it with behavior, can they do it with technology? I suspect they will ask for a working FTL drive to study in their next meeting.
Entry Nine
I am vindicated, it seems. I spoke my concerns to the Ambassador today, and he agreed that there would be no gifting of FTL technology to the humans, that they would have to earn it on their own. The humans would react poorly, I guessed, but tactfully, as at least a few of them seem to genuinely care what we think. I was right, naturally. The human ambassador asked that their people be given a working FTL drive to reverse-engineer, in exchange for an unspecified piece of technology of theirs. Their technology, the Ambassador quickly replied, was inferior to ours in every way save communications, and we had no need for their communications technology. Communicating faster than light is something we can do already: communicating instantaneously anywhere in their system, as they do, is a wondrous piece of technology, but not necessary for our people. The human ambassador reacted with shock and surprise immediately, and then quickly became suspicious. I think he may have gleaned that we have discussed this amongst ourselves. How? I can not guess. We spoke of other things, and the ambassador of the humans seemed mollified by the discussions that followed. Will he broach it again? Probably.
Entry Ten
The humans surprise us. It is exactly half of one year after first contact, and life, as I before noted, continues. They are fully one third finished with another of their orbital habitation platforms, and we were given a tour of the construction site. Huge robotic construction devices smelt down chunks of ore from the many, many asteroid and lunar mining platforms the humans have throughout their system, ferried to them by relativistic drive-powered ore haulers. The slag is then fed into their forges and reduced to elemental purity, and the refined ore is then crafted, still in space, into modules, which are then attached to the frame of the space installation. The elemental slag is mostly hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and silicon, in this system. They use these things to make air and computers, apparently, which are then used in the construction of their platforms. I am astounded. They have created the most efficient industrial complex we have ever seen...by necessity. They lack FTL, so in the absence of easily-reachable resource deposits that they can mine on their colonies, they simply process asteroids into something useful. Another reason to deprive them of FTL? If they can prosper in such paucity. how will they react to plenty?
Thanks to u/Prohibitorum for original transcription. Original Image
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The "humans are space orcs" trope portrays humans as vastly different and superior to aliens, not just in physical strength but also in intelligence, unique approaches to tasks, and sometimes technological advancements. It doesn't require humans to be superior overall, but rather showcases the differences between humans and aliens.
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