Chapter 1
In the Laniakea supercluster complex, within the Virgo supercluster, as part of the local group situated in the Milky Way along the Orion Spur and space-South of the Hyades star cluster, bound by sector Zeta-Epsilon, at approximate cosmic coordinates 371.05-809.87-742.41, lies an unremarkable speck of plasma around 1.4 million kilometres in diameter, catalogued as Sol in most galactic databases. It is an impotent and rather ugly star that makes up for its embarrassing size through a series of equally, if not more embarrassing, celestial dances, commonly referred to as solar flares, in order to attract a mate. Little does this star and its several introverted counterparts (yes, Polaris, we’re looking at you) know, that such a reproductive act does not exist between stars and that Sol is doomed to dance forever until it eventually depletes all its energy and dies satisfyingly through an epic supernova and recital of its lifelong collection of personally written star fanfiction.
Perhaps, before this, the primary ‘intelligent’ species of Sol’s third planet, Earth, could evolve enough technologically to develop a system of energy stasis chambers. In such a system, Sol could remain fueled through the use of kaltan crystals and class-A spacetime warp physics, living indefinitely so long as the species does as well. However, looking at their ‘nuclear’ history in regards to the most piffling of matters, it does not seem very likely.
This species, colloquially named humans, are carbon-based, mammalian, ape-descendant, and notoriously obsessed with impressing their preferred sex, much like their home star. They were first discovered by the Space-Person’s-Intelligence-Federation, or SPIF, on Earth year 2490 B.C., where they were observed attempting to construct a pyramid-shaped tomb for their emperor pharaoh upside down—yes, upside down. SPIF federation agents were so puzzled by this discovery, that they secretly broke galactic code K-996 and interfered with human development, constructing said Pyramids of Giza in a measly twelve minutes, simply because they felt bad for the poor things. All agents on board were eventually caught (2,490 Earth years later), incarcerated, and sentenced to stunt human development through the creation and dissemination of a memetic-deterrent they later called Christianity. Captain Glephzark is reported as stating, “We were initially just joking around. Zimxep sprayed some of his water-into-wine juice just to mess with the poor primitives, and they went crazy for it. At that point, we just did whatever. Started throwing fish out of the ship into people’s boats and stuff. Wouldn’t you know it, they still worship the Christ guy like he’s a… what did we call it? Oh yeah! A messiah. It means ‘bootlicker’ in Xepian. Glip’ thought of that one.”
Subsequent scans revealed humans to have a sapience score of 100.2, a mere 0.3 points away from being designated a non-sapient, worthless, and altogether universal mistake. Meanwhile, their terran counterparts, a species known as colossal squids, boasted an impressive score of 774.8. It is theorised that if colossal squids had not evolved in the inky depths of the marine snow-littered ocean, they would have already reached Proxima Centauri by now and wouldn’t have spent nearly as much time wondering what they would do if they had more time while doing it.
The enigma of human psychology lies in its irrational and self-destructive nature. Other intergalactic species, such as the drakos, have surpassed human development with less time, fewer resources, and a marginally lower sapience score of 100.1. They are simple arachnoid creatures, lacking skills in quantum mathematics but making up for it with their delicious native pound cakes and controversial literature discussing the cons of vertebrate evolution. One of these books, titled Why Spines Are Overrated, has over seven trillion copies sold across eight different star systems, severely rivalling the human book, Why Spiders Are Gross, Ew Ew Ew, which only managed to sell seven copies—one of them purchased by the author’s own grandmother.
It is evident from this, as well as other human inventions like hotdogs, children’s beauty pageants, dubstep music, crocs, French bulldogs, and the flag of Australia, that there is something fundamentally wrong with humans and that they were a questionable idea in the first place. They despise their existence yet cower in fear if ever threatened by the prospect of non-existence, and are currently the best-known species in the universe at finding meaningless ways to occupy time so they can reach it faster. They are an anomaly, an outright glitch. It’s a miracle that they were even capable of sparking fire as cavemen in the first place.
Some species call them an exemplary art piece; others say they have no right to be born rather than those cute, whiskered, furry things that also come from Earth and like to play with yarn. Most, however, have never even heard of them, and if they had, they would likely head down to St. Ufflip’s Memory-Erasing Eraser Machine and Eraser Laboratory of all Things Erased and Erasable and chuck their knowledge of humanity right into the abyss.
For an interstellar parasite, humans kind of sound like the worst meal ever. But as interstellar parasite grandpa Johnny always said to the one currently approaching that sucky little mudball, “Beggars can’t be choosers, now eat your metaphorical vegetables.”
“Fun fact! #1 - Kaltan crystals are a naturally forming substance that occur on most terrestrial planets but evaporate when exposed to rageful brainwaves. Earth currently contains none because humans are infamously complete a-holes.”
“Fun fact! #2 - The concept of a mind-dubbing religion has been used on other planets. Various characteristics are changed to fit the individual planet’s species, but there’s almost always an outlier of some guy being killed for asking people to be nice.”
“Fun fact! #3 - St. Ufflip’s Memory Erasing Eraser Machine and Eraser Laboratory of all Things Erased and Erasable has such a long name because each time St. Ufflip names it, he accidentally erases his memory of the name and renames it something longer.
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SPIF Word of the day: Exolog - noun
A concept confusing to one intelligent species but considered normal to another.
“You bathe in water and not ammonia? That’s an exolog”
