A blog written by an alien who is a weeb for humankind, set in a universe that follows the deathworlder science fiction tropes.
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[Translated to english by the algorithms of MINERVA. The authors species written language uses emphasis marks to denote nonverbal communication that do not translate to english well. MINERVA judges that a significant amount of meaning has been lost in translation. Using this translation for academic works is not recommended.]


Hello extranet! To new readers let me introduce myself. I am a heavily augmented Kusha known by the workname of Tzenter!

For those of you not in the same sector and have never met a Kusha, you can read a quick explanation below. If you are already familiar with us or don’t think its relevant, you can skip it.

We were originally a species of valley and tunnel dwelling fungus harvesters that are spored by ‘queens’ that aren’t considered the same kind of species as Kusha culturally. We are sorta like a drone race but we don’t have a hivemind or anything and all the ‘drones’ have full sapience. Kusha reach [roughly 4 feet] tall with our upright bodies. We have 4 legs that come out of our base at right angles to each other, to form a very steady base for our torso. We have two manipulator arms for harvesting fungus, ending in graspers with 11 slender fingers for harvesting just the edible parts of the fungus we eat without harming the growth potential of the plant. Our bodies are slightly furred for the cooler seasons when not as much light reaches our valleys. We have fairly spherical heads and large eyes adapted to low light conditions, at the standard light settings on most stations we need to wear goggles to not find the light levels uncomfortable. Our heads are topped by two sets of feeler antenna that aid in sensing vibrations and navigation when travelling tunnels, they also glow in the dark! This lets us see in tunnels deep enough that almost no surface light reaches down there. The glows change with moods or intent and coworkers say the display can be aesthetically pleasing. After joining the galactic community, our dextrous fingers and higher than average aptitude to living in cramped ships have made us well suited to engineering roles on various starships in our sector. 

Anyway! I decided to write this because the next job my crew is being sent on will be working with humans! I am sure many readers are very curious about humans, so I thought I would share my experiences with them as I do this job. There’s been a lot of pretty wild rumours about them ever since they joined the coalition during the latest ravager war. For non locals, the coalition is just the sectors mutual defence alliance and ravagers are a particularly nasty local predator species that eats sentients (I do not agree with those who lump all species with predatory heritage together, eating meat is not the same as eating people. Any comments made lumping all meat eaters along with ravagers will cause your account to lose access to all content). I hope I can clarify some of those rumours for all of you out there. I hope you trust me more than those rumourmongers who are simply making things up for attention. My existing content should give you some confidence of my truthfulness.

[Other content linked to on the authors content hub is mostly a lot of basic engineering guides. Care is made to provide tutorials that would be compatible with many kinds of species appendages or common models of mechanical augmentations used by species without the right kinds of appendages to manipulate the tools required. The other content found on the authors content hub is a few POV holo experiences of what it’s like to travel some of the larger space stations and how to order for food in local languages. The authors content is generally well reviewed.]

I have yet to finish travelling to the job site, so I haven’t met any humans yet, but some of the screening questions for job suitability can give us some hints as to what they are like! Much of it was the standard kinds of questions I would get on any big job with many kinds of species as workers, but some were less common or unique. While I cannot confirm those questions were there because of the humans on the job, we can use the info to at least judge if the rumours going around are more or less likely true.

The first question I got that was unique was if I was comfortable working in environments kept at [roughly .8G]! I can think of no species in this sector that requires environments at a gravity that high. Any unaugmented Kusha having to work in gravity that high would quickly have serious health problems, but I am heavily augmented, so I could handle that fine. I have high confidence that this is because of the human workers, unless some out of sector species I've never heard of before happen to be on the job also.

[TL note: there are some heavy cultural connotations to how augmented Tzenter is describing Ximself to be that you are missing out on. There are some heavy counterculture and counter racial purity ideas tied up in the exact words and light patterns used.]

Maybe the rumours of them being deathworlders is less insane than it sounds. Though obviously thats an exaggeration. [.8G] is high but that doesn’t make it a deathworld. Ive personally met species that came from high gravity worlds, not that high, but close to that high. Though the footage I’m sure most of you have already seen of human soldiers fighting in the war makes them seem much too fast to have come from a world with gravity that high. Take it from me, exosuits and augments can change your abilities pretty far from your species baseline. You don’t see any of them outside of armour in that footage, I find it entirely believable that a perfectly normal high gravity species would have their exosuits or augments tuned for speed for their soldier class.

Another question I got during screening that might be because of the humans, is if I was comfortable being around food items that could be considered [extremely, ranked 3 on a 4 point scale] dangerous to ingest for my species. I’ve worked with plenty of species that eat [high, ranked 2 on a 4 point scale] dangerous foods before. So I don’t have a super high confidence that this is human specific. But it might be a human thing! They could be meat eaters or consume some specific set of complex proteins my species can’t digest. Kusha have pretty robust digestions as long as it’s plant based, but it’s a big universe. That question is based on a baseline Kusha biology, So I can handle pretty dangerous food. No matter what species caused that question, I hope I can try whatever food is ranked that dangerous, as long as it’s not meat.

Something else that might be human specific was a set of questions around If I would be comfortable being around clothing made from animal product. The way it was phrased made me think they weren't talking about using shorn fur fibres to spin thread. Though that is already rather rare. One of my coworkers a few jobs ago gave me a neck warmer made of animal fur thread! [an image of what is essentially a woolen scarf is embedded] The way the questions were worded made me think maybe it was about using the actual hide of animals as clothing? Now before a disgusted mob swarms the comments, if a species is already eating an animal, using its other parts for other things is hardly worse, the animal already died. It won’t be double dead just because you used its skin instead of just its flesh. Could be something else though! Might be about using bones. I’ve known someone who had traditional religious garb that used bone fragments as buttons. This is how buttons work if you’ve never seen one. [embedded image of a diagram of how a button fastens clothes] How delightfully inventive in a low tech way. So this could have nothing to do with the humans, but the question is rare enough that it’s likely to be about them.

I am already anticipating people in the comments mentioning the rumours that humans wear the skins of their enemies. Obviously this rumour is fake. You can clearly see the human soldiers in the war footage wearing high tech armour, not the flayed remains of ravagers. Who even came up with that rumour? That’s disgusting. Even the worst ravagers only kept skulls as trophies. 

other non conclusive things that I got asked if I was okay with that I put much lower likelyhood on being human specific: High oxygen environments, religious ceremonies I would not be asked to participate in, possible shedded feathers, music in communal areas, a possible spawning that might happen on the site in an emergency.

 

I will be reaching the work site in a few sleep cycles, I hope I will be able to meet a human when I get there and have more information for you all soon. Please come back to check the work log of Tzenter the Kusha then!

 

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[Translated to english by the algorithms of MINERVA. The authors species written language uses emphasis marks to denote nonverbal communication that do not translate to english well. MINERVA judges that a significant amount of meaning has been lost in translation. Using this translation for academic works is not recommended.]


This is Tzenters work log! In this update I can actually tell you about meeting a human in person

 

After my ship docked with the work site and my crew and I settled into the communal living area, we found out most of the human workers lived in a seperate section with high gravity (So high gravity species confirmed!), but that some of the more adventurous human workers didn’t want to stay segregated so they would be moved to our communal living space once they acclimatised to lower gravity. This points to curiosity or high sociality maybe, I will take it as a good sign. I too enjoy forming social groups with other species and learning about them. But then again I am called [a concept that points to having a kind of non neurotypical disorder, similar social stigma to having autism. The term also points to concepts similar to that of the ‘race traitor’ concept found in white supremacist communities.] by most of the folks back home, but I see them as good traits.

 

After the cycle and a half that was set aside to get new workers into the correct local sleep schedules for their shift, I was called into the managers office. I wasn’t worried of being in trouble, it was probably because I am a rather good engineer and my augments let me do work in all sorts of environments. I even got my hopes up I’d get to work in the high gravity areas and maybe see what humans were like. I don’t put any stock into the rumours they were more vicious than ravagers and can tear a bulkhead in two with their bare hands, the company wouldn't let us work with them if that was the case. When I entered the office I saw the Teloun manager (Teloun are large quadrupeds with manipulator tendrils on their chins, very big brains and make good mediators) and a rather tall Biped that had the same body type as the armoured figures from the ravager war footage. I didn’t think I would meet a human so fast!

Seeing a human face without a helmet on and their body without bulky armor could finally give me some more robust guesses about them. They have a remarkably smooth hide and fur just on the top of their head. They have forward facing eyes like many predators do, only two eyes though, the sockets are set into the skull slightly with a bit of a ridge above the eye sockets. The next thing I noticed was the teeth, the human was baring their teeth at me (The manager sent me a quick message to tell me it was not a sign of aggression, they were a very thoughtful manager. Seeing bared teeth might have scared a less brave Kusha, I definitely was not scared though.). The human had a large jaw rather than external mandibles that their teeth are set in. There were some sharper looking teeth that I could guess were maybe for meat tearing, or for if they ate particularly fleshy fruits, but I could also see grinder teeth further into the mouth. Along with the very forward facing eyes I guessed they were some amount of carnivorous. There was a slightly pointy thing in the middle of their face with two holes, the breathing holes maybe? And ears were a common enough trait that I could recognise ears on the sides of their head, two little radar dishes of skin for capturing sound better. Honestly if you ignored the smaller more predatory eyes and the fact they only had one pair of them, and the big jaw hinged mouth rather than a smaller feeder hole we have, they didn’t look too different from Kusha. Even the body plan wasn’t so different, if you removed a Kushas back legs and made the font legs longer, thickened the torso and had our arm sockets protruding from the torso center it was pretty close. The arms had less joints and the graspers had less fingers, but the arms were much thicker than a Kusha arm. They human looked pretty strong, there was just a feeling of strength from the body that the clothing did not do much to hide. You can’t always tell with aliens but I’ve been around a lot of different species so I’d put high confidence in my gut feeling that the human was relatively strong. Not the strongest species I've ever seen, but the way the head pivoted to face me and the intelligent predatory eyes focused in on me made me feel like this was a creature that knew how to use its strength for violence.

I’ve spent time with species with even clearer predator ancestry so I was fine, but people believing some of the violent rumours made a little more sense. A less experienced and younger version of myself might believe all sorts of crazy things about the alien in front of me.

The manager was sending me messages in real time as I entered the room, telling me the human was not being aggressive and being visibly scared would offend them. However I wasn’t some [concept that is similar to a child, but Kusha detach from their ‘queens’ fully grown. The child concept is close enough] that was frightened by anything with sharp teeth or a weight adavantage. I took a gamble and introduced myself verbally in the standard tradertongue, the human had ears after all.

“Hello Manager and human. This one is known by the workername of Tzenter. Tzenter has been excited to meet your kind since learning they had joined the coalition.”

The human bares even more of his teeth at this. I do a very good job of not visibly responding, my instincts that this was a threat obviously didn’t necessarily apply to something that could have evolved on a very different kind of world, even if baring ones teeth was usually a threat when coming from most carnivores. The manager quickly sends me a message telling me bared teeth was actually a sign of welcoming new potential friends and happiness amongst humans. The human responds in rather stilted tradertongue.

”Good meetings Tssenter. This one is name of Tom. Also much excited to meet many friendly not humans. Your augments impressive.”

[The author actually writes it more like ‘To-um’, but since It is being translated it back to english, it should be the proper spelling.]

The human got my name a little wrong, but did as best as it probably could with that big jaw and very large tongue. I was happy the human liked my augments, being so heavily augmented made even many non Kusha slightly uncomfortable at seeing how much of my body I had replaced. I waved my antenna in what was my species sign of welcoming new potential friends in response. 

The managers face tendrils relax as it sees our introductions went fine. It beckons me over to the main desk in the office and towards a omnichair opposite the humans seat with a tendril. I scoot over to sit down as the human does the same. The manager goes on to explain to me that the job was actually building a station for the humans to live in that would also accomodate a closer to galactic standard environment, so they could trade with the rest of the galaxy. Their home planet was too high gravity and had too high amounts of radiation to be safe for most other species to come trade on.

Some of you who are not experienced spacers might wonder why you need a station or planet to trade on at all. Why not just trade ship to ship? Thats fine for small trades, but it just becomes a huge pain and incredibly inefficient when you can’t unload and pick up cargo at a big central location with a mechanised cargo management system run by a a specialised AI, and for that location to also be where all the spacer crews can have shore leave. Profit margins are small enough for a lot of bulk goods, you would be selling at a loss or have to overcharge a lot without a proper trading hub to offload to.

Since I can handle the human environments and my work review consistently has high scores for getting along with other species I was getting assigned to basically be in charge of the few humans that would be coming over to the parts of the station with ‘normal’ station gravity to work alongside the other nonhuman workers.

Tom bares its teeth at me again in a presumably friendly way when the manager is done explaining my new job at this site. “Hoping that work together lacks social friction. Let us learn from each other.”

Tom has a pretty rough grasp on tradertongue (not that it’s a very elegant language to start with), but the sentiment conveyed is nice. I knew the rumours were false, not a single skull was torn out and Tom seems very friendly.

I get shooed out of the office after this though. The manager and Tom had more to discuss that wasn’t part of my job.

So that was my first time meeting a human. They seem nice enough. Obviously I can’t judge from only a single individual but so far so good.

One smaller thing I noticed was that the humans limbs only bend one way. The arms only went from bent in one direction to a straight line, the middle joint could not bend the fore-arm behind them, but the entire arm swivelled in the base joint to allow greater degrees of freedom. It was a similar situation with the legs. This seems odd to me but the end points with their hands and feet could move to anywhere the human wanted them to go so I suppose it was not too restrictive for them. With how tall they are I suspect they might have trouble moving through more restricted spaces if their limbs only bend one way. Lucky for them that most of the species hired to help them with this station were considerably shorter than them, any job requiring entering smaller spaces can be contracted out.

The overlapping nature of the strength of many species working together is what makes me glad to work on multi species crews instead of segregated ones. My clever Kusha fingers can strip an engine faster than almost anyone else, a Teloun can organise it all and keep things harmonious, Reddems have a real gift for piloting, and if its not a species advantage it’s an individual advantage that is brought to the job. In my opinion work crews that are homogenous or that only use labour droids or non sapient drones just produce worse work. They have weaknesses that aren't covered by the diverse skillsets of a diverse crew.

I wondered what humans had that set them apart. I doubted that what looked like a strong body was the only thing they brought to the table, they were supposed to have been a great help during the war and while it was a little uncommon to see species that had limbs that thick it was not at all unique. Plenty of bulkier species out there. Maybe their top head fur let them sense vibrations like Kusha antenna? Or the wider torso let them store more food inside them for longer work shifts. Maybe it was something non obvious like the Reddem gift for piloting.

 

Well I’m sure to learn lots about them next cycle when my job properly begins and I meet more humans. This station might take [roughly a few years] to complete so there will be plenty of time to get to know them. I’ll also have longer than normal to form social bonds with the other workers. Long term jobs are pretty good and building up a station means a lot more room to enjoy than I usually have on my crews ship.

I hope you tune in for the next update. I hope you learned something new and I dispelled some of the rumour and mystery around our newest coalition member species.

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