Out of the NASA ship, Zeus II, stepped five humans. The ship docked in the hovering space station above Titan, the largest of Jupiter’s moons. Each of the Homo sapiens wore iron pressed suits and walked briskly out of the dock. The leader of these beings wore a tie, the short part of which was fastened securely by a clip in the shape of the United Earth Flag. Without hesitation the leader of the pack made a sharp right, reaching a massive circular door. Reaching into his coat he applied a card to the pad jutting out from the side of the door.
“Jake Bellum, Diplomate from United Earth, welcome to the meeting room,” the speaker declared while the door clicked and spun open, winding counterclockwise. Jake and his company crossed the threshold into the first meeting between each of the solar system’s five races. Each different species sat on one side of a five sided table, all accompanied by four translators, one for each race. The meeting began.
The being, if you could call it that, which looked as if it was a pile of rocks, stood up from its chair and began to make explosive banging noises from inside its body.
Turning to his translator, Jake asked, “What is he saying?” Jake gave the rock formation a sideways glance while adding, “And what is it?” Bellum’s translator summarized what the being was saying: the formation is named Ketch and he is a powerful leader from Mars. Ketch is recounting why we are all here, he is saying that justice needs to be had, and that the humans have tampered with land that is not rightfully theirs.
“Ah,” Jake squinted his brown eyes, glaring at the pile of rocks, which clumped itself together to appear more humanoid. “So the Martians aren’t with us, huh?” Jake coughed a little and most of the beings in the room turned to him. Jake smirked.
“The human race has done nothing wrong”, every translator hastily attempted to translate in multiple intergalactic languages “We are explorative by nature and our planet is becoming overpopulated.” Jake pointed at a bipedal newt-like creature “You, The Scaleus offered for us to cohabitate with you in our first meeting, twenty years ago, now you take that away from us and subject us to this bullshit meeting!”
The Scaleus leader stood and touched a bowl of water, spinning its hand around, making different wave patterns with each flick of his wrist.The translators interpreted and relayed these significant water movements to the others. The warrior leader Shalph had said, “Water is everywhere. It is scarce. Humans don’t understand; the Wan do.
Jake chuckled a bit at the small mind of Shalph. Of course water was everywhere! They were on Europa, for God’s sake, which was made completely out of ice and water. His statement was a logical contradiction. Jake didn’t try to hide his smirk. Water was everywhere and scarce, how preposterous! They claimed that humans didn’t understand, but the stupid fish made no sense.
Jake’s moment of superiority was broken when the tallest of the races stood and walked to the other side of the table. Jake hated the Plutanians almost as much as The Scaleus for they had no ears or mouth and could only communicate through touch. Jake just thought that they were all groping each other. Jake had to be kind to them though, knowing they had the most advanced technology. They were the whole reason humanity was even able to travel this fast and this far in space. If a relation with any race was necessary it was with The Plutanians.
After pondering for a while, his translator finally quoted the Plutanian. It was an apology to the Scaleus for giving humanity the technology to come to their planet. Jake didn’t understand why the Plutanians needed to pander to the fish people but he guessed that was just good diplomacy.
A floating, gaseous being began to flash different colors. The species with eyes, the humans and the fish turned to the eldest species in the solar system. The translator began transcribing the chemicals by their colors. Red, lime-green, grayish-blue, forest-green, yellow, purple, and lastly silver. The translators turned to Jake, yelling at him, “Humans are right!” Jake needed to see the look of defeat on the Scaleus face, but when he faced the Newt man he instead saw something akin to anger. Not towards humans, but toward the Elder Gas. Shalph quickly motioned some more waves at the Plutanians and Martians. They both made a short response and all three of the tribes left.
When they were gone, Bellum turned to the elder gas and thanked him for his understanding in neon lights. The gas faded into a non-visible vaporous material, leaving the humans reveling in their victory alone.
*** The Humans confidently walked in and sat down. Puddle had been dreading this moment. She knew everything was up to her. She was the only one in all of the Onxtras that could use the reactor core within the Iron layer of their biology. Puddle knew she needed to make the first move and tell all of the species why they were here. She knew the importance of being the voice for her whole planet.
She stood and exploded with her tiny voice, “We are here today to resolve the conflict between The Wan and The Humans.” She paused as the reactor part of her biology started to hurt, then continued through the pain. “It seems that by over settling the humans have destroyed an important property of The Wans. Justice needs to be had, so it is up to all races to find it.”
Exhausted, Puddle finally sat, feeling confident that she spoke proudly and set off the meeting to a good start. That was until she felt the speaker of the humans shift to face toward her without throwing any sound waves at her body for her to try to understand.
The lack of waves being sent her direction reminded her of the silence she had been in all of her life. She was small and misshapen. She had been since birth, which lead to her exile. The human reminded her of a time where she felt an imposing lack of tremor waves being sent at her even by her unit. In exile she made soundwaves with her misshapen iron organ that created micro explosions of sound. Even if it destroyed her, she needed to feel communication waves from someone, even herself. It was this curse, this gift, that allowed her people to communicate with The Humans.
It was too late. They didn’t understand. All of Puddle’s confidence was shaken. Silence had been given to her. She failed. Her shape was just a curse.
*** Their younger brothers were seated. Late, but that was expected. The Humans didn’t have so much to learn, though they did need to build their character a bit more. Humanity was too brash for Ripple’s taste, but as a senior species it was their job or maybe, more selfishly, his job to guide them to class.
The meeting started with Pebble. Or was it Puddle? Ripple thought.
While the Onxtras and his people, The Wan, both communicated through waves, their dialects were a tad off. Either way, she started the meeting through her miracle of vocal communication and explained why each of the five species of the solar system were present at the meeting. The human leader, Jake, seemed to take some sort of offense at the Onxtrian’s speech. Ripple found it riveting. His thoughts were interrupted by Jake’s anger with The Wan for calling this meeting. He claimed that The Humans had done nothing wrong, and said something about another species’ waste product. That analogy slipped past Ripple. Even with all of the fiction he had read from the human species, most of the humanoid analogies still went over his fins. His people could feel all sorts of waves, as their skin was hypersensitive. This made them the only species that could understand all five species in the solar system. Ripple even praised their blessing of sight, as they could better understand the visual world. A world their juniors only saw.
Ripple may have been the greatest scholar and poet The Wan had ever known, but he did have one weakness. It didn’t matter how smart he was or how much he understood others; his wisdom would be wasted if it fell on deaf ears. He stood up knowing this; his patient hands weaved words in the life force in front of him. He was given the honorary title of Ripple because of the art he made with his hands. Ripple motioned, clearly waving, “Water is everyone’s. You destroyed a temple, which was sacred. You did not know, we understand. The Wan just want The Humans to-”
Jake laughed, and Ripple knew he didn’t understand. Ripple comprehended he had more to learn and couldn’t yet clearly communicate with the humans. Perhaps this conflict would be resolved another time, once Ripple learned more about The Humans.
Together, the Dexternas got up. Ripple hoped this wouldn’t scare the humans. Ripple stepped toward Softhands. Softhands touched him. He was felt by him in order to “hear” him. Softhands touched meaning and Ripple felt it. Softhands had to touch him, in order to communicate. “I am sorry, Wan people,” Softhands traced onto Ripples scales “It is indirectly the Dexternas fault for giving the humans the technology to travel and drill into your temple.” The empathy in his hands radiated with each motion, showing his sincerity. “Please forgive the humans, for we didn’t teach them responsibility with our tools.”
Ripple and his people never blamed the Humans nor the Dexternas. In fact, he called this meeting for each of the races to understand each other and become closer. Ripple touched Softhands with his webbed digits like a protector with his hatchling.
“I forgave both of you before this meeting was called, brother.” While it was difficult to touch the Dexternas’ language, Ripple practiced it for centuries so he could befriend their people. “May my hands touch your soul.”
Ripple understood this was a typical respectful goodbye akin to a bubble in his culture, a tremor of one’s body in the Onxtras, and a bow in some Human’s culture.
The Astra finally flashed, showing words Ripple and the rest of the solar system didn’t want to see.
“The Humans are right”.
He flashed in elements from The Humans’ table of elements. Ripple, enraged by the manipulation of his younger brother, glared at the elder gas.
He turned to his two middle brothers and told them what the Astra declared. Ripple and the rest of the non-humanoid species walked away. Ripple wasn’t defeated just yet though. He knew he couldn’t fail and that the only way to stop this was to become more educated. Ripple left with the conviction that he could save all of his brother races, including his youngest: The Humans.
The bag of baby water walked in. We watched as they yelled, believing themselves the most superior race. How foolish, we thought. That title belongs to the Astra, for we were all and we were everywhere. We deserved the Solar System but have no physicality that can affect the lungless Wan, Onxtras, and Dexternas. The humans though, are what we needed. A physical entity that was stupid enough to be controlled and weak enough to be killed. They felt strong, like they could take on the solar system, but they had no allies. Let us be their allies.
“The Humans are right.”
The Human smiled, as the poet leered. The poet knew that we were saying the humans earned the right of all things. We believed they should as well, so we could take it from them. Oh poor poet, we knew he believed he could stop us. Sadly, in time he would learn about humanity. The smug one thanked us, believing our ruse. We evaporated, leaving The Humans in the room to revel in their victory. And, inevitably, their impending doom.
