I got a job!
Mood:  energetic
Topic: alien info

Hi there!

I need to do a massive update on the who's who around here, and what everyone's been up to, but I think I'll save that for later. Right now, I want to talk about the new volunteer job I got!

I had told Jennifer that even though I love having time to write, to socialize, to explore, to read, to catch up, to watch movies, etc., ultimately I was getting bored with my routine. It was getting to the point where even writing palled because I felt like I was writing about the same things over and over, and I certainly don't want to do that! It seems odd that here, on an alien ship with a bunch of new people to get to know and things to learn, I'd be bored. But then I am easily bored. Some days I sit at the little computer in my room and play alien puzzle games all day, or I watch porn. (Human porn, not alien porn. Can't get into the alien porn.) I still have my required one meal a day in the meal room with the others, but there have been many times when that's all I've seen of them.

Anyway, Jennifer asked me if I'd like to help out the scientists with some of their work. I cocked my head at her and asked her what I'd be doing. First she suggested the gardens, and I vehemently shook my head. I've got a brown thumb. Then she suggested working with the human animals that they had on the ship, and again I said no. No scooping poop out of cages, thank you very much.

Then I had a thought. I asked her, "What about alien animals? I know you all have some. Can I work with them?"

"Why would you want to do that?" she asked.

"I dunno, they just look really interesting, so working with them would keep me better occupied," I said.

She looked above me, and I knew she was consulting the Oversoul or whatever, the Drew le' tor group mind. Then she smiled to herself. The smile seemed more than a little eerie, but then I don't think the Drew le' tor ever got the hang of smiling anyway. It's not one of their natural facial expressions.

"That is acceptable," she said, finally. "When would you like to start?"

I told her asap and she said tomorrow, which was about a week ago. So I volunteer about three hours a day working with the little critters they've picked up from other planets/asteroids/whatever around the galaxy. None of them are large; I'd say that the largest compares to a good-sized rat (sans tail). But all of them are wild, and many of them are adorable in that "I'm from another planet and don't touch me because I've got spines" sort of way.

I'll pick up this post later with some descriptions of these things. I do wish I could draw, but alas, it's not in the cards.

What Jennifer Told Me -- The Collective
Mood:  quizzical
Now Playing: the thunder in my mind
Topic: alien info

So I've been meaning to write about the lunch I had with Jennifer awhile back and what she divulged to me about the Drew le' tor. I haven't written about it before now not because it's not simply fascinating, but more because I just haven't felt like writing. I get like that sometimes, where the words won't come as I want them to, so I just say "fuck it" and do something else.

Anyway, this lunch. It started out the same as any lunch I share with Jennifer, her grilling me about my life on Earth even though I thought I'd said everything there was to say. I guess she just doesn't get tired of hearing it. This time, though, I'd had enough of saying it, so I played the fair turnabout and asked her what was up with the Drew le' tor.

She blinked her huge blue eyes at me. "What?"

"Yeah," I said. "Tell me why you all are so fascinated with us. We can't be that much different than you, after all -- we breathe basically the same air, we all walk on two legs, etc."

"Oh, but you are so different!" Jennifer said. "Worlds different, even."

"Ha ha."

"I do mean it, though, even though I used the joke. In certain ways you are so different from us as to be nearly incomprehensible, and that's what we're interested in."

"Which ways are those, then?"

Jennifer hesitated. Her eyes traveled upward, searching. When they came back down, they stared at me with an intensity I'd never seen in her before.

"Not many of the humans have asked us these questions," she answered. "We feel that those who do are entitled to the answers." She sighed deeply. "Primarily, we are interested in your idea of 'soul.' We have come to theorize that this 'soul' is vastly different from our own concept of 'soul,' to the point that it is wreaking havoc on your society."

"The idea that we have souls is screwing up the human race?" I blinked at her.

"Indeed. Not the soul in general, but that you each have a soul. Every human being, while sharing quite similar traits, has something unique and indefinable about him or her, something that separates him or her from the rest of the species, something that creates in him or her a sense of individuality. We call this your 'soul' because your brains, on the whole, are also quite similar to each other, though different by experience. They have similar functionality. This 'soul,' on the other hand, is as singularly identifiable as your fingerprints.

"We don't understand the term in your religious sense, as something given to you by a conscious higher power -- "

"That's okay," I interrupted, "I don't understand it that way, either." Score one for the Godless!

Jennifer smiled. "But we do understand the term as something that makes each human a person, an individual, and it is this concept we are trying to understand."

"Why is it so hard to get, though?" I asked.

"We do not think, act, or even exist in these terms," she said. "We are not truly individuals, though we each have some sense of separateness. This is overridden by a sense of oneness, of connection to each other. We inhabit each other's minds, hearts, souls. We can never be truly separated from each other."

I didn't say anything for several minutes. Jennifer just sat there and chewed her food, letting me stew.

Finally, I said, "I was going to give a flip answer and say that some of us feel that we're all connected, too, but I don't think that's what you mean."

"No," said Jennifer. "You have an intellectual awareness of your connection to other humans, and many also have an emotional awareness of that connection, as well. Yet there is some tiny part of every human that seems to remain separate, untouched by anything else in the universe except that which created the separateness, and it is this that we are trying to understand.

"There is no part of what I am that cannot be accessed by any of my brethren at any time, even when I am asleep," she said. "My thoughts, feelings, everything is part of our joined consciousness, our joined soul. What I feel, so do others. What I know and learn, so do others, at the same instant as me. And we are connected through time as well as space. We retain all the memories of our ancestors, all of their stored knowledge, all of their remembered feelings."

"Christ," I said. "That sounds like overload."

"It is part of our evolutionary makeup that we are able to 'stem the tide,' to use one of your wonderful human phrases. Some cliches I still don't understand, but that one comes easily."

"It kinda sounds like a theory they have about Neanderthals," I said. "That they were very similar to this. They died out."

"There is something in the nature of human evolution that apparently demanded the kind of separation that you have," Jennifer nodded, "else you would not be here."

"So...this Oversoul thingie," I said, hesitating because I knew I was using words stolen from sci-fi books, "has it got a director?"

"I believe you are thinking that we are similar to an ant colony, and that our smaller brains are under the direction of a Queen?"

"Well, I wasn't going to go THAT far..."

Jennifer smiled again, a tiny smile. "There is no leader directing the paths of our thoughts and feelings, no. We have no leader of any kind, actually. We are a true collective, and perform as such. We are as individual as we allow ourselves to be, but we willingly submit to the 'Oversoul,' as you put it. Having no wish to harm our brethren to whom we are so connected, we do not stray from the collective. We cannot. To do so is to die."

"So no one's ever ripped himself from the Collective?"

"There has never been a need. You think as as a human -- you feel that some of us have a need for freedom of mind, of thought, that to share everything must be a terrible burden. But it is not so. Every bit of unrest or unhappiness or pain is shared with the whole, and in doing so, that pain is lessened."

I had to give myself a few more minutes of silence. When it seemed as if I wouldn't speak again, Jennifer cocked her head at me. "This is the enigma that is a human," she said. "I may be able to use an instrument to read your mind, hear your thoughts. I could use other means to read your emotions. You yourselves have crude instruments with which to perform these actions. But no matter how close I got, I could never reach the central most part of you, even if you wished it. 'We are each her own universe,' you have uttered in the past, according to your own recorded memory. We find that very accurate, and very sad."

"Why sad?"

"Because it must be so lonely."

So much blue!
Mood:  incredulous
Topic: alien info

I meant to post last night, but I was too exhausted. I think I walked more yesterday than I ever did during a full day at Disneyland. OH yeah.

But I did get out to explore the ship. Did I mention it was huge? I was trying to do it methodically. I know I live near the bottom of the ship -- it's shaped something like a bullet, but it's nearly as tall as it is long -- so I took one of their elevators to the very top (or as far as I could go) and worked my way down. Again, my drawing skills are majorly sucktastic, so I have to go with ye olde written description.

Contrary to what I expected, the research areas are all in the front of the ship, while the mechanical areas, including the "bridge" and all that, are in the back. (Should I be using nautical terms? Fore, aft...none of it really applies when talking about them, as they don't seem to consider their space vehicles as equivalent to sea-going vessels at all. That's just us.) And the research areas take up over half the ship. They weren't lying when they said they're primarily research scientists.

I think I could spend so much time just watching the scientists do their thing, too. They welcomed me to their areas of the ship, seemed glad to see that I was interested, but left me alone to watch. They're all very silent as they go about their research, and I do mean silent. Nobody said anything while I was there, at least. I wonder if maybe they're telepathic? That would explain some things. I didn't want to ask, though; I figured they didn't mind me watching as long as I didn't get TOO curious.

I saw so many different plants and animals there, and while quite a few of them were Earth-based, some where not. I saw this crazy rubbery plant thing of a gross purple color. I approached it rather closely, and it started waving its rubbery arms at me. Very menacing, so I backed off. One of the scientists noticed, smiled gently at me, and moved on. I guess it couldn't have been that dangerous. lol

Anyway, yes, I did find some places on the ship that were barred to me (naturally), but much of the ship is open. I don't know if it was my timing or what, but I didn't see any other humans. I can't even fathom that I'm the only human being on this ship, but if that were the case, I certainly wouldn't mind. The aliens are human enough (despite being the color blue), and on the whole they're nicer than the average human anyway.

Hm. Bitter much?

Whatever. I'll post more later, if I can, since I didn't even talk about eating lunch and the craziness that ensued there. I've never been a fan of incredibly long posts, so I'm trying to break it up a bit. It's so hard, though, because there's just so much. Yaaaaaah!

Scratching the surface of what I've gained?
Mood:  vegas lucky
Topic: alien info

I woke up this morning with the following train of thought:

"OMG I'm late! John's already out of bed!"

"Where am I?"

"Oh."

"I hope John can get up without me. He needs to feed the cat."

"I don't have to feed the cat anymore."

"I don't have to feed the cat anymore!"

Does that make me totally horrible? It's like I don't miss hunny because it hasn't even sunk in yet that he's gone (or that I'm gone). It's like how it is when he's out on an event. Temporary. It just makes this whole thing more surreal.

Anyway, I've been trying to think positively about this whole situation. I know I left behind my whole life and my never get it back, but at least while I'm here I can work on other things, learn more about the Cosmos. Heck, maybe I'll even find God out here. That's right, I'm an atheist, and I have no problem letting anyone know that. Well, I do practice witchcraft, but not the Wiccan kind, or any kind that involves real deities. At best, I believe in the idea of those deities and how they work with human consciousness.

Oh, that is SO not this post. Don't get me started on spirituality, seriously. No, what I wanted to bring up is something I'm really excited about.

I don't have to cook!

There's a reason that Jennifer said they were trying to make sure I didn't become a hermit. Apparently, each living space on this ship is equipped with its own automatic kitchen. I'm not sure how to describe it. Think "replicator" from Star Trek. (I always thought, by the by, that the replicators were a fantastic idea and, like the transporter beam, should be invented as soon as possible.) It sits in a corner of the living room, right near the dining area (as soon as I get my drawing skills up to snuff, I'll draw a floorplan). It's about chest-high -- I'm 5'6", so you can figure out where my chest is -- with a flat top marred only by a few small holes in the center. There's a touch-screen installed on the front near the top. This touch-screen is, of course, my menu, and I do believe it's programmed with every single human food there ever was. I haven't looked through it thoroughly...just enough to know that it's mind-boggling.

Last night I was feeling peckish, so I thought I'd try out this gizmo. I ordered cottage cheese. So the machine started to whir gently, and I watched this nasty-looking light brown sludge ooze out of the holes at the top of the machine. I thought sure it was broken, that this stuff was going to fall right to the floor, but it began to harden almost as soon as it came out. After about three minutes of me watching in fascinated horror, the machine stopped and I was left with an irregularly shaped brown mass. Honestly, I wanted to hurl. But, adventurer that I am, I picked up the "food." It was lighter than I expected, as if it were spongy. But it didn't feel spongy, rather more grainy and slightly gelatinous. Still feeling sure that the machine was broken and that I was going to pay most dearly for this, I first tongued the mass and then bit off a small chunk.

It tasted exactly like cottage cheese!

Okay, not exactly. It still had that slightly grainy quality as I chewed, and it didn't have the natural squishiness of cottage cheese curds. But the taste was definitely there. By the time I was done, I was pleasantly satisfied and, if I hadn't been so tired, I think I would've had a little energy boost, too.

My theory is that the sludge is some sort of protein base, and there's probably vitamins and whatnot in there, too. And being really really good scientists, they've managed the whole flavoring for us humans as well as themselves.

I think I could get used to the sludge machine, seriously. They make it easy because, even though it looks sorta gross, it does alright by itself in the end. At least as far as cottage cheese goes.

Shall I try cereal next?

When Worlds Collide
Mood:  spacey
Topic: alien info

Basically, Jennifer gave me the grand tour of the ship, what she calls the “Thesse’ le’llon.” That’s about as phonetic as I can get with it, I imagine. It translates into something akin to “Brush Fire in the Wilderness.” I can’t tell if that’s a great or horrible name, but whatever. I didn’t really want to ask.

 

Jennifer seems anxious that I should settle in quickly and get myself a routine, so she showed me all of the human-accessible areas, including places for recreation and eating. She also insisted that, after I’m given a reasonable amount of time to become acclimated, I’m to join her and some other folks in at least one meal per day. Fantastic. Forced to socialize whether I like it or not. Jennifer thought that was rather funny when I said it. She said they just wanted to make sure I didn’t turn into a hermit or something.

 

Who, me?

 

Anyway, the ship appears to be HUGE. While Jennifer was rattling off information, she mentioned that the actual crew that ran the ship was very small, most of that work being done by the two great, artificially intelligent computers on board. The lower, more basic functions (life support, for example) are run by Zero, and the higher functions (virtual reality programming in the recreation rooms, for example) are run by One. Again, not sure if only us silly humans are using those simple names, or if they’re actually named One and Zero in the alien language, as well.

 

Oh, by the way, the aliens call themselves the Drew le’ tor.

 

As I was saying, while One and Zero run the ship, the Drew le’ tor do their research. They’ve been around Earth for awhile now, Jennifer said, mainly because they were A) shocked that we existed, and B) shocked that we still existed. I get that. Apparently they haven’t yet found any other planet in the galaxy with complicated life forms on it, and Earth has not only us, but the whales and the dolphins and the monkeys and everything, too.

 

Shocking. Of course, I’m used to it.

 

There’s so much that’s going on, and I can’t seem to keep everything straight. As I type this, it doesn’t really feel like I’m in space (not that I ever knew what being in space felt like), but obviously I am, and just as obviously I’m going through some kind of thought process about the whole thing. It’s exhausting. And I think they’ve got the artificial gravity set a little above the human norm, because I feel heavy. That might just be my imagination, though.