NationStates Jolt Archive

OOC: This is a continuation of the closed UII thread “A Bloody Beginning (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=492568)”; the scene is Earth, and all participants will (indeed, must) be human.

The thread mentioned above marks the first encounter between humans and an alien species known as the Vah (literally, “the People”). The thread participants were Hyperspatial Travel (as Earth Republic) and The Kafers (as the Kafer Associative).

In the thread to follow, the Vah will be examined by human scientists and military experts. Not all of the information unearthed will be true, however; my role will be to play the various experts, revealing such of my species' secrets as the limited information won by the EarthGuard in their first battle with these aliens permits.

Other thread participants will take the role of humans, hearing, digesting, and reacting to these revelations. The continuing theme of will be misunderstanding: the failure of two species to truly understand what they are up against as a consequence of viewing the universe through the lens of their own experience.

HT has the exclusive right to play Earth government officials and to handle the general public reaction; other players may create characters for the purpose of asking questions or adding their 2¢ worth if they are willing to stay within thread rules:

All other participants in this thread must play the role of outside observers: members of the press, scientists, military officers, political officials, etc.


All characters introduced must be human. They can come from the Earth, the Moon, Mars (which is an independent nation that is only nominally tied to Earth – in the past, Earth and Mars have been enemies, and Mars is only cooperating with Earth against the Vah because they feel they have no choice), or Hope (the only extrasolar human colony under direct Earth rule). If you want to be from some other place (e.g., an independent human colony such as Freedom), you must clear this by TG with HT first.


If playing as a government official or member of the military (EarthGuard), you should talk to HT first so that you don't create a military organization of government units inconsistent with HT's backstory. Don't just breeze in claiming to be the Canadian or Chinese ambassador (or whatever) or a StarFleet officer or whatever; Earth is united under a single government, (currently) controlled by the EarthGuard (due to the state of martial law that's been declared thanks to First Contact), so you'll need to stay within that framework.


You absolutely may not drop in as a representative of your FT nation unless HT approves it, and I will guarantee that he won't even consider such a request if you're not a UII (http://z14.invisionfree.com/UniverseII/index.php?act=idx) member.The safest thing to do is just pose as a member of the press, and use this thread as an opportunity to find out more about the Vah, or humanity's plans for dealing with them (or just having fun RP'ing in a way that adds color to HT's nation).

There will be a Kafer thread to match this one; link to follow.

At a Conference Center in Geneva, Switzerland

Dr. Heinrich Tettenhof, M.D. adjusted his lapel mike and the looked up at the audience slowly filling the small amphitheater. The cameras were already in position and running, capturing the coming and goings of technicians and research assistants. Finally, he received a cue from of of the people involved in making the arrangements. He nodded slightly, and then raised his hands to quiet the audience.

It was time.

The room fell to a hush; Tettenhof, who enjoyed making presentations, smiled, and then began to speak.

“Good Evening,” he began, his English tinged with a faint Viennese German accent. His voice, demeanor, and polished appearance worked its charm, as it always did; for although Dr. Tettenhof was one of the world's foremost experts in the emerging field of xenobiology, he had not been chosen for this job solely on the basis of his scientific acumen; he had a reputation as an engaging speaker, and this made him the logical choice not just to conduct the investigation, but to present its results.

“As I am sure you all know, my colleagues and I have been spending several weeks studying our friends here,” he said, gesturing towards the two cadavers that lay on examination tables in the middle of the stage. “My intention is to walk you through our findings. The details can be found in our full report; tonight I will merely touch on the main points.”

Tettenhof stepped to a table and donned a pair of examination gloves; he then walked over to the first of the bodies as the cameras zoomed in on his subject. The image captured by them was projected on one of the two large screens above and behind the physician; the other held a set of brightly colored charts and graphs. Each display would support the other, and both would help Dr. Tettenhof get his point across.

For the moment, though, no one was looking at the charts and graphs; they were looking at the face of this new enemy, the face of the alien. From throughout the amphitheater came stifled sounds of horror and revulsion. The thought that sprang into everybody's mind was the same: My G_d, what monsters!.

Seemingly unaffected by the audience reaction, Dr. Tettenhof continued:

“One of the first things we had to decide was what call to these beings,” the Austrian said, almost conversationally. “As many of the members of our group were familiar with the writings of Franz Kafka, the word that first came to mind was 'Ungezeifer' – literally, 'vermin'; that's the word Kafka used in his famous story, Die Verwandlung – in English, The Metamorphosis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Metamorphosis). I'm sure you're all familiar with the story: it's the one in which the traveling salesman wakes up one morning and finds that he's been transformed into some kind of horrible mixture of man and beetle.”

He paused for a second, waving his hand across the nearest cadaver, underscoring the association. “It would have been the perfect name for these creatures, were it not for the fact that the very same term was used by the Nazis to describe their Jewish victims during the Holocaust; naturally, this prior use forced us to select another name. After some argument, then, we settled on 'Käfer' – 'beetles'; it's just as descriptive without all the awful historical baggage.”

Yet the baggage was there, all the same; and if Tettenhof hadn't pointed out the uncanny resemblance these creatures had with Kafka's poor transformed salesman, someone else would have – and then probably gone on to pin the word 'Ungezeifer' on them as well. Vermin they were, in human eyes, and vermin they would be.

To be hunted down and exterminated, as vermin always are, for the sake of humanity.

"Ah, yes. Geneva. I'll be going there?".

As it seemed these days, only EarthGuard members were permitted any degree of freedom. The convinient excuse of the alien threat was, from the viewpoints of most of the EarthGuard, merely an convinient excuse.

Jonathon Baker, on the other hand.. One of the marines who had fought the aliens in the attack on that facility. It had been months - months with psychiatrists, months of convincing himself he could put down his gun.

However, despite the paranoia he had developed; he still had his sense of duty. And that was what was going to send him to Geneva. The EarthGuard were superhuman, in a way. They were everlastingly loyal, quicker, stronger, and smarter.

But they were still human, and had human minds. Out of the seventeen survivors of the attack, not a single one would go back into space. One of the men had suffered a breakdown while being processed to go back to Earth via the Moon - quarantine was paramount. Despite the fact they had been inside sealed suits all the time, it was.. possible, that they had been infected with alien bacteria.

Luckily, it had not been so. And there were sixteen, now. Velon Brown, his friend in training, had.. snapped, on the moon. And there, he had left the airlock, fleeing the aliens he saw in his mind. It was not the lack of air that killed him, though. It was the lack of pressure. The scene had been.. gruesome, seeing his friend die.

It was that, and that alone, that had pulled him through. He scarcely remembered the dead men on the station, but.. Velon had fought like a demon. Without Velon, that sergeant who led them to victory, they probably would've all died. And now.. Velon was dead. Running from aliens who... weren't even there.

He steeled himself, and reached for his gun. It wasn't there, of course. He would've liked a gun, but even he agreed that it was dangerous for him to have one. He was being taken to Geneva via helicopter, slowly, and safely. He couldn't stand the dark anymore, nor could he stand the acceleration he felt in planes. It clawed at him, reminding him of the aliens that had so mercilessly killed them, fighting until they were torn limb by limb, and... he shuddered.

A voice came through the pilot's cabin; he couldn't stand intercoms, either. Any amplified voice made him remember those last few minutes of frantic radio contact.. he was afraid of a lot of things, now.

"Jon, we'll be landing near the conference centre in a few minutes. We've given you body armor, as per your request, although, we can't give you a weapon. The nearby streets have been cleared out to facilitate the conference, in order to keep the press away. Captain Greene, and three EarthGuard observers are arriving at the same time."

He nodded mutely, and then, remembering the pilot couldn't see him, spoke. "Understood.".

As the helicopter descended, it descended near a trio of men, listening, it seemed, to another man, who would be the Captain. Jon stepped out, and spoke. "Good morning, captain. Shall we proceed to the conference centre?". His tones were clipped, and his voice was tightly controlled.

The captain looked at him, and Jon thought he saw.. pity, in his eyes. "Yes, soldier. Let's go."


After a few minutes, walking through cleared commercial areas, they reached a pair of glass doors. Two EarthGuard members stood inside, their rifles holstered, and armor on. Jon displayed a card, and, silently, they took it from him, and ran in onto a reader. "Jonathon Baker. Survivor of the assault on the alien compound. Welcome to the conference, sir. I'd ask you to sit down, and listen to the lecturer. He may ask you to speak, and we have informed him of your arrival."

He walked in, and sat down. The chairs were spartan, this was as close to a military briefing as one could get, and, as he sat down, he heard the final words of the lecturer's speech.

"we settled on 'Käfer' – 'beetles'; it's just as descriptive without all the awful historical baggage"

..."Beetles", he mused. "Seems about right. Although you don't notice it when you're fighting them..."

In the Amphitheater at the Conference Center
Dr. Heinrich Tettenhof's Presentation“In spite of the appearance, though, these 'Kafers' aren't insects,” observed Dr. Tettenhof. “Over 80 alien bodies were recovered from the scene of our first encounter with them; our group conducted full autopsies on almost all of them, not to mention thousands of tests. Our findings were, to say the least, very interesting.”

The Austrian physician walked over to the second alien cadaver, which was lying face down. Taking an extensible pointer, he tapped the alien's back. “Take this carapace, for example,” Tettenhof said, tracing its outlines, from buttocks to back of the head. “It looks like the shell on a beetle's back, but it's not made of chitin; rather, it's made of a fibrous material, almost like rhino horn. The same material covers the forearms, shins, and calves of the creature.” Dr. Tettenhof brushed the pointer across the alien's wrist and forearm as he spoke, in a fashion that caused the short, stiff bristles the physician was describing to stand up and be easily seen. “This material is much like human hair, except that it's far stiffer, resembling boar's bristles.”

Tettenhof continued, running a gloved finger across the back of the creature's arm. “In similar fashion, the smooth, shiny appearance of the creature's skin gives the impression - from afar - of an exoskeleton. But, in fact.” he continued, pushing his pointer into the alien being's arm to demonstrate its flexibility, “While as tough as leather, it's still skin; the shine is from a layer of wax that the creature apparent excretes through its skin.” To demonstrate, the physician took a scalpel and scraped in across the upper arm, and then held its blade where the camera could zoom in on it. “The wax is almost identical to human earwax, and probably has a similar function – to prevent dehydration through the skin. That suggests that these 'Kafers' evolved on an arid or semi-arid world.”

Turning to the first cadaver – the one lying on its back – Dr. Tettenhof grasped its knee and held it up for the camera; obligingly, an image of the joint filled the screen. “As we all know, insects and their kin – crustaceans and arachnids – have an exoskeleton; their joints are entirely different from ours.” To emphasize this, the physician flexed the creature's knee slightly to demonstrate its action. On the second display, the image of a crab's leg appeared, followed by a number of other such images. “Our friends here have endoskeletons, just like we do.” Again, the second screen changed, showing a series of x-ray images of the alien's skeletal system; these were increasingly massaged by computer-assisted graphics until the result was a wire-frame of an idealized Kafer skeleton, rotating through 360º for greater visibility.

“So they're obviously not insects; that raises the all-too-human question of whether this being is mammalian or reptilian. The answer, it turns out, is neither.” Tettenhof smiled here; he was about to drop his first bombshell.

“The bones provide us a clue to this,” the physician said. On cue, the second screen displayed four slides, each a cross-section of what appeared to be a leg bone. “Look at the capillary structure,” Tettenhof said, turning to glance at the screen, and thereby leading the audience's eyes there as well. “In the upper left-hand corner is a bone section taken from a komodo dragon; the two bottom samples are from an ostrich and a human. The upper right-hand section is from one of our 'Kafers'” Again on cue, computer enhancement kicked in, false color contrasts highlighting key elements within each sample. “The vascular structure – the pattern of blood vessels coursing through the bone – is suggestive of an endotherm – a warm blooded animal. See how the 'Kafer' sample looks more like that of birds and mammals rather than that of reptiles? Our estimate is that these aliens are warm-blooded, although slightly less so than we humans.”

Tettenhof turned back to the audience and again grasped the alien's knee to draw the camera's attention to it. Moving his hand up to display more of the thigh – and in the process showing how large it was in comparison with his hand, the physician continued. “The bones tell another tale, by the way: they are far larger in their strength and cross-section than ours – and more importantly, larger than they need to be to hold one of these creatures up on two legs, at least in standard gravity. This suggests that our friends evolved on a world with about 20% higher gravity than ours – one more clue to the nature of their homeworld.

“Yet before we declare these aliens to be mammals of a sort – for they are warm-blooded and have something like hair – we need to remember that there are other criteria for judging a creature mammalian,” Dr. Tettenhof declared. “One is lactation – mammals suckle their young. These creatures, though have nothing resembling a milk gland, which even male mammals have, albeit in non-functional form. That raises the question of how they feed their young.” Here, the Austrian xenobiologist paused. “We believe the do what birds do: they feed them through regurgitation.”

Tettenhof paused a moment to let the faint exclamations of disgust ripple through the audience, and then proceeded with a smile. Here it comes, he thought with anticipation. “The other test, of course, is live birth: reptiles and birds lay eggs, but we mammals give birth.”

“It turns out that our friends do this as well. We know this because...” and as he spoke, the x-ray images – increasingly enhanced by computer imaging – began to play across the second screen; as it did so, the doctor - who couldn't resist showmanship – moved up slightly and placed his gloved hand on the creature's abdomen, “... We have found definite uterine structures in these creatures – essentially, female genitalia...”

And here again, Dr. Tettenhof paused while the whispers ran through the room. He relished the moment, and then, with a smile, dropped the shoe.

“... And we have found such structures in all of them – in every single one of the bodies we recovered.”

In the Amphitheater at the Conference Center
Dr. Heinrich Tettenhof's Presentation

“Now, before somebody jumps to any wrong conclusions, I should point out that we also discovered male reproductive organs as well – although the construction is quite a bit different that what you see with humans. And, yes,” continued Dr. Tettenhof, “We found these on each and every body we recovered. Our friends here are what zoologists refer to as simultaneous hermaphrodites (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermaphrodite): they're both male and female in the same organism.”

“Monoecious species – that's another term for such creatures – tend to be quite rare,” the Austrian xenobiologist declared. “On Earth, about the most advanced specimens of this kind are certain species of sea bass, of which the hamlet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamlet_%28fish%29) is the best example.” As he said this, an image of the fish (http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/permanent/ocean/images/02_ecosystems/galleries/01_coralreef/0003_golden.jpg) appeared on the second screen. “Seeing this phenomenon in a creature as advanced as this is, frankly speaking, a tremendous surprise. Monoecious species usually either lack mobility or numbers, yet our alien friends here don't appear to fit either category.”

“This raises the question of whether these aliens are self-fertilizing. The answer,” Tettenhof declared, “Is that they probably aren't, although the possibility can not be ruled out. Most monecious species still form mating partnerships – in fact, they often tend to form stronger partnerships than dioecious species – species like ours – because promiscuity tends to result in evolutionary pressures that steer evolution away from having both sexes in the same organism.”

The Austrian professor paused for a second, cleaned his glasses, and then, donning them, assumed a more conversational tone. “Now, you might think that this excursion into alien sexuality is a little... well, voyeuristic. Let me assure you,” he said, voice rising in volume for emphasis, “That it has a very important purpose.”

“Various 20th Century feminist scholars,” Dr. Tettenhof began. “As well as their 21st Century neo-feminist successors have pointed out the fundamental role human sexuality and sex roles have played in the shaping of our society – and by this I am speaking not just of modern society, but of every society in the whole of human history. A great deal of who and what we are culturally and psychologically,” he continued, engaging his audience directly, “Is grounded in the fact that we have two sexes, the fact that we bear our young alive, the fact that only one of our two sexes can do this, the fact that the process takes nine months, the fact that our children take many years to grow up on top of this, the fact that men and women – for all their similarities – have evolved certain key differences in strength, endurance, attention span, perception, and native skill, and – perhaps most importantly of all,” and here the Austrian scientist paused for emphasis, “The fact that we have a mating season that lasts from puberty to death – in other words, the fact that it is not estrus that drives us to mate, but desire born of deliberate mutual sensory stimulation as part of what is basically a life of ongoing[ courtship behavior, behavior that – as these same feminist and neo-feminist scholars pointed out – is not necessarily confined to those we wish to mate with.”

“Now we face an alien species that does not share all of these characteristics with us – and may not even share more than a few,” Tettenhof proclaimed. “They have, for all intents and purposes, one sex and so lack the sexual differences that play such and important role in our society; this means that the sexual politics that so pervades human existence is unknown to them. They bear their young alive, but in all likelihood both sexes do this simultaneously and therefore the human urge for one sex to protect the other is absent; this implies that either pregnancy is not as debilitating for them – and thus perhaps not so long – or that infertile members of society protect the fertile ones, thereby creating a greater need for social organization. We don't know how long pregnancy and infancy last, or what degree of participation in the parenting process the rest of society plays, and we don't know if the stimulus for mating is entirely reflexive – essentially, if these creatures go into 'heat' – or if their mating stimulus is like ours, with all of the implications that brings regarding the role of faux courtship behavior within society at large.”

Again, the xenobiologist paused for emphasis before continuing. “What is certain is that they will not think the same way we do, nor will they have the same social structures we do – and they certainly won't view sex or the sexes in the same way we do. This may result in greater egalitarianism within their society – although this is not guaranteed, due to other factors; it may mean less specialization – at least within the bounds of economic practicality. It may mean a greater sense of shared duty among all the members of society. Without knowing more about these aliens, much of this is speculation,” Dr. Tettenhof conceded, “But at the very least we should be prepared to find out that different biological impulses have led these 'Kafers' to look at the world in different ways than we do – and to look at each other differently as well.”

Continuing on, the Austrian doctor fixed his audience firmly as he made his final, all-important point. “It will certainly mean, however, that our expectation with regards to differential treatment of the sexes in warfare will not be honored.” Pausing to let that sink in, Tettenhof then struck home. “Should a human settlement be overrun by these creatures, the women will likely be seen as no different than the men, and will most assuredly suffer the exact same fate.”

OOC: Setting the stage for what will happen when the Kafers attack the human colony of Freedom.