Captains log Day 60 Entertainment

Lt Col  (*&33%2@

Commander of the Research vessel Fuel Hunter X878

Captain's Log 

We find humans to be a most interesting species.  Our initial expectations were to terminate all life on this planet.  Based on monitoring their TV programs, we believed that the planet supported no intelligent life.  Then, we discovered the existence of intelligent undersea mammals. That put the extinction on hold.   Now we are suspecting that humans also engage in behavior that demonstrates a sophisticated thought process.   We have been instructed to study the human inhabitants to determine if anything is worth saving. 

Unlike most of the Conquered Universe (CU), most humans behave in unpredictable ways.  There are many examples of this:  

• Instead of everyone wearing a uniform clothing style, which is logical and practical, earthling garb is varied among tribes and often quite distinct and individual even within subgroups.   The chief exception is in the warrior class, where they have adopted the CU standard method of exhibiting class standing and authority (chevrons and medals). But most civilians travel freely in open society with little more to indicate their affiliations than logo-ed tee shirts and hats.     
• A large segment of the population on this planet are employed solely to amuse others.  Since entertainment lacks utilitarian purpose, the trait that seeks amusement has been bred out of intelligent (ie, logical) species  In most of the CU.   There are no stadiums or fields-of-play or golf courses on other developed worlds. When people are not working they eat and sleep and study.   Our libraries do not have a section for "Fiction." Fiction is illogical. Math, Science and History are the only topics of study. Thus it is interesting to study human culture and its randomness.
• Humans like to tell "jokes", which are short fictitious stories that illustrate strange behavior or language. An example:  A Buddhist monk walks up to a Hot Dog vendor and says "Make me one with everything."   
• We are learning some of the subtleties of human speech patterns and tone.  For example the difference between literal speech and sarcasm is a matter of inflection.  If a human says, "I am from the government and I am here to help you."  The other human says "Sure you are!" But really means "I don't believe you, you lying son of an unmarried whore."  
• One of the more bizarre "sports" has players punching opposing players who try to sweep a small rubber disk into a goal with a curved stick, while wearing metal rails on their feet, gliding on an oval of ice.  

I am getting concerned about the work ethic of some of the crew.  Exposure to frittering humans has them asking themselves "Is it so wrong to be amused?"  I overheard one of the engineers telling another, "I was reading a book on Antigravity.  It was so engrossing I could not put it down." The other engineer made a sound suspiciously like a sniggle.

Captains Log Day 55 News Weather and Sports

Lt Col  (*&33%2@

Commander of the Research vessel Fuel Hunter X878

Captain's Log 

Our 1st wave scouts studied all available electronic signals as we explored the solar system.  Approaching this planet, (the 3rd of 15 in this solar system), our main source source of information about the life-forms was gleaned from hacking into primitive orbiting satellites. 

Upon landing and subsequent surveillance, we found ourselves unprepared for the diversity of tribal behavior, dress and cultural complexity that is not explained reflected in their dominant broadcast media, which they call TV.    

The video content of information broadcast is what they call "News, Weather and Sports"  

The inhabitants of Earth have no control over their atmosphere and thus are highly exposed to unexpected weather extremes.  

"Sports" covers a gamut of activities that generally have no practical purpose. They call them "games."  Games range from tossing a ball back and forth on a beach to individual combat to team contests to racing machines to jumping out of aircraft at high altitudes to enjoy the fall. Or, hitting  a small ball into a hole in the grass.

News.  "You heard it here first!" they keep saying.  What the frell is so great about being the first one to report a half story.  What's the frelling hurry? why not get the facts and report something useful instead of wasting people's time?  The so-called News is about three things:

• Disasters 
• Things to be afraid of 
• Entertainers

  Apparently, many citizens tune-in to a favorite station regularly every day to see video of other people being bad to each other and to animals.  The vast majority of news content is about disasters.  Train crashes, fires, robberies, murders, floods, storms, earthquakes, wars.   Every segment includes the many dangers that humans encounter in everyday life: poisoned water, exploding gas mains, new diseases, escaped maniacs, terror plots.

 It is unclear why there are so many separate stations broadcasting in the same language.  The content is generally the same mix of disasters and things to be afraid of.  There is a lot of interest in what famous people are doing and who they are doing it to/with.  Then there are a lot of shows with 4 or 5 people all talking at the same time.

As I have said, humans are peculiar.  It's hard to find meaning in their behavior from a logical standpoint.

Getting Settled

Lt Col  (*&33%2@
Commander of the Research vessel Fuel Hunter X878

Captains Log Day 45:

Assuming homo sapien form is somewhat more complicated than initially thought. Our natural smaller bodies are more efficient than humans.  (If we were not shapeshifted, they would think we look like the Ewoks in one of their popular video series.)

Although homo sapiens appear to all look identical (much like colony lifeforms such as  insects and fish)  from a distance, we have found an amazing and unexplained diversity of appearance of individual members of this species, when viewed up close.  

when we started the shape-shifting algorithm, to appear human-like, we all tended to look like one of their celebrities, they call Ted Cruz.  (He is apparently some sort of host for Tea Parties.  It's all a bit nonsensical and confusing. We'll sort it out later...)  We changed that shift pattern because when we would go out, crowds of people would follow us, some pelting us with cheeseballs.  


Development of human anatomy has been primitive.  Their sexual organs are located in difficult to reach places, and their ahem excretory orifices perform double duty as pleasure centers.  Some of the crew find this mildly erotic, especially fond of females with large breasts.  Since most of the population of our galaxy reproduce by cloning, we no longer have a birth cycle, and everyone is slim with flat chests.   

What the frell is this supposed to mean?

WTF? One of the crew remembered the pictures on a piece of space junk that we encountered on one of our early journeys  beyond the outer solar system.  It had no active electronic signals in or out. The dead hunk of metal pod had a plaque on the side of it.  See the photo to the right: 

The First Mate suggested  that it was supposed to be some form of blueprint.  Or primitive hieroglyphs? 
We were all scratching our Gelads  over it.   We couldn't figure it out what it mean't. In the end, we just vaporized the frelling thing, since it seemed to have no practical use.

The Wiki* says that the space probe was called Pioneer 10 and plaque came from Earth and was intended to explain things to aliens, like us, I guess.  Well that's one puzzle solved. Oops. 

[Still the plaque doesn't prepare a visitor for  midgets and giants and people who have large penises and breasts or humans who wear clothes] 


*All knowledge about the planet is collected into an application called Wikipedia.  I call it Wiki for short.

Commander's Log - day 31

Lt Col  (*&33%2@
Commander of the Research vessel Fuel Hunter X878

Notes:

We have been on this planet for 30 or so revolutions and have already found much about the dominant species here that is both  interesting and annoying.   Earthlings have developed fairly advanced fabrications and construction techniques, and yet they are primitive in the way different tribes interact with each other.

We wander among them unnoticed.  We have learned that the most invisible disguise is to shape as what they call "homeless." [Note: Unlike our planet, where we are assigned to clean and warm dwellings by lottery, humans are expected to build their own home, or pay money to live in an existing building.

The First Mate Gathering Info

Yes, I know this is silly, but hey, don't shoot the messenger, I am only reporting the facts.  Apparently, although most individuals posses  relative wealth, the luckiest individuals, to whom much has simply fallen into their hands, believe that they are entitled to a larger share of the wealth.

Humans who have misfortune, mental illness or addictions  are forced to wander the streets panhandling or stealing to get money they need to eat.  Some kill others during robberies.  Homeless humans not prohibited from walking around asking strangers for money, which serves both our purposes of observation and our need to get samples of earth money.  A bonus is that no one looks too closely at them.  Double bonus, we have been able to get some local money from passersby, which we have been able to counterfeit in our 11-D printer.  Thus we haven't needed to kill anyone, yet. ]


Early wave scouts have been investigating "Music" for our report to home base.  This is the only planet we have encountered where the creatures employ sound as a form of entertainment.  Other lifeforms have developed audible speech or screeches or howls but most sound is always purposeful.  No species has developed anything more sophisticated than something rhythmic, resembling what earthlings call a "fart sound".

But here we are gobsmacked to hear tones of exquisite beauty and harmony.  These are all words I have learned this week from accessing Wikipedia, which we think is the repository of all knowledge to humans..  ("Gob-smacked" is a word that one island tribe uses to describe the state of being so surprised that one is speechless.)  

So we have found that there is something universal in humans that wants to make, and listen to  music.  This is not evident in other species or life forms.  A human child left alone in a room might pick up a stick or a spoon and start banging it rhythmically.  Where else do you find that type of behavior?

Some of the crew have become very interested in the sheer variety and richness of musical platforms, instruments and report a very pleasing effect on mental processes.  We have set-up audio equipment and are monitoring radio signals as well as obtaining stored data disks of which there are billions in use here.  Some of the crew has become quite fond of what is called classical music, and others have voiced preference for songs that tell a story, called folk or country music.  No one likes Opera or Rap.


More to follow....
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