Empyrean Iris Story Collection

My Humans

The feed brightens from black to a grainy white before the picture slowly resolves. The image is of a room tilted at a half angle shaking slightly as someone shifts in the background. You can just see a window in the back far corner. Space glitters in through an inky blackness dotted with a smattering of glittering white, blue and red pinpricks. The camera tilts slowly around, and a face comes into view. It is an inhuman face dark brown in color with large prismatic orange eyes and short antae atop it's rounded head. It adjusts the picture to the horizontal straightening out the canted view of the room.

"Ok..... it says it's on." The creature clears his throat and straightens up, "So for introductions, I am Dr. Krill of the Vrul chief medical officer aboard the human vessel U.S.S Harbinger I have been working with humans for well over a year and a half now. Some say I am the leading expert in the field." He turns in a circle and heads towards the door, the camera shakes a bit as the room recedes into the background, "I don't know about that, but I do have the most experience. I have been writing reports on the human's behavior for some time now, but some comments have been made about my potential biases. Others have pointed out that I am not, in fact a behavioral expert and have asked for video footage on the subject of humans to make their own judgements." He passes through a door into another hallway flipping the camera around so the viewers can see the long space ahead. Compared to the camera height, the hallway is very tall.

"So I thought it would be prudent at first to introduce you to some of my humans let you know a little about them." He steps through another doorway, "First of all I am here to dispel a lot of negative rumors that have been going around about humans lately, and let you all see the truth of humans, the good side of them. First off, I am going to be addressing the idea that 'humans are the most animalistic sentient species in the galaxy' I personally think this is a dumb statement, first off it makes no sense, and second off it can be intermitted many ways. Yes, humans are more in touch with their animal instincts than a lot of us, they have lots of primitive nonverbal communication, a strict social hierarchy led by unwritten social rules, and they do tend to act on their instincts a little more than we do. However humans are also remarkably smart, and very easy to bond with."

He passes up a set of metal stairs clattering and clanging while the camera bobs back and forth "Humans are a very pack-oriented creature, and this instinct has allowed them to bond with many other species. I would estimate that my acceptance aboard the ship took about a week to set in and a little under a month to fully form. At that point the humans will accept you as one of their own and place you within the social hierarchy. Human hierarchy tends to have a very pyramid like structure with an alpha human at the top followed by their Betas and then going on down the latter. I would place myself somewhere in the Betas of this human pack." He turns a corner and stops before a door, "I am about to introduce you to one of my favorite humans, he is the leader of the pack but actually one of the most affable of the humans. It is important to note that each human has a fascinatingly distinct personalities, very colorful characters. This humans name is Vir, and I would characterize him as very social, surprisingly juvenile, but aggressively loyal and laid back for, so here let's just go in and say hi."

He turns the camera back towards the door, which clatters lightly before swinging open. It takes a moment for the camera to adjust to the darkness, but when it does you can see the silhouette of a large figure cured atop a strange platform- like object. "Humans use up a lot of energy during the day, and when they nest at night they have to find somewhere dark and soft to do it. Now, imposing on a human's sleep is not recommended, so we have to feel things out to make sure he's going to be ok seeing us. I may be part of their pack but every day I have to remain wary and am very careful with how I approach humans."

The camera zooms in on the figure which churns rolls and then sits up. A single large, forward-facing eyes greet them from the darkness flashing with light from the hallway. It tilts it's head blinking as the pupils quickly constrict against the light, "This human is a male approximately 26 solar cycles old, 6,2 and 205 pounds with athletic body composition aside from a missing leg and a missing eye, unlike other species humans accept the survival of extreme injury as a status symbol."