Memoires of a Thylacine
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Me, Thylacine-evolved (Zeen)
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Memoires of a Thylacine
by Mike Rozak
Copyleft 2011
Growing up
Nose-licker
As a child, I was a "nose-licker", though I didn't realize it at the time.
The stereotypical nose-licker is a nerd-version of a Zeen, without the Hominid pocket-protector, Dungeons & Dragons, science-fiction, and computer-games. Nose-lickers are very-curious runts with an Asperger-Syndrome-like personality. (All Zeen have mild Asperger-Syndrome personalities.) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocket_protector, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_%26_Dragons, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger_syndrome)
The worst nose-lickers look through people's desks at school. I wasn't that bad. I was a runt though. And I exhibited the stereotypical subconscious/nervous reaction of licking the bottom of the furless-portion of my nose when approached by a larger boy, or even a larger girl.
Nose-lickers aren't especially popular with their childhood piers. To tell the truth, I didn't even notice that I was unpopular, or popular, or even think about the concept. With only one-other boy, and seven (or nine?) girls, in my village, popularity was hidden by statistical noise.
The planet where I grew up
I grew up on a small planet, 4000-kilometers in diameter, approximately 0.7 g's. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G-force)
The planet was in Earth-Sol's solar system, orbiting at 0.8 AU. People on Earth-Sol couldn't see the planet because its orbit was NOT coplanar with the other planets in the solar-system... and it was hyper-dimensionally "rotated" so it couldn't be seen... and we always had a giant several-thousand-kilometre circular-mask placed between the planet and Earth-Sol. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomical_unit)
My home-planet planet isn't in Earth-Sol's solar-system at the moment. It was moved a few years ago, along with our other planets, so that the Hominoids wouldn't take them over.
The planet was mostly flat, as most low-budget planets are. It had no oceans, lakes, rivers, or streams, just a water table 10-100 meters below the surface of the planet.
It rained ONCE while I was there.
The planet was covered with fast-growing shrubby trees, like acacias and eucalypts. Grasses grew slowly underneath the sparse canopy.
I lived about half-way between the equator and the north-pole. The poles and equator would have different flora, but I never visited either extreme.
I never walked more than half-a-kilometre from the village where I grew up. I once visited a small-town elsewhere on the planet. However, I went shopping on the next-planet-over nearly every week.
Planets don't rotate without a moon. I learned that when I was nine. But I don't recall ever seeing a moon.
We may have used a spare "core" from a battle-sphere. They are very dense, and can act as moons, in a pinch. The core would have been acquired from the previous war, or maybe the war before that. Cores are essentially black, and they blend-in with the night sky. Over time, core-moons fall into the planet because they're too dense. Once every few years, someone would have-to hire a planet-mover and wind-up the moon.
My village
My village didn't have a name, other than its coordinates, "42, 89.6".
One other boy, and seven (or nine) girls, lived in the village... and me and my mother. My teachers flew-in daily. That's all I knew. The other children must-have had parents, so there would-have been about 40 people altogether, in a village smaller than one square-kilometre.
We had a "take what you want" shed with canned food, toilet-paper, pens, and school-paper. It had an empty derelict-freezer. And a cork-board with community notices.
My house was an arc of corrugated iron roofing/walls. It was 4-meters high, 8-meters wide, and 16-meters long. Vertical walls sealed-off both ends of the arc, one door at each end of the house.
My bed was against the front wall, with my mother's against the arc wall, half-way up. A mostly-dormant kitchenette was in the rear of the house, with a toilet and shower behind it. The backdoor led out to my mother's spaceplane.
People on Earth-Sol would call the interior furnishings "few and Spartan". And the house, "trailer trash" accommodations.
30-meters in front of my house was a playground, originally a hard-soil sports-field.
Further away and to the right was the village's centre, a small corrugated-iron school. It had a half-hip roof that covered two classrooms and a sizable veranda.
Houses similar to mine were placed disorderly-like around the school, some further into the "bush".
Anyone spying on our village's structures from space, or with invisible cameras, would think we were unemployed waste-people. They never saw our extradimensional spaceplanes, and if they did, they'd value them at the low-end of extradimensional.
Zeen history
Zeen have never been popular. But, we are popular than we were several-million years ago. J
We had some nice planets not-far from this taurosphere.
400 galactic-years ago (550 Earth-Sol years ago) some Hominoids got it into their heads to genocide us, which explains our rent-a-planet, core-moon, and "trailer trash" accommodations.
Most of us were killed by the Hominoids, especially male Zeens. Hominoids ALWAYS think males are the centre of power.(While I'm writing this, some Aussies and Oonks have chimed-in to point-out that this perception-flaw is a Hominid thing.)
After the Hominids nearly genocided us, perhaps the tenth-time an enemy has nearly genocided us, we scattered everywhere. It was the only way to hide from Hominoid battleships and assassins.
We became so mobile that we began living on demountable "trailer"-planets, like the one I grew-up on. The nearby shopping-planet was also demountable, although it was more-urbanized, with 1920's-style brick buildings.
We intensely-dislike Hominoids.
What people on our planet did
Our planet wasn't even a suburb planet. It was ninety-nine-percent wild, dotted with small rural-villages like mine.
People in the villages raised children.
They also had other jobs:
We protected Earth-Sol... kind-of... We're not big on protecting. Our hour-to-hour attention span is quite short. We do enjoy blowing-up Hominoid ships though, particularly ones from Azcruk.
We also operated labs to genetically-modify the Hominids on Earth-Sol, undoing all of the crap genetic-manipulation that the non-Earth-Sol Hominids did to themselves. Most of the real lab-work was done elsewhere in the galaxy.
We didn't care what the non-Earth-Sol Hominoids did to themselves. We did mind that every few-hundred years, they'd deposit several-hundred million of their crap-people on Earth-Sol. Their war-bred-crap would demolish any improvements we were trying to make to the Earth-Sol population, such as eliminating their propensity for slavery, subjugation, racism, and war.
Zeen are quite clever. The Hominoids would dump junk-genetics from all-over the Hominoid Empire onto Earth-Sol. That provided us with a relatively-enormous genetic-diversity... of junk. We'd cut-and-paste and sift-through genetic-junk, producing decent Hominids, who might-be-able to one-day realize that they shouldn't behave like Mud-Apes with laser-pistols. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gom_jabbar)
The regenerated Hominid ovum that we marketed made a bit of money. The genetics of "nice", genetically-diverse Hominids, are quite valuable.
The Earth-Sol project was a challenge: Scientifically, military-defence-wise, and politically.
School
School was... well... school. I went to school, listened to lectures, played outdoor-games with the other kids, and did my computer-based schoolwork at home.
I wasn't inspired by school.
I wasn't very bright either, most-likely at the 20%-mark of intelligence. When I was learning algebra at age 13, the girls a few-years older than me were onto simple-calculus and space-geometry.
Other subjects were taught, most of which I didn't bother to remember. Nor did I remember much algebra.
An hour every day was spent outside playing group-games, such as tag, fencing, or something-like football. We took a nature walk... once. That was the only time I took a walk into the Australian-like "bush" that surrounded my village.
Home
When school ended in the hot afternoon, I'd hide-out in air-conditioning at home. My homework didn't take long to finish. Most of it was computer-work. Less of it was written.
My old classmates, the girls, tell me that "less" was expected of "the males". Their homework assignments were less-difficult, because of the Simpson-gene, which Mike mentioned in his "disclosure" document. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson_gene)
I'd then squeeze in a chore for the day, which basically amounted to doing the laundry. My mother took the trash out.... back to the other planet. I think I tried dusting/sweeping off the corrugated-iron roof once, but I gave up on that.
My mother would arrive-home a few hours before dark. She would typically bring takeaway from the neighbouring planet.
The planet was more-metropolitan than ours, with large towns of 20-40 thousand people. The towns consisted of two-to-three-story brick-buildings, with shops on the ground floor. Taller brick-buildings wouldn't-have survived when the transportable planet was moved half-way across the galaxy.
The planet was rented from the Rabbits. It even came with a few-hundred-thousand of them. They were temporarily-housed elsewhere while the planet was transported, though.
My mother had an unimpressive office on the planet. After I left, she installed a 60-foot video-screen in a spare storage-room. If the mega-video-screen had been there when I was around, I might have spent a day a week at her office, just like she wanted. As it was, I lost interest in her old office after pulling-out and pushing-in her filing-cabinet drawers a few times. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_deficit_disorder)
Back to dinner...
The takeaway food was Rabbit-made... which meant it was very-sweet, and had too-many celery-like vegetables. It did come with meat though. The takeaway-shop staff always added extra meat for the carnivores.
If my mother didn't bring home takeaway, we'd have spam from the "take what you want" store. We cooked the spam in a small extradimensional-oven we had in our kitchenette. Rabbit-takeaway tasted better.
My mother didn't talk much when she first returned home. She was one of the people assigned to dealing with the Hominoids, and their slimy lawyers. She was almost-always too-furious to have a conversation.
We'd eat in silence.
Then she'd pull out her hookah and smoke some marijuana. Marijuana only has a calming-effect on us. It isn't a narcotic to us. Lung-cancer doesn't matter, since we just purchase some replacement lungs.
After my mother calmed-herself down, she'd ask me about my homework to make sure I was studying.
She would also talk about problems at her work.
At some point, she'd try to drag me into a conversation. I was a typical teenager. "What did you do today?" earned a "Not much" one-word response. I hadn't done anything other than schoolwork and browsing the internet. The concept of answering in a way that provoked more questions didn't occur to me.
I was more-interactive on weekends, when my mother and I had political-conversations.
Once-in-awhile my mother would show-up exceptionally frustrated. The Hominoids had a habit of sneaking-around where they were told NOT to sneak around.
The Azcruk-Hominids were hanging around Mars again. With a bit of a detour, she had blown them up on the way home. It was her turn, since everyone-else at the office was tired of blowing them up.
The Hominids had a habit of smuggling weapons onto Earth-Sol in passenger transports... which earned them a "blowing-up".
Some Azcruk-Hominids even blew-up the Voyager once, so they were blown-up. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_spacecraft)
_"It's just a piece of junk,"_the Hominids replied.
_"What would you think if an adult ripped-up your child's prize piece of artwork?"_she retorted.
The Azcruk-Hominids wouldn't care, would they.
Fucking Hominids!
We earned a reputation for blowing-up Azcruk Hominids.
Our internal-cameras were always shut-off when yelling at Azcruk-Hominids. They were more-frightened of a blank-screen than an "animal" person; they regularly enslaved "animal" people. When Hominid pilots asked what our racial-name was and where our authority came from, our joke name was "Ass shit", which sounded like "Foong gueh". The Hominids incorporated the name into "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" as "Ferengi", a race that had only interacted with the Federation in a cameras-off mode prior to the beginning of the series. Sadly, the Star-Trek writers built the Ferengi out of a bit of Alotian business-drive, lots of sliminess, large ears, and that naked-women-culture bit. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_Deep_Space_Nine, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferengi)
Other races call us "Hoonda", which is roughly-interpreted as "Shit person". Smilodon-evolved people are also called "Hoonda", but not to their face. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smilodon)
Returning home...
As night set in, my mother and I would watch a few television-movies, typically two half-hour movies a night. One would be multicultural, usually Rabbit, the other would sometimes be Zeen. They were beamed-in from the other planet.
Never-ever watch Saurian movies, by the way.
After television, I'd go to bed, and wake up for school again.
On weekends, I'd either sit-around and browse the internet, or my mother and I would take a day-trip to the Rabbit planet. We'd shop for necessities, look-around town, and eat at a Wimpy's clone, run by Alotians. The Alotians tailored their burgers to whatever race ordered them. We always got thinner buns and absolutely no onions. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wimpy_(restaurant))
Our Wimpy's burger-eating conversations were more focused. We talked about relatives, politics, school, more politics, future schooling, and more politics.
Because disclosure was a Hominid-supported possibility for 2013, the same Alotian family hauled a small space-station to a solar-system near Earth-Sol, and built "Quark's Bar" in it, based on the television-series, "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine". Hominids destroyed the space-station a year-and-a-half ago. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_Deep_Space_Nine)
Another party was constructing "Dex's Diner" on a nearby site, from "Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones". That didn't survive Hominid-destruction either. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_Episode_II:_Attack_of_the_Clones)
The playground
One autumn-morning (there must have been a glitch in the planet's orbit, because we shouldn't have-had an autumn), I awoke, brushed my teeth, and walked the usual 100-meters to school.
On-top of the rock-hard "grass" sports-field, was a playground. It consisted of several odd devices that I had never seen before. Not paying much attention, I walked past them into my classroom.
At the beginning of class, we learned that some simulated Earth-Sol playground equipment had been given to us by the Greys. We were going to be versed in Earth-Sol culture.
This will sound quite weird to you...
I was born in 1953, I think. I don't know if my birth-date was the day I was kicked out of my mother's pouch, or the significant-date before that.
The playground was installed when I was (approximately) 13 years old, in 1966. It couldn't have been 1966 though, since Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, a year after the playground was installed... which meant I was 9 when I had my first merry-go-round ride. But I know I was older than 9... Oh well. You never know in space. Time progresses differently in different solar-systems, and on different planets. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy_assassination)
Learning English from "Leave it to Beaver" is extremely-odd. Our teacher would play a few minutes of an episode on a 1960's-looking digital-television. She'd then explain the story up to that point. With a very-strong accent, she would repeat a phrase that Wally spoke; Zeen mouths can't reproduce English well. We'd repeat the phrase back, in even worse-sounding English. And then we'd watch the same segment over again, followed by more of the show. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leave_It_To_Beaver)
_"Leave it to Beaver"_was quite boring. Just like everyone-else, we all hated Beaver. He was stupid for loaning that bicycle to the criminal-kid. We were all traumatized for-life by Beaver's decision. No-one ever stole anything in our village. The concept of theft didn't exist in our minds. Theft was never-even shown in the multicultural Rabbit-movies I watched at home.
_"Leave it to Beaver"_lowered our estimate of Homo-Sapiens intelligence, and may have reduced the probability of disclosure in the 1960's and 1970's by one-percent.
Gilligan's Island_would have been more fun, but I didn't see it until I was living in Tasmania as an _Australian Kelpie. If we had seen Gilligan's Island in 1963, you guys might be flying spaceplanes by now. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilligan%27s_Island, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_kelpie)
I believe we also tried to learn English from Casa Blanca. A few years later we were taught a bit of Russian. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casa_Blanca)
We had American-food days.
Pizza was flown in from a Rabbit-owned bakery. Bread is inedible. No meat was on the pizza. A meat-lover's pizza without the crust might-have worked for us.
We never tried hot-dogs.
Omelette-day was good, especially the ham part.
Waffles... no way.
We did a hamburger-barbeque a few times. At first, we all tried picking-up the burger with our hands and biting into it, like we saw on television. Our mouths can open wide-enough to engulf a thick beef-patty with all of the toppings, including a very thick bun... but our hands couldn't grasp the burger.
... so we used a fork and knife.
Burgers don't work-well with forks and knives, particularly since forks enable the elimination of the less-edible bits.
Toss the bun.
Toss the lettuce.
The raw-onion goes out with the lettuce.
Tomatoes are okay.
Absolutely no pickles, EVER!
Just isolate the beef patty. Cut it in half. Two chomps and the burger is down.
On that first day of the playground, we were led outside, and had the playground explained to us.
The playground had a 1950's vintage titanium (not iron) swing-set with rubber swing-seats. One of the seats broke a few months later. Because we didn't have good-hands for grasping, we couldn't swing on the dangling seat Monkey-style. We hadn't seen Tarzan. Someone must have attempted swinging after seeing a multicultural Simian-movie with swinging Simians. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarzan_the_Ape_Man_(1932_film))
I liked the swings. The feeling of the tip of your tail brushing against the ground back-and-forth is kind-of neat. The motion-sickness is not. I got around the motion-sickness by closing my eyes, opening my mouth, and occasionally shaking my head.
(I didn't learn about this until just now, but all of the girls thought I was weird. Some thought I accidently caught a bee in my mouth. My mother was thinking about taking me to the doctor because of the odd behaviour.)
We had a merry-go-round. I loved it!
The other boy, named "Big one", wouldn't go on it. My name was "Little one", by the way, pronounced "Ka 'yll", which translated exactly to "The + diminutive-suffix".
The girls and I would take turns pushing the merry-go-round.
What was so fun about the merry-go-round (for me) was that I'd always fall off due to the centrifugal forces. We cannot possibly hold onto authentic 1950's titanium merry-go-round handrails with our hands. They're far too-slippery.
I'd begin the spin standing-up near the centre of the merry-go-round. When centrifugal forces got too extreme, I'd sit down. Then I'd rapidly lie-down.
And then centrifugal forces would FLING me off the merry-go-round at high speeds. I didn't hit my head too-often. I think my record shot-put distance was about three meters from the merry-go-round.
The girls also enjoyed the merry-go-round, but they didn't willingly do the Kamikaze shot-put.
What I didn't learn until just now, was...
The girls wore blue elasti-fabric shorts. Tight shorts didn't work for the boys. Elasti-fabric is WAY too revealing. We wore white pleated-kilts.
Unbeknownst to me, while I was having fun with centrifugal forces... The girls were enjoying my kilt.
The other boy, "Big one", would never ride on the merry-go-round. The girls would have preferred to ogle him. He wouldn't have minded the ogling, but he was clueless about the interaction between kilts and merry-go-rounds and girls.
The slide was a vintage 1950's titanium-framed slide with a stainless-steel slippery-bit.
It was always dusty. I tried sliding down it about-twice, and then got into trouble with my mother for dirtying my white kilt.
After the second day, no-one tried sliding down it. I think someone nearly broke her tail.
We did enjoy trying to climb up the slide from the bottom, though. Bare Zeen-feet on stainless-steel are very slippery. Our hands couldn't grasp the slide-rails at all. Climbing up was quite a challenge.
The girls always challenged me to climb-up the slide. Simply put, they challenged me because "Big One" wouldn't climb-up the slide, because he didn't know why they were challenging me.
One weekend morning, when no-one was awake-and-out, and when the stainless-steel had not-yet been heated to burning-hot by the sun...
I walked across the dirt track to the playground, dropped my kilt, and tried to slide-down properly. There is no safe way for a (male) Zeen to slide down a 1950's slide, particularly when not wearing a kilt.
The first moon-landing
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11)
I wasn't around for the first moon-landing. I was off visiting relatives for the week.
"Disclosure" was supposed to happen as soon as the astronauts returned to Earth-Sol.
To ensure that disclosure happened, some friendly Alotians landed two (or three) of their 200-meter circular-spaceplanes around the landing site. We even cleared some rocks away from the planned Apollo landing-site so the lunar-module wouldn't crash or tip. We even had evacuation plans for the astronauts if anything failed.
At the last moment, the astronauts aborted landing at the site. They landed further along, instead. This prevented the Alotians from getting their spaceplanes on live Earth-Sol television. The United States Military (and NASA) were full of off-planet Hominids. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasa).
Even-before the crew returned to Earth-Sol, we were informed by Hominids that disclosure wouldn't happen. The Hominids in-charge weren't local to the Orion Spur. They were either from elsewhere in The Milky-Way Galaxy, or from The Six Kingdoms, or Lots of Stars (K' Tick Tuck). (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_spur)
Recall that the cold war was at its peak in the 1960's. The Hominids ALWAYS threatened to start a nuclear-war if we ever "disclosed", Russians versus Americans, or vice versa. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutually_assured_destruction)
After the moon-landing, hope of disclosure sublimated. My mother was furious at the Hominids, which earned them a free "blowing-up".
Military schooling
At age 19, I was kicked-out of home, and sent to military-school in another galaxy. This was quite typical and expected.
I believe Jimmy Carter was president at the time. Again, my years seem to be off, because if Jimmy Carter were president, I would be 22-years old then, not 19. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_carter)
The Greys say "Goodbye" to George Bush in 1976
I don't recall how/when I heard about the Greys pissing-off and leaving the United States. Others had left Soviet Russia years before.
My mother must have told me. She didn't hear precisely what transpired, only that the Greys had become furious with the United States' military and politicians, and decided to not waste their time.
My mother was happy to see the Greys leave. "They are stubborn, irascible, and persnickety." She didn't get along with them.
I later learned that they gave George Bush, then director of the CIA, a long-term goodbye... which is a visually-rude gesture displayed by visually-rude Greys. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_H._W._Bush)
As a counterweight to the Greys, we had hired the Nordics to act as monitors for Earth-Sol. They showed up for awhile. Then they flitted away, and we never saw them again. They still owe us a ten-thousand-page report about what was happening on Earth-Sol in the mid-20thcentury. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_aliens)
What I am learning as I write is: The Nordics' excuse is that, at the time, some Aussies were chasing the Nordics around the universe, trying to arrest/assassinate them.
From the Greys...
Kennedy may have used his contacts with the American Mafia to initiate "disclosure". The American Mafia was controlled by off-planet Hominids, linked to other Hominid nations in the Orion Spur. Kennedy was somehow informed by the off-planet Hominids associated with the American Mafia, that if we landed on the moon, then legally we'd have to be disclosed to. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Mafia)
In 1963, John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and his soul was ripped to shreds. Imagine an assassin with "time-bending" arm/leg-bands, bullets that travel extradimensionally for the first-few meters so they don't break the glass, and a different window in the Texas School-Book Depository. ("Time bending" is the slow-motion time-effect shown in the movie, The Matrix, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Matrix. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy_assassination)
Sometime after Kennedy's assassination, the American Mafia was decommissioned by anti-disclosure off-planet Hominids. The pro-disclosure off-planet Hominids were removed from the Earth-Sol.
Everything "alien" went ultra-black.
Johnson, Nixon and Ford didn't know much of anything. Neither did Carter. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyndon_B_Johnson, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_nixon, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_ford, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_carter)
George Bush didn't learn what happened. He sided with the newly-arrived off-planet Hominids, who told him a lie, and promised "disclosure", but on their own time, and using their own methods. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_H._W._Bush)
The Zeen weren't about to push disclosure after 1969, nor even before that. While Zeen have a short attention-span from hour-to-hour, they enjoy spending hundreds-of-years on a project. If "disclosure" didn't happen in 1969 or 1976, the Zeen would fuck with the Hominoids another way, another time, and over long periods of time.
Suit training
Before being taught to pilot a spaceplane, I first needed encounter-suit training, taught in another galaxy. For security reasons, suit-training was underground. We weren't even told what planet we were on, just in-case any Hominoids read our minds.
At the time, I was the only Zeen there. Everyone-else was Elk or Wallaby. There is a schism between herbivores and carnivores. No-one wanted to bunk with me, so I had a dorm-room to myself.
My teacher was a Wallaby; they can be quite snippy. And Elk are often irate.
What do you do when you're underground, on an unknown planet, training to use encounter-suits, and there's no-one around to socialize with?
Because the data-signals could be traced and decoded by Hominoids, there was no internet.
There were books... yeah right.(An irate-Elk just pointed-out that the books that I never tried to read were mostly Wallaby romance-novels.)
There was a cantina that served mostly-vegetarian food... Never ask for elk-meat shiskabobs at that cantina.
There were VERY long hallways to walk.
I'm not allowed to say much about encounter-suit training. Training took place in an X-Men-like obstacle-course. We only trained for an hour a day. The rest of the time, I wandered around the tunnels, and everyone-else read Wallaby romance-novels. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-Men)
Clarke jumps in
While I (Mike) am writing this text for Ka 'yll (the Zeen), Clarke (a Pink-Grey) is saying, "Wait! Wait! What about my part!"
After the Grey-Greys said adieu with much fanfare, we (the Pink-Greys and one different-race Grey-Grey) showed up.
We were warmly greeted at Edwards Air-Force Base. We enjoyed a lovely panel-van ride into New Mexico, where we were driven directly-into Dulce-base. We never saw the sun again, except for once, when one of us managed to escape. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwards_Air_Force_Base, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dulce_Base, http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Base+near+Dulce,+Deming,+NM,+United+States&aq=0&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=33.572881,86.220703&ie=UTF8&hq=Base&hnear=Dulce,+Deming,+Luna,+New+Mexico+88030&ll=32.468061,-107.888489&spn=1.058968,2.694397&t=h&z=9)
The previous Grey-Greys received a warm-welcome when they worked with actual Americans. We only encountered off-planet Hominids "on" Earth-Sol. We were technically "in" Earth-Sol, since we never got out of the underground Dulce-base. ("I did!" interrupts the different-race Grey-Grey, "But I got shot!")
Training
After completing suit-training, I was flown to a different galaxy for spaceplane-training. All of the trainees there were Zeen, training for an upcoming war... this one.
Basic spaceplane-piloting is easier than driving a car.
Spaceplane combat, however, requires enormous skill, much-more than flying Earth-Sol fighter-jets. ("Don't forget that Rat-evolved people also have fighter-jets", chimes-in a Rat-evolved person.)
I am not allowed to write any details about the training...
Except that... well... I sucked.
But even though I sucked, I still did better than most of the simulated Hominoid-pilots. I couldn't beat the simulated Zeen-pilots though. I lasted approximately 39.6 seconds against them, sometimes as long as 3 minutes.
At the same facility, I began intermediate suit-training. I was assigned to a learning-team headed by Uwya, one of the older girls from my village. She was a teacher's assistant.
Suit-combat is harrowing.
I sucked at it, although less-badly than I sucked at spaceplane combat.
Thylacines
The Thylacines that live(d) in Tasmania are quite small. They are rodent-hunters.
Many planets have large, 150-kilogram Thylacine-animals.
150-kilogram female Thylacine-animals are lone hunters.
150-kilogram male Thylacine-animals hunt in packs. You know you're in trouble when you hear "Hm hm hm hm hm" from them, as they start bouncing up-and-down on their forelegs. They do this when they are about to hunt (you) as a pack.
Thylacines have an extremely-short and scattered attention-span, until they decide to hunt. They then leave no rock unturned... literally. Once they have seen and decided to go after prey, they are extremely persistent.
Over millions of years of genocide, the males of race tend to be killed-off, to the point where some races have no males whatsoever. Male traits find their way into the female population. For example: Women-Elk sprout small antlers, even-though female animal-elk usually have no antlers. Women-Antelope have small horns, even though female animal-antelope typically have no horns. Women-Zeen often hunt in packs, and they are very-persistent hunters.
Zeen have little sense-of -vengeance. Once they kill their prey, the hunt, as well as animosity towards their prey, is forgotten. Animosity is the wrong term; Zeen don't particularly feel animosity. Zeen have two levels of "dislike", which they retain until they decide to discard the assigned "dislike".
If more-interesting prey flushes-out during a hunt, Thylacines will chase after the new prey, without emotional-attachment to their previous prey or decisions.
Hominids become emotionally-attached to their previous decisions, which is partially why Hominids cannot accept constructive-criticism. They also hunt in extremely-large packs that inefficiently swarm their target.
Aussies hunt differently than Hominids, being small-group hunters. They hunt with emotional vendettas, almost an inverted-Zeen hunting-personality. (Some Cat-evolved-people chime-in and second the motion.)
Hominoids can also "assassinate", being subtle and/or sneaky about killing their prey. Zeens only "hunt".
Neither Aussies nor Hominids try to understand their prey. The concept of "thinking like their prey" is so foreign that they don't even know the concept exists. More "primitive" Earth-Sol hunter-gatherers understand the concept, though they don't execute-well on the intellectual-simulation of their prey.
400 galactic-years ago, many Zeen were commissioned to hunt individuals, including Hominoids. Hunted Hominoids and their families retained vengeance against the Zeen hunters. After the war (and peace treaties), Aussie assassins spent 400 years chasing the Zeens they hated, as well as their Zeen families. Hominids swarmed and/or obliterated the Zeens' planets.
Zeens were assigned to Earth-Sol's solar-system because:
Hominids were/are interested in Earth-Sol as a well-defended capital and/or fortress. Zeen dislike-#2 Hominids.
Some Aussies, who wouldn't call themselves Aussies, want Earth-Sol to be reborn a goliath, and/or used as an anchor-point for their planet-hiding custom-spaces. Zeen dislike-#1 Aussies.
Both Hominids and Aussies LOVE lawyers. Zeen dislike-#1 lawyers.
Hominids solve their problems with weapons, mostly guns, bombs, and hurled-planets. Zeen spacecraft can over-match Hominid (and Aussie) weaponry.
Zeen manufacture (and/or are provided) fast spaceplanes, with very-good weaponry and defences. Why are Zeen allowed such weapons? Unlike Aussies, who hunt until the end-of-time, driven-by vengeance, Zeen hunt to achieve a contracted goal. Unlike Hominids, Zeen-goals are not race-greedy.
Life at the training base
Unlike the underground suit-training facility, the Zeen training-facility had internet access, and it was mostly-outdoors.
We all had our own dorm-rooms. Toilets and showers were communal though.
When I first arrived, I only-knew Uwya. She was five years older than me, but she recognized me from the merry-go-round. I wasn't allowed to wear my country-bumpkin white-pleated-kilt at the base. We all wore gender-hiding baggy-trousers.
Acting as leader, Uwya would wake us up in the morning, and lead us to class, as a group.
After class, Uwya would lead us to the (non-vegetarian) cantina as a group, and we'd eat as a group. My favourite dish was an omelette with shredded elk-meat. And the beef curry wasn't bad either. Nor were the buffalo pasties.
After lunch, our main meal, Uwya would lead us to paperwork-classes as a group.
Once classes were finished for the day, Uwya would return us to our dorm-rooms, where we'd have an hour to ourselves.
In the evening, another member of our group (whose name is intentionally anonymous) would arrange group social-activities, such as movies, discussions, and board-games like chess. I was quite-proficient at chess, but not at movies and discussions.(Despite what Mike claims in his document, chess is usually played on an 8 x 8 board.)
After socialization, we returned alone to our dorm-rooms.
Raaka
Raaka is a "time planet" with a heart of molybdenum(?). She is over 12-billion years old. 25-million years ago, she was allied with Arthropods. Then she was allied with the eeoo. Then the Zeen, when we briefly attempted to take over the world 10-million years ago.
Raaka had extensive tunnels in her rock-skin before she aligned with the Zeen. We added even-more tunnels.
After the Zeen decided not to take over the world, we encoded our entire history (and lots of knowledge) onto titanium(?) metal-pages that would last more than a hundred-million years. They were stored in tunnels and libraries throughout Raaka's rock-skin.
An underground library-of-technology, something like the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, was also constructed. It housed historical spaceplanes, including mechanically-disabled time-ships that the Zeen had designed and built. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithsonian_Air_and_Space_Museum)
I'll put in a plug for the Dune series here: Raaka is a sand-dune planet. My politically-astute mother and other Zeen dealt with Hominoid lawyers and nobility all of the time. They helped write Dune. Regrettably, I never got my hands on the translated tomes. ((franchise))
I visited Raaka with my mother when I was a teenager. At the time, Raaka was just a planet to me. She was a boring sand-dune desert-planet with a single Al-Ari training-base and hospital dotting her surface.
Raaka is sacred to Zeen, like Uluru is sacred to the Australian Aborigines. We often make a pilgrimage to Raaka... more of a meditation-trip... at various-times in our lives.(Another Zeen chimes in - "We would pilgrimage to her, you bastard, if we knew you hid her!") (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uluru)
When the Zeen diaspora befell 400 years ago, the now-local-Zeen brought Raaka into The Milky Way. Raaka was orbited around a star, not far away from Earth-Sol. One of the planets orbiting the star has two continents. One continent incubated Zebra-evolved people. The other incubated Numbat/Thylacine-evolved people.
Having a valid spaceplane driver's license, a no-frills extradimensional-spaceplane, and a week off, I decide to wander around Raaka. When I visited Raaka, I didn't bother looking at the libraries or museums. I wasn't interested in seeing them. I don't know if my pre-boredom with the museums was because my mother had previously taken me to them. Most-likely not. She preferred the expanse of the desert dunes.
Instead of visiting Raaka's surface and/or rock-skin tunnels, I flew my spaceplane into Raaka's skin, and landed in a large cavern near her core. Old derelict-spaceplanes were left behind in the rock-hewn landing-gallery. I didn't look through them.
My spaceplane, being extradimensional, was only briefly-visible as a doorway. I stepped out, and the doorway disappeared.
With glow-lights following and preceding me, I walked down a passage, down some stairs, and stood on the heart of Raaka.
Raaka looks like a brushed stainless-steel sphere, several thousand kilometres in diameter.
Standing in a winding natural-tunnel of ironstone, all I saw of Raaka was a brushed stainless-steel floor. The floor was extremely slippery, both because of my bare feet, and because of the low gravity.
Tunnels wandered every-which-way, carved into the rock-skin that encased Raaka.
I wandered only a short distance. It would be easy to get lost, and many did.
In one chamber, I found dozens of Zeen skeletons stuck to the roof of the cavern. Their clothes had not-yet completely rotted away. Some mummified-flesh still hung to their bones. They had been killed 400 galactic-years ago, by the Hominoids and Alotians.
Millions of Zeen died on the heart of Raaka in that battle.
Their souls were absorbed by her.
Raaka is a haunted planet.
Custom dictates that Zeen sleep on Raaka, as she slowly spins within her rock skin. The floor shifts underneath, as you as sleep.
I only stayed an hour.
Raaka Epilogue
The Azcruk Hominids decided to take over Raaka soon-afterwards.
They ignored the Al-Ari base on Raaka's surface until two years ago.
They hid their weapons inside Raaka's rock-skin.
They melted down the Zeen histories.
The fuck-heads missed the spaceplane-and-technology museums.
They nuked Raaka's surface when non-Hominoid leaders were having a meeting on her.
They ate all of the Zebra on the neighbouring planet.
They genocided most of the Numbat/Thylacines on the continent opposite the Zebras.
Hominid carcases now litter the neighbouring planet, but they continue to land.
They even tried to hurl Raaka into another planet.
Raaka had herself moved, and has entered the war against the Hominids.
Impulse
Discussing Raaka
After returning to camp from Raaka, I earned a silver-suit.
I didn't discuss Raaka with anyone for awhile.
One "course" in the military-training I was taking, was to-learn how to out-will chemical agents, as well as to-train my body to withstand them.
Uwya spent a full day with every person in the team, injecting "stims" into them so they could get a feel of the chemicals... before the pros in the camp REALLY abused us.
The day that Uwya was going to drug me with battle-toxins, she was busy, so we began in the late afternoon.
Uwya had me meet her in her room, so that later she could laughingly watch me stagger 100-meters back to my room, with a body full of stims.
She first injected my arm with a numbing stim. Movement returned after about an hour.
Another stim nearly put me to sleep. I had-to fight to stay awake. I would have fallen asleep standing-up. I only survived by pacing.
At the camp, we never had alone-time with other Zeen. This was the first time I was alone with Uwya. Since I knew Uwya, and felt comfortable with her, I brought up my visit to Raaka.
She hadn't yet visited Raaka, and thought it odd that I should do so. Visiting Raaka is often a sign of "religious fervour", something she hadn't expected of me.
"Are you going that way [becoming a religious zealot]?"_she asked. More-accurate descriptors than _"religious zealot" are_"stoic", "deep", "very-long-term view",_ guided by the elder-elder races as-well-as very-large-rocks, and "Obi-Wan-Kenobi-style Jedi as played by Alec Guinness". (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obi-Wan_Kenobi, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alec_Guinness)
"No. It was an urge, something to do, and I was thinking about my mother."
Uwya, "What was it like?"
"Raaka was quiet".
Pause.
I didn't know how to say the rest...
_"When you visit Raaka, you often don't leave the same person,"_I hesitantly-stated.
I didn't cue Uwya to take up the conversation.
"I'm the same person."
"But..."
"I know stuff... that sounds corny [and uneducated]... but I now know things that I didn't know before."
Uwya looked at me, perhaps expecting me to speak a prophecy.
I didn't.
_"Are you certain [about the changes]?"_asked Uwya.
I didn't answer.
She resumed her role as leader, and eyed a stim. "Okay," she said quietly. "Ready for your next stim?"
Uwya comments: "By the way, I had my eye on you then. Well, actually not, I had my eye on another male who was bigger, stronger, and more-intelligent... but this quote makes for a better story for you."
Visit home - 1989
Half-a-year after visiting Raaka, I was home on break, visiting my mother.
As usual, she was seething about the Hominoids. They were making more-and-more incursions into Earth-Sol's solar-system, with better spaceplanes. Some of their spaceplanes could reach our hidden planets.
Greater-numbers of Hominids were landing on Earth-Sol.
The Nor had left the area, leaving us feeling vulnerable.
Hominids were also nosing around Raaka. My mother was worried they would get into the archives and loot them.
Flying-planet Aussies were performing reconnaissance on Earth-Sol.
The war continued approaching. Wars are like thunderstorms. You hope they never hit, because of all of the damage. But because the atmosphere becomes so hot and humid before the thunderstorm, you also hope they hit soon.
George Bush had been elected president of the United States. The Soviet Union was gone. Global-thermonuclear war was unlikely. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tear_down_this_wall!)
Disclosure wasn't going to happen though.
The original disclosure-plan had been to use the Greys as a sole "alien" contact for 50-ish years while Earth-Sol society adapted, maybe introducing the Alotians later-on.
The Greys were timid and unwilling to push disclosure. We didn't know it at the time, but they had their reasons.
We weren't going to push disclosure either. For one, we didn't care. For two, Zeens were not allowed to disclose to Earth-Sol Hominids because our existence would disprove fundamentalist-Christian views that the world was created in six days.
Break the time-ship stalemate
One way to stop a time-war stalemate is to do something completely unexpected.
... I knew this. I know I knew this. I didn't know how I knew this.
... Raaka.
I don't remember what I did the day before my visit to Earth-Sol, but people who watched the video-archives say that I was practicing my English political-phrases, such as "I come in peace" and "How do you do mister president?"
Video feeds show me stretching-on my silver-suit, and boarding my spaceplane.
I targeted my extradimensional spaceplane for Edwards Air-Force Base. The craft was far-better than any that the Hominoids had.
I landed (invisibly) at Edwards Air-Force Base, its extradimensionally-fogged buildings visible on my wall-display.
My plan was to walk-out invisibly in my silver-suit, find an office that looked like it belonged to an unarmed general who wasn't going to shoot me, and pop-out Cheshire-Cat-like. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheshire_Cat)
Red-headed Bitches
I died before I finished thinking-about leaving my spaceplane.
I woke up briefly, looking up at a Red-headed Hominid-Bitch. They live above the Saurian taurosphere.
I wasn't looking through my own eyes.
They were tearing-apart my soul, though I couldn't feel the damage. Having your soul torn-apart is not painful. You merely forget... and you forget that you've forgotten.... and you forget that you used to think.
I blanked out.
The Red-headed Bitches are known for their assassinations and for flying small 4000-kilometer planets as warships.
None of us Zeen knew that the Red-headed Bitches were around. We now know that they think they own Earth-Sol. Many other Hominoid metaorganisms, whose goals often conflict with one-another, also think they own Earth-Sol and her populations.
We didn't know that the Hominids planned to use Earth-Sol for their future war. She was supposed to be legally neutral and non-existent.
Tasmanian Tiger
(http://www.kidcyber.com.au/IMAGES/thylacine_captive.jpg)
Video of a 2009 Tasmanian-Tiger sighting : (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqdFFkabyZk&feature=related)
King Island (?), Tasmania
The whispers told me, "This is the best we can do for you."
"You broke a treaty-issue by trying to land on Earth-Sol and disclosing."
"This will keep your soul in-shape for a return to a Hoonda body."(By that point, I had forgotten what "Hoonda" meant.)
Tasmanian tiger
I woke up.
Where was I?
Who was I?
That was a weird concept for me.
What was?
It was evening.
I had taken a nap during the day.
Rain was approaching.
It was cold.
Where was I going to shelter?
I thought about sheltering in my hollow-log, nearby.
Why would I want to go there?
I always shelter there.
That was dirty. A house would be much nicer.
House? I'm not going near a house. Those things are scary.
Where then?
I remembered a concrete culvert underneath a dirt road.
How about there?
Sounds good.
I galloped half-a-kilometre to the culvert.
I lowered-down and crept inside to hide-out from the rain.
The culvert-cave was a bit damp.
There was plenty of room though. I was fox-sized.
This may not be the best place to shelter, I thought to myself.
Some predator might come from behind.
Most-likely not.
It didn't smell-right either.
The culvert worked fairly well.
Kind-of.
As I would find-out later: Unlike rotting logs, the concrete culvert didn't cover my scent.
I couldn't catch rats as easily.
I don't recall realizing that I couldn't catch rats as easily.
Fewer rats didn't matter.
I was now brave-enough to find dog-food!
Culverts had another disadvantage.
They sometimes turned into rivers.
I had to run out of a few, and into the cold pouring-rain.
A week after leaving my log, another Tasmanian-Tiger had claimed it.
I couldn't go back.
I never ran-into other Tasmanian-Tigers sheltering in culverts.
Culverts had another problem: They weren't hidden by a forest.
Fallen logs blended-in with the forest.
I never found any Tasmanian-Tigers in small-sheds either.
I wouldn't even shelter in them; sheds were scary.
Several days after becoming a culvert Tasmanian-Tiger, I realized that only days before I had been piloting a spaceplane.
I didn't remember that I was going to land at Edwards Air-Force Base.
I recalled my culvert-like house.
I sometimes wondered if I had been knocked senseless during a suit-training exercise.
It didn't occur to me that someone might come and rescue me.
It didn't occur to me that someone might not rescue me because of treaties.
I didn't know that treaties existed.
It didn't occur to me to telepathically call-out.
It did occur to me to go near Hominid houses.
Pal dog-food tastes like crap.
Especially when covered with ants.
Dried dog-food, especially some of the dark brands, isn't bad.
The dogs that you're stealing the food from don't really mind.
They're usually asleep, or inside at night.
So are their owners.
Their owners think you're a fox.
I don't recall if I saw any foxes.
I don't recall seeing sheep.
It was just grazing cattle. Maybe horses.
Cow-shit tastes worse than broccoli.
Part of my roaming region was forested.
I never went more than a couple of kilometres from my shelter.
Old discarded Pizza tastes like crap to Tasmanian-Tigers.
The boxes are inedible.
Large rats, Ratus Ratus, are quite tasty.
Snakes bite, and they don't taste good, and there are too-many bones.
Ground-birds aren't bad, but they're difficult to find on the ground.
Rats are much easier to hunt, since they always live in the same areas (buildings), and always follow the same runs.
I don't recall seeing any macropods.
I may have eaten an echidna once, but there was no meat on it.
Tasmanian-Tigers don't eat carrion unless they're very-very hungry.
The stomach-ache followed by several days of diarrhea ensures that they don't eat carrion unless they're very-very-very-very hungry.
I wouldn't go near houses during the day.
I was inherently afraid of them.
I was inherently afraid of gunshots.
My previous life-experience told me that guns lived in houses, sleeping next to Hominid males.
If it weren't for my previous life-experience, I would have never gone near a house.
Or even a road with Hrududu. ("Hrududu" is the rabbit-name for "automobile" from the book, Watership Down.) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watership_Down)
I only ever saw one sealed-road in my travelling-range.
The sealed-road didn't seem to exist at night, perhaps because the Hrududu lights were scary, and I never went near it at night.
I only ever saw a few Hrududu on the road.
In the late evening.
Most Hrududu were parked in the farms.
Female Tasmanian-Tigers seek out males they like.
None of them liked me.
With all of the males being naked and exposed, and no merry-go-round, I had nothing special to offer.
That didn't really bother me.
I didn't even think about it.
Meanwhile
My mother was trying to find me. She was informed that I had been killed trying to land at Edwards Air-Force Base.
"The stupid imbecile."
The Red-Headed Bitches held me prisoner for breaking a treaty. They were only legally-allowed to hold me prisoner for a few years. They were NOT legally-allowed to tear-apart my soul. They ignore the law when it doesn't suit them.
The main-reason for their fury was their vengeful-hatred of my mother and other local Zeen.
My mother hoped I had been locked into a zoo-animal in the United Kingdom, and that someone secretly feeding me a Wimpy-burger_tmwould jog my memory. Sadly, I don't think _King Island(?) had a takeaway-burger place. I may once have-had fish-and-chips there, as a Kelpie.
Hrududu
Life on King Island is quite dull... although I may well-have been on a different equally-dull Tasmanian island. Tasmanian-Tigers don't read road-signs, so I wouldn't know. I had long-forgotten that I had forgotten all of my English from "Leave It to Beaver". I didn't even know that I had memorized the English phrases, "I come in peace" and "How do you do mister president?"
There aren't any predators on King Island(?) except for drunk-Hominids shooting at "foxes" in the dark. One-percent chance of hitting.
The population of Tasmanian-Tigers is limited by hollow-logs to hide out in. Tree-caves work better than culverts because the rotting-log odour hides Thylacines' natural scent.
Numbers are also limited by food, chiefly large rats. To me, a "large rat" was any furry thing scurrying on the ground.
I expect that dog-food would have been eaten by other Tasmanian-Tigers, but I never watched them to see what they did. I didn't see many either.
I died about 17 years after beginning.
I was hit by a Hrududu, I think.
I might have been eating fresh road-kill.
Black-and-tan Australian Kelpie
"You're dead."
"Your soul is healthier now, but it isn't very large."
"We still can't get you off the planet [for treaty reasons]. We'll put you into an implant."
I awoke as an Australian Kelpie. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Kelpie)
Except that I was in an implant.
An invisible camera would follow the dog around, tracking his head and eye movements.
I could see through the camera.
When its battery ran low, or the camera was hacked-into and shut-off, my vision would go blank. I still knew what the dog was looking at. It was like closing my eyes, and remembering what I just saw.
I could kind-of feel what the dog felt.
I knew what the dog thought about.
I could influence the dog's actions.
He didn't do much.
He ate dried dog food.
He took rides in his owner's cars, one a sedan, and the other an old-ute (pickup truck).
A few times, he stayed at someone-else's house.
I recall a veterinary visit that wasn't all-that terrifying.
He watched television, kind-of.
He listened to a-lot of John Laws on the radio. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Laws)
With other people's telepathic help, I began remembering (or having memories implanted) of my past-life as a Zeen.
_"Just wait and be patient,"_whispered the telepathic voices.
Still trying to get off?
"Do you want to be a Hominid?"_asked a fellow Zeen telepathically. "_We may-have found a sucker in your country who you might be able to merge with."
Apparently, there was a treaty-agreement preventing me from leaving the country that I died in. My soul could only be moved to someone living in Australia.
"Make sure to tell him that we don't pick pansy flowers, or talk philosophy."
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