Category: Fiction

Preliminary report on the planet known as Earth. Summary: Preliminary findings indicate Earth is habitable by oxygen-breathing carbon-based life. Climates and temperatures vary over the surface of the planet, so individual species are advised to make independent assessments based on weather data. The dominant sapient life on the planet is a species called Humans. In…

Sandra didn’t ask me anything about what I learned from the Gender Equality Resource Center. I thought Oscar had been right: she didn’t like to think too hard about her own identity. Very few people do. I let her keep whatever she didn’t want to think about to herself. “Are you planning on actually doing…

Captain Shishab of the pirate starship Quick Sliver (yes, it was a misspelling, but it had grown on him, so he was keeping it) was circling the edge of the Canteron war fleet like the scavenger he was.  At that moment, several hundred light years away, a human on earth was methodically screenshotting and saving…

Once the floodgates of communication had been opened, I found myself unable to close them. One post on social media became a dozen, then two dozen, then three, mostly discussing the Frid and their planets. Humanity was just as curious about me as I was about them. I set up a separate email account, and…

Every species thinks they are unique. They think they’re special. The idea that all their faults and graces might be mirrored in thousands upon thousands of other history books for other species never even occurs to them. Each world I have ever set foot on is convinced that they are the only ones to ever…

Sandra had a key to the social sciences building. It was a large, crumbling, labyrinthian building, which, according to her, made it perfect for hide-and-seek. She met me outside of the building in the late afternoon, after classes had ended for the day and all the faculty had gone home. Her hair was tied up,…

Whenever I survey a planet, I prioritize studying its inhabitants above everything else. A planet is not just a world: a planet is a people. One gives birth to the other, and the other gives birth to more worlds. And so the very first thing I want to look at, is how the people of…

Humans have several names for their planet: Terra, Terran, Home, and the Little Blue Dot. But when they formally entered interplanetary communication with our parliament, they called it Earth, so that is what I will call it. Preliminary data from Earth indicated that it was hospitable to my species. The vast majority of sapient life…

From the exploration logs of Dron Acharya, Planetary Surveyor, archived in Galactic Library 42, The History of Peoples Section 17: Carbon based space-faring section, Species Self-Name: Humanity Some peoples leap for the stars with abandon, not caring about the danger that awaits them, and some peoples wait and calculate their eventual escape from their homeworld:…