Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

SlightlyColdWaffles t1_ja84oyq wrote

"Four? But why?" Slyggzen asked, waving his upper tentacles in agitation. "Everyone else has one. ONE. Even that planet with two sentient species has one senator, and they start a war every-time they need to send a new one."

I ruffled my feathers, hoping the octopod could understand my body language as easily as I could his. "I have no good answers, my friend. I only bring word from the high council."

Slyggzen waddled to the viewing port, gazing into the void from our vantage point in the Human's star system. "Everyone gets one. Thats how it has always been, for... well, since the GP was founded. Why change now?"

I clicked my beak in irritation. "I have no definitive answer, Slyggzen. I was told a rumor, but... I cannot confirm its authenticity."

Slyggzen swiveled in place, rotating on his lower tentacles. "Well? A rumor is better than nothing."

I disagreed with my coworker's opinion, but I responded for conversation's sake. "Apparently, Humans cannot agree with themselves. The four Senators are from the four most prominent mindsets of the species."

Slyggzen's mouth fell open, forming a gaping maw of teeth and tongues that made a grotesque belt along his midsection. I knew it was rude to react negatively to any other civilized species' physical differences, but I couldn't repress the shudder that ran through my very core. Sliggzen seemed not to notice, or at least was cordial enough to ignore the slight.

"Four MOST prominent?" He asked, once he had regained his composure. "They have even more than that? Do we even want a species this internally divided in the..."

I squawked in shock. "Slyggzen, we have NEVER excluded a sentient species from the Galactic Union! Even the Arachnopodes have a seat, and their ambassador keeps trying to eat me!"

"We've never had FOUR senators for ONE species, either" Slyggzen pointed out. "The precedent has been set. This species is different, and needs a different solution."

I sighed, whistling softly through my beak as I did. "Its not so simple, Slyggzen. These people are not restricted to one biome, they live on 5 of the 6 large landforms on the planet. They evolved differences, almost enough to classify sections as different sub-species according to the xenobiologists. Did you know they have different colors? Not to distinguish males and females, but evolutionary adaptations to the environments they live within."

Slyggzen shook his tentacles in... something. I would need to consult my xenosocial manual later to interpret this gesture. "Nonsense. Why would they have migrated to climates that they would need to evolve to adapt to? That doesn't make sense."

"It appears to be true" I said, shifting my grip on my perch. "Did you know they have multiple languages?"

"That's not so special" Slyggzen said as he slithered back to the desk on his half of our shared office. "We have three ourselves; one for business, one for family and close friends, and one for hunting. The last is only spoken in historical preservation societies, but I think it's a waste of resources personally."

"You don't understand" I replied. "They have languages based on the regions they evolved in. By our estimates, Humans have over 7,000 languages, not counting the abandoned ones."

Slyggzen was silent for a few moments as he contemplated this latest bombshell. "Seven thousand... that's more than the entire Galactic Parliament has across all species..."

"Precisely. These people are more like their own Galactic Union, all on one planet."

Slyggzen was silent for a lot longer this time. His tentacles began typing something that I couldn't see, perhaps the start of a formal protest to the unorthodox arrangement. When he finally spoke, his voice was cold. Calculated. Constrained. "Should we take matters into our own tentacles?"

I blinked both sets of eyelids. "What?" I squawked.

"We cannot let such a divisive species infect our Union." Slyggzen said softly. "We would fracture the alliances that have stood for a millennia."

"And what peaceful alternative do you propose?" I asked. I slid one wing under my desk and activated the hidden audio recorder. Slyggzen was beginning to worry me, and it was best if I had evidence in case something went wrong. "We already admitted them, and granted four seats for their chosen senators."

"We need to destroy their planet."

I froze in fear, unable to even twitch a feather. "W....what?"

"This species is too dangerous to let live" Slyggzen said, rotating to face me once more. "I can arrange it so it looks like an accident, maybe a cold fusion reactor disaster or a meteor strike. But this species must not be allowed to fracture the universe."

"Slyggzen! How could you even say such a thing?" I asked as I hopped up and down on my perch in agitation. "We are a civilized Union! We try to improve the lives of every species, not-"

A small polite chime sounded, indicating that a political representative was requesting entrance to our office. I was not expecting a visitor, so I relinquished the door controls to Slyggzen's console without a second's thought. Slyggzen immediately opened the door, revealing...

The Arachnopodes representative clicked its fangs in excitement as it scuttled into the room. I flapped my wings, launching myself off of my perch as the massive spider delegate lunged.

"I'm sorry, Cheerep. I really am." Slyggzen said, with what sounded like genuine regret. "I must stop this, for the good of the universe. And that requires your silence."

I was too preoccupied with trying to remain un-eaten to respond. The Arachnopode lunged again, striking my left most claw with its massive limbs. I squawked in pain as its fangs sunk in, striking bone and nerves alike as it injected its venom.

"Goodby, my feathered friend" Slyggzen said, as he slithered out of the office. I tried to watch him leave, but my vision was quickly obscured by the spiderwebs that were woven around my frozen body. The darkness enveloped me, both from my organic blindfold and from the fast acting venom that surged through me.

/r/SlightlyColdStories for more stories, with surprisingly more stories involving spiders. I should probably ask my therapist about that.

393

Phyne t1_ja8872q wrote

"Should we take matters into our own tentacles?" Cracked me up. Well done!

45

roboticzizzz t1_ja9qp1l wrote

It’s true. People who voluntarily live in Michigan are a different species than me. I hate cold with a passion. XD

19

SlightlyColdWaffles t1_ja9yjvt wrote

I think you replied to the wrong comment, friend. The only thing I know about Michigan is the Lions have suffered long enough

4

EverMystique1 t1_ja9yvgd wrote

Wait! The recording! What about the recording?

11

SlightlyColdWaffles t1_jaa8cta wrote

...oh damnit, I forgot about that. Frick.

8

_Trael_ t1_jaaq6ce wrote

On quick read it kind of disturbed me that two entirely separate sentient species on one planet, that had so different views in at least some matters that they ended up in war every time it was time to choose mew delecate, did not get considered separate enough, but humans having kind of subspecies with different climate bemeficial variations and having different cultures and so were considered different. Spent about half of text searchimg for something that would mention how those two distinct species do not reach multiple delecates, like small enough population, or culturally so close to each other from other species point of view, or something else, of course it is not necessarily wrong to leave it hanging or as it is.

Ps. This was meant as smallish thing I noticed on side while reading. Thx for writing for us.

11

SlightlyColdWaffles t1_jabk2jv wrote

Thanks for pointing this out! Writers can't grow without critics (not saying you're critical).

In my mind, the 2-species planet that goes to war each election is more stable than humanity. They fight, a winner is declared, a Senator is sent, and the two species go back to peaceful cooperation. Now look at humanity's history of wars, where things like WWI directly causing WWII, and WWII sparking the Cold War era and the Korean war and Vietnam war and countless proxy wars... in the alien's view, did WWI ever actually end? Or does each war only serve to start up the next one?

I hope that makes sense. I wrote this while up with my fussy infant at 1 AM, so I apologize if I didn't make that cohesive enough.

6

chaosgirl93 t1_jacqkh1 wrote

Ooh, blaming WWII for the Cold War. That's a new one.

I mean you're not wrong, I don't disagree, but it is a new one. And that's coming from the lady that blames the Cold War partially on the Great Schism, or more accurately on forces and fears that originated in the Great Schism's East/West conflict.

−1

SlightlyColdWaffles t1_jacy710 wrote

How is that a new take? It's literally what I learned in high school and college history classes. WWII ended with the Soviet Union and the USA as victorious superpowers that feared each other's strength, to the point where the USA refused the Soviet's offer to help with Japan after V.E. day.

I have a degree in History, which is worth less than the paper it's printed on, but that's the broad explanation behind the beginning of the Cold War. I'm not downplaying the idealogical differences in culture, religion and political influences, but just simplifying it for a reddit comment in a creative writing subreddit.

2

EverMystique1 t1_jabwclj wrote

I mean... Leaves it open for continuation, perhaps? (If you want. No pressure.)

2

CarlosFer2201 t1_jabwglg wrote

>for more stories, with surprisingly more stories involving spiders

OK that's just hilarious.

2