Quoted By:
“I have seen the shape of my enemy:
A tapered, torpedo-like head flanked by a pair of gills. Two articulated manipulator arms that protrude from a muscle-packed torso, loosely encased in translucent skin. A pair of rounded eyes that are set deep within the skull cavity, shining with newt-like curiosity.
I found these images strangely disquieting. When MERRYGATE began unraveling the video files she collected from the colony a few days ago, I had expected to see something less…comprehensible: an alien species that bore few physical similarities with terrestrial life, befitting of an alien kingdom founded light-years away from the light of old earth. Or perhaps a form that I found offensive: the sharpened teeth and hackled spines of a well-blooded predator, one which has ruthlessly carried their biological imperative up from the plains of their home world to the stars far above it.
What I saw was none of that. Convergent evolution had molded points of familiarity into their alien physiology, a fact that I would find welcome if I were arriving in this system in any other context
Unfortunately, a similar degree of convergence does not appear to apply to their primary language system. Based on the video data that I have reviewed so far; I have come to the tentative conclusion that these…individuals…communicate through visual input: their skins cycle through a dizzying array of patterned colors when they aggregate in schools, most of which exist outside the human visual spectrum. Accordingly, much of the “audio” information these video files – a seemingly incomprehensible string of run-length-encoded data – seems to be a simplified representation of these visual displays.
MERRYGATE reports that translation may remain possible with more time investment, but she is currently occupied with something of greater import. In the meantime, I have often occupied myself by simply observing these alien creatures, captivated by the interplay of colors as they swim and communicate inside their pressurized, aquatic homes.”
- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, JAN 21, PERSONAL JOURNAL
