#Sentient Aliens

[nonbinary-arsonists]

hey have you guys seen the 7 hour nicktoons unite video

[teh-inggris]

aw seriously

[tfp-is-my-lifeblood-lol]

I saw a Youtube comment talking about how, in the episode "Crosscross," Silas was able to track Jack's location and personal info via social media, so why didn't the Decepticons just do THAT all this time, so they could track the humans/Autobot base?

Then all the commenters agreed that it's because the CAPTCHA "I am not a robot" thing actually works on Decepticons, because they are, in fact robots.

I love this and it shall now be my crack headcanon.

(In all seriousness, I actually don't think it's a plot hole. I think it's a great example of the Decepticons' characterization.

The real reason Decepticons never tried social media tracking is because they're too proud to use human technology. To them, it's considered "inferior."

I'm fascinated by the idea that, if they hadn't underestimated human technology, they could have found all these Autobot secrets, like the location of their base and humans, EASILY. But they never bothered, because "oh, that's worthless human tech."

Keep in mind, in one episode, Starscream actually did explore the human internet, and almost located Bumblebee that way, but the others made fun of him for it (the tap-dancing monkey incident) so we can see they don't respect it enough to give it their time.

It also kinda shows how MECH, to some extent, has an advantage against the Autobots because they're all humans, and are therefore better aquatinted with Earth. Even Airachnid didn't realize social media would be a useful weapon until Silas explained it to her. The Decepticons are obviously more powerful since they're giant aliens, but MECH uses their humanity and Earth knowledge as their greatest strength. It's kinda neat.

[madamemiz]

hi hello i like kerfur

listen i know the player character in votv is an actual character with a name and everything but consider: what if it was you tho

[odinsblog]

-They're made out of meat.

Meat?

-Meat. They're made out of meat.

Meat?

-There's no doubt about it. We picked several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, probed them all the way through. They're completely meat.

That's impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars?

-They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don't come from them. The signals come from machines.

So who made the machines? That's who we want to contact.

-They made the machines. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Meat made the machines.

That's ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You're asking me to believe in sentient meat?

-I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in the sector and they're made out of meat.

Maybe they're like the Orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence that goes through a meat stage.

-Nope. They're born meat and they die meat. We studied them for several of their life spans, which didn't take too long. Do you have any idea the life span of meat?

Spare me. Okay, maybe they're only part meat. You know, like the Weddilei. A meat head with an electron plasma brain inside.

-Nope. We thought of that, since they do have meat heads like the Weddilei. But I told you, we probed them. They're meat all the way through.

No brain?

-Oh, there is a brain all right. It's just that the brain is made out of meat!

So... what does the thinking?

-You're not understanding, are you? The brain does the thinking. The meat.

Thinking meat! You're asking me to believe in thinking meat!?

-Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal! Are you getting the picture?

OMG. You're serious then? They're made out of meat?

-Finally. Yes. They are indeed made out meat. And they've been trying to get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years.

So what does the meat have in mind?

-First it wants to talk to us. Then I imagine it wants to explore the universe, contact other sentients, swap ideas and information. The usual.

We're supposed to talk to meat?

-That's the idea. That's the message they're sending out by radio. 'Hello. Anyone out there? Anyone home?' That sort of thing.

They actually do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts?

-Oh, yes. Except they do it with meat.

I thought you just told me they used radio.

-They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat.

OMG. Singing meat. This is altogether too much. So what do you advise?

-Officially or unofficially?

Both.

-Officially, we are required to contact, welcome, and log in any and all sentient races or multibeings in the quadrant, without prejudice, fear, or favor. Unofficially, I advise that we erase the records and forget the whole thing.

I was hoping you would say that.

-It seems harsh, but there is a limit. Do we really want to make contact with meat?

I agree one hundred percent. What's there to say?`Hello, meat. How's it going?' But will this work? How many planets are we dealing with here?

-Just one. They can travel to other planets in special meat containers, but they can't live on them. And being meat, they only travel through C space. Which limits them to the speed of light and makes the possibility of their ever making contact pretty slim. Infinitesimal, in fact.

So we just pretend there's no one home in the universe?

-That's it.

Cruel, but you said it yourself, who wants to meet meat? And the ones who have been aboard our vessels, the ones you have probed? You're sure they won't remember?

-They'll be considered crackpots if they do. We went into their heads and smoothed out their meat so that we're just a dream to them.

A dream to meat! How strangely appropriate, that we should be meat's dream.

-And we can mark this sector unoccupied.

Good. Agreed, officially and unofficially. Case closed. Any others? Anyone interesting on that side of the galaxy?

-Yes, a rather shy but sweet hydrogen core cluster intelligence in a class nine star in G445 zone. Was in contact two galactic rotation ago, wants to be friendly again.

They always come around.

-And why not? Imagine how unbearably, how unutterably cold the universe would be if one were all alone.

—THEY’RE MADE OUT OF MEAT, by Terry Bisson, 1991

[gingerteaonthetardis]

waking up it's missing rose tyler hours going to bed it's missing rose tyler hours every day it's missing rose tyler hours

[stinalotte]

Somebody take the breaking news generator away from me

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

Walking Practice

weird scifi horror novella

follows an alien who crash-landed on earth years ago, and spends their days hooking up with people to then eat them & gain enough strength to make it through the day

explores existing outside of the binary norm and being seen as other, deep loneliness, and desire for connection

meandering narration, interesting formatting, illustrations

[softness-and-shattering]

So I put on this netflix show, in their tradition of being extremely obvious with names its called Mech Cadets, and its an alien-mecha human-pilot fight-the-giant-bug-aliens story. My first complaint is that the alien mechas are called Robo's. Wow exciting /sarcasm. Anyway thats totally forgiven because 1 the story actually makes choices and puts the characters through consequences instead of like hinting at oh it something bad gonna happen psych we dont have the guts for that. Its a kid/teen show so its not super dark but it follows through and goes the places it needs to.

2, and maybe most importantly, I gotta talk about the disability rep. There's four teens chosen by the alien mechs to be their drift-compatible pilots (I think im using that correctly? Im not super informed on the genre but I know some), and we see straight away that one of the guys has a prosthetic leg from the thigh down, and uses it as an example to tell the main protagonist, hey none of us are perfect we dont have to be perfect we just need to be human. The next episode the mechas are given human-designed weapons to fight with, and the disabled kid gets these flippy sticks I cant quite work out. One of them gets a staff, the other gets this glove for punching, story moves on. Then a bug-alien-antagonist gets into the teens dorm and while fighting it, the alien dismembers the guys prosthetic. He immediately grabs his crutches and goes to town on it with his crutches, and balancing on them to kick with his one good foot*. Then they disconnect the rest of the prosthetic and use its sharp edge to kill the alien. And then he just moves around on his crutches with no comment and Ill cut myself off there so I dont spoil the whole thing.

Except, a couple episodes later, Im watching him in the mech fighting and moving around, and I realise that his giant fuck-off monster attacking weapons ARE A PAIR OF CRUTCHES. Theyre his fucking WEAPONS. Thats cool as fuck!

[drawnbythestream]

some lineless sketches of my OCs Master Graaddik and Padawan Naarla Lanii. Their missions usually involve protecting non sentient creatures.

[reanimatedgh0ul]

[monsoon-of-art]

Oh Livius is a cyborg? I havent really looked at the tags and just assumed he has like a mermaid who got themselves cool robot legs. Did they originally have legs?

thats a fair assumption! but yes he is a cyborg. Fun fact, his anesthesia/sedative wore off while they were cyborg-ifying him, which is why he's 'unfinished' so to speak

[shiverandqueeef]

FUCK KEVIN AND HARLEY THEY GOT ME OUT HERE LITERALLY SCREAMING CRYING SOBBING OVER A FUCKING ALIEN CAR AND IT ISNT EVEN THE RIGHT COLOUR FUCK YOUUUUUUU

[mallwalker]

girl help they turned my cat into a doctor who villain

[proosh]

what’s you favorite kind of au to put gilbert in?

OUGH

I cannot stop myself from putting him in increasingly niche and specific fantasy/magical AUs that will likely never see the light of day. It's so fun to plop him down in a fantastical world and see how he functions w/r/t the concepts of chivalry and gender and duty that permeate that genre. I think Gil should be given a greatsword and magic and allowed to go ham. It's good enrichment for him.

Second to that would be sci-fi settings which are desperately underappreciated which is a shame because you can really just get super weird and elaborate with high concept narratives and ideas and the more esoteric it is the more I tend to like it lmao

At any given time I have like. 10 distinct AU ideas rotting in my brain and like none of them are ever going to get written lmao