Humans, A Research Paper

For a long while now, I have had this science fiction world in my head. I have spent a lot of time developing the universe, but am yet to have a plot for a story in the world I've created with the characters I've created. Since I don't currently have a project planned out for this world, I thought I would give you all a little sneak peak into the world, in case a plot for a novel ever does come to me. Enjoy!

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Ever since the year 2026 with the invention of the radio and corresponding universal translator, we have been aware of the presence of intelligent life outside of our planet. As hard as it may be to comprehend, the voices you have heard on your radio come from another world. These creatures refer to themselves as Homo sapiens or Humankind and we have been researching them since we first discovered them.

Humans are highly intelligent social omnivores with many distinct characteristics and cultural phenomena.

While we have not yet seen what a human looks like, we have heard the descriptions of them. Human skin comes in varying colors, including white, black, and brown. They have varying colored hair as well, including black, brown, red, gray, and two colors referred to as “blonde” and “dyed”. We have also found out that Homo sapiens rely very heavily on their sense of vision. There are currently a few different interpretations regarding what this means for a human’s visage. One theory is that humans have more eyeballs than the average four. Another theory includes that their eyeballs are much larger than ours. There is also a possibility that human eyes are scattered across their body, placed strategically for maximum sight in all directions.

It’s also important to note that humans are non-neotenic, experiencing what they refer to as “puberty” in which they transition from the larvae stage to the adult stage. There have been mentions on the radio waves of humans mentioning two types of birth: “natural births” and “sea-section births”. Research currently shows that this means they are amphibians at birth before their metamorphosis.

Despite being amphibians, they do not reproduce like us or the nudibranchs of our planet. Instead, they reproduce much more similarly to the atyidae and oligochaeta. They are non-hermaphrodites who reproduce sexually. They have diverse family structures, including a historical structure known as a nuclear family consisting of one sperm donor, one egg donor, and two children of opposite sexes. Families consist of one to four parents and one to thirteen children, most commonly averaging five children and four parents.

Humankind originates from a planet referred to as “Earth”. Earth is said by humans to be unique compared to other planets in our galaxy, consisting of liquid water for life to survive on. While this is a feature of Aquilaris, humans have spoken of other planets not having this feature, proving Aquilaris to be expressly unique, similar to Earth. In addition to liquid water, Earth has what humans refer to as a “moderate temperature” that is suitable for human life, which we have not yet discovered what that translates to concerning our planet, but have found is not the case for all planets. 

While Earth was the perfect starting planet for Humankind, they still chose to expand to other planets as their population reached numbers too great for the planet. They expanded to many new planets, such as the Moon, Hecate, Mars, Venus, and Eidetara. Never before the discovery of humans were we aware of space, much less did we know that space travel was within the realm of possibility, but now we are aware that it is a goal we can begin researching to set out to achieve.

It’s important to note the value of observing and researching Humankind. While our society often experiences Humankind through radio waves, we must understand what exactly we are consuming. We are witnessing broadcasts between humans for humans. Not everything will make perfect sense to us immediately, but it is still important as it furthers our research as a society and allows us to grow our technology and understanding of the world and galaxy we live in.

So far, we have discovered many things just from listening to these broadcasts. For example, a chemical reaction humans refer to as “fire” has been brought to our attention, and we hope to one day find a way to domesticate it in the way that humans have, allowing them to advance their technology with things such as heating boxes for food, transportation vehicles, and heating stones often referred to as “metals” for easier modifications of their shape. Another human technology that we would like to begin researching to add to our culture is the telescope, however, in further studies, it seems that we may be missing some of the required materials on our planet to make this possible.

In this study, we will be exploring what we have observed about humans between the years 2026 to 2240. We will be working with minimal knowledge of Humankind’s history before 2026, basing anything about them prior to that year on information they have spoken about rather than observed in real-time via radio waves. With this study, we hope to understand Humankind’s goals and society to better influence our decisions for how we would like to interact with humans in the possible future. Would we like to avoid them? Would we like to make an ally out of them? We hope to achieve definitive answers to these questions.

The earliest and most impressive of human technology is fire. It is a chemical reaction that is extremely hot and can harm those who touch it. It is described as having an orange glow and is capable of a chemical reaction called “burning”, which raises the temperature of the item that is being “burnt”.

It is unclear when humans first discovered the controlled use of fire. However, from analyzing many human broadcasts, it can be suspected that fire was discovered prior to the 20th century.

Due to humans discovering fire on the planet Earth, they often refer to how fire acts on that planet as their baseline for interactions. Due to having no fire as described on the radio waves on our planet, it is hard to make a comparison to what this means. However, fire has been said to burn stronger in the presence of more oxygen, such as on planets like Eidetara, and have trouble with combustion when oxygen is lacking, such as on planets like Mars. Could this be why we have not yet had experiences with fire on our planet? Studies are currently being conducted to determine how much oxygen is in our atmosphere to answer this question. 

Humans currently use fire for many unique reasons, such as lighting something referred to as “candles” for mating rituals and killing and raising the temperatures of their prey before eating it. In addition to this, prior to the year 2113, they used fire for transportation vehicles to get from one location to another faster than they could move on their own without access to black holes like our species has.

The first technology created by humans while observed by our kind was the neurotransmitters. These devices were invented in the year 2040 to connect people to a mysterious entity referred to as “the internet”. Despite being aware of “the internet” for two centuries now, we are still unaware of how it works. It seems to provide instant access to information and communication with other humans, but the how is still a mystery.

When neurotransmitters were initially created in 2040, they were very unpopular, even being referred to as infamous. Humans did not like the possible health risks that could come with the implantation of the devices into their brains. They also had security concerns, being afraid of being “hacked” or having their devices taken over non=consensually from an outside source. In addition to this, they had concerns about something they referred to as “internet addiction” or “internet dependency”, which we have not yet determined the consequences of. However, these devices gained popularity in the year 2052 with teenagers, defined as humans still going through the process of metamorphosis. There was what humans referred to as an “epidemic” of teenagers sneaking out of their homes and getting these devices implanted without parental consent. Now, in the 23rd century, neurotransmitters have gained universal popularity across the human race, making it incredibly rare to find a human that does not have access to one of these devices.

Humans have also discovered translation devices incredibly similar to ours. These devices, referred to as Universal Translation Devices, were released to the population of Humankind in 2054, two years after the neurotransmitter started gaining popularity. 

Universal Translation Devices use the same technology as what we have installed in our radios to translate human language into something we can understand. Both translation devices use context clues to decode the intent and meaning behind the words that are spoken, allowing us to get more accurate translations the longer we use the devices. There are also many differences between our translation devices and that of humans. For example, our translation device was created in the year 2026, nearly 30 years prior to the humans’ release of their version. In addition, the humans’ Universal Translation Device is portable and was installed into breathing apparatuses over time, while our translation devices still exist mostly inside radios due to the lack of need for them in other contexts.

The use of human translation devices does not mean that humans have discovered us, of course. Instead, this invention was created due to Humankind having thousands of different languages across their species. While we do not know why this was the case, the Universal Translation Devices allowed humans to begin communicating with all members of their species even if they spoke other languages, increasing research productivity as they were able to share their ideas more efficiently. 

In the year 2058, humans in power passed the Anti-Hacking and Cybersecurity Enforcement Act. This act safeguarded humans with neurotransmitters against threats commonly referred to as “hackers” and “viruses”. After much research, we have defined “hackers” as a type of human that wishes harm on another human via taking control of their neurotransmitter. “Viruses” have been defined as small organisms that cause illness, similar to that of bacteria. 

The Anti-Hacking and Cybersecurity Enforcement Act provided multiple ways to prevent these threats. The main source of prevention was universal access to firewalls, effectively protecting humans from cyberattacks as both hackers and viruses could not withstand the extreme temperatures of fire. The other source of prevention was the threat of societal isolation, commonly referred to by humans as “inprisonment”, for any hacker that is discovered causing harm to humans via their neurotransmitter. 

The next groundbreaking device created by humans during our observation of them was the Atmospheric Mining Devices, invented in the year 2061. 

These devices were created for mining elements from the atmosphere. One of the greatest achievements of this device was the ability to mine oxygen from the atmosphere for survival on oxygen-lacking planets, allowing humans the ability to begin research into expansion into space and eventually achieve life on other planets. This device also allowed humans to mine hydrogen from the atmosphere for the creation of water with the invention of optimized water creation devices in 2068.

Optimized water creation devices were invented as a new way to provide clean water. These devices took hydrogen and oxygen collected from Atmospheric Mining Devices, and applied a spark, causing a chemical reaction that induced something called “water vapor”. This “water vapor” was then instantly cooled with an internal instant cooling device to create pure water with no added minerals or chemicals. 

This device allowed humans a simplistic way to create water, giving them more inspiration to begin researching the expansion into space and to planets such as the Moon, which lack natural water. 

There was a major downside at the initial creation of optimized water creation devices, however, that still needs to be solved today. This downside was their use without Atmospheric Mining Devices—when stripped of this fellow technology, it is impossible to use and deemed useless. In addition to this, at the creation of this device, there were many public service announcements reminding humans who are surviving on water produced by optimized water creation devices to take additional minerals since they are not supplied with it in pure water.

Following these great advancements in technology, Humankind began researching expansion into space in the year 2081. They started with a planet commonly referred to as the Moon.

In the year 2093, a new act was passed by the human powers called the Universal Translation Device Access Act. This act guaranteed access to Universal Translation Devices to all members of Humankind so that they may communicate with members of their own species without language barriers.

While we may not have an act that guarantees a right to translation devices in our culture, the reason for this is very simple: since we only have a single language across our species, we do not need translation devices as a fundamental right.

After many years of preparation, the first human civilization ship was sent to the Moon in the year 2096. 

The largest issue that humans ran across with their first interplanetary expansion was providing and maintaining oxygen within structures. Citizens of the moon did not want to be stuck fully inside of their spacesuits to breathe, so structures were built with an atmosphere similar to the elemental makeup of that on Earth. They managed to maintain this by incorporating an abundance of flora into their interior architectural design. This solved the largest issue and allowed them to start working on a plan for the next issue: providing “crops”, or unattractive plants necessary for consumption, to the planet without constant expensive imports. Thus, they began production on the first space-worthy greenhouse. This greenhouse reached completion in the year 2099 and constant imports of crops were no longer necessary.

It took a while for life on the Moon to gain popularity. Migration rates to the Moon were incredibly slow at the beginning of the Moon’s colonization. However, in the year 2100, humans in power passed the Cosmic Relocation Act, allowing a lottery in which random adult citizens are chosen to be relocated to newly colonized planets. Many of those who were selected by this lottery brought their families with them and the Moon started gaining numbers in its population.

The year 2101 popularized Medical nanotechnology. This involved the invention of small devices that assisted in many medical aspects. Some of these medical aspects included nanoparticle drug delivery, defined as the delivery of medication directly into the body with extra small technological devices, nano-scale imaging, defined as a way to document minuscule aspects of the body, diagnostic nanodevices, defined as miniature devices used for diagnosing illness and diseases, and assistance in preservation of organs for transplantation. We have not yet discovered human’s purpose for transplanting organs, but we are aware that this medical nanotechnology can preserve organs outside of the body until the organs find a new host.

All of this medical nanotechnology is extremely important to humans as they are non-regenerative creatures. It is a shame that medical nanotechnology is not yet a universal technology, instead requiring humans to go to specific locations known as “hospitals” to gain access to it.

Despite requiring hospitals to gain access to this technology, this technology has had major impacts on human life. The human life expectancy rate was expected to decrease substantially with expansion to space due to the lack of healthcare and hospitals in those locations, however, this medical nanotechnology has increased the lifespan of those who do have access to it so exponentially that the life expectancy of humans has not decreased and is even beginning to increase in the modern day. Humans are expecting their lifespan to continue to increase as medical nanotechnology becomes more easily accessible to all members of Humankind. 

In the year 2102, Humans began researching expansion to their next planet: Mars. 

With this new planet, Humankind ran into different issues. Due to Mars being an extremely dusty planet, they had trouble building structures for their species to live in that weren’t immediately destroyed by dust storms. In the year 2105, dust-resistant seals were invented and deployed on Mars, allowing more structural security.

With Humankind spread across multiple planets, a new technological advancement became increasingly necessary for space advancement: the personal spacecraft. 

The personal spacecraft was invented in the year 2113 after the mining of an element referred to as helium-3 found on the Moon was discovered to be a possible fuel that worked in low oxygen environments. These personal spacecrafts allowed for planetary travel for individuals rather than requiring all travel to be done in mass. 

There were safety concerns that came with how popular personal spacecrafts were, however. Due to the lack of experience in navigating space, many humans who were traveling on their own for the first time were getting lost or damaging their spacecraft on space rocks and in landing their vehicles. This resulted in extraterrestrial navigation and safety regulations being passed.

These regulations required training and the rewarded license in order to own and operate a personal spacecraft. The required training entailed the following:

• Ground School, in which students are taught how a spacecraft functions and how to fly one prior to getting into one. Ground School also covers what navigational systems should be used when operating a personal spacecraft. In order to pass ground school, you must pass a written exam that covers all material covered previously.

• Flight Training, in which students are taught how to operate a spacecraft from inside the vehicle with the assistance of certified flight instructors.

• Survival Training, in which students receive survival training from certified space travelers and learn how to navigate emergency citations, such as the most frequent problems with personal spacecrafts and how to handle a crash.

• Minimum Training Hours, in which students are required to have a minimum of 100 hours of flight time with an instructor prior to being rewarded a license to fly alone.

• An Off Planet Flight Test, in which students’ abilities to pilot a personal spacecraft off planet are tested and verified as competent by a verified examiner. 

In addition to the required training and license, all personal spacecrafts must be inspected and verified as fully functioning prior to use. These inspections check for any faults in the exterior, including windows and insulation, fuel system, and other aspects of the personal spacecraft. These inspections also check that the personal spacecraft is stocked with emergency equipment, such as emergency atmosphere, atmospheric mining devices, optimized water creation devices, and medical supply kits. 

These requirements were implemented with threat of large fines, defined as paying a portion of your currency as punishment, or even imprisonment for failure to follow. While this may seem like an extreme outcome for disobedience, these regulations have improved the safety of space travel immensely. Today, humans consider personal spacecrafts to be the safest and most efficient method of travel in the galaxy.

In 2116, the Interstellar Sobriety Act was passed, prohibiting the consumption and possession of something referred to as “alcohol”, defined as intoxicating liquids similar to that of marijuana, and cannabis while piloting a personal spacecraft. This act also provided funding for the patrol of police, which we have found to be defined as humans who observe other members of their species for the purpose of making sure rules are followed and consequences are enacted when they are not, in space. These police officers were trained to spot intoxicated or untrained piloting.

The consequence of transporting cannabis or alcohol within a personal spacecraft is the suspension of one’s spacecraft license, while the consequence of operating a personal spacecraft under the influence of these substances is more severe, including a large fine or even imprisonment.

Despite the major consequences for failure to obey the Interstellar Sobriety Act, it has not had as large of an impact as the other acts passed by human powers. According to human experts, this is because of minimal cases of piloting under the influence prior to the act being passed and space being too vast for piloting under the influence to be a major concern off the surface of colonized planets. In addition to this, according to human civilians, it seems that people are still sneaking alcohol and marijuana within their personal spacecrafts without being caught by the police.

In the year 2118, the first human civilization ship was sent to Mars. This starter ship mostly included people whom the Cosmic Relocation Act chose, however, the following ships became increasingly full of willing migrants. 

In 2119, humans in power passed another act for the safety of those piloting personal spacecrafts, the Interplanetary GPS Neurotracking Act. This act required anyone piloting a personal spacecraft to have GPS, defined as a program within neurotransmitters that tells a user their current location, enabled. This was instated as a way to prevent location confusion for pilots in the vastness of space. However, human citizens were extremely upset with this act due to a lack of privacy. Citizens complained that personal spacecrafts already came equipped with location devices and theorized that this was just the humans in power’s way of tracking the locations of members of Humankind.

Despite these theories, human experts say that the percentage of humans lost in space has dropped by 346% since this act was instated.

In the year 2130, humans began researching expansion to the first planet outside of their solar system: Hecate.

Hecate was chosen due to being a planet with extremely similar atmosphere and temperature to Earth, as compared to the remaining terrestrial planets in their solar system, such as Venus and Mercury. This planet was not perfect, however, and did come with some flaws they would have to work out prior to sending humans to the planet for colonization. The two major flaws of the planet included the richness of the planet’s surface in amphetamine/dextroamphetamine salts, commonly referred to by humans as “Adderal”, and interestingly, the planet’s high gravity.  

From what we have heard humans say about anti-gravity gear, we have determined that humans do not have an innate ability to modify gravity like our species. Instead, in the year 2131, they were forced to invent anti-gravity gear that allows them to withstand higher gravity by counteracting the force that gravity pulls them to the ground. 

The invention of anti-gravity gear came with many challenges, the most major being its use and testing on other planets. Due to other planets having weaker gravity, when anti-gravity gear was first invented, it was considered highly dangerous to use on planets other than Hecate. However, since then, anti-gravity gear has been researched and expanded on to allow for them to be able to increase the effects of gravity on themselves as well, allowing for safe use on lower-gravity planets.

Anti-gravity gear did not help with the construction of buildings, however. Humans continued researching ways to make their buildings withstand the strong gravity of Hecate and in 2136, they discovered the Titanium Pillar Method for their architecture, which allowed buildings to remain standing despite the high gravity.

In the year 2154, the first human civilization ship was sent to Hecate with a major Public Service Announcement to its migrants to be cautious of the salts found on the planet. Hecate was found to be the first instance of colonization of a planet that did not require people to be selected by the Cosmic Relocation Act in order to populate. 

Six years after the colonization of Hecate began, in the year 2160, humans in power passed the Planetary Environmental Protection Act. This act required written consent from humans in power for terraforming or mass atmosphere mining under threat of major fines for those acting without written consent. This act allowed humans in power to monitor and classify which were necessary environmental modifications and which were not, minimizing the ecological footprint of the human race on newly colonized planets.

Since this act has been put into place, many companies have been fined for mass atmospheric mining and terraforming without a permit. It is unclear if these fines are decreasing the amount of unauthorized environmental modifications or not.

In 2185, Humans began researching expansions to planets with more extreme environments, starting with Venus and Mercury. They were under the belief that achieving expansion to extreme environments such as these planets would allow a larger scope of options for possible expansion moving forward, and they wanted to start with the nearest extreme environments. Mercury and Venus were classified as extreme environments due to the technological advancements that would be required for colonization: heat-resistant materials, acid-resistant materials, and thermal management systems as the basics.

After constant research, humans discovered each of these items. New heat-resistant materials were discovered for building in the year 2190, new thermal management systems were built in 2192, and in 2193, new acid-resistant materials were discovered as well.

It was found that aerostat habitats, also known as floating cities, would be the most efficient style of city for Venus. Using the same technology as used in anti-gravity gear, aerostat habitats were created in the year 2195.

In 2197 the first human civilization ship was sent to Mercury, followed by the first human civilization ship to Venus in 2200.

Humans began expansion to their next planet, Eidetara, in the year 2217. Eidetara was chosen for its immense beauty, having been described as the most colorful planet in the galaxy, with neon colors falling from the sky in a liquid and sometimes solid format. It was theorized that similar to Hecate, this planet would not require the Cosmic Relocation Act to populate.

The next major advancement in human technology was the Atmosphere Filtration Device, invented in the year 2218. This device was invented to filter the atmosphere of the planet Eidetara due to its high oxygen levels. Humans are prone to side effects when exposed to too much oxygen, such as coughing, shortness of breath, chest pain, nausea, dizziness, and seizures. This device allowed them to only inhale a healthy amount of oxygen with each breath. 

We have also heard humans discussing another interesting side effect of high oxygen levels: creatures evolving to be larger. At the moment, we do not have a clear reason for why humans would be avoiding this side effect, but we hypothesize that humans may already be significant in size and be against further growth of their species. 

In the year 2221, humans invented advanced fire detection and suppression systems for survival and safety on Eidetara. Due to fire being extra combustible in high oxygen atmospheres, this was an extremely important technology for the safety of humans on Earth if they wanted to bring domesticated fire to the planet.

In 2226, after a change in who was in control of the expansion to Eidetara, it was announced that Eidetara would be the first planet to have a specific purpose rather than housing for humans. Eidetara was announced as an education planet, in which all of the best colleges in the galaxies would be relocated so they could all be in one place for the best education possible. While there were many firm opinions on this matter, in 2233, Eidetara opened its doors to students.

Genetic modification in agriculture became a reality for humans in the year 2235. This allowed humans to more quickly identify potential traits for plant offspring prior to growing the plants. It also allowed humans to modify the plants' traits to a desired output instead of having to breed the plants over generations to get the desired results. Currently, humans are researching how to use this technology to modify plants to survive on other planets than Earth without the need for interplanetary greenhouses, hopefully decreasing import necessity and allowing total independent survival of each colonized planet. 

The Vim Darrow telescope was invented in the year 2236. This was a device similar to many of Humankind’s past called “telescopes”, which allowed humans to observe space from the surface of planets. The Vim Darrow telescope, however, was a groundbreaking advancement for telescopes. This telescope included a feature that allowed humans to easily identify planets and their traits that would impact possible survival on the planet if humans wished to expand to the planet they were observing. The Vim Darrow telescope can also detect the temperature of a planet and the atmospheric makeup of a planet just by viewing it from the surface of another planet. 

While we have not yet heard of any discoveries being made with this telescope, it is a groundbreaking scientific advancement that we can expect will allow Humankind to begin expanding across the galaxy at a much higher speed. 

You may be wondering: how does the knowledge and advancement of Humankind affect us on our planet?  However, Humankind has greatly impacted our society. The radio would not be as popular of a form of entertainment today if it weren’t for humans and their broadcasts. In addition to this, we would not be aware of what technology was possible to strive for as we move forward. Prior to the discovery of humans, we were unaware there was a world outside of our planet, and now we are not only aware of it but informed on many topics, including exact examples of planets that exist.

While we have not yet integrated human technology into our society, some members of our society are in the process of researching specific devices for our planet, such as telescopes or fire. In the future, we would like to additionally research the possibility of exploring space ourselves.

Despite having been aware of the existence of Humankind and observing them via radio broadcasts for two centuries now, we have not had contact with them. Since we are unaware of how radio waves are produced despite our ability to pick them up, we are not able to contact Humankind, meaning they are not aware of our existence.

In my professional opinion, this is for the best of our community. We should strive to avoid Humankind in case they decide to expand to our planet. In addition to this, making ourselves known to Humankind brings the risk of making ourselves known to other potential life forms in the galaxy, which could include potential predators. Some may argue for an equally likely possibility of prey, but it is a gamble that we as a community would need to decide on prior to making any motions towards making ourselves known to the other life in the galaxy.

If we do decide to make ourselves known to Humankind, there is only one possible option as far as I am concerned: befriending humans to the best of our capability as though they are members of our own species. This would allow for a flow of knowledge between our two species as well as an allyship in case other lifeforms are found within the galaxy.