It's another Fri-Wednesday Special! This time we're returning back to the Navigator. This is probably my favorite series to work on at the moment, I just love the setting, the mystery of my character, and the struggle. It's in a sense a personal story because for my first time in my life I'm having to deal with a completely new lifestyle and setting, but I don't want to bore you with my life's story so here's a fictional story about a man in a new life on a completely new planet. Enjoy!
Curiosity is one of the most useful characteristics ever evolved, without it mankind would still be running across the plains of Africa without ever looking up to the stars with the sense of awe wonder. It was the reason why The Navigator could sail from solar system to solar system within the matter of just a few weeks. However curiosity has a negative side-effect too, injury or death.
See a frog that looks really colorful like a pomegranate or freshly picked lime? Do you wonder if it taste just as sweet and juicy at a pineapple? Go ahead and taste it, it can’t be bad just look at the colors! Nope, within one bite you’re on the ground gagging on your own throw up dying a poor miserable existence just because you wondered what a frog tasted like. The words of the Ploi̱gós echoed across time from a distant memory. So many years had passed he had forgotten her face, but he remembered the way she stood higher than everybody around her, even though she was a few inches shorter than average, and her words were full of wisdom with hints of arrogance. She deserved every bit it.
Never, even once, test the waters of the unknown with your own physical self or you will die a miserable naive existence like tuk-tuk and the frog. You’re all here to navigate, the art of taking in information of your surroundings then using said information to look stuff up in charts and then making educated guesses. Never make a guess without gathering data of your surroundings, and then applying that data to others. It is the very reason humankind is where we are today. And that applies a hundred times more to survival instances. I don’t give a fuck if the waters look as blue as the flares of Zeta Puppis, don’t drink it unless you’re sure there is no contaminatanimates. If you see a creature on a H-congruous world, you might assume it’s fine to cook up because it’s carbon based and aerobic like us, but remember that frog that kill tuk-tuk?
This is why the Q-tool is one of the most important things ever invented, let me show you why….
The Navigator switched the Q-tool on, rings of emerald circled around his arm verifying it was him. Once the handshake was complete it was off to business. A red laser shot out of the gadget, hovering above the central disk a readout of the chemical compounds detected within the laser’s focus. He moved the laser across the tendril as slowly as steadily as he could fighting the very weight of his muscles, like a old and tired machine.
Your first catch is going to be completely inedible, always. Not because it might kill you, but because you are going to dissect that creature down to its very molecule, leave no chemical compound untouched, I want the creature to look like a cattle mutilation that has been mutilated again and again and then left to rot in the sun for a few days only to be mutilated a few more times. I don’t care how hungry you are, as you all may remember the human body can live for three weeks without taking a single bite so you’ll have plenty of fat to burn, you don’t fuck around when dealing with an unknown species.
Twenty minutes passed before he was finished with the surface, the tendril was mostly inedible, not poisonous just little to no nutritional value except as a fiber. Taking his knife he began dissecting it, one layer at a time.
Two hours had passed, his ration remained by his side untouched. He finally had reached the suction cup, still clinging on the rock even when ninety-five percent of its body was ripped to carefully calculated shreds. He figured he could let the cup slide, he was growing bored of this analysis, he already found three parts that were edible and that’s all he needed. A long muscle fiber that made up the layer right below the skin had a similar chemical structure to that of terrestrial squids, a starfish shaped organ that he assumed to be the central nervous system was next on the list, and then the skin he could use to wrap it all up in like a bacon-wrapped jalapeno.
He removed the suction cup from the rock, the laser switched off. Where the creature hung for its dear life (and death) was a barren spot, completely at loss from the moss that used to inhabit it. Small fibers not much thicker than a strand of hair dangled from the suction cup, it must be how the tendril fed he thought. He now had a hypothesis on how to catch the tendril, his work was done. One step closer to being the next Magellan.
An hour of rest and gagging on the last of his ration had passed when he decided it was time for round two. His arm had plenty of time to rest, and he was ready for the second half, and this time he had a secret weapon, a suction cup.
The suction cup was fastened to a new rock, completely barren of moss so a tendril wouldn’t snatch it from him, this rock was heavier just the perfect weight to apply pressure to grasp on rocks or ice, he made sure by catching a few rocks on land. He was ready to get the hell away from here once and for all.
It doesn’t matter how good your tools are, if you can’t throw a makeshift grappling hook properly you’ll be stuck on the shorelines for a while. His tools were better, but the added weight made the throws equally more difficult. It was reassuring that his accuracy looked better, most of his shots would splash around the general region of the iceberg.
One, two, three throw, he would think and occasionally mutter under his breath. It was reminiscent of his career.
Accuracy, the Ploi̱gós’ memory continued to lecture on, is the number one rule in navigation, the slightest initial calculations can throw off your entire course delaying your trek, or getting yourself fired. Unlike the navigators from long ago on Earth there’s nothing stopping a spaceship with the mass of a city. Sure recalculations can be done, and are performed every day of the trek. A good navigator is measured by the amount of readjustments in a single trek, the longer the trek and the small the adjustments the better, simple as that. Once any of you can make it halfway across the galaxy with no adjustment will you be able to achieve the rank of Ploi̱gós.
This is how the Navigator felt right now, the initial conditions have to be ninety-nine-point-ninety-nine to a hundred percent correct, and right now he was feeling about at sixty-five percent. He continued to throw.
However balancing logic and primitive instincts isn’t easy, especially on a tired mind and a fatigued body, the frustration seeped from somewhere deep within his brain stem overriding his frontal lobe and flooded his body from neck to feet. The frustration leaked into the their calm frozen air through screams of pain and rage. Why is this so fucking hard? He cried and cursed with every throw. His shots got flying way over the ice. The consciousness of what made him a navigator, the very essence of his life, was being evicted by a part of the brain that should've been left back on Earth.
The human, he swore the Ploi̱gós spoke as the Navigator overshot an iceberg again, just a little bit too far behind and way over where the ice drifted. He swore the Ploi̱gós spoke more in his head than she ever did in lecture, is a curious creature. No lifeform has conquered the stars like we have....
The navigator took a rest, another iceberg was a few meters off he could spare his energy for a few moments. He took a deep breath and recounted the lecture.
…. all observed life has destroyed itself through war, eroding its own environment, or wasting all their fuel elsewhere before reaching the stars. As far as we’re concerned, humans are the only species to ever leave their own solar system. That was eons ago, and now we’ve conquered the entire Orion Arm. If we can do that then the universe is practically ours, manifest destiny in its rawest form.
The iceberg was within throwing distance now. His head still clouded in frustration, the only thing keeping him sane at the moment was the Ploi̱gós’ memory. A simpler time when he was ambitious and naive, before he had been rejected by the Expanse time and time again. He prepared his suction cupped rock and carried on.
Now can anybody tell me why humankind is the anomaly?
He decided to try something different, instead of just throwing he began to spin the rope above his head, it was like a small rocky body spinning about his massive coat’s gravitational pull. It continued to spin upwards as it picked up speed.
Some say it’s luck. Others say it’s our passion for exploring. Generals say its our desire to conquer. Scientist say we’re curious. Economists think it’s because we had a great amount of resources. The few religious sects out there thank God or Cthulu or whatever they worship. Nobody knows for sure, we’ve seen all of this before on other planets, yet we’re the only ones up here. So why us?
The rock was far above his head now, the iceberg a few meters upstream still. He counted his breadths. One, two, three...
I have seen humans on every habitable planet from here to Sagittarius A, and have observed those less fortunate societies die as we roam the skies. And you know what I think is the reason why?
The iceberg was near now, it was smaller than the others. He wound up the throw, faster and faster. fifteen, sixteen, seventeen,...
It’s because we’re irrational creatures. Now you might be saying that every creature is, it’s just nature. Irrationality is important for survival after all, reflexes are important for times we can’t think. But there is something fundamentally different about the human brain than any other.
He pulled his arm back, twenty-six, twenty-seven,, and threw it forward. Twenty-eight, twenty-ni…. The grappling hook flew through the air just like it always had so many times before, he his hopes slipped away with the rope.
During times of irrationality, when our brainstem takes complete control of our minds and like a ghost of a caveman, we may want to fight whomever is near us, snap at our loved ones, murder, or rape.
He saw it before the rock ever got there, the arm was too high it was going to overshoot and then he was going to lay down and wish there was something near by to punch.
But those who actually act on those impulses are a low percentage, no matter how many drugs we fill our brains up with we have on average an astounding amount of restraint on our brainstem. More than any other alien life form. So what is it?
The iceberg drifted near the rope’s trajectory. That was when he saw the solution!
It’s that no matter how angry we get at the universe, we can take a few moments break, relax, come back to the problem and see it with different eyes.
The rock had already arched over the iceberg, but that didn’t mean it was over. Infact it was best it did. He yanked back on the rope, shifting the flight path back towards the shore. It flew until he heard the satisfying sound of it sliding, Shhh, clack, and, stttt. He pulled the rope, it felt nice and taut. The suction cup had gotten grips with the ice! He let out a huge laugh filling up the desolate landscape, he was still coming to grips with the reality of his situation. He laughed the entire time he pulled. Finally the Inner Circle was conquered, he was getting the hell out of it.
