Equal and Opposite Reaction

PRE-LETTER NOTICE: Hello, my name is UrnOx and I am TripOx’s Sharer.

I notice that his Earth knowledge is slightly rusty so here is a key to help you with any possible problems.

Blah coal = Black Hole;

Pigments = Paintings;

Vessel = Space station;

Tribe/Clan = People;

Moth = Month;

Root = World;

Think outside the locks = Think outside the box;

Televisions = Programmes/TV Series;

Intelligence-Academy = School;

Potato waffling = Waffling/Rambling.

Dear Humanity;

It is imperative that you help us as we need your support so we can continue to save the universe from something you call a ‘blah coal’ – a phenomenon we call the Hunger. If you do not help us, our Vessel, as well as the entire universe, will be devoured by it.

Before I talk about the Hunger, I would like to say that I also have a personal interest in your ‘pop-culture’. The way that you use your intelligence for entertainment is ingenious and simply endearing for it is a trait that no other known Clan of the universe possesses. Despite the beauty that your ‘pigments’ display such as Van Gogh’s ‘A Starry Night’ or the brain-blowing illusions and surrealisms you surprise existence with, your history brings phlegm to my hives, or in-your-dialects 'tears to my eyes'. Wholeheartedly, I believe that we could learn a great deal from each other should you choose to accept my request; you are such imaginative beings with an endless supply of creativity and we have wisdom and technology you, as-you-would-say, ‘could only dream of’.

Your ‘music’ has the power to take anyone down memory lane. Our Vessel is usually connected to our Sky-Pod, a device in our Root which tunes into other Tribes’ media. The last ‘music’ that played was actually the first I had ever heard. That piece takes me back to when I was seven-Moths-old floating on the ocean of my Root, VultOx, looking up through the dense blue clouds at the stars, shining bright whites and reds and greens. I looked at the Smile, a type of Miracle or what-you-would-call a ‘constellation’: a constant crescent of stars, all patterning the black sky of that morning.

I lost myself in the Smile, a concept so welcoming and pleasant, yet almost ominous – a smile with no owner, no face. I focussed my hives so I could study each star, and its unique shape, and distinguish the difference between the way they glowed. As I floated toward my home, my ascendants, or ‘parents’, played the Sky-Pod. Lost Stars by Adam Levine filled my ears and I thought the stars were singing to me, calling out for my company. I would often look up at the stars whilst fantasising about scenarios of me flying from Root to Root, so I felt like I identified with the piece, especially since it spoke of a lost boy in his dreams and fantasies. That lyric felt like it was meant for me. As I grew up, this piece strengthened my self-gained purpose – I decided to travel and reach the furthest reaches of the galaxy to look for these singing stars that were lost and longing for my presence.

There are so many other beautiful pieces I wish I could talk about, but that could take me thousands of letters. I should focus on the matter at tentacle, or-as-you-would-write ‘matter at hand’. I appear to be, as-you-would-say, ‘potato waffling’.

The Hunger is a ball that eats anything and everything, and if it isn’t stopped it will devour the entire universe. This Vessel surrounds the Hunger completely, sealing it from the rest of the universe. Not only does it seal the Hunger, but each point flies away from the ‘blah coal’ faster than the speed of light. Since the Vessel is being sucked in at the same rate it is escaping, it stays in the exact same spot and cancels out the Hunger’s gravitational pull over the universe.

My elders would always look down on me and scoff in my face whenever I told them that I wanted to be an astronaut. Those are just human fictions they would say. They were half-right; they were human fictions! What is fiction for you doesn’t have to be for us, in fact your fictions were our inspirations since you opened our hives to, as-you-would-say, 'think outside the locks'. Your stories of space travel would have UrnOx, my Sharer or in-your-terms 'friend', and I glued to our screens. We met when we were two years and four Moths. I was the only one at the Intelligence-Academy that would make models of stars and Roots until he joined our class. He, too, dreamed of travelling the cosmos and sometimes we would go to his house and watch these ‘televisions’ he collected. We watched many things together: Star Trek, Rick and Morty, Firefly, but my favourite was always Doctor Who. One man in a small box travelling to every star, making the best of every situation he would find himself in. It taught us a lot about you and your Root, Earth.

I watch other ‘televisions’ which are informative and have taught us that you have many conflicts within your Tribe, a sentiment the VultOxoids shall never understand despite the reasons your Mister 'History Channel' declares. One reoccurrence we have observed is a difference based on outer complexion. UrnOx and I are from two different Tribes, his Clan being the PtrOx and mine being the VwOx and due to this we have different features. My outer layer, or ‘Skin’, is a smooth semi-clear purple unlike his thicker, less-translucent pink outer layer. Despite these external differences, our ability to see the universe both dimensionally (as you do in three dimensions) and literally (of which there are five literal plains) allows us to be judgmental only of an individual’s actions: past and present.

Why do we need your help?

As-you-say: ‘Houston, we have a problem!’. Who is Houston?

Anyway, the Nuclear Fission Reactor Core is powered by our Solar-Capturing quadrants, but the artificial stars we installed appear to have suffered an outage, or as-you-say ‘Power cut’. This is where we need your help – we understand that you have Nuclear Fission and Fusion technologies. If you were to send two of your best Astro-Physicists and the Queen to us with these technologies, you will have done us, yourselves, and the rest of the universe a huge service in prolonging our survival. Perhaps I lied about the Queen, but I’ve always wanted to meet her since she’s my favourite piece in your game ‘Chess’.

Before the artificial stars stopped operating, we had so many pass-times. You have ‘virtual reality’ and we have a similar immersive technology where you can pick any live location in the known universe. I love to ‘sky dive’ in your Root, Earth; I was above the birds watching them fly in V-formations, falling between mountains to their peak of a lovely clear blue river. My favourite landing area is just ahead of a waterfall. I love to feel my fall break with a parachute and the harsh air resistance becoming a guiding acquaintance. I love feeling the water on the ends of my tentacles when I’m about to land and the sounds produced by the foaming water crashing down against rocks and water is calming. This beautiful virtual atmosphere was interrupted to sirens and warnings before everything shut down.

We spent about an hour trying to get the artificial stars to burn again, but we were unsuccessful. Our experience on the Vessel has solely been with technology as a crutch to prevent us from falling into a pit of potential boredom. After thousands of years on board with this crutch, we lost ourselves for a moment as we didn’t know what to do. We could no longer hear the primary resistance against the Hunger and the backup generators fired, only lasting two quick Moths. From then on, we have had to use our ‘Bi-Cycle’ generators to convert our own kinetic energy into power to convert excess elements, which we brought in case of emergency, into fuel which is reserved only for negating the Hunger’s force. This meant we had no power for recreational purposes. We couldn’t contact anyone – that was until I realised: we were able to send the nearest habitable Root a letter.

It has been around two more Moths since the backup generators failed and we have found ourselves partaking in things we wouldn’t usually find ourselves doing. Since the ‘power cut’ we have to manually clean the decks and ensure nothing is obstructing the ‘Bi-Cycle’ power connections, every Moth. We have ocean-plants embedded with ocean water and we must rub them against every inch of panelling, be it the floor, wall, or ceiling. It is only since this hard-work that I have realised just how truly humungous our Vessel truly is. I reckon you could fit half of your Root’s people and animals with space to spare! Other than cleaning, we found ourselves playing ‘Chess’. It used to be one of my favourite human games, but having played it at least twenty times every day I feel that the novelty has begun to wear off. There is only a certain amount of times you can play this game before your brain feels tired.

After a few days which felt like confinement, UrnOx and I started to reminisce. We would talk about our days at the Intelligence-Academy and how we felt out of place. It would always be us two against everyone else in the sense of our aspirations. Every fifth day of academy, our elders would tell us to form a circle and talk about what we have done to further our progression to our dreams. I remember GlamOx would always show off about his family’s wealth and how him being his ‘ascendants Ox’ meant that his dream was already a known reality. UrnOx would roll his hives and I would look at the ground feeling defeated. Sometimes these sessions made me think that our dream was completely out of our tentacles’ reach, I would usually end the experience feeling sick and mentally drained, but UrnOx would know how to set my mood and brain back to normal. He would either play Lost Stars or show me a new ‘television’ that he heard about.

We have been through so much together; I am proud to say that we dreamt together and now we live our dreams together. That is all we ever needed, each other, until now! It would be a tremendous service to us, and don’t forget the rest of the universe, if you came to our aid.

What can we offer you?

Well we would be happy to as-we-say open your hives to our culture and together we can co-educate our Clans on what ExtraRootestrial (or-as-you-say ‘extra-terrestrial’) life is like. UrnOx and I always loved your depictions and fictions of the universe and 'aliens'. You usually display us in one of two ways; you generalise us as either feeble little green men or invasive maniacs. Very few times has there been a take on ‘aliens’ as diplomatic beings, as you would consider yourselves. Your imagination in these 'televisions' is dense and has inspired us to open our hives in the very same ways. Many of our technologies and theories are simply based upon your fictional ‘televisions’, but your future ‘televisions’ could potentially be a source of learning for other Tribes around the universe to show them what an inter-Root relationship is like.

Naturally, with an inter-Root relationship we could also share resources, educations, and even individuals. A universe has no borders, and so we welcome humans to VultOx and hope you would do the same for us. Upon establishing a partnership, we would be capable of giving rise to the Golden Age of medicines, technologies, and intelligence for both of our Tribes. Not only would this mean you would gain the ability and opportunity to space travel, but together we could possibly theorise ways to terraform other planets to make them habitable for ourselves or any being that may find itself endangered on our own Roots.

As we touched upon earlier, humanity suffers from the limitation of observing others based on outer layers and some actions. This crops up in your history many times for you have reduced potential teachers and future leaders to slaves and corpses and ashes. The tendency to judge others based on your experiences with them is a useful one, but what if we tell you that we can expand your vision? We can open your perceptions such that you can view things through the third dimension as well as via the Literal plain. This would result in your ability to operate on a literal sense, one where an individual is seen through the entirety of their experiences and actions. This is another gift we wish to share with you and it would hopefully eradicate any useless conflicts based on third-dimensional differences.

If there is anything else you wish for us to offer, please let us know as we are eager to form a partnership after you have helped us with this issue.

All the best,

TripOx, ambassador for the VultOx.