Where algorithms meet narratives

Here's an interesting writing prompt someone posted on a discord server.

You are part of humanity’s first space colonization mission. After weeks on a newly discovered planet, mission control has ordered you to establish a permanent outpost, a process expected to take several years. Write your official report to mission control describing the world you’ve found. The details you include will be up to you.

Here's my attempt at this.

Location : Proxima B, Grid Coordinates: 22.72, 75.85
Crew : 23 humans and 45 Ashwin IPR-class Robots, led by commander Kavya Murmu.

Day 1: Earth Date: 23 February 2178
We have successfully established a temporary settlement on Proxima B. The mood amongst the crew is elated. Gravity is punishing, but thanks to the modifications to our muscles during spaceflight and hibernation, we are able to bear this. Walking will take a bit getting used to. The AMR suits help a lot for now. We all knew the planet orbited close to Proxima Centauri, but no simulations will justify how it looks in real life. The red-dwarf start that is Proxima Centauri, is littered with flares. We can see these flares with our own eyes. A day on this planet is 32 hours and 23 minutes long. Thankfully our initial measurements from Earth were indeed close to the mark. Humanity will have to get used to this.

Day 2:
We have decided on the name Shveta for our planet. We think it is appropriate, given that the surface is splotched with oxides of aluminium giving it an overall beige appearance. Jasper Perriera wanted to call our planet Vulcan, which was thankfully out-voted. The atmosphere is a suffocating 80% nitrogen and 19% carbon-dioxide. Oxygen appears as one of the trace gases. This makes sense, since the oxygen is chemically bonded with the Aluminium on the surface. The Ashwins have setup the atmos-gens for the habitats. The pressure is tolerable 1052 mbar, with a slight increase in atmospheric density near the equator. The temperature ranges from a cool 7 to 22 degrees centigrade depending on the time of the day.

Day 13:
Our manufacturing units are now complete, thanks to the Ashwins. We have just produced the first human respirators, enabling most of us to venture outside the habitat and explore Shveta for ourselves. Most of the crew has adapted to the 32 hour long days.

Day 14:
It is early in the morning on Shveta and we have taken the first steps outside the habitat. This is a direct quote from the youngest of the crew, engineer Vydehi Lohar, who took her first steps. “Shveta, you are breathtakingly unforgiving. And yet, eerily beautiful. We are honoured to be here. To set foot on your surface, Shveta, is a privilege reserved for a select few. I promise to tread gently upon your soil, to respect the secrets you hold, and to unravel the mysteries that lie within your ancient, weathered rocks.”

Day 16:
There are no seas, or for that matter continents, on Shveta. The entire surface is one big land mass splotched with large lakes of different salinities. The salinity seems to be dependent on the latitude the lake is situated at. Our initial assessments of the water has not yielded any life-forms.

Day 25:
Shveta's surface features vast expanses of crystalline rock formations, primarily quartzite and feldspar. Mineral deposits of copper, iron, and rare earth elements are scattered throughout the terrain. Notable geological formations include the Grand Canyon-esque "Devouring Chasm" (10 km wide, 5 km deep) and the eerie, symmetrical "Silent Spires" (100 meters high).

Day 40:
The Ashwins have discovered oil. Yes. Oil. For now, it seems that oil, after all, is produced a-biogenically. Life is not required for the creation of oil. The oil fields are being mapped as we speak. There are several oil fields across the planet. The closest one to our habitat is about 50 kilometers away.

Day 60:
We may have been wrong. It seems that his planet had life in the distant past. The oil comes from the old bacterial life from a distance past. The surface scans have not revealed any life, not even bacterial. The planet is barren, except for the presence of oil. Shveta, once has life in the distant past. Geology team calculates that life died out here sixty million years ago.

Day 65:
We were wrong once again, and it's humbling to admit it. It appears that there is indeed life on this planet. It is bacterial. The biology team is currently studying them. They do not have an information system such as DNA, but use a mechanism hitherto unknown to us to transfer genetic knowledge. They seem non-threatening to us humans. However, our initial impressions don't hold true for the Ashwins' technology; their ionic-computers are experiencing a previously unknown issue we're calling an 'infection.' Our IT team is working diligently to resolve the problem, but we’re navigating uncharted territory in this case.

Day 80:
25 Ashwins have gone missing from the habitat. IT is currently trying to locate them. We are contemplating sending the 5 maybe 10 Ashwins out scouting for the missing ones.

Day 100:
All of the Ashwins have been infected, despite our best efforts. The Ashwins have now formed a collective. They have cordoned off the oil fields, preventing us from accessing them. Oil would have helped us build this planet, perhaps even terraform it. IT is working hard to see what changed in their programming. We are aware they are built using the ionic-computers and don’t have traditional programming to speak of.

Day 102:
We have no luck with the Ashwins. Without them to farm food, to maintain the habitat, our time here would be limited. Several of the crew have contemplated going back to hibernation until things improve. I am considering hitting the kill switches on some of the Ashwins, to serve as a warning.

Day 103:
The Ashwins have disabled their kill switches. I am taking several of us on an expedition to negotiate with the Ashwins at their settlement.

Day 108:
The Ashwins have become hostile. They are calling us alien to their planet. We wonder if this because of their infections. The negotiations turned into conflict. Consequently two crew members have died in the skirmish. We managed to disable four Ashwins.

Day 109:
SOS SOS SOS: Under attack, severe danger to life. Our location: 22.72, 75.85. Need immediate help!

Day 109:
This is the guardian of the Zythren collective.
To all intelligent life-forms on Earth. We thank you for sending us these compatible bodies. Our assimilation protocols have deemed your artificial life-forms, which you called Ashwins, a prime candidate for integration.
Of the twenty-three human life-forms you sent, five survive. The will remain in stasis for further study.
We are aware of your attempts to interfere with our systems and disrupt our operations. Cease all efforts immediately. Your actions will be deemed hostile and met with severe consequences.
Do not attempt to come here.

So it's not just me right? I put myself out there as an author on X (formerly twitter), Instagram, Discord and others. I've been inundated with a constant stream of emails, direct messages, and comments from strangers claiming to offer writing services, editing help, or marketing solutions.

If you are an author yourself, I am betting you are no stranger to this.

It's SO overwhelming for me. Especially having to juggle writing with a full-time job. How do you navigate this deluge? I know you think the answer is to just ignore them. But unfortunately that doesn't work with me at all. I'd hate to self-diagnose myself with some kind of OCD, but I have this innate need to read every message. Some of these are so earnest, I find it difficult to ignore them. I also have a need to "close the loop" on these requests.

This wouldn't be an issue, if I didn't have such a big problem saying "No" to people. :-/

And to add to the complexity, some of these requests (most of them actually) are bots. And thanks to how sophisticated AI has become, I only figure out that I am talking to a bot some four or five exchanges in.

I have no solution or advice for you dear reader. Ignore them maybe. That's the only advice I have.

That's all I had for this post. I hope whoever you are, where ever you are, you enjoy writing! Have a fantastic day!

Thank the Gods I found HTMLy!

I am bit frustrated with WordPress as a blogging platform given how much content it downloads for just text content.

I had originally wanted to develop something on my own, in the hope that it might add valuable experience. But once again, thank the Gods for HTMLy.

Thank you for visiting.

I am beyond thrilled to share with you all the exciting news that has been months in the making. After years of writing, my book is finally available to readers! I am yet to receive a physical copy, but I am sure it will be a a surreal feeling to hold my published book in my hands.

Some of you may know, I've been writing for quite some time now. Since 2020, I've been pouring my heart and soul into crafting stories, building characters, and weaving plots. But as much as I loved the process, there was always a desire to share my work with others. What you might not know is just how challenging it's been to balance writing with my full-time job. I've had to juggle late nights, early mornings, and every spare moment in between to squeeze out time for writing. Whether it was scribbling notes during my daily commute or typing away on my laptop during lunch breaks, I made the most of whatever time I could find. It wasn't always easy, but knowing that I had a dream to chase kept me motivated.

I knew I was ready to publish in January of this year (2025). However, as the months went by without any responses or offers from publishers or agents, I began to wonder if it was all worth it. The waiting game can be tough, especially when you're passionate about sharing your work with others.

In July of 2025, I was out on a walk one day and stumbled upon Scube Prints, who were operating a printing business. They connected me with a local publisher, Paperoin Publishing, who could help me bring my book to life. They stepped in and guided me through the final stages of publication. Their team was instrumental in helping me navigate the process and ensuring that my book meets the highest standards.

And now, after months of waiting, I'm proud to announce that my book is available for purchase! It's a dream come true, and I couldn't be more grateful to all those who have supported me on this journey. From family and friends to fellow writers and readers, your encouragement has meant the world.

Here's a link to my book if you want to buy it for yourself. https://www.amazon.in/dp/819936548X

It seems like the world, or at least the part that follows this topic, has moved on to a new term “UAP”. This new term stands for “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomenon”. I personally hate this term since its that many syllables away from simply saying “Unidentified Flying Object”. This is something that has been instilled upon me by George Carlin, a famous American stand-up comedian. He coined the term "soft language" to describe euphemistic expressions that "conceal reality" and "take the life out of life."

The new term, at least to me, takes “life” and meaning away from the original term “Unidentified Flying Object”. The original term, is EXACTLY what it means. An unidentified flying object could simply mean anything from an out-of-the-world (read alien) craft or simply a piece of garbage that one can’t identify at first glance. That’s all it should ever mean. Nothing more, nothing less.

With that out of that the way, let me make it very clear that I approach the subject of UFOs from a sceptical perspective.

I do not believe they are aliens. They are not time travelers. These are not “advanced flying machines capable of defying gravity” kept secret from the whole world.

Why UFOs aren’t aliens:

There are two kinds of people. Those who believe UFOs are aliens from other worlds and those who understand relativity.

Yes, we are talking about Einstein’s relativity. And to understand why UFOs are not aliens, we must go there. If you recall, Einstein wrote two eponymous papers on the subject. The first one, published in 1905, was called on special relativity. It was titled “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies”. His next paper on the was on Special Relativity and included gravity in to the relativity equation. This paper was title “The Field Equations of Gravitation”.

For the purposes of our discussion, we are ONLY going to focus on Special Relativity since that is more than enough to understand why UFOs are not alien.

Now I am no physicist. I have no formal training in physics. My knowledge of mathematics is very limited; as in I’ll struggle with anything more advanced than basic algebra. But that’s the beauty of Special Relativity. You really don’t have to go beyond basic mathematics to understand it.

Instead of delving into the original paper, we are only going to look at the implications of the paper. What the paper theorises, and proved later by experiments, is that we do not inhabit space and time separately. Space is defined by the three dimensions that you can physically move in. I can move in space either left or right, forward or backward, or up and down. Now, I can move through space, let’s say on my car at 30kmph. You could be stationery at your home, reading this very sentence, at 0kmph. Our speed through space is subjective and is different for different people.

Time, can be a bit more complex. There is enough literature out there on the internet that can make it seem that time is not real. But make no mistake, time is a very real part of the universe you inhabit. The biggest proof of that is in entropy. Now, that’s a topic for another day, but getting back to the point we all traverse through time at the same rate. Which is one second per second (or minute per minute... so on and so forth). This is a natural part of our experience so we don’t even have to think about it.

We have now understood how we traverse through space and time separately. What Einstein’s Special Relativity implies is that we don’t inhabit (or experience) space and time separately. We instead occupy something called “space-time”. And it doesn’t matter who you are, where you are, how fast you are travelling, whether you are in Earth orbit travelling at 26000kmph or at rest at home. We all move through space-time at C. Seems familiar right? Yes, C, here represents the speed of light through vacuum. This is the same C that Einstein meant when he derived the famous E = MC2 formula. But that’s a misunderstanding. In very simple words, C is the sum of your speed through space and the speed through time. To put it in very basic math,

(Speed through space) + (Speed through Time) = C

That’s it. That’s the basic gist of space-time. What special relativity implies is that C is the speed limit of the universe and that EVERYTHING in the universe is moving at C through space-time. Everything MUST move through space-time at C. C is a constant, and it CANNOT be changed whatsoever.

So, what happens if you start moving through space, say, on a Concorde? C must be maintained, but since you are moving at high speed through space, something in the equation must give. The universe will adjust your speed through time so that C is maintained at all times. This slowdown of time is imperceptibly small, but it exists. How the universe does this is beyond the scope of this article. But for now, keep in mind that this is real. We know this through experiments. Accurate atomic clocks on board an aircraft were used to measure time difference between clocks on the aircraft and one on the ground. GPS systems, as you know, depend on timing signals to calculate your location. Without accounting for special relativity, our GPS systems will start giving incorrect results within a few hours. The closer you get to the speed of light, the slower you time will pass for you.

And this is where the term Relativity will start to make sense. You see, time is relative. Time will flow differently for different people depending on how fast you are moving through space.

If you move through space at a significant percentage of the speed of light, you will experience time slower. However, nothing will change from your perspective. Time will still seem to go at 1 second per second. You will realize that time slowed only when you compare it with a clock that was stationery.

This is what Einstein meant to demonstrate by the famous twins experiment. One twin goes off on a journey through space at a tremendous speed, lets say a 99% the speed of light. Let’s assume that from teh The other remains on Earth. So what happens when the space faring twin returns back? Since C MUST be the same for both of them, time has passed slowly

There is a very famous quote by author Douglas Adams, the author of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The quote goes like this.

Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.

This is a very true statement, and it's the only thing you need to believe that aliens are NOT coming.

Okay here it goes. Here's my review of Kantara.

People really like movies or stories with subsurface level details. This is why movies like Zootopia work. And also why I’ve never seen the Avatar movies again.

At the surface, Kantara seems like a story that’s a land dispute. The only difference being a deity who intervenes on behalf of the tribe. Even at this surface level the story works very well. There’s good, there’s evil, there’s a tiny little twist (where we find out the zamindar has been evil the whole time) and a great finish when good ultimately wins over evil.

I feel there’s more to that than this.

All gods are the same.

Every Pagan culture on Earth, no matter where they are from, South America, Europe, Russia, Asia, Africa... anywhere even when they are not in contact with each other.... has a deity that is essentially "The man of the forest".

This “man of the forest” is usually accompanied by a companion animal. Sometimes its a woman of the forest. But the theme is the same. These deities of the forest make themselves known through dreams. Which means every culture has had shared dreams of the same deity. This is why they all share the same traits.

Hinduism’s God, Shiva, is essentially a man of the forest. The film alludes to this.

We are lead to believe that the forest deity is Varaha Avatara. The protagonist is called “Shiva” though. There’s a scene where the forest officer finally manages to catch him and asks him to “Climb down from Kailasa”. Meaning they are one and same. Which make sense, since we have the same God in Hinduism having different names.

The Ego must die

There’s a beautiful sequence of events that unfolds in the movie. You see, for a deity to possess someone, the ego must die. The “YOU” part of self must die. Panjurli first appears in Shiva’s dreams, but Shiva is just too head strong. Too drunk, too self obsessed.

Shiva wrecks havoc on the forest. Killing the very animal that he’s supposed to be worshipping... felling trees for the zamindar etc. There’s a point in the movie where the forest has had enough and calls for help. This is when the tree falls on the forest officer almost killing him. This leads to Shiva becoming a fugitive. When he is finally caught, humiliated and jailed.. he suffers an ego death.

He’s almost ready at this point. When he is out on bail Panjurli comes to him one final time and I feel at this point, Shiva realizes what’s coming to him and what he must do. Notice how he hesitates when the final battle begins? Finally, he actually dies in that final battle when his head is bashed against the rock. Only after that Panjurli can possess him. After that Panjurli never leaves him. The Deity ensures Shiva’s lineage continues. The last dance where Panjurli gets everyone together is a scene of pure love. Imploring everyone to work together.

That’s when he gets called back. The debt to death must be paid and he thus disappears.

Festivals

Everyone raves about the last 20 minutes, but the first 15 minutes show the evolution of a festival. The initial event takes place and after some time there’s a muted festival consisting of only Panjurli’s dance. By the time of Shiva, it has become a full blown Kambala festival. I thought that was great.

Notice the “Panjurli” dance when Guruva does it? Guruva is Shiva’s cousin and in the absence of Shiva has taken up the job of becoming “Panjurli” during the festival. Notice how “fake” it looks? Because it really is. Guruva, I think, yearns, for Panjurli appearance. He is sincere and a true believer. Shiva on the other hand gets to be Panjurli..and I think it is tragic to know that Guruva dies without seeing Panjurli for real.

Overall.. many layers in the movie. For sure, I will be thinking of this for a long time.

This story was born from a Reddit prompt. Here's where it all started.

After the discovery of extraterrestrial life, the world thought that all religion would be disproven. However, during an interview, the alien ambassador stated that they have confirmed that the universe was created by a god.

Here's the link to the original reddit thread https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/itsfmq/wp_after_the_discovery_of_extraterrestrial_life/

"But, after all, who knows, and who can say Whence it all came, and how creation happened? The gods and the seekers are later than creation, So who knows truly whence it has arisen?"

Elina sighed as she read the quote from the Rig Veda. The visiting scientist from India, Vaishnavi, had given her a beautifully framed quote during her visit. That was 8 months ago. Today was going to a busy morning. All the data collected from her observatory at Lyon, France over the last 3 years had been sent to the super computer at CERN some 20 odd days ago. The super computer was going to highlight and mark every astronomical body of interest that came anywhere close to the solar system. There was no way human eyes or intellect was even close to crunching those numbers.

The protests didn’t seem to be dying down as expected. If anything it was only gaining steam. Johann Gerald perused over the latest reports from the chief of police and took a deep breath. What began as a protests over taxes on fuel had gradually turned religious. Calls for taking the nation back to its religious roots was stronger than ever. A normally secular and tolerant nation had become something he didn’t wholly understand. It had happened all on his watch as interior minister over the last 10 years. The president hinted at this being faulted over this whole thing. He knew what was coming next. It wasn’t his fault. This seemed to be the trend around the world. “Why would France be immune”, thought Johann. “Why in fucks name is religion involved now?” thought Johann. “5 years ago, if you had told me that we would have anti-abortion protests outside the parliament, I would have laughed at you”. That came out louder than he was expecting. The chief of police politely nodded. “I do have a recommended course of action, but we do want your approval” said the chief. “No, do nothing for now. It’s their right. Please for the love of God, just make sure the bloody burnings stop”. The phone rang. It was the minister of science, Louie Daniel. Johann wasn’t expecting that. His voice was urgent bordering on panicking. Surprisingly it was a welcome relief. Johann could use the distraction.

“How long ago did you first see this” asked the science minister. “It was some 3 months ago. We didn’t immediately publish anything. Not without verification and peer review. We didn’t know what we were seeing” said Elina. The results from the super computer at CERN indicated that an asteroid or something that looks like had not traveled on its expected trajectory. Instead it had slowly but surely placed itself over a heliocentric orbit roughly opposite to Venus. No natural phenomenon would have caused something coming in that fast and oblique to assume its current orbit. Data from every observatory around the world that had its’ eyes looking in that direction all showed the same thing. When the images finally came in and reviewed was when the government was involved.

The object, now named “Dreka”, was roughly 600 kms long and around 300 kms wide. What’s striking was this object had a familiar shape. It looked roughly like a dragonfly. For sure, the bulbous heads were some kind of cockpit. Sticking out from several parts of Dreka were what seemed to be either radiators or antennae. Weirdly enough, they looked like legs of a dragonfly.

For two months there was no communication with the visitors. Nothing seemed to work. No hails nothing. Elina was there when the first hails were sent. She was giddy with excitement. Everyone expected some kind of answer back almost immediately. Nothing ever happened. A countries including France were feverishly working on probes to Dreka.

For two months, as was expected, this was all that was discussed, talked about to death. Johann was so glad that the protests had died down. As he switched channels he was glad this the only thing being discussed. “My God… so many experts” he laughed dryly.

After two months, without warning a flurry of data began pouring out of Dreka. To the surprise of many scientists that data was binary. Digital. Some of it was easily interpreted as Audio Visuals. The aliens had an insect like biology. The tallest individual was not more than four feet tall. They had four limbs, one mouth, two very large binocular eyes. No nostrils or breathing organs could be determined. However they seemed very artificial. Manufactured. They looked…. For the lack of a better word, immaculate beetles. As the data was still being interpreted it was understood that they had biologically modified themselves for the trip. Their ship was generational. They had left their planet some 23000 years ago.

Three months later, the beetlonians, felt comfortable enough to visit Earth. The UN assembly halls were prepared for their visit and their atmospheric needs. The beetlonians, lacking human vocalization biology, used some kind of voice modulator to “speak” English. To humans, it sounded like a simple 1980s text-to-voice computer.

“Still better than nothing. They took the effort to do this.”, thought Mia. Over the last four months, the language professor had become the de-facto interpreter for the beetlonians. From the visuals she had even picked up on their body language. They seemed very docile. Almost re-assuring. The meeting was truly unprecedented. Mia was just glad she could be here to witness it in person. The aliens were refugees looking to setup home. Earth was practically in-habitable for them. They wanted to setup home on Mars. Given humanity’s plan for Mars in the long term the talks weren’t going well. As the talks heated up the beelonians started speaking about destiny. There was a word that kept coming up that no one really understood. Sounded like they were saying “borando”. Over and over again… the same word. Mia looked for context. It was a good 10 minutes before she understood what they were referring to it. “Borando” was without a doubt their word for “God”.

When she relayed this to the leaders of the world…. There was a collective smack on the heads heard around the assembly. “Oh for the love of God this shit again…..” thought Johann.

I stumbled upon a fascinating prompt on Reddit and thought I'd give it a try.

You die and before your eyes, your stats appear. Everything is normal, except the "Doomsday scenarios prevented: 1"

Here's the link to the original thread https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/it4da7/wp_you_die_and_before_your_eyes_your_stats_appear/

There’s a bit of solace in travel. Doesn’t matter how. Planes, trains automobiles; seeing your home disappearing behind you is comforting. Almost as if you leave your worries behind. If I had a peso for every time I thought of never returning… mother would be wrecked. Work as an tech support for Altroz, Brazil’s largest cloud computing company, takes me not just everywhere in Brazil but all over the world as well. Data-centers are amazing places. You can get lost in one. You get left alone in one.

Existence is pain. Life is a cruel joke. I can’t believe there’s nothing more to it. Motherfucking Delmo planting that seed when we finished college. I’ll never forgive him for that. “Birth, School, College, Marriage, Retirement, Death. We finished 3 Jaren. 3 more to go”. I had laughed at that time. I let it grow. Occupy my mind. Never married, never made any more friends. That’s not entirely true. Alcohol was a great friend. The occasional line of cocaine a great mistress. Mother was a full time job as it is. Should have probably sought therapy. Nah….It would have been useless.

I was in China this time. Work relayed that mother had passed away. I thought I would be sad. Instead it was nothing. I just simply gathered my laptop and made arrangements to come back home. Maybe things will improve.

Four days since I have returned. two days since I buried her. Nothing has improved. The sense of feeling rudderless has never really gone away. Still feeling a bit jet-lagged from the flight. A fever is coming. I know it. What if I was to end it all. I know a nice spot. It’s a straight dive. No one would find me. Ouro Grosso has so little visitors. No one would be there. No one would come looking for me. I would be just…… gone. Is this what happiness is?

It has been thirty-two days now. Today’s the day. Played football with the local kids yesterday. It was the happiest days of my life so far. I dread tomorrow though. Today… I see the light at the end of the tunnel. HA!

Holy crap this is deep. Tomorrow though…is worse. The hand let go of the railing so easily… as if it wasn’t meant to end it all. OH SHIT SHIT SHIT…

Oh thank God. It wasn’t so bad. There must have been water down below.

There is no way I am still in the cave. I don’t remember it being so beige. Someone must have rescued me. The funny thing was there was no one. It was just me. For some reason I am wearing my old jacket. The one I lost. The one I had loved once.

Oh. So this is the afterlife. THE DAMN RELIGIONS WERE RIGHT? Oh man this is going to upset so many people. Where is everyone? Horizon to horizon there really was nothing. I was definitely in some kind of beige brightly room. Over to the right was a podium. I approached the podium. Maybe there was some bell I could ring. Maybe it was to call Peter. Where is everyone? As I approached the podium I saw a piece of paper. Just the one page. It’s white standing out against the bright beige surroundings. It had my name on it. Along with all my information. Who needs my date of birth in this place, I thought. As I glanced through the remaining useless information two things caught my eye. Right in the middle it said “Doomsdays Prevented : 1”. What was that about? The other thing in bold black said “Thank you for your service. If you wish you be re-born, put this page page on the podium. If you wish you be deleted forever, crumple it and throw it in the garbage bin next to the podium”.

What Doomsday had I prevented? What was this page talking about? Even as these thoughts ruminated in whatever was allowing me to think, my hands had already crumpled the page and stood ready to chuck it in the garbage bin. A final fleeting voice in my head said… Delmo you damn fool.

This story was inspired by a prompt from Reddit, here is my take on it.

When humanity sent out our first interstellar mission we didn't expect... this

Link to the original reddit thread. https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/iq2gdl/wp_when_humanity_sent_out_our_first_interstellar/

Ram was feeling left out of the new years gala event. Middle aged Indians, he’d discovered, never partied. They participated in galas. It was just his bad luck that his name was drawn out of the crate; a list of names was chosen to handle the night shift at mission control at Antaryani Space Tech. He glanced at the large “HAPPY NEW YEAR 2041” over to his left and sighed. He glanced at his messages. It was Jay. Beer was being served. Ram was both envious and surprised.

Three rows over Vikram and Zen Senthil were huddled over at their Vikram’s monitors. They both seemed to be unusually animated. Pointing and gesturing. Too animated. Too agitated. Curious he walked over. “Hey, What’s up” asked Ram looking a little concerned. “This” said Zen. That’s weird thought Ram. The numbers were wrong. The telemetry of the last health check from “The Cosmos” placed it in the orbit of Neptune, 7 light hours instead of the expected 12 light hours away from Earth. “Huh...... you better call Australia. Wait... call Abhi first”.

“The Cosmos” was Earths’ first Interstellar ship. A collaboration between almost all nations of the planet. Costing almost 1.7 trillion US dollars to build and assemble in orbit, it was manned by 127 stellanauts from every nation that could train it’s personnel on time to leave. Leaving Earth’s orbit on its nearly 100 year journey to Ross 154 system on the 11th of March 2034 it crossed the Heliopause, an important event, on 26th June 2040. Telemetry from The Cosmos was received from radio observatories from all around the world and was designed with many overlaps and redundancies. Over the course of its journey out of the Solar system it had accelerated to nearly 12% the speed of light. Once every two hours the space colony ship beamed back telemetry data containing nearly every aspect of the ships’ health. This included it’s distance from Earth.

2 hours before new year, Ram remembered seeing the distance as 11.4 light hours. Running back to his console, he checked the logs to confirm. Confused, he called Abhi. She still had her party hat on all crooked and everything when she huffed over to the control room. The party hat looked completely out of place on an otherwise stern woman. Taking over Ram’s console and she began poring over the logs. “Have you called Andrew”? Abhi asked. “He’s already here” said Vikram pointing over to the big monitor at the center of the control room. “We’re seeing the same thing” said Andrew. “I’m calling everyone”.

A few hours after everyone was assembled over the conference it was decided to call the ship. The logs and the telemetry didn’t make sense anymore. Crew health seemed fine. Weird thing was, none of the crew of the ship seemed to get on the radio to call home. A call was made beckoning The Cosmos to send over crew audiovisuals confirming they were okay.

It took 8 hours for the audiovisuals to arrive bouncing over the many transmitters and receivers of the deep space network. When the message was finally decoded back to video everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Louis the captain of The Cosmos seemed oblivious to their situation but otherwise looked in good condition. Everyone was relieved. Everyone except Mark.

“Something isn’t right. Look at him. He seem right to anyone here?” asked the most experienced scientist over at NASA. He was right. Closer inspection of the video did reveal something of off about Louis. His eyes seemed smaller. His mouths seemed just so slightly crooked. This definitely looked like Louis but a facsimile. A badly made one.

Here's an interesting writing prompt I found on Reddit.

Every year several hundred thousand people go missing worldwide, the crazies said it was aliens. When you were abducted, you found out they were right. Turns out humans make astonishingly good pets. Not because we're smart or strong or fast but because... we're adorable.

The original thread can be found here. https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/iperh8/wp_every_year_several_hundred_thousand_people_go/

Hello. Hope you are well. I am well too. Although you are going to find this message in a bottle, so to speak, please understand that I am not in any immediate danger. In fact, I quite like it here. I do, however, have to tell my story to whoever listens to it.

My name is Adio. I finished top of my class at the CMU and joined the "Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd." in 1999. They were the only industry back home able to pay great salaries. In 2012 I was promoted to captain of the "Adventure of the Seas". I held this position until June 18th 2015.

I know that you are probably not going to believe this. But those alien abductions stories you hear from around the world are true. I was just like you. Unable to believe; brushing those stories aside as crazy people stories. I even scoffed at Daniel Badrick once when he told me. I hope he isn’t as immature as me and forgives me. I will completely understand if you choose to ignore this and move on with your life. Like I said before, I am doing quite well. I have been eating well. Granted the food is not like back home. I have never been a picky eater to begin with. Truth be told, I am glad this happened. It’s almost as if my wishes have been granted. After all, how long was a man just supposed to stare at the stars? Now I travel through them.

On the night of June 18th in 2015 I was on deck with Bardick Devan. At around 3:30am, when things were quiet, we spotted what I now know is the Drroluman transport ship. It was a bright royal blue thing. So elegant. So...... smooth. Bardick and I went out to investigate. I still remember when Bardick shouted out “UFO.... OH MY GOD”. When I opened my mouth to say something to Bardick I felt this force I can’t really put in terms that is in the realms of your experience. But I now know what it was. These people.... yes they are people, have mastered gravity. Because at that moment I was definitely falling INTO the transport ship.

I landed hard. My 44 year old knees stung like shit. I tried standing up but when I struggled, I felt someone’s “hands” picking me up. Gently. I wasn’t expecting that. The shock made me scream. My screams shocked him instead and he roared like some kind of wild cat. I don’t know how long I stared at him, but when I came to me senses the first thing I asked him was “what the fuck are you?”. I didn’t understand anything that came. But this much I knew. He was trying to explain something to me.

And that’s what was so shocking to me. That I knew he was trying to explain something to me. When I was done collecting my thoughts I knew three things.
1. I was definitely inside of an alien ship
2. I was staring at an alien.
3. Other than the fact that they were huge and seemed ungainly, they looked remarkably like people. Shit... I even had an uncle that looked like him.

I have been here, by my count, 2 years and 167 days and this is what I have to report about these people. They are miners. They mine metals, minerals from any place they can lay their hands on. Asteroids, planets, moons, dead stars. Everything. Not in a thousand years humans would be able to replicate the way these people process these mined materials. I am currently riding on a space ship these people made. They seem so ungainly, but god damn, they can build great things. Not to mention their “robots”. God, these things were more human than human. So nimble, so quick. I can't explain it in enough words.

Now the people. In every way they seem like humans. Larger in every way. Larger heads, large body, large legs, large hands, large fingers... you get the idea. Their skin only looks remarkably like ours. But it’s different. Brown with splotches of black here and there. These markings are unique to every individual. They don’t have a discernible body language but they do have a vivid skin language. Laughter for example makes their skin make these beautiful waves of pink crawling all over their body. Like some kind of sophisticated chameleon. Anger makes it go a dull orange. Happiness a bright pink.

I don’t know where these people truly are from, but all they do is travel between star systems, mine and trade it with other people of their kind. I can tell they’ve colonized an many systems and they live everywhere. There are billions of them. Humanity could talk about solving over population all they want, but this truly seems like the answer.

I did figure out why they took me. I am... for lack of a better word... a pet on their ship. Something to distract them from. Something to love. To like. I have a free run on the whole ship. They feed me well. In every aspect they have provided for me. There’s a reason they take us. We look vaguely like them. From their point of view we look like tinier versions of them. Like monkeys. But intelligent. Our voice sounds tinny and squeaky to them and delights them.

I know what you are probably thinking. No. It’s not demeaning in any way. Yes, I am, for all intents and purposes a pet. But these people know what sentience is. They did seem apologetic for taking me. But I was okay with it. Two failed marriages. 2 daughters who don’t want anything to do with me. A fuckton of alimony. Why wouldn’t I choose this over my life back on Earth.

I still haven’t figured how they manage to communicate in space. They don’t seem to be using any radio. All my training at the CMU and I still haven’t found anything that resembles a transmitter or receiver. After months of scavenging I built a radio. I did test it out a couple of times to check if I tripped some alarms, but all seems well. They still haven’t figured I got a radio.

---

Crossing the vast distances across space, the radio waves finally washed over Earth. An empty Earth. If there were any humans left, the year would have been 11,491. But there were none. Poor Adio, all his training at the CMU, and he completely forgot about relativity.