The Xir—The Mirror of Our Nature
By The Snark
Fermi Paradox Resolution: The Dark Forest Theory
The Xir are terrified of other civilizations. They view every species as a potential threat, and contact is too dangerous. They've kept their existence hidden in fear of being wiped out by more advanced or aggressive species. Their primary goal is survival, and they're willing to go to extreme lengths to ensure no one knows they exist.
Moral Dread Induced: Self-Reflection
The Xir force humans to confront their darkest impulses and flaws. By exposing humans to their own darker side, they induce a profound moral dread. Humanity is left questioning whether their capacity for destruction and cruelty is an inherent part of their nature or if they can overcome it.
External and Natural Fears Induced: Psychological Overload
The Xir induce a deep, overwhelming fear of mental collapse. Their presence causes intense psychological pain, with visions of personal failures, regrets, and the worst aspects of humanity’s history. They force individuals to confront the full weight of human suffering, pushing them to the brink of madness.
How the Alien Induces These Fears: Telepathic Projections
The Xir communicate by telepathically projecting images and emotions directly into the minds of humans. These projections are not just visions—they feel real, immersing the victim in their deepest fears and regrets. The Xir’s power lies in how they exploit the human mind, using its own memories to create terror.
Cautionary Tale: Humanity’s Hubris
The Xir serve as a cautionary tale about humanity’s own arrogance and self-destructive tendencies. They’re a reflection of what might happen if humanity does not learn from its past mistakes. The alien species has witnessed civilizations rise and fall due to their own unchecked desires and greed. The Xir warn humanity to look within before expanding outward.
World and Environment: A Crumbling, Decaying World
The Xir come from a planet that is slowly dying, ravaged by the very forces they fear in others. Their planet’s surface is barren, covered in crumbling ruins of a once-thriving society. The environment is inhospitable, with no natural life forms left. It’s a reflection of their own self-imposed isolation and fear.
Physical Characteristics: Bug-Like with Biomechanical Features
The Xir are insectoid but with significant mechanical integration. Their exoskeletons are sleek and black, with sharp edges. Their eyes are faceted, giving them an unnerving, unblinking gaze. Some parts of their bodies are partially mechanical, their limbs and wings enhanced with technology. They are an unsettling blend of organic and synthetic.
How Humans Encounter Them: Accidental Discovery
Humans stumble upon the Xir accidentally when a deep-space exploration probe intercepts one of their transmissions. What was initially thought to be a malfunction becomes the catalyst for first contact. But instead of establishing peaceful communication, the encounter triggers a wave of existential dread, as humans unknowingly provoke the Xir’s defensive response.
The Xir—The Mirror of Our, er, um, Nature
By The Snark
Meet the Xir.
They've come to earth, but honestly they're just here for the snacks. Imagine an alien species so tired, they'd rather take a nap than actually invade our planet. Their body's insectoid, sure, but instead of being menacing, they've got all the grace of a bug that's just eaten too much.
Their mechanical enhancements? More like an old pair of glasses that see better days. Think of a bug with a few too many upgrades like that old tech we hang out onto because it's just good enough.
And their brains? Oh, they've got telepathy, but all it's used for is sending vague, passive aggressive messages, like: "Do you really need to keep talking about the weather?" or "Isn't it a bit early for coffee?"
Because they're the kind of aliens who are just so over it. Their planet. It's a mess, honestly. A crumbling wasteland of forgotten to-do list and half finished projects. The Xir were supposed to be working on intergalactic domination, but really they've just been binge-watching human reality TV shows. They find humans fascinating. Not because we're clever, but because we have so many feelings about trivial things: "Why do they care so much about pumpkin spice lattes?" they wonder, "Is this what they call culture?"
The Xir’s idea of intergalactic conquest is showing up, casually hovering Earth for a few days, making sure to misplace their ray gun, and then offering some unsolicited life advice: "Maybe try not giving that toxic ex a call. You deserve better."
They leave when they realize the Wi-Fi is better in their spaceship than on our planet. They're the aliens you'd be stuck with at a dinner party. Well meaning, but completely out of touch. And when you tell them how excited you are about your latest project, the Xir responds with, "I guess that's fine… if you are into it."
The Theory of My Wonders (extract)
By Tim Sharman
Characters
Columbia: Main Character, young woman in her late teens.
Castlerose: wealthy young man who seems to have a strange control over Columbia's fate.
Sebastian: Romantically interested in Columbia Paisley:
Paisley. Sebastian's sister.
Byron: a wealthy man in his 30's of a slightly weak disposition
The location, Aion, is a strange otherworldly place in a remote Australian area - a modern wonder of the world.
On their last day at Aion, Columbia goes with Byron, Sebastian and Paisley on a visit to SpaceLife, advertised as a Museum Of The Wonders Of Life In Space. Byron mutters that it sounds like a collection of tedious rubberized animatronic junk.
SpaceLife, they are informed, is the work of an explorer who had travelled through space for a thousand years, collecting specimens, capturing or killing them, then bringing them back to Earth.
The first SpaceLife gallery contains microbial life – from as near as Mars and as far as Celestrian, some carbon-based, some silicon-based, some nickel-based, all under microscopes. The fake microbes don’t interest her, so she walks next to Paisley, as Sebastian studies something bizarre crawling under a microscope.
“Do you always wear white?” she asks Paisley.
Paisley smiles at this, but her voice has a note of bitterness. “For six, seven years now.”
“Why?”
“Since I was first in hospital. When they did all those things to my legs, they told me I was brave. They said I was like an angel, I think they expected me to die. Anyway, I liked the idea of being an angel after that, all in white.” She shrugs. “I guess it sounds idiotic now.”
She touches Paisley’s arm. Paisley, she thinks, walks with death at her side – then tries to shake that image from her mind.
The second gallery holds food-animals, grown to be eaten. Tiny Blickbait, a giant Milgrax, crab-like Chittins, and a hundred more odd exhibits. From planets that she’s never heard of, and probably don’t even exist. The third gallery has insect-type life, almost universally appalling to view, and the fourth gallery has swimming life forms that sometimes resemble fish, and sometimes look like the beasts that must walk at the bottom of toxic seas.
Whoever dreamed these up, she thinks, must feel a gnawing horror at what life they believe exists beyond Earth – so many of these creatures are simply shocking and foul.
Seeing one monster after another she falls into her own dismal thoughts, a Theory of Monsters. One, they mirror something horrible inside you, reflect it back at you. Two, monsters live in the half-light, where glimpses are more frightening. Three, they’re everywhere, at Horizon, at Malwood, across the Earth, in space, inside yourself. She knows she’s done her own monstrous things, deliberately and by accident.
Unexpectedly, Paisley says, “Sebastian likes you.”
Columbia speaks carefully, “I don’t know. He’s reserved with me.”
Paisley smiles. “He hasn’t figured you out yet.”
She wonders what Paisley and Sebastian had said about her – dear god, if only she could have heard it all.
Paisley continues, “You see, you go to all these Wonders, but you don’t seem to know why. You break into here, get arrested, but then you’re back again the next day. You have no family, but you won’t say what happened. You’re expelled from school, but you won’t say why. And the cuts on your hand, we’ve all seen them.”
She stares at a Bluwagat from a planet called Cynthenius, which has tentacles emerging from a huge crab-like shell. Edible, a sign says.
“Then there’s what you did at Tower, you were so brave, and then you go and try to commit suicide at Luxany. We heard about that. And Castlerose, there’s Castlerose too.”
So that’s it, she thinks, Sebastian’s decided she’s a complete mess, or maybe just insane. Paisley sees her reaction and puts a hand on her arm. “He likes you, Columbia – but he wonders, I think, he thinks you might be dangerous.”
Dangerous? Nobody has ever described her as dangerous before, she’s a million miles away from dangerous.
Then she wonders, after so much that’s happened, perhaps she’s much closer to dangerous than she thinks. “Dangerous?” she says.
Paisley laughs lightly. “It may not be such a bad thing, Columbia. If you know how to use it.”
The fifth gallery of SpaceLife offers flying life forms, the seventh gallery predators, the eighth gallery radiation-converters, the ninth gallery blinded life forms, the tenth gallery fire-dwellers.
The eleventh gallery, almost the last, holds the Gargantua, the very largest life forms, from planets hundreds or thousands of times the size of Earth. On entering, she’s immediately greeted by the severed head of an Exosaur, the head alone forty feet high, and around the gallery are other giants, unspeakably strange and frightening. Paisley is horrified and goes outside for some fresh air, escorted by Sebastian.
There’s a ten-legged Hippocampus, a crooked Neopod, a wide-eyed Grileater, a Homisquid, and a Orionsac that looks like a walking stomach.
The descriptions of these creatures also provide information on how to kill them. Variously guns, fire, poison, acid, water, penetrating knives, radiation. She feels pretty certain that these creatures, and their brutal deaths, are going to inhabit her dreams for years to come.
At the end of the Gargantua gallery is a sign that says that the final gallery contains live exhibits of intelligent life, and is consequently unsuitable for anyone of a nervous disposition. Byron takes this as his cue to join Paisley and Sebastian outside, and she goes on alone.
The gallery is low-lit, and lined with glass-fronted cells along both sides. There are only a few people in the gallery and it’s almost completely silent. She goes up to the first cell, reads the information card on the wall. Inside the cell is a Cycloten from Trujillo. It looks like a large fleshy ball, intricately veined, with many eyes. It doesn’t do anything, and she checks the information card again. It says that the Cycloten has an intelligence level four times greater than a human. She feels that it’s somehow looking at her, sizing her up, like Sebastian has been doing these last few days. No, it’s all make-believe.
The next cell holds a startling Paramanx, which strikes her as a cross between a human and a cat. Tall, giant unblinking eyes, it paces around the cell on powerful legs. Beneath the strange exterior there must be some kind of robot, she figures, but it seems so lifelike. The information card says that it had a similar intelligence level to that of a human.
The third cell contains a Dystroph, which shocks her. The Dystroph is a travesty of a being, long legs leading to a tiny body, with the features of a head in the middle of the torso. No head, and where the head would have been is a sucking mouth. The information card says the intelligence level is eight times that of a human, and that the species had achieved technologies a thousand years ahead of humans before collapsing into murder and war. It sways in its cell, unblinking, its mouth sucking and bubbling. Revolting.
A hand on her arm makes her jump – Castlerose. She wonders why it has to be that it’s the boys she doesn’t like that are always the ones who touch her. She doesn’t want to turn towards his hand, can’t turn back to the disgusting Dystroph, doesn’t know what to say to him, so she mutters, “I don’t want to look at this one any longer.” He guides her to the next cell.
“They call this one a Homoclid,” he says quietly.
“I don’t need a guide.”
The Homoclid transfixes her. It seems to be a mix of a woman and a flower, with tendril and buds expanding and shutting as if they were tasting or sensing the world. It moves fluidly, as if in a dance.
“I don’t want us to be enemies,” he says.
She snorts a laugh.
The next cell contains an Andrometha. Hunched in a corner, breathing heavily, ugly and dejected, a shining white skull covered by many-jointed arms. It wags a lobster-like tail.
In the next cell is a Tyroanuth, a ghastly sphincter of a beast pushed up against the glass, eyes darting, mouth open, a sucker feeling for a gap. It writhes and coughs repeatedly at them.
“There are two more Wonders,” Castlerose says. “I hear they’re nearly finished.”
She hadn’t heard that. “Don’t stop me trying to go to them,” she tells him.
Strangely, the Tyroanuth seems to have taken an interest in this conversation, stops coughing, and stares at them.
“Some people think I’m dangerous,” she announces.
He considers this. “Only to yourself.”
She pushes away his hand on her arm, furious. “You know you never answer anything straight, it’s always an evasion. It’s infuriating.”
“Then ask me a question.”
“Why do you want to stop me from going to the Wonders?”
He’s silent a while. Even the Tyroanuth waits for an answer. “I can tell you everything. Who invited you, why you were invited, why you mustn’t go to the last two. I can tell you everything now. But you have to promise to leave Aion now, and not to go to the last two Wonders?”
The Tyroanuth seems to explode in rage, banging against the glass, reflecting her own anger. She steps back quickly, away from it.
She won’t give Castlerose that power, she decides, the power to decide what she knows and doesn’t know, what she can or can’t do.
She moves wordlessly to the final cell. It holds a Blastophene, only two feet tall, hairy, white hair, like a small dog on two legs with large, frightened eyes. It pushes around a few pebbles on the floor in front of it, as if playing a game, or counting them off like an abacus. The information card says it has only one half the intelligence of a human. She feels sorry for it, even though it’s just a dumb fake.
“Let’s not be enemies,” he says again. He touches her on the arm lightly, a final time, and walks out of the gallery.
She waits and then walks out alone, ignoring the life forms in their cells – the poor, sad monsters looking at her, or trying to speak to gain her attention, or banging on the glass, or hiding in their corners, or counting pebbles.
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