You know, in all those “humans are the creepy/fucked up alien species” posts I can’t believe we haven’t touched on organ donation yet.
When they heard that the human general had fallen ill to a disease of the organ known as the liver the troops began to hope that it might turn the tide of the war. Research indicated that such diseases could be fatal after all. The organ did something similar to the flagulaxin in that it filtered out toxins so when it stopped functioning the human would slowly be poisoned to death by his own body. Or so they believed.
But then he came back.
A foot soldier was captured and answers demanded. Was it a medication? Had the sickeness been a ruse to fool them?
“Nah, man. This kid on a motorcycle wiped out on the I9 freeway so they gave the general his liver since they were a match.”
“They…what?”
“They gave him his liver. The kid was dead, and he was an organ donor. And he was a genetic match to the general.”
“They…cut the liver out of one of your young and placed it in an elder and it…worked?”
“I mean, he wasn’t that young. Mid twenties or something. But yeah, that’s essentially it.”
The interrogator and his assistant both regurgitated their most recent meal and ran from the room. Living in places like the “Australia” were one thing, but taking the organs of dead bodies and placing them in the living? What was WRONG with this species?
This is me cackling. Because if I did it out loud I’d wake the household.
Let’s go one step further.
Let’s discuss immunizations. Early variations included sticking bits of the dead disease into living tissue.
“So, let me get this straight- you used to take remains from a potentially fatal virus and inject into a healthy person in order to get them sick with a weaker strain so they wouldn’t get the more virulent strain?”
“Yes.”
“And it worked?”
“Yes.”
On that note. Let’s discuss the idea of surgery itself. Or hell don’t get me on the idea of dialysis and other medical interventions of once deadly diseases.
We as a species have discovered through horrifying means how to heal ourselves and each other. There is a reason the operating room is known as the Operating theater. It used to be an open vent that other doctors and nurses and even the public -though sometimes discouraged- could sit in on and observe and learn.
Even now some surgeries are only done on local anesthesia. If you have a strong stomach you could watch them cut open your knee and repair it.
We use metal and carbon fiber to put ourselves back together again; screws and struts and plates and wires and we don;t think a thing of it. Hip surgery with ball bearings essentially. Let’s put a mesh trap in your vein to hold it open!
We poison ourselves to make ourselves better. Willingly and knowingly because we as a species refuse to fucking die.
And aliens are livid because we are a /weak species/. We don’t have tough outer shells, we can have allergies to foods most normal of our species can eat, we can develop allergies to our own planet’s pollen, if given the wrong blood we will be poisoned and die. Our own offspring act as parasites and must come out of us early or it will kill us. We are born weak and can’t even walk. How the hell did we make it this far?! The more the aliens look at us the more terrified and confused they become. It would be like looking at a cute non-threatening species and seeing that they are tyrannical war-mongering conquerors who sew themselves together with archaic technology and somehow survive. We share blood, we share organs, we developed the means to save the weakest of our species from disease and broken insides. We poison ourselves with alcohol and drugs for /fun/.
We are terrifying and we are confusing. Because for all our terrible medicines and repair work we still do weird simple cute things.
We decorate our sweet food so it looks pretty I’m our days of birth. We listen to music and shake to it. We like watching pretty light explosions in the sky. We like making pictures out of stars. We decorate our nests with colours and soft things and sometimes things that make noise. We have no night vision, most of us never hunt for our food, we don’t have good hearing, we laugh at the stupidest things, and we decorate our fur and skin with shiny objects and markings because we don’t have many.
We confuse the hell out of aliens.
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Cheloneuniverse 