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Alien autopsies? Overdone.
16 years ago
New twist: the examiner is handed the body of a creature belonging to a sentient species. The individual has obviously been murdered (gunshot wound to the side of the head, with powder burns). The biologist is told: take this thing apart and tell us what you find. Feel free to speculate on the nature of what you see, based on the known or suspected physical and mental capabilities of this species.
Put yourself in the shoes of the examiner. A pair of soldiers accompanied by Captain Miller have delivered the body to you, and watched as you signed a death certificate for John Doe (XF) 01, the still-warm body leaking its most intimate fluids onto your table and floor.
Now: make that so people reading it can imagine what it's like - the feel of vital organs as they are cut away from supporting membranes, the fermented-fruit odor of the open head wound mixed with the rankness of blood, the structure of the creature's vocal apparatus to visual inspection as the skin is peeled back...
I think my best writing has those little details.
Just know this. Capt. Miller isn't evil: he's afraid. He knows humanity has the rifles, has the machine guns, has the air power to hold off the natives if they become hostile. But for how long? Bullets can't be reused, after all. The factories to supply them can't be brought fully on-line until a suitable source of metals is exploited. The gunships burn precious petrochemical fuel faster than the bacterial fermenters can synthesize it. Miller is convinced the only way to ensure the survival of that part of humanity he must defend is to prevent the locals from ever being able to pose a threat. Miller's experience as a ship's commander has taught him to take the long view, the logistical view, where others might concern themselves with short-sighted expedience.
If that means slaughtering ninety percent of the local HILFs and exiling the survivors, so be it.
And part of you says: is Miller wrong? Don't we owe a strong defense to humanity before we owe any kind of xenophilia to the locals?
Put yourself in the shoes of the examiner. A pair of soldiers accompanied by Captain Miller have delivered the body to you, and watched as you signed a death certificate for John Doe (XF) 01, the still-warm body leaking its most intimate fluids onto your table and floor.
Now: make that so people reading it can imagine what it's like - the feel of vital organs as they are cut away from supporting membranes, the fermented-fruit odor of the open head wound mixed with the rankness of blood, the structure of the creature's vocal apparatus to visual inspection as the skin is peeled back...
I think my best writing has those little details.
Just know this. Capt. Miller isn't evil: he's afraid. He knows humanity has the rifles, has the machine guns, has the air power to hold off the natives if they become hostile. But for how long? Bullets can't be reused, after all. The factories to supply them can't be brought fully on-line until a suitable source of metals is exploited. The gunships burn precious petrochemical fuel faster than the bacterial fermenters can synthesize it. Miller is convinced the only way to ensure the survival of that part of humanity he must defend is to prevent the locals from ever being able to pose a threat. Miller's experience as a ship's commander has taught him to take the long view, the logistical view, where others might concern themselves with short-sighted expedience.
If that means slaughtering ninety percent of the local HILFs and exiling the survivors, so be it.
And part of you says: is Miller wrong? Don't we owe a strong defense to humanity before we owe any kind of xenophilia to the locals?
Yeah, I know he's afraid, but I'm gonna have to go all Yoda on you; fear leads to anger, etc.
One of the biggest flaws of humanity is our penchant to fear that which we do not understand, and hate that which we fear.
And furthermore, from a medical standpoint, the basic description of the creature you've noted leaves a LOT to the imagination. Forget that it is an alien lifeform, that alone makes anything possible, but the only real descriptors we have are that it apparently has a head/torso structure, it most likely breathes if it has vocal chord structures, it is endoskeletal, it probably breathes a similar combination of air that we do (otherwise it could REEK to high hell, and it would probably be in a bag instead of dripping all over the floor if it went through De-Con) and a few minor hints that the smell of it's brain matter may give.
Although, I think a blank check in this scenario may actually be a very cool idea.
Hm... I think I may give this a whirl sometime, if you're willing to accept my input.
It'll be a while though, I'm kinda bedridden with some strange sort of plaguelike thingy.
That's one of the things I want to use in this series, the discussion of how humanity should relate to other sentient species. Also, I already introduced Miller in the first story as a man governed not by mercy to nonhumans but by his own peculiar sense of practicality.
The aliens look a lot like us humans, both on the inside and the outside, for a good reason. I'll get to that eventually. :3
Speaking of extreme sensory detail in describing internal organs: you might like this series of descriptions by an abdominal surgeon.
"Operation: Deconstructed"
http://surgeonsblog.blogspot.com/20.....-preamble.html
"Taking Trust"
http://surgeonsblog.blogspot.com/20.....ing-trust.html
I've done surgery on animals before - songbirds and HSD rat bucks - but as I was learning to wield a blade, to calculate dosages, I made a mistake with one rat. The incision was ragged, as I'd made it too short the first time and had to make a second cut, for which I felt terrible shame because it would hurt more when the animal woke up. More than one single, clean cut would have, I mean.
To make matters worse, it turned out that - under the supervision of the graduate student who ran the course - I had been so focused on not ODing the buck on pentobarbital that I hadn't given it enough, and it woke up as I was in the process of closing the incision. It was restrained, so it could not injure itself nor cause me to injure it by moving just as I was clamping the stapler shut; but the sounds it made were terrible. It didn't scream, it... whined. It sobbed. I didn't think rats could make such noises.
Partly to ease its pain, of course, but partly to shut it up, because the sound was so unnerving, I gave it a dose of k/x. It drifted off almost immediately. I finished closing things up, washed the little boy's fur off for the nth time, and put him into a dark, heated cage. We'd let him wake up, let the k/x wear off in an un-stimulating environment (to minimize potentially stressful hallucinations), then feed and water him.
It was probably the second-hardest thing I ever did, emotionally. The hardest was at the end of the project, putting the rats down.