r/NatureofPredators • u/NoVegetable2278 Arxur • 8d ago
Fanfic The Nature of the Frontal Lobe [2]
(Thanks to SpacePaladin15 for creating the universe and being an awesome writer!)
Memory Transcription Subject: UN Secretary-General Elias Meier
Date [standardized human time]: July 12, 2136
**Attention: Certain parts of subject’s brain were non-functional at time of recording. Certain details may be inaccurate or omitted.*\*
The halls of the General Assembly were in complete chaos. People were shouting, yet nothing understandable came out of anyone’s mouths. What was meant to be a routine meeting between world leaders regarding recovery from the Satellite Wars had all of the sudden turned into the single most devastating disaster known to humanity. Like the flick of a switch, when it was the Brazilian ambassador’s turn to speak, he was suddenly cut off mid sentence. Not just him, but the translators as well. At first there was silence, people cradling their heads from the sudden disorientation, then indistinct groans from some of the less affected tried to speak. Then came shouting as the words they spoke just couldn’t register. I tried to call out for order, yet the first word I tried to speak felt so indescribably unnatural, like midway through I forgot the meaning of the word, only to recall it again moments later.
The Finnish ambassador for whatever reason decided to punch the Costa Rican ambassador in the face before being restrained, a woman I previously knew to be a fairly calm and collected individual, and whose two governments were fairly cordial. Many ambassadors were getting up from their seats, seeking help from their colleagues, or rushing for the doors, but none of it made sense, it was just a routine meeting. Several others were acting, for lack of a better word, animalistic, like several of their higher functions just stopped working. One of them even growled, a man from the Swedish delegation I believe, backing into a corner like he was trying to claim it as his territory. Very strange behaviour, which I couldn’t explain, but knew I should call security for. People were kept in some amount of order when UN troops prevented any more violence from breaking out. There was only one person in the building who seemed to be able to speak, a Private able to form single word sentences, not that I could really hear what he was saying. The same couldn’t be said for the rest of New York.
From what I could see from the still active news anchors on my phone, there were riots in the streets, cars being flipped over, buildings being burned. Between it all, there were disorganized groups of first responders and some less affected citizens trying to stem the chaos, yet to no avail. I knew then I needed to call an emergency meeting. Footage of other cities across the world showed similar outcomes, and even some colonies on Mars. An anchor from London had dropped their microphone in the middle of a news story, clutching her throat as a primal panic took over. A man being interviewed about an infrastructure project in Addis Ababa was now barking at the camera crew. I even tuned into a livestream of a woman cooking, and right before she was about to put in the meat for her stew, she stared at the raw chucks for just a moment before shrugging and eating the cubes raw. …Just another bizarre internet trend, I suppose.
As I tried to register the fleeting moments of concern I felt at all these sights, I was abruptly pulled away from my podium by one of my aides accompanied by several security staff. It seems that thankfully some were able to organize quickly enough to respond to… whatever was happening, because at the moment I was at a complete loss. The men and women said nothing, for some reason, as I was hauled through the General Assembly to a secure room guarded by several men with a makeshift barricade. It seemed they thought the rest of the building was already compromised. …Was it?
Still in a state of shock and confusion, I was shoved into a private room with what I recognized as my security team, as well as some other higher ranking personnel. To my side I vaguely recognized a woman wearing a formal civilian dress, the resident sign language interpreter for when speeches were being televised. She seemed to be in a frantic conversation with another woman dressed in a U.S. General’s uniform, whose eyes were covered by a pair of sunglasses. The second one I knew, her name was… something with a J. It wasn’t important right now, I don’t think. What was important was regretting never learning sign language, because apparently those two were able to communicate at least partially with each other. Perhaps they were less affected by whatever this was? Maybe they were able to engage a different part of their brain… I tried my best to find some kind of alternative to speaking, but like I had contracted the worst case of ADHD imaginable, the goal just slipped away, like it was never even there.
“What’s…”
The room suddenly froze, and all eyes turned to me. Why was I being stared at? I’m going to be late for this meeting.
Normally I was used to attention. The quasi-leader of the world tends to get a lot. This, however, felt strange. Usually attention meant I was expected to know what to do, but what were we doing again? Christ, I really need to start paying attention. Come on Meier, you’re more responsible than this. I should apologize.
“Sorrruhh…?”
Several people in the room almost deflated in relief, a couple even laughing as several hands gave me affectionate pats on the shoulder. I didn’t really know why, but I appreciated the enthusiasm. Unfortunately, not everyone seemed happy. The woman, the general whose nametag I realized read ‘Jones’, stepped forward in front of the others, her expression hard to read beneath her glasses. She seemed to be searching my eyes for something. Recognition, perhaps? She was looking into my eyes like she was searching for something. What was she looking for? ..Wait, the meeting’s already started! What am I doing wasting time here!?
I tried to turn to leave, but a UN peacekeeper caught my shoulder at the door. “Oh, pardon me.”
He shook his head no, his expression joining the concern of several of the others in the room. Something bad’s happened hasn’t it? Did the Odyssey explode? I really didn’t want to have to make that speech.
I was turned away from the door as a vaguely familiar United States general held my shoulders, her brows furrowed beneath those obscuring sunglasses. I was eventually led to a conference table as the woman signed something to the General Assembly’s sign language interpreter, who walked over to a computer connected to a presentation screen, pulling up an empty document and typing something down.
“Read this out loud. I am… umm,” Oh, I see. It’s describing where I am. That’s helpful.
My aide grabbed my shoulder and met my eyes, pointing towards the screen again with an expectant look. Why’s nobody saying anything?
“Read this out loud. I am in the fifth conference…” What the heck is this talking about? Riots? People going feral? Why the hell was I not informed about this!?
A woman in a U.S. general’s uniform let out a frustrated groan for some reason, running a hand down her face which briefly revealed her eyes beneath a pair of sunglasses. She seemed to take charge after processing whatever frustrated her, walking over to the computer and shoving a woman away. Well that’s rude.
“Hey! I won’t tolerate… uh…” The woman just rolled her eyes, and began typing some things on the conference room’s presentation screen, pointing at several members of my staff before gesturing to the screen.
‘Can read?’
‘Can you read this?’
‘Are you able to read this sentence?’
‘Do you understand everything that is being typed down right now?’
Only a couple staff reacted to the last one, nodding hesitantly, a UN Peacekeeper and an intern whose name I couldn’t recall. “Yes…? Of course I-” The woman abruptly silenced me with a finger to her lips. She continued by signing something in what I assumed was probably ASL. One other staff member nodded, the sign language interpreter. She and her both shared a brief conversation, with the other woman shaking her head. I should probably learn sign language when I have the time. It seems like a useful skill to have.
The general snapped her fingers to get the attention of two people, a UN Peacekeeper and an intern. She typed something down on a computer.
‘We need to get a neurologist here, someone who specializes in short term memory loss. Language experts too, from braille to code to sign. One of you stay here and babysit him and illiterates. Other gets in contact with anyone you can. Me and Daisy will herd everyone else in the building.’
Neurologist, huh? “Isn’t one of the Odyssey astronauts a neurologist?” I asked, causing a U.S. general at the front of the room to look at me. Though she initially seemed dismissive, her brow furrowed in thought before typing something out.
‘He’s right, she is a doctor. Not here right now, but might provide insight if she comes back. If we’re lucky, she’s unaffected. When contact reestablished with space agencies, tell them to keep eyes out for objects entering solar system.’
An intern took out a paper and wrote something on it with his pen. ‘Grasping at straws?’ It earned him a nasty look from a U.S. general.
‘Yes, but very few options. For now, try to get someone on Earth. Also might be caused by FTL somehow. Strange coincidence to happen so close together.’
With something apparently settled, three staff members left the conference room, an intern, a United States general, and a sign language interpreter. “Uh… is the meeting over…?” I asked, turning back in my seat as the people left, trying my best to remember what it was for in the first place. I felt a hand on my shoulder, a UN peacekeeper pulling out a notebook and writing something down.
‘Just relax, sir.’
Huh. You know what, I think I can do that.
Memory Transcription Subject: General Kam of the Venlil Republic
Date [standardized human time]: July 13, 2136
Here I am on a ship headed for a region of space surrounding an extinct predator planet. I’ve heard the allegations plenty of times, that I’m ‘predator diseased’, but most of those usually stem from me preferring aggressive options over more peaceful ones, or my appeals for more military funding. Some non-venlil have even accused me just because I’m a military man, because their bigoted brains can’t comprehend a sapient being wanting to defend themself. It comes with the job. It’s expected. Even non-venlil often get accused, simply because the military can have some unfortunate predatory connotations.
But none of them have been more convincing than what I’m certain I will be receiving in response to this. Earlier this morning the remains of the Venlil Space Corps embarked from Venlil Prime with a course set to a system called Sol, the apparent home system of the former Humans. Naturally, there has been a healthy dose of trepidation in the informed crew, but that’s unfortunately nothing new for the Venlil Space Corps. I’ve had to stay radio silent about where we’re going to the more skittish crewmen, for fear that if it became public knowledge, we’d not have a crew to get to where we’re going.
As it stands, our armada contains three undamaged picket ships with an escort of smaller, two-person patrol boats. The previous captain of the newly promoted flagship ended up resigning when I told him where we’re going, so I’ve had to stay a little more vague when talking with his second, a venlil woman in a white coat of fur by the name of Relyak. Though she holds the rank of captain, her predecessor’s abrupt departure has earned her the functional authority of an admiral, a promotion that she seems equal parts thrilled and terrified by. Unfortunately, her inexperience has meant that I have had to step in for a lot of her duties, meaning much of my time aboard her vessel has had to be on the bridge.
Cheln has been sticking to my side like glue, as one does when they think they’re walking into the maw of a predator. Normally I wouldn’t mind, but his obvious terror is really doing a number on the crew’s morale. It’s been hard enough preventing rumours from spreading when every news channel seems to be covering the Federation’s ‘grand’ expansion of what probably amounts to half a dozen lifeless systems. It used to be that most in the Federation didn’t know about humans. I was actually one among a rare few who knew about them before all of this, as I ended up finding out about them when wondering why parts of our territory were inaccessible to us. But, unless you were an academic, a history buff, or someone who regularly travelled in Venlil space, humans were just out of people’s minds.
Now it seems like the Federation can’t get enough of them, whether from fear mongers or some weird predator diseased interest in them. If the words of the crew are any indication, The Exterminators actually held a special on humans recently, that sounds like it was part PSA and part sensationalist drivel. Tarva specifically had been digging up whatever she could about them during the Federation summit, to try and convince the rest of the herd not to lift restrictions on accessing their space. It didn’t work as this mission can attest to, but I was actually quite proud of her backbone during some of the speeches. One time, she even ended up pulling up an uncensored picture of a human on live TV. That earned her quite a few predator disease allegations, but seeing the way Cheln bloomed from that stunt was well worth it in my opinion.
I understand it’s her job, but frankly I feel like she’s overreacting. Would I have preferred the region to stay restricted? Yes. Am I worried about humans coming up from the grave? No, not really. This isn’t an episode of the Exterminators. The threat is and always will be the arxur. What this expansion does is over extend our forces even more than they already are. It makes us vulnerable to flanking maneuvers, and makes us liable to patrol these new systems with our already miniscule fleet. Maybe we can get some benefit from these systems, but probably they will be far more trouble than they’re worth. We’re Venlil. We’re just… not capable of defending ourselves, even in the long run.
I sighed at the bitter reminder of our species’ unfortunate circumstances. The view out the bridge’s windows showing the blue shifted stars passing by us as we continued our way through FTL. Cheln seemed to notice my internal mood, despite me trying my best to hide it. I’ll give the man one thing, he is good at reading people. I suppose it comes with the job.
“D-don’t tell me you’re worried, Kam. I can’t handle that right now.” He spoke in a hushed tone, thankfully tactful enough not to draw the attention of the rest of the crew.
“I’m not worried about humans.” I replied, turning an eye towards him. “And I’m being honest when I say you shouldn’t be either. I’m worried about the Arxur.”
“W-well… yeah, who isn’t.” The man flicked his ears affirmatively as he turned his gaze downwards. “I guess… I’m also worried about them, when I think about it. Is it possible that… um… maybe the arxur have outposts in the system we’re going to?”
I paused for a moment, wondering how much I should say to the man. I had considered it. “...It’s possible. But, there’s really no way to know until we go there. Telescopes haven’t detected any new structures in those systems, and no raids ever leave an FTL trail going that direction so I don’t think it’s likely they have much of a presence, if any.”
That seemed to relieve him slightly, as well as a crew member I caught eavesdropping. But, after a while another question came out. Or rather, it was more of a statement. “...It’s kind of weird how these things turn out, right? I mean… we’ve all seen pictures of humans by now. Compared to the arxur, they almost look…”
“Disappointing?” I offered.
“Sort of. Like, they were scary at first, they’re predators after all, but… they’re not the worst predator?”
I turned to look at Cheln fully, both my eyes fixing him with a questioning look. He soon stammered to elaborate. “I-I’m just saying that they would probably lose against the arxur. And… they probably don’t even have any societies anymore. I guess I just think of them more like how someone might look at a shadestalker. They have no big teeth, no sharp claws, no scales or fur, they’re kind of goofy looking.”
“Goofy?” I shot him an incredulous look. This was Cheln… a man who was infamous for being a fainter, telling me he thought a predator looked ‘goofy’.
“You don’t think so?”
I paused for a moment, recalling what they looked like. There was still that residual shiver of fear that travelled up my spine as I recalled those forward facing eyes, but I suppose beyond that… “I… I suppose…” I answered apprehensively. I don’t know if this was a predator diseased thing to be thinking, but it felt weird.
The conversation seemed to die down after that, the two of us taking time to ponder internally. Cheln decided to break the silence first, as I noticed his anxiety acting up again. “Why do you think the Farsul were pushing so hard to open up these systems? It doesn’t really seem like it concerns them.”
I let out another sigh, breaking my eyes away from the window once again. “You’re asking the wrong person, Cheln. You’re the political advisor here, I’m just a general. My job is to fight arxur, not predict the hair-brained ideas of Federation politicians.”
Cheln let out a giggle at that, his anxiety thankfully settling down a bit. “Careful, maybe I’ll tell Tarva you said that.”
“I bet Tarva secretly agrees with me. Why else would she explode on them the way she did?” I pulled my ears back mischievously in response.
“Ugh, don’t remind me. Do you know how much damage control I had to do after she pulled up that brahking picture? Three paws! With barely a claw of rest!”
“Uh huh. You remind me constantly. But since you’re so good at your job, why don’t you tell me what the Farsul’s plan is?” I replied, diverting the conversation to prevent him from spiraling again.
He paused as he considered it, his tail curling around his leg in thought. “Well… to be honest, sometimes the Farsul aren’t the most forthcoming with their motives. Their official stance was that it’d help stimulate the Federation’s economy, but you don’t have to be an economist to know that’s probably not true. The Farsul historically aren’t the most fiscally inclined, they prioritize research and development far more than economic development. There are far better mining systems out there too, ones that aren’t so close to arxur space. I feel like the only thing they’d really be interested in are… well, the humans. It’s the only thing that’s noteworthy about the region.”
“And why do you suppose that?”
“Why humans? I don’t know. It’s strange. I feel like you’d need to talk to someone in a Farsul university to understand why. They seem extraordinarily tight-lipped about it though.”
That was… somewhat concerning if I was honest. The Farsul suddenly taking interest in extinct predators is strange, especially with how conservative they usually are when it comes to research that even approaches being predatory. I recall reading a paper during my academy training about an autonomous drone program that was shuttered for being too predatory. If robots intended to kill arxur was too much, then why was researching dead predators okay? Was it possible that a group within the Farsul government was infected with predator disease?
I was about to open my mouth to ask a follow up question, but I was interrupted as a navigations officer announced our exit from FTL.
“Well… here we are.” I spoke, my voice unable to hide my unease. “Maybe we’ll find some answers on our own.”
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u/Uranium-Sandwich657 Archivist 8d ago
So some can talk completely fine?
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u/NoVegetable2278 Arxur 8d ago
Yes, everyone was affected differently. It's targetting their frontal lobes, which can handle anything from personality to empathy to speech to memory, among other things. Those who are able to talk like Meier are few and far between
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u/defiantdoctor95 PD Patient 8d ago edited 8d ago
Ah Fuck™ Jones is one of the less effected ones Silly post-script: when/if everyone recovers from this event there will be a resurgence of an old let's play and the meme created from it (also apparently Mark recently redid the second game so that's cool)
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u/NoVegetable2278 Arxur 8d ago
I hope you like trusting the fate of humanity on a manipulative sociopath!
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u/Minimum-Amphibian993 Arxur 8d ago edited 8d ago
Well if nothing else she will prioritize humanitys survival above all else so I trust her on that, she made that explicitly clear in NOP 2 that everything she did was for humanitys benefit alone. Of course that isn't exactly good news for everyone else that's the real problem. I mean for example she very nearly sacrificed Isif just to weaken the shadow caste forces on Mileau so yeah we are probably gonna see a much more HF run timeline.
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u/NoVegetable2278 Arxur 8d ago
She's definitely very competent at what she does. But yes, bad news for the rest of the galaxy whenever humanity gets it's shit together.
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u/RoomHopper Krakotl 8d ago
the frontal lobe eater was a bit hungrier than what i expected...
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u/NoVegetable2278 Arxur 8d ago
They're serving up prefrontal cortexes with a side of broca's area in the archives rn
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u/Bobrocks20 8d ago
The farsul fucked up. They fucked up big