The Priests of Raji

The day the invasion fleet arrived...

"Oh, do not be so ridiculous; humans do not have any rights; they are not spiritual beings and are little better than animals."

         The High Priest of Raji was colossal, far larger than any other member of his race. He had a rich, mature green color, and his six long, scaly tentacles gesticulated wildly in the air as he spoke. His size was commensurate with his great age, and his color was a product of his maturity. The acolyte himself looked at his own pale green coloration, knowing that he did not have the authority to say what needed to be said right now.

         The High Priest's reptilian physiology meant that he had been growing since birth and would indeed grow until the day of his death, and it was unlikely that the Acolyte would ever live so long or grow so large. Indeed, the High Priest was now consuming about a quarter of the food supply available on the ship. But despite his size, the High Priest could still move around the Grand Temple using the suction pads on his tentacles attached to the nearest wall or pillar to pull himself in the direction he wished to go, leaving a distinctive trail of slime along his route. The whole room was in fact a third of the length of the acolytes' tentacles, deep in the distinctive rich green slime of His Eminence from years and years of his going to and fro.

         The acolyte looked around at the Grand Temple they were in. It was a spacious room with pillars holding up a large arched roof. Only the Imperial Flag Ship had the space to provide such a space for worship, and audiences with the High Priest and Commander of the Imperial Fleet. Through the Temple Hall window, the acolyte could see the invasion fleet was massed in every direction and was taking position, ready to penetrate the atmosphere of the blue-green planet below.

         "With all due respect, High Priest, I am obliged to contradict you on this matter." The acolyte spoke up. He was only half the size of his superior and felt deeply intimidated by him. But bravely, he held his ground. As he did so, he eyed the deployment of the fleet outside the window, knowing nervously that he was running out of time and that the invasion would soon begin.

         "Obliged?"

         "Yes, by the truths revealed by our research. This is an intelligent species, capable of space flight, with well-worked-out two-armed religious viewpoints and conceptions of God. They worship God in their own way. Scans reveal places of worship in every group of humans on the planet."

         "How can they worship God with only two arms? They need two to hold the incense, two to cover their eyes and mouth, and two to hold out in front of them to receive his gifts. It is simply not possible to worship with just two arms, and besides, they have no scales, are not the divine color, lack even a hint of slime, and are just plain ugly, abominations in fact! How could a holy God with any kind of standards even allow them into His sight?"

         "They have pictures of and even statues of their god, and he looks quite human and only has two arms."

         "If their god looks like them, then He is the ugliest god in the universe. They appear to be worshiping whatever they see when looking into water on a sunny day and seeing their own reflections."

         "But Supreme Pontiff, their churches and temples are truly magnificent. They compare to even the most fabulous of all temples upon our home world."

         "Oh come on, we are the priesthood of Raji, keepers of the divine slime, wardens of the holy scales, and interpreters of the divine burps, what is man compared to that?"

         "Man seems to be more than we have understood, and I have identified a major flaw in the invasion plan." The acolyte looked frantically at his superior, and with some despair, he realized that the decision had already been made. The invasion would proceed, and there was nothing that the acolyte could do to stop it now.

         "No! No more of this. Leave me now; the invasion will proceed as planned." The High Priest emitted an intense blue light through the window, signaling to the other members of the fleet to begin their descent. The fleet descended into the planet's atmosphere in a V formation, with the Flagship at the helm.

         The acolyte hoped and prayed that his limited age simply matched his limited wisdom and that he was just wrong about the terrible conclusion he had reached about the beings below on the planet they had targeted. He concluded that the High Priest, a being twice his age, must know better, and he will simply trust him and the God he speaks for. He hoped that things would work out.

         Jack looked into the azure sky and spotted a swarm of green-looking blobs. As they approached, from a distance, he thought they looked a little like a cloud of green flies. Fascinated, he noticed they flew in a precise v-shaped formation. Finally, they approached his face and slowed, as if hovering before his eyes. Irritated, he swept a hand into their middle, capturing the largest of the flies in his hand at the point of the v-formation. It was slightly slimy to the touch and moved in his hand. Disgusted, he clenched his fist and crushed the bug.

Notes ▼

W/C: 920
November Prompt:
Aside from an uptick in work, one of the things stealing my time and attention in the past month was a computer game called Terra Invicta. In an interview, Stephen Hawking said, "If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn't turn out very well for the Native Americans."
Neil deGrasse Tyson commented that aliens have probably already found humans, but have good reason to keep us from seeing them. Most scientists agree that if humans were to end up in a fight with aliens any time soon, the aliens would win handily. This presumes, of course, that sapient life exists elsewhere in the galaxy, or elsewhere in the universe: as of now, an entirely speculative concept.

In science fiction, conflict with aliens is a staple. In George Lucas's Star Wars universe and Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek universe, some aliens are hostile, but most are friendly can be met on something like equal terms. Written fiction and computer games tend to be a little bleaker on the topic. In David Weber's Safehold series, a star-spanning empire of humans is wiped out, but not before founding a hidden civilization whose chief religious tenet is to avoid achieving the kind of technology that would attract alien eyes. In Brandon Sanderson's YA novel, Skyward, human beings are notoriously aggressive, and so are corralled into a few preservation areas where they endure constant conflict to keep them from re-founding a threatening and militaristic empire. Harder science fiction, as written by Arthur C. Clarke, makes aliens inscrutable, beyond us, and mostly benevolent.

But in the game Terra Invicta, the aliens come to "domesticate" earth, a planet that is threatening to grow out of hand. Earth, rather than uniting against the external threat, spends most of its resources on internal conflict. And yet - if the player is savvy enough (and doesn't choose a faction that sides with the aliens), a long and difficult road to victory is available. Despite the ongoing change in climate and energy crisis that threatens human earthbound economies.

But they're all wrong, of course! This month, your entry can tell us how human encounters with aliens will *really* go!

TLDR: November's Prompt: write a short story explaining the interaction between human societies and aliens.