Abacus technology (Chess Part One)

As I started out saying a few entries back, Assumption should be avoided. A well-known Earthly comedy sci-fi writer, the late Douglas Adams, illustrated this in his (warning if you click the link you’ll be reading info till the cows come home on this subject)“Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy” series (yes I’ve heard the radio plays and am a huge fan). He spoke of how one of his main characters Arthur Dent, started an intergalactic incident by uttering “I seem to be having great difficulty with my life style” (long story, check out the book for details.)



And speaking of books by very famous people If you are after something ball-bouncingly funny to watch on DVD go can’t go wrong with BLACKADDER’S “Ink and incapability” episode (The Historic Third Series)

Study the photo below for a few minutes and see what you can make of it.



I’ll bet you assumed that it was either a chess or drafts board. Well in fact it is one of my onboard info-computers. May hap you shake your head incredulously. Doesn’t really fit into the prerequisites of an alien space craft’s consul does it. Well I’m afraid it is. We are not in the habit of fitting computers with flashing gismos, in fact electricity is not…ah, perhaps I’d best not go too far into that, for reasons I won’t even attempt to explain.

Most of our technologies are designed around what you people use to call an abacus. I believe it has become unfashionable on Earth. Pity really. If only you’d stuck to it chances are you would have advanced far further than would give yourselves credit for.

The following is a snapshot of the consul in action.

Alien Recognition

Do you recognize this species of alien? No? Well here in lies the problem and premise to this next blog entry. By the by its known colloquially around the galaxy as a Krathqualpoluluvrympt. It has the same annoying characteristics as those accursed things you Earthlings call a mosquito.


One of the key issues my pioneering ancestors faced when they first started seeking out strange new worlds in galaxies far-far away (seems we shared the same expressions, though of course with different accents etc) was what exactly to look for. I mean it’s all very well to search your own planet for similar species as your own but when it actually comes to knowing how to identify something you have never seen before as an indigenous inhabitant of some unknown planet.

As I pointed out in my last posting you cannot always rely on assumptions. It may surprise you to know that there have been planets extensively explored throughout the millennium in full view of vast populations that have shown no signs of interest at our presence what so all. They simply don’t care.

We have had to conclude that the curiosity that preoccupies most my planet’s time (and I have found also seems predominant with Earthlings) is not universal. There is however another theory some of my contemporises share and that is they are no aware of our presence.

“Perhaps,” they offer in their highly contentious thesis, “our form of existence is so far removed from their own that they have come to think of us inanimate objects, circling the skies, with the same irrelevance as dust.”

Well that’s the gist of their argument, though it’s a little more complicated and drawn out in several very dull and boring text books. Some see the printed volumes as a source of lively debate, others surmise by pointing out how well it all burns in the fireplace, keeping them warm on the chilly winters nights.

You may wander what all this jibber-jabber has to do with the price of fish. Well, herein lies the excuse offered by the Angi Spugis for their inadvertent intergalactic rudeness. They simply didn’t recognize you Earthlings, thinking you to be some strange vegetation blowing round in the wind. Concluding that the Earth was unpopulated they felt there was little point in continuing their mission and returned home. Had they stayed round a little longer they would had sussed out how you were not a forest and given your hospital greetings the respect it deserved.

Unfortunately they were on a fairly tight schedule and patience was not one of their superior’s virtues.

Just because you say it’s so…

Assumption, they say, is the mother of all stuff ups. Well actually they use another term starting with an “F” but research has shown that it could be construed as being a little offensive to some readers so I decided it best to err on the side of caution. The last thing I want is to lose my reading audience. Suffice to say assumption often ends in apologies.

Earthlings seem to feel that they have the mysteries of the universe, or at least the one I’m in now, mostly sorted out. Sadly you guys couldn’t be further from the truth if you tried.

For one thing you all sprout on about how the universe is infinite with countless trillions of planets and stars and what have you. Why? Now that’s a question that’s left begging for an answer, yet no one seems to want to ask it.

Without trying to seem all uppity and smartypants about it, you haven’t a clue, have you. I mean, sure you’ve travelled to the moon and sent robots to close-to-home planets, but none of you have ever ventured past Pluto. Having said, what actual evidence, save the mad rantings of a few crackpot astologists, would you be able to put up to prove that those stars you see twinkling in the sky at night extend into an infinite void?

I’m not having a go at you, I’m just trying to demonstrate how little you know about the universe. So, is it infinite or does it merely consist of an infinite possible dimensions? I’m not at liberty to answer that and even if I could I wouldn’t.

Even I cannot say for certain that pandimentional doors actually exist. For all I know I may still in be within my own dimension and the powers that be are messing with my mind, making me think I am elsewhere. They are quitre capable of doing that you know.

It’s all just speculation...and misplaced assumption.

What I can tell you is that the universe works on a completely independent level from you and I. Just because we say that it is, or isn’t infinite does not mean it is so…hmmm, I’m beginning to pick up all these accursed Earthly clichés. Best give this reporting a rest before I end up like the rest of you.

Zarp respectfully signing off for now.

Multidimensional Portal Doorways

Dimensional Portal Doorways (M.D.P.’s) are essential to my mission. Without them I could never have logically reached such a destination as Earth.

As you are no doubt unfamiliar with such travel apparatus I am going to do my best to describe them to you.

M.D.P.’s are doorway portals that exist on the peripheries of each dimension, safeguarding the inhabitants from awareness of the co-existence of other dimensional beings.

They differ from the type of doors you may be use to inasmuch as they are not rectangular in shape or have anything resembling a doorbell. Nor, for that fact do they have knobs.

I took a solemn oath not to revel how they work, as your dimension is somewhat wet behind the ears as far as such understanding of Advanced or even Basic Portaloligical Physics. Research into your culture shows you Earthlings have a standard answer for such questions "I’ll tell you when you get older."

Ah yes, that reminds me of a sitcom I once had to study in which a kid posed a tricky question and was given the ol’ "tell you when you get older" response. He then replied
"By the time I am old enough to know all the things I was too young to know, I’ll be too old to do anything about them." Or words to that effect.
　
　

Fear Not the Men in black

It has been bought to my attention that there is secret Governmental Agency called the Men in Black. They apparently safeguard the public from anything that may suggest that humans have made contact with the ETs. Armed with forget-all-about-it zap guns they Swiss Cheese the brain of anyone who is willing to go public on the alien abduction front. Why bother? What possible benefits could your government have for keeping my visit a secret? Surly such an occurrence would be of interest to the general populous.

I've studied the case histories of the area 51 lunges. Rowel. Who in their right mind would like to land or even crash a spacecraft in such a mind numbingly boring desertless-hole of an area like that? And while I'm on the subject if, and that is of course a mighty big "if", a spacecraft did crash there what in the blistering blue blazers possessed the powers to take in a dead alien.
I mean come on. What where you guys thinking? To steal someone's space ship is really scraping the bottom of the barrel. And what about the creatures on board? As far as I can tell they weren't exactly given descent burials or anything. Travelling thousands of light-years just to visit this nothing planet in the middle of nowhere and how are they welcomed? Spaceship stolen bodies disecpted. Left or rot or whatever.

Anyway getting back to the MIB, well if I was you I'd take it all with a grain of salt. If they were real and had zapped people to stop them sharing their ET experiences then how would those people know the MIB ever visited by them? Perhaps even now they have intercepted this blog and tracking your computer. Chances are they'll probably drop in on you sometime with their memory altering pen flashes. Steer you away from this blog, make you forget everything that I have told you.

Maybe...maybe not.