#alien thoughts

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So you know how fireflies glow in order to attract mates? What if there was an alien species that did that. They may be insectoid, they may not be, but in any case, they just flirtatiously light up at people they’re interested in. Or maybe they also just use it as a sign that they want to form friendly relations. So when they first meet other species they blink their lights at them to show them they’re friendly.

I was reading someone’s post about how a lot people dislike bugs but like fireflies because they glow. So maybe most humans warm up to them pretty quickly because the lights immediately make them seem more cute and appealing. Later, humans need to differentiate a friendly blink from a flirtatious one.

Meanwhile, a mimicking species also glows, however they use their glow to draw in prey (like a lantern fish does). Knowing that their sister species is peace loving and trusted by the other species, they use their similar luminescent abilities to their advantage. Space soon needs to learn to pick out little differences between the two species so they know what they’re getting into when they’re glowed at—do they think you’re cute or do they think you’re dinner?

Aaand because I love unlikely relationship dynamics, maybe in very rare occasions, the aggressive species actually does come to like a human/other species, but people have a hard time trusting them because of the general behavior of their planet.

I’m imagining a human with an aggressive glowing partner, and they’re introducing them to friends like, “Look, my partner is so cute! They glow at me! It was so cute how blinky they were when we first met!”

“What’s weird ?“

“Humans have a closer relationship with the dead than they do with the living.”

“Elaborate on that.”

“Well did you ever notice how they honour their deceased?

“…”

“ They decorate the remains of the being and then put it in a wooden box. That wooden box they then proceed to put in a small stone monument with some identification of the human. Sometimes they burn them instead. It varies from culture to culture. After that they repeatedly visit the remains and … how should I vocalise that… relive the memories they shared with that being ?“

“ But doesn’t that destroy the natural cycle of returning minerals into the soil ?“

“ It does. It also damages their emotional sensors yet they still do it.

“ Huh.“

“ But it’s not just about the weird boxing ritual. It’s about the process altogether. Humans give much more value to death than they do to life.”

“Can you give an example ?“

“Plenty. Their soldiers, their authors. Even their friends. While alive they do indeed get acknowledged. But when they die that acknowledgment doubles, even triples in size. It seems humans are blind to most of their possessions and are only able to see them after their loss.

“ That is quite bizarre. But if I can give you a word of advice - do not get too close to human psychology. A lot of minds were lost that way. “