LF Friends, Will Travel

PSA: How not to act in space

In addition, the same applies the other way around. Some Aliens are going to look like the figure from your nightmares. It is still expected to treat these people with respect. An acceptable response is something like 'Oh sorry, you startled me there'. An acceptable response is not to shout 'Holy shit fucking kill it with fire'. Because then that becomes a diplomatic incident, and I have to convince people that Terrans aren't all psychopaths.

Please. Stop. Doing. This.

Some of you might want to go further in your interactions with Aliens, 'Advanced hugging' so to say. DON'T. Your name is not bloody Kirk. Technically most species don't have laws against it, but that's because before Terrans entered the galaxy it wasn't a problem.

Mostly because it's a bad idea, between mating differences, physiological differences, venom's, toxins and just straight up strength differences. Not an insignificant amount of time this ends with serious injury or death for one or both parties. Do you know how many species mate through injecting eggs into the other party? More than you'd think, and yes, that's very very lethal!

However, if you are going to ignore my advice and you really wanna get lucky, please avoid going after xenophobic religious or political leaders. If you really can't help yourself, for the love of everything that is holy and right in the world, stop getting caught!

I have to deal with this mess every single time you get caught in a compromising position with a major xenophobic leader. Fourteen times. Four. Teen. Three of those turned into a civil war! One of those turned into a major humanitarian crisis and is still ongoing! I know the taste of forbidden fruit and delicious hypocrisy is a sweet one, but it's not worth a massive religious war, collapse of government and over 10 million Zalithians dead.

Take a cold shower, think of baseball and just keep it in your bloody pants!

HEALTH AND YOU

As all of you know, with the advances of medical technology over the last 200 years, as well as the immense efforts to provide said healthcare at immediate notice, in order for a Terran to actually die on a Terran Conclave planet you really have to try hard.

This does not apply on non-Terran Conclave planets for obvious reasons. Most non-Terran medical professionals are going to have a base level of understanding of Terran biology at best, and most Terran based medical treatments will be unavailable.

This means that you should adjust your risk assessment and thinking to match. Avoid having a demolition derby with warehouse machinery. Don't base jump from orbit. Trying to pet random wildlife will always be a bad idea. If your action is preceded by uttering the words 'YOLO', 'Leroy Jenkins' or 'Do it for the memes', take a step back and examine your dumb stupid actions.

This is admittedly one area where you aren't the only morons in the universe. Terrans are known as 'Deathworlders', due to earth having one or more characteristics that generally stop intelligent life from forming. Earth actually has 3 of these in one, which is a bit of a rarity. These are:

Extreme Axis tilt

Extreme levels of radiation

'Green hell biological syndrome', or an over competitive ecology

In essence this means Terrans are in general more adaptable and more hardy than most races. Deathworlders aren't that rare, around 3% of all species fall under the categorization. However amongst many species this categorization has almost a mythical aura around it. This means many species of aliens will over exaggerate your capabilities and may believe some very silly stories.

While this can be used to your benefit, it also means that non-Terrans overestimate your ability to survive deadly things. This can lead to unknowingly suggesting actions that are very lethal. Use your brain, if your alien friend dares you to drink some poison: Don't!

Talking about poison, at all Terran embassies you can pick up a FoodAnalyzer 3000, a very simple and easy to use device to make sure you don't die. While we like to joke about caffeine, capsaicin and chocolate all being poisonous to a lot of species, the same does apply the other way around. Arsenic and Cyanide are common flavour enhancers amongst the galactic community, and you should be testing everything you eat. Green means it's safe, yellow means it'll probably cause side effects, and red is poison.

Let me reiterate that, because some of you misread that. Red does not mean 'Oh, I can only eat a little bit of this'. It means poison, aka 'Eat this and you will die'. Then when you die I'll have to be the one dealing with transporting your body back to wherever you came from, and frankly I have enough work as it is. You're not 5 years old, stop putting random things in your mouth.

LAWS AND YOU

While on non-Terran Conclave planets, local laws apply, and will apply to you as well. If you're on Bantham Prime you can pirate as many episodes of NCIS: Mars as you want. Practically every form of government and social contract exists, do your research before going to a planet. While we do have agreements with a significant number of planets, as well as the general rule that non-natives tend to have an easier time, avoiding messing with whatever government you're staying with is exceptionally important.

Theocracies, trial by combat, trial by luck, morality police, immorality police. While you and I might disagree with these issues, and we will try to help you as much as we can if you get in trouble, the Terran Conclave does not have the means or resources in order to change every single government in the universe. We are not gods, we have limits. Make reasonable sensible choices and avoid planets where the laws and planets don't match with your morality.

There is however an exception to this, the core Terran laws that you are expected to abide by regardless of where you are. The full list of these are included at the back of this pamphlet, but it's basically common stuff like "No non consensual murder" or "No non consensual slavery.".

Please note the word non consensual there. If you decide to sign up to the Hagorthian death games as a rational fully functional adult able to make their own choices, then we're not going to bring the entire Terran military to save your dumb ass when you get in over your neck. Again, I reiterate: MAKE BETTER CHOICES.

Also, if you think you can get away with breaking the core laws, if you think the galactic community is the perfect place to be a psychopathic piece of shit; we will find you, we will drag you back to Terran space, and we will lock you in the deepest darkest pit we can find and nobody will know that you exist. Stupidity can be forgiven, evil cannot.

OTHER NOTES.

For those of you working with Scythen research teams: STOP MAKING BOMBS. Yes the research from such actions has been immensely useful in all areas of science, but doing experiments with a high chance of blowing up and killing everyone does not make them want to continue said research. That's without getting into the issue that the Scythen pacifism makes creating planet cracking weapons 'awkward'. Just tell whoever is in charge before doing anything that might kill everyone on your research vessel. Use. Your. Words.

Stop lying to Aliens about humans. No, the standard greeting is not to "T-pose for dominance". Terrans do not explode when stressed. Our AI's "genocidal tendencies" are not stopped by ending every sentence with a prime number. Yes this is funny, but also has huge diplomatic consequences, that again I have to deal with.

Last but not least, have fun out there. The dream we all had as a child is real, staring up at the stars hoping that others trillions of miles away were doing the same thing. There's a universe of sights, sounds and spectacle to explore.

It's just a lot more fun if you don't end up dead. Or arrested. Or dead. Or starting a war. Or dead.

Hopefully speaking to you for the last time.

-Jan Eagles.