Becoming Human: Fathoms of the Unfathomable
Krill M.D
Preface
With more than two decades of experience treating, diagnosing, observing and interacting with humans, and as the only nonhuman in the galaxy who has experienced humanity first hand, I am confident that I am the Galaxy's most experienced nonhuman human expert in the matter of human physiology, biology, virology, psychology, and sociology etc. During my past two decades of research I have lived with the humans, acclimatized myself to their customs, and more than allowed them to become a part of me in both mindset and behavior.
My other qualifications include over three decades of specialty in advanced surgical procedure and diagnostics. I have been named the Intergalactic Association for Practicing Physicians' Intergalactic Physician of the Cycle award four times in the last twenty or so years, and also I saved the universe once. Granted, it may be argued that I had some help in performing the last task, but at the end of the day it was I who pressed that button, and I am hardly about to be modest about such an accomplishment.
Despite all of these achievements, and even after all of this time and after experiencing life as a human first hand with their same sensory biology and cognitive configuration, I can confidently say that...
I don't know SHIT!
And yes, this is my book, published through the Arcadian agency, so no stuffy board member can sit here and complain that my language isn't "Academic" enough for them.
I don't know shit, The more I thought I knew the less I actually knew, and experiencing life as a human myself did nothing to inform my understanding. In fact, my experiences as a human so many years ago only served to prove that I knew nothing. After the institution of the Maker Accords in Geneva and the banning of Anumectomy surgery, No other non-maker inhuman has been able to experience life from another perspective.
The Makers haven't been seen for more than a decade now, so I think it is finally time for me to admit something I was unable to admit when they were still here.
Reversal of an Anumectomy is entirely impossible. The strands grown in the brain that attach the soul to the body are present at birth and can only be severed by death, they cannot be reinstated. After the makers left, I admit I have, on more than one occasion, Indulged in the pleasures of being human.
I am no closer to understanding.
Dr. Loquens of the Tesraki university of behavioral xenopsychology's book on human behavior suggests that the special nature of humans comes as a result of their unique construct physiology in combination with the Anima allowed to hold it. He says that the human construct is specifically designed to hold the more powerful Deus Anima or a last cohort Deus, which entirely explains the special nature of humanity. He believes that the special nature of humanity and their accomplishments as compared to other species are related to their heightened survival instincts which drive them forward.
And I can see why he would think this.
WIth four cortical hemispheres, the Vrul are on average more intelligent than an average cross sectional sample of other populations.
But I also find Dr. Loquens conjectures to be stupid, primarily based on at distance observation with minor undertones of Tesraki centralized bias. Here is what I CAN tell you.
There is something special about humans.
Something special about BEING human.
If you have ever been a human you have it. I don't know what it is or how it happens, but once a human,, always a human.
All other biological programming simply cannot compete with the experience of humanity. If you were to take a human and palace them in the body and cognition of another species, they would still be human.
If you were to take an alien and allow them to experience humanity, than i dare say.... There is a chance they might be human as well. I don't think this might happen to everyone, I think that there are those that are simply incapable of whatever it is that is required to be human. The exact nature of these requirements have been lost to me for over twenty years, and the fact that I have finally chosen to write this book is an indicator that I have finally accepted that I will never know.
I once coined a term common around the galaxy, "Humanization" or the phenomena experienced by nonhuman sapients in close proximity with humans, who experience a growing presence of human-like behaviors or other characteristics as a result of prolonged exposure to human socialization. I
For this reason, I believe that whatever it is that humans have can be transferred to a select group of others.
This is what has me believing that there is something special about humans beyond their constructed bodies and beyond the Deus anima. There are plenty of nonhuman Deus who will never experience humanity or humanization, while there are those with other levels of anima who will.
I know the explanation is not satisfactory, because there is no explanation, but here are a few things that I am willing to say with some degree of certainty.
Being truly human is not a matter of the body or genetics. I daresay that there is the occasional human who is not HUMAN based on the classification that I will offer forward today. Instead I make the argument that humanity is something that exists as an ephemeral state of mind.
It is true doctor Loquens is correct in his assumption that humans have a heightened sense of survival, however, I say that this can be argued about every species in their own way. Vrul are more fragile than humans and more easily killable, so the option so saw your own arm off to escape from a dangerous situation is not viable without the immediate product of death, but instead vrul chose to subjugate themselves inside the walls of several cities along sites perpendicular to their planetary axis and hide there for thousands of years until the memory of why they had gone was forgotten.
This survival instinct though different is of the same magnitude and cannot completely explain the differences.
I argue instead that humanity is a state described by the distance between two variables for example the desire to survive, and the impossibility of the situation to be survived, or the ability to feel empathy, and the ability of an object to be empathized with. Humanity is the ability to experience life in all of its extremes where those who are not classified as having humanity experience life somewhere in the middle. Not all humans experience all extremes in everything , but they experience more extremes than those who do not.
Take the "indomitable" spirit of a human. The ability to survive the unsurvivable, the ability to believe the unbelievable, and the audacity to do the impossible. One at a time they may not mean much, but in combination it can create some extraordinary things. Those without humanity might never have thought it would be possible to survive the war of Armageddon and make it through to the necritorium, even fewer would have been able to believe, in circumstances so terrible that there was even a possibility of winning. Many others would never even think to attempt something they thought was impossible.
Humans are all of that.
They can hope in hopeless situations, in fact, hopeless situations bring about the MOST hope for humans.
Humans can love things that should be unlovable, they experience empathy and emotion for inanimate objects, those who have hurt them, or even beings they have never met before, only heard of.(See my chapter on human pack bonding to see how putting googly eyes on inanimate objects can elicit this reaction in humans.
The more extreme a situation gets, the more the human spirit can be seen.
In situations so hopeless, terrible and soul crushing, a human may still fight to live through.
In the most dire of times, they fight the hardest.
And in the most peaceful of times they can be at their most unsettled.
As a whole humanity possesses this, and as a whole humanity is able to spread it.
Since meeting humans I too have experienced a change in mindset towards the extremes.
I have believed the unbelievable, I have won the unwinnable and I have achieved the unachievable.
The darkest times are when the light shines brightest.