– How was the trip?- She ask me as soon as I leave the ship.

– Curious… but okay. I answer briefly, with a mixture of tired and annoyed for asking me without waiting for me to rest after a very intense week.

– Sorry for insisting – the person who received me excuses himself – but the admiral wants a report as soon as you can.

– Okay, let’s go -. I accept without being able to avoid a tired gesture.

In a few minutes I enter the admiral’s large office, it has a large window behind it through which you can see a part of the space station, some ship going and seeing. And if you look closely you can distinguish the continents on the planet seen in the background.

– Good morning admiral -. Greeting upon entering the room.

– Good morning doctor -. She answers, getting up from her table and pointing with her hand to some comfortable sofas on one side of the office –. I would be very grateful if you could explain to me what happened on your last mission. I have Ambassador Chelnic’s version, but I want you to tell me how you experienced it. But don’t focus on that. Tell me everything that happened on Theta Omicron VII.

– Okay -, I accept as I sit on the couch -. It has been something different, really.

After settling in and accepting a drink that the admiral kindly offered me, I began my story:

 

As you may recall, the ambassador asked me to accompany her on her diplomatic mission to Theta Omicron VII. It is a very advanced civilization with which the Federation has had specific contacts, but which avoids space travel, despite having curvature technology and very high technology. However, according to what the ambassador told me, they have requested to learn more about the federation with the intention of strengthening ties with the Federation.

The civilization of Theta Omicron VII call themselves “Intulsecs,” which would mean something like, “the connected ones.” Which I think is very correct, as you will see.

The ambassador asked me to accompany her, since the Intulsecs had expressed the diseases that exist in space and that they want to prevent it from entering their planet. And he wanted me to talk to them about the diseases that exist in the universe and how the Federation fights against them.

I found the first surprise as soon as I arrived on the planet. When I landed I saw a Romulan ship, a Klingon, a Ferengi, and some more that I couldn’t quite identify. It is true that the Intulsecs are a non-aligned civilization, but I understood that the invitation was for the Federation only. In a later conversation, the ambassador confirmed to me that she thought the same.

Although, our hosts demonstrated great ability to manage it, since we never crossed paths with any other delegation, until the last day, of course.

They received me very kindly at the spaceport and took me to the ambassador. In case you don’t know them, Intulsecs are a kind of somewhat chubby-looking humanoid, with skin made like pieces of stone. A hard, very cracked crust that allows them to move fluidly and agilely. They are capable of jumping great distances, swimming with agility and communicating not only by speaking, but with some form of telepathy and by transmitting information through touch. They have no hair, except for some small plants that grow in some of the cracks in their skin, and they do not wear any type of clothing; Now you will understand why.

The Intulsecs are an incredibly environmentally friendly civilization. They live in cities above water, underwater, at the bottom of the sea and in rocky areas. They are tremendously sensitive to all forms of life and can communicate with any living being, be it animal, plant, or even microorganisms.

They respect life so much that they do not build on any terrain that is not rocky. And not just any rock will do, they must lack traces of life, even if it is microscopic. For this reason, they are concentrated in communities in some rocky mountains, on the seas, lakes and rivers; in constructions on stilts, to leave a space between the water and the homes. And at the bottom of the sea they only build on the seabed that is sterile.

They can breathe water and air interchangeably. Actually, I think that they do not need to breathe oxygen, but rather something else that I have not been able to identify. I didn’t want to investigate too much in this my first contact with them.

In their effort not to harm any living being, they have a technology that they place on their feet that allows them to walk floating on the ground, thus avoiding stepping on grass and flowers. They do not wear clothes since their skin protects them from any climate and thus they do not harm any being to obtain their skin or their fibers.

They feed on the fruits of plants and dead animals. To eat the fruits, they negotiate with each plant which ones and how many they can eat; and always leaving at least half of each plant, so that it can continue its cycle. For dead animals, they negotiate with their family or community whether they can or not. They do not need to be fed more than once a week, and each meal is a process that takes almost half a day. They begin with a ceremony giving thanks to the fruit or animal that they are going to eat, they give an offering to their family or plant of origin. And then they prepare the food among ritual songs of gratitude. To later feed in absolute silence, in respect for what they are feeding.

They allowed us to eat according to our custom, but we had to do it on our ship.

His respect for life is infinite. Several times a year, each community holds a week of meetings with their environment, they talk with representatives of the plants, animals and living beings around where they live; to know its status; See if you can help each other and solve any possible problems that may arise.

On the second or third day we learned that thousands of years ago they developed their space technology and began to explore the universe. They founded some colonies on planets and satellites around their home planet. And they also toured other star systems. But they were horrified to see how other civilizations treated their environment: killing animals indiscriminately; creating slavery camps, that’s what they call crop fields; aggressive mining and other extractive methods. Not to mention wars, abuse, slavery among fellow human beings and other atrocities in their eyes.

They were so horrified that they decided to abandon space exploration and only travel around their planet, to asteroids, and nearby satellites, to collect resources they need. That is why we have never had contact with that civilization, until they detected a large number of ships flying through space near them and decided to know who was coming so close.

Comment that its system of extraction of mineral and other resources is very elaborate; They analyze the rocks, one by one, regardless of their size and detect, at the level of atom or molecule, what they need, they extract it through a kind of teleportation; and they replace what is removed with matter similar to the environment in which the rock is located or whatever it is from which they extract the resource. It seems like an expensive system, but they don’t know money, they only use what they need and never accumulate anything. This system frustrated the Ferengi, who left the planet after a few days, they saw no business.

While we were with them, they expressed concern to me about diseases that could reach their planet from space. I provided them with the Federation’s entire database on diseases and their treatments. And the Intulsecs copied it to their filing systems, a kind of opaque crystals where they encode information according to the position of the atom. They have a base 5 system, not binary like ours, so they are capable of storing a huge amount of data in very little space. We talk a lot about diseases, and many, especially those caused by bacteria or microorganisms, are not considered diseases, but rather individual evolutionary processes; if one of the beings does not overcome the mutual interaction; That’s how it should be.

As a doctor, I found it difficult to assimilate this way of acting, his fear of space diseases and at the same time his lack of action against the causes of some, or many of the diseases. But that also allowed me to understand their fear of them, they do not want an unknown being to arrive on their planet that will destroy the beings already existing on it. I explained to them that, on the ships, in the case of them or in recesses inside them, attached beings can arrive, the size of bacteria or even strange animals or plants. This scared them quite a bit and they ordered the ships to return to orbit and that we only access the planet through a teleportation system controlled by them. This greatly upset the Klingons and others, who left orbit and left.

There were still several ships in orbit, and we had to go up and down to the planet several times a day, since we had to return to the ship to feed and clean ourselves.

Despite everything, they were tremendously kind and communicative. They showed us several of their settlements, both on the sea and under it. All its buildings are made of stone. Of colors and different types of marble. Both in small locations and in large cities, buildings tend to be monumental, with porticoes and communal plazas. The homes are spacious and airy. The birds enter and fly over with complete freedom, and the curious thing is that they never shit in the cities. The respect between all beings is incredible on that planet.

The fact that they live in such airy buildings means that sometimes a seed carried by the wind reaches the city. And, occasionally, a seed germinates on the skin of the Intulsecs, in which case they take care of them and give them names. Or they germinate in nooks and crannies in cities. In that case they move them to certain gardens that they have spread throughout their cities.

All settlements on the surface of the plant have a large central plaza, the center of social life, which has between three and five majestic trees, surrounded by porticos and statues.

Undersea settlements are of two types. Some built without any type of protection, in which fish, plants and marine animals coexist with the Intulsecs in harmony. They also have a large central plaza with various forms of monumental aquatic vegetation, or a type of coral. The other type of settlement are built under a dome of some form of power, which prevents water from entering the area. There is almost no air in those domes, but for them it is not a problem. These types of constructions are strange and from what they said they are done so that young people can go there to study and enhance their communication skills; without distractions. They are like their schools and universities.

While we visited one of those underwater domes, we were able to detect how, despite their kindness and good treatment, they feel contempt for what we in the Federation call intelligent life forms. They don’t consider us so intelligent, seeing how we treat and exploit our environment. They even reproached us for looking for forms of intelligent life in the universe, when we are incapable of communicating fluidly with our dogs, ants, trees and other living beings that populate our planets.

I feel a little embarrassed about it, then I felt that we have a lot to learn from the Intulsecs.

The days passed and they taught us their customs, they even lent us their technology of, as I would say, flying boots, so that we could walk freely anywhere. They showed a lot of confidence in their guests.

They also like to talk a lot. They never avoid any conversation: On one occasion I was with my host who talked to a group of trees for more than two hours, since a being had stepped on the ground and broke a branch. There things began to go wrong.

They opened an investigation and it turned out that a Romulan had passed by.

We were not direct witnesses; but we learned that the Intulsecs asked the Romulan delegation for explanations and they were offended. We learned that with their tricorders they detected traces of a very exotic compound for them, in the branches of some trees, and decided to secretly take a sample.

That got out of control and the Romulans ended up threatening the Intulsecs. They did not hesitate and teleported the Romulans to their ship and took away all the gifts and information they had been given.

All this happened on the last day. We were nervous, as I imagine the rest of the delegations are too. The Romulans attempted to steal the database that the Intulsecs had given to one of the other delegations. The Intulsecs prevented it using a force field; the Romulan ship fired at that force field, and the Intulsecs fired at the Romulan ship. We didn’t know the Intulsecs had weapons. They destroyed all of the Romulan bird of prey’s weapons in less than a second and let them leave.

Given this, almost the majority of the rest of the delegations abandoned the system. We tried to return to the planet, but they did not allow us. They wanted to return all the information we had given them, but we told them to keep it as a sign of friendship. They accepted it and allowed us to keep the gifts they had given us, such as the flying boots, certain databases, and some other things.

Finally, all the delegations left the sector. It was a bittersweet farewell. I think we can learn a lot from them, although we have to be extremely respectful of them. Many of our customs seem barbaric to them, even an insult. As an example, the fact that we were dressed was almost an affront to them, but they tolerated it.

I hope that in the future we can resume contact with them. Its waste management and energy use is enviable; although they did not share anything about this, only what we could intuit.

And well, now I can’t think of much else. In the next few days I will write a more detailed report, with the notes I have been taking. But as a quick summary, I think this is worth it.

The admiral looks at me calmly, she has listened to me in total silence, without interrupting me. His attention has been full, he caresses the blue antennae on his head in a thoughtful position.

Finally she says:

– Thank you for the summary, doctor, it corresponds to what the ambassador has sent. I look forward to your report. We had high hopes for this contact, but I see that everything has gone wrong. I was worried that we were to blame for what happened, but I see that they have handled it well. If we resume contact with the Intulsecs, I will let you know. You can go rest and thank you for your work -. The admiral bids me farewell.

– It has been a pleasure, Admiral -. I answer as I get up from the couch and head to the door.

– By the way, I couldn’t tell anyone about this. It’s not that it’s a secret, but we don’t want the Intulsecs to receive visits that they haven’t requested and that will further strain the situation -. The admiral warns me.

– Sure, I understand it. Don’t worry -. I comment as I wave goodbye.

I leave the office and go to my room and prepare to rest. As I lie down, after cleaning myself, I think: the universe is full of surprises and we can learn a lot from each being that inhabits it. I hope we are capable of that.