Kaja Xoaca was a regular 20th century Lizan who lived in a small town of Acapal for several years. The 24 years old Lizan was currently in college and finishing his thesis when he suddenly disappeared in 1956, only to reappear later that year in Ginezia, 500 miles from Acapal with no apparent knowledge on when and how he ended there. He was still wearing the same clothes he wore as described by several witnesses who last seen him. Kaja experienced a severe case of amnesia where he could not remember the events leading to his sudden reappearance in Ginezia. No eyewitnesses had ever seen him travelling, and he did not carry anything aside from his driver’s license, which was inside his wallet at all time. His car was never driven and was still parked in front of the building where he was doing his project. As a result of his sudden disappearance, his thesis was put on hold. Kaja Xoaca could’ve failed the thesis due to negligence and retook it, if it wasn’t for several government agents persuading the dean to let him finish his project, which he did, and even found amusing discoveries that led him to be hailed as a brilliant scientist of his age.
The sudden change of an ordinary Lizan college student into a genius in just three months was very peculiar at that time. Many wild theories had been proposed, but one theory that the Lizan neither confirm nor deny was the theory of extraterrestrial abduction. Unlike several claimants of being abducted by aliens several times before Kaja, he did not attribute this incident as an alien abduction, as he had no recollection of what happened.
Now, On the 100th year anniversary of the event, the truth came forward when Kaja’s great grandson, who believed his great grandfather was abducted by aliens, was involved in a first contact scenario with a group of curious reptilian aliens called Saurians. They claimed to come in peace, and to ask for forgiveness for the transgression that happened to Kaja Xoaca. They claimed that Kaja was indeed abducted for research, yet it was done illegally, long before the people of Terra had invented sustainable FTL technology. At this point in time, FTL was no longer a theory and was successfully implemented by Ijari Xoaca, Kaja’s descendant, and was the reason of his first contact with the Saurians. The Saurians could finally contact Terra as Terra had proven that their civilization had found FTL, and could finally find themselves involved in a larger intrigues of the galaxy, not confined to their solar system.
Ijari learned a lot about Kaja’s abduction, given to him in a form of a journal by the scientists that were involved in the illegal experiments. There were several points that he chose to censor based on it being inappropriate, but this report was written with the non-censored contents in mind. Bear in mind that it contained several questionable acts that could be considered inappropriate.
***
Extract from the journal of the Saurian scientist named Saza Mesch, currently under custody for illegal experiments and breach of conduct on pre-FTL species. Translated.
To be honest, I am sure that this is not a good idea, after all. Still, you can’t hold the pursue of science. I know that one day, I’ll answer to this transgression, but until that day comes, it will be a secret. I just hope that this secret will be safe until the planet can finally be eligible for contact. I’ll be an old Saurian by then.
Our vessel is a science vessel on loan by the Saurian Committee for conducting research on planets with no sentient species. Basically, we are assigned for colonial charting…again. We already have too much colonies that might cause a friction with the Rendloks. I don’t like those hunky lizards. Why can’t they advance their research on other things aside from war? I don’t like war. It’s a waste of time and efforts.
I handpicked my crew of scientists myself, knowing that each of them was willing to break some rules to find out our Lost History (except for Xikar. That guy’s too tight-laced. Good thing we dumped him on a space station). We quickly make sure that our ship is not traced, or this will be a short trip. We initiated FTL several light years from the station, so we can mask our signature. It is all according to plan, and it is done so well that no one suspected what we did (of course, Xikar could talk, but we made sure he was not aware of our illegal activity).
The space station and Terra is not far. It only takes us two days to reach the Sol System and reach the planet. We scan the planet and find that it isn’t as primitive as we thought. The planet has already launched a surveillance probe with a camera that can spy a part of the planet. They have already invented several technologies for space travel with rockets, but it is still far from FTL. The Terrans have an idea of the concept, however. Some have already expressed that idea in the form of a show about a group of travelers in an FTL-capable starships (which, for all purposes, is a theoretical concept if their current technology can be used for FTL).
We are trying to find whether the so-called Lizan race is in fact the descendants of a missing spaceship that crash-landed on that planet several hundred years ago. With our current technology, we cannot scan one of them and quickly assess their genetic patterns. Unfortunately, we must break the rules, anyway.
Finding a Lizan with sufficient intelligence isn’t hard. We need one that can accept our intrusion to his life easily, and also to find if his intelligence is due to the dormant gen of his ancestors. Of course, since the Lizan is not actually a Saurian, he will freak out the moment he sees the interior of our ship or even us. Fortunately, my team knows exactly what to do.
I know it sounds like we are abducting him, but we can’t just step in front of his door and said, “Greetings, Lizan. We are not going to harm you, but we expect you to come with us quietly.” He won’t believe us. So…the only way to pull him into the ship is to coerce him to.
We wait for several days to learn his day-to-day patterns, until we find out that he is doing a research that happens to go to midnight. He will be alone observing, so it’s the best time to snatch him.
We land on the roof of the building he is in and we proceed to get inside. Fortunately, Terran locks are quite primitive, and a little magnet can open them. Once inside, we find him locked in his work. I look at his work. It is some sort of experiment using Terran native plants. He’s a botanist. From what my colleague can see, he’s trying to find the right chemical to make the plants he is growing to grow faster and disease-free. He looks frustrated. I can see several plants on the side, most of them growing abnormally. I pity him. I had a similar situation, and with a little bit of luck, I finally got it. He will need a little assistance for it, but for now, he is our specimen.
The door leading to his lab is silent, but if any Saurian is left in him, he’ll soon sense someone’s coming from behind the door and turn. That’s when our tranq gun will quickly put him to sleep from the creaks. It is used to tranquilize a Saurian in an asylum.
We shoot his neck, penetrating his scales, and he quickly drops. It works really fast. That’s when we carry him towards our ship as quick as we can before he regains consciousness and fly out of the planet’s atmosphere.
I know it feels wrong, given how close he looks to us, but we need to be sure of it. We…practically strip him down to nothing, then strap him on the examination table. From this point on, the only way to make it easier for him and not to shock him is to…well, tell him where he is and what he’s going to endure. I am sure that what we are going to do to him is harmless. We learned a bit about Lizan anatomy before we snatched him. As illegal as this is, we do not want to dissect a living, sentient being. What we need is his genetic imprint and his reaction to stimuli, as Saurians have several stimuli that only they can get a reaction to.
We wait until he regains consciousness. When he does, his reaction to the new environment is expected. He realizes what happens and starts to panic, and that’s our cue.
One of us, a doctor named Takta (arguably one with the best bedside manner), then enters the room. She is quite patient, and contrasts the erratic, but restrained, Lizan. I record their conversation for future research.
Takta walks into the room carrying a notepad while the restrained Lizan looks at her with awe. He seems surprised, but that surprise is replaced with anger.
“Who are you?! What are you doing to me?!” said the Lizan.
“Now, just calm down, Lizan,” said Takta with a smile. “Do not worry. This is quite harmless.
“Harmless? How do you consider being tied to a table butt-naked ‘harmless’?! This is not a joke, lady, whoever you are. You don’t look like a Lizan to begin with!”
“That’s because I am no Lizan. I am a Saurian.”
“I don’t know any reptilian race called Saurian.”
“I am…not exactly from your world.”
There is a silence before the Lizan realizes what happens. He simply said, “You’re an alien? Like, an outer space alien? Then this is your ship?”
“You catch on quick,” said Takta while writing something down her notepad. “Now, let me be clear. We are not going to harm you, at least to the point where you are in uncomfortable agony. Are you okay with that?”
“I am not sure, lady. I mean, abducting me and stripping me naked? That does not sound friendly to me. Also, how the heck are you even able to talk to me with my language?”
“Universal translator always help ease up the talks,” said Takta with a smile. “And with it, it is easier for us to introduce ourselves. My name is Takta.”
“Uh…you really make it sound easy, huh?” said the Lizan. “But it won’t hurt to tell you my name anyway. My name is Kaja.”
“Kaja,” repeated Takta. “Nice name.”
“Just…one question, Takta.”
“Ask anything you want.”
“D-does this involve probing?”
“What kind of probing? I mean, we are probing you with our scanner.”
“No, I mean….”
Kaja looks towards his body and his face becomes flustered. When Takta looks at his reaction, she simply said, “I…don’t exactly call that probing.”
“But you are going to put something in there, right?”
“It’s nothing harmful. It’s just to test your reaction, which will induce involuntary ejaculation.”
“Uh…uhm…”
“If you are still concerned we have paralyzing agent we can use to numb your body, so you won’t feel a thing.”
“N-no. Takta, on Terra…it’s very embarrassing. Really embarrassing. You’ll be ridiculed or even accused of being a homosexual.”
“Is that a problem?”
“It is a problem…including the fact that a Lizan like me can even get to college. I feel like those humans will throw me a rock or something. I am a Lizan, after all.”
“Your people still…discriminate?”
“Sad, isn’t it?”
“Unfortunately for you, we cannot help you with that. However, we can give you a hint to change it, but after this, alright?”
“A-alright. J-just please. Don’t make it obvious.”
Takta examines him in any way possible, like giving his eyes infrared vision only a Saurian can see, then his sensitivity, his reaction to certain things, etc. We jot down on our pad and keeps on concluding that he is similar to us and the Terrans, and has the best of both worlds.
Then it comes to the part where we collect his genetic sample. Tatka has keep this part until the end, knowing that Kaja is very reluctant to do this. Still, it does not stop him from letting out sounds that I can say come from a Saurian enjoying himself or having a good sex (mostly because this includes massaging his prostate). After a while, he finally let it out, where we collect it along with a sample of his cell. We need two of those to determine his gen.
Takta, who seems to have made a rapport with Kaja, proceeds to let him tour the ship. We know it is risky, as he can and will cause the fate of his planet to change, causing our violation to become even more severe. In the end, we need to wipe his memories about this ship, but I…don’t feel like making him return to his old, dull life. From what I gather, Lizans are discriminated by the humans as the humans think that they are the dominant lifeform on the planet. Well, that will soon change if I can give him a little boost.
I direct Takta to take him to the ‘think tank’ and give him 2 percent brain enhancement. More than that will cause the Terran government to suspect his sudden burst of knowledge. That’s interfering too much. 2 percent is enough to give him a breakthrough with his plants, and something more. Along the way, I become acquainted with Kaja, who seems to settle in quicker than I thought, although he is still bitter about the whole examination. Can’t help it.
So, while waiting for the computer to determine his ancestry, we decided that he will be very happy to travel somewhere out of the Sol system (of course, by the end of the day, he won’t remember any of it, anyway. It’s sad, but I cannot make him remember any of this). We’re…kinda go overboard with this one, for he loves seeing new things, and we end up traveling for two months around our territory before we return to Terra. We have determined that he is descended from the spaceship crew that crashed thousands of years ago, but years of adapting and integrating into Terran life had changed their DNA pattern and make them a unique race of their own merit, one that is different from Saurians.
When it is time to return him to Terra, he feels sad that all of this must be wiped from his memory. Still, as sympathetic as I am, I choose to modify the memory so that he remembers it as a dream. A very real dream that he will dismiss when he wakes up. We do just that (after a tearful goodbye with Takta and the rest of us), then we put him on the same building we left from.
At least that’s what we thought. It turns out that the building we put him on is identical to the one we took him. For some reason our sensors have an error. This is a loaned ship, after all. Still, we cannot return if we don’t want to cause any more damage to the planet’s fate, and we simply depart. I hope something good can come from our little meddling. Kaja can be the start of something good.
END OF JOURNAL
***
It turns out Kaja’s brain modification did something more than what was expected by the then young rogue Saurian scientists. Like a ripple on the water, it creates a ripple effect. Two percent may seem low, but we are talking about brains here. A two percent increase of brain function is enough to make him devise a way to increase food yield of plants and helps him defeat world hunger. His efforts made the central Frisan continent to flourish and caused the two superpowers of East and West to make peace with each other in behest of the United Frisan government. It all happened in 1976.
Ijari Xoaca is the first Lizan to find out that he is descended from a Saurian, but he chose to identify as a Lizan as he knows that despite of having their DNA, they are already different. Ijari is also the first Lizan to travel with the Saurians beyond the confines of our solar system (called Sol by the rest of the galaxy) and discovers a larger coalition of several extraterrestrial civilizations. From his reports, he also pays a visit to the same Saurian scientist who experimented on his ancestor, Saza Mesch. He bears no ill will towards the Saurian and learn that even an alien can have sympathy. He still needs to face jail time, however, for his disorderly conduct in his youth. For Saurians, a criminal record is very damning, but at least Ijari and Saza gives a very good impression to the Saurian Council, and Saza will not lose his scientific credentials.
Still, it is a wonder that a simple experiment and sympathy can help the Terrans to be engaged in the bigger universe. It might not happen if Saza never gave the two percent boost. Would the first contact never happen? Would we still be confined in our solar system while deep space probes travel to the unknown? Who knows. One thing is certain, however. Two percent still counts. I am excited to know what the Terrans will do in the future, though I am sure that by the time that happens, I will not be alive anymore.
This commentary was written by Jared Weathering, a Vitanian human in 2056. The journalist for the Times continued to chronicle the development of the Federation before his death in 2117.
He never saw what happened to Terra beyond his death. In 2195 the Terran empire was created, and drove much of the conflicts in the 23th Terran Century that saw its expulsion from the Federation, its collapse, and its official return in 2234.
Saza Mesch died in his sleep in 2060, four years after first contact. He continued to be regarded as a controversial figure and became known as ‘the Saurian who destroyed the peace’, for his inadvertent cause of the Terran empire. He left no children on his own.
Ijari Xoaca did not see the development of the Terran Empire, either. He was killed in a space liner accident that claimed 348 lives, leaving a child to continue to Xoaca legacy. His 23th century descendant, Xheel Xoaca, was the helmsman of the ship St. Vincent, and was directly involved in a reality breaking crisis that claimed many lives. He was one of the survivors. Ijari’s nephew’s descendant, Mazil Bega-Hasse, was travelling to a different galaxy in the intergalactic ship Pineapple Express, to seek out new worlds.
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