Un-Un-Cat — Episode 1. Not a chicken, Not an egg.
How do you tell the difference between a sentient Dog in a spacecraft wearing a spacesuit from a common domesticated dog in a spacecraft wearing a spacesuit? The answer is of course ‘the mind-body problem’, except instead of ‘I think, therefore I am’ the Dog version is more subtle. ‘I comprehend scents, to have no doubt of existence’ the other less subtle way to determine if a creature like a Cat or a Dog is sentient is if they are aware of licking their butts in front of company, or not.
The people of the Dog planet became aware of life on a distant planet in a manner befitting of a sentient species descended from dogs instead of primates. They were comparing the smells of various galaxies searching the universe for life, vigilantly hopeful that they might find something tasty to eat.
Humans of course look at images of visible light reflected off of distant planets via our telescopes. Dog telescopes are technically smellescopes, taking a reading of the spectral data in patterns that tell the Dog-people things like, the elemental composition of planets, moons, and comets, relentlessly “sniffing” for anything with water or an atmosphere that might support life. When the Dog-people smelled the little planet, ice on both poles and tropical warm in the middle, with one dusty moon, almost half the size of their home planet with over three times more salty ocean covering its surface, they became very excited indeed. Granted it was the smell of life on planet Earth from 800 to 300 B.C. when there were lots of animal herds roaming all the continents and so many fish still schooling in all the oceans that every bay, river and beach boiled with life when sea creatures spawned.
Technologically the people of the Dog planet were much more advanced than humans, you could have blamed their advanced tech on the timing of their evolution, if it were not for the fact that humans and Dogs began walking upright on two feet, developing language and tools at almost the same time. The main difference in innovative progress was because the people of the Dog planet did not have any war. Fights and scraps over food sources, yes, but to the victor goes the spoils. Dogs would not bother to kill the loser or destroy food, it’s punishment enough to have to limp off and find something else to eat. Therefore, Dogs never designed any sort of gun, bomb, etc... Their early Dog dark-age “weapon” designs were limited to several styles of hunting bows and spears, all optimized for killing prey as quickly and quietly as possible. Stealth in part to prevent a dogfight yes, but every Dog knows the least amount of stress to the animal being hunted the better the food tastes, because stress smells bad. To make a long story short all the Dog people’s technology was laser focused towards the goal of tracking and gathering good food.
It took the Dog people almost 500 years to design a spacecraft and perfect a life-sustaining hibernation chamber for the long journey to Earth. Dog’s are social animals. They wanted to send a group but in the end, they programmed one of their AI-C (Artificial Intelligence-Creatures) to navigate and keep the sleeping pilot company in his dreams. Because the furry-telepathic-biological-cold-blooded-octopodidae-AI-C was constantly scanning as the ship traveled, in a way, it was like the Dog pilot was able to sense what was going by outside of the tiny windowless craft even while asleep and dreaming of fields of happy long-haired piglets. They don’t have large hogs or wild pigs on the Dog planet, they have a tasty little critter that’s sort of like a cross between a guinea pig and a hog. A very hair-brained domesticated little critter that the Dog people fatten up and cook in too many ways to ever list. *Just FYI cows, sheep and goats on the Dog-planet are remarkably similar to cows, sheep and goats of Earth therefore many dairy foods, cheese to ice cream are similarly delicious.
The Dog people estimated that it would take between 1,500 — to 1,700 years/orbits, to travel to the little planet that smelled of fish and wild beasts. The Dog-AI-C adjusted jumps from waking the Dog up every 10 years gradually until the Dog’s sleeping mind only looked around in-between jumps every 21 years to conserve nutrients and slow down cellular aging.
Three jumps away from the smelly planet, Earth-year-1914 the space craft’s sensors were close enough to determine that some kind of industrial revolution had happened a jump ago and that it had gone very wrong. “Their industrial practices are killing their food?! Are you sure? That’s insane?” Exclaimed the Dog as they looked over the data before freeze-down in preparation for the next 21-year jump.
Earth-year 1935. The second to the last jump closer, the Dog-AI-C had a good news/bad news to report from data collected via noise wave signals called radio. The Dog-AI-C was happy to report that the planet had survived something called a Great World War. The bad news is the sentient species do not sound like Dogs. But, don’t despair yet, we are still gleaning the scents of lots of animals and even some hints of a few mammals that could be very dog-like.
21 years later, Earth-year 1956, there were television broadcasts to confirm the Dog-AI-C’s guess about the language not being Dog-speak. The sentient people on the smelly planet were mostly hairless primates that wrap their bodies in woven artificial skins, like space suits only for all kinds of weather and they often wear false paws on their hind feet like horse hooves called shoes. These primate-people call themselves humans. There are some domesticated dog species on the smelly planet intelligent enough to be “friends” with the primate-people, but the language and paw dexterity of these dog type critters seems to be limited. The humans do everything for them. Also, the planet has now survived two terrible life destroying World Wars. Fear of something called a nuclear holocaust was a major factor in ending the second world war. If their terrible weapons increase, the spread of damage could sterilize the entire biosphere. It seems very doubtful that any life could survive a third world war.
“I don’t understand? Their bombs would incinerate and radiate all the good food on the smelly planet?” The Dog felt very confused and sad, the excitement and hard work by generations of Dog people all dedicated on sending out their ambassador to make friends. Could this one-way trip traveling so far really all be only to witness a tragic end of a once incredible life filled planet, no good food to send back home, no residue but radioactive tasteless ash?
When the Dog came into consciousness again the spacecraft was in lunar orbit of the smelly planet carefully hidden in a crater on the dusty moon. The Dog-AI-C woke the Dog just enough to review their collected data and write a personal note to add to the Dog-AI-C’s report.
After the freeze and thaw of space travel, the once dark-blue fur-covered-humanoid-yellow-eyed-Dog now a much older long-haired blue-grey Dog, rests elongated finger-like paws on a tray of magnetic rocks attached to metal rings, each rock is a slightly different color and shape with a high contrast phonetic symbol carved into the top surface. A set of these ‘thought rocks’ are functionally similar to what humans call a keyboard, for typing.
Earth-year-1977. Paw-print
I am sending this report before I descend to the surface of the smelly planet the inhabitants call Earth. If I survive I will continue my mission for our people. We were wrong, we didn’t find a planet with folks similar enough to us to be friends with. The dominant species are primate-people who poison their own air, soil and drinking water. These humans of Earth are highly volatile, and hostile to extraterrestrial visitors. Do not send an expedition party. If I don’t send another message, know I am proud to have traveled so far if only to protect our people from harm from these human’s terrible weapons. No regrets, my beloved people, I am happy to be chosen as our ambassador. If I am able, I will send samples of good things to eat for Dog-kind.
Story continues Un-Un-Cat — Episode 2. Hello, World!
