The humans land in a world where the beings they thought were fantasy, are real. Unicorns and centaurs, sentient dragons and faerie folk, all living and working together in a society that had long since learned to put their differences aside. They welcomed the CRC representatives with open arms. -- Anon Guest
It seemed like a fairly agrarian colonial world, at least according to the scans. The first scout ship landed somewhere out of the way to meet with someone who may or may not know the larger parts of their world. They would, because of Alliance laws, become the Ambassador for this colony.
Livesuit ready, translators prepped, scanners constantly on, and a live feed to the orbiting survey ship in case things went pants. Great. Scout and soon to be Ambassadorial Aide Tes emerged from their Scouter to take stock and find the nearest intelligent lifeform. What they did find was fairly amazing. Did? Did that cat just jump out of a tree to catch its prey and then sail gently down on gossamer wings?
Were those butterflies singing choral melodies? Had Tes knocked their head on atmospheric entry and slipped a few cogs? They opened comms to the Maria Niña "Uh... Bridge? You're getting all this, right?"
"Visual and audio confirmed," said the current comms officer. "If we're all hallucinating, it has to be something wrong with the water recycling."
"Roger that." Scanner said they were there, too. Genner[1] stuff, it looked like. Something really manic had to have been going on to make this world what it was.
Tes barely had time to process that, because an overheard argument was heralding this planet's new Ambassadors. Incoming. Analysis said they were speaking a variant of Pre-Shattering Terran English, from the ancient polity of Yuu'essay[2]. The machine translator could do a lot of work here. Which meant that Tes could look as harmless as possible whilst wearing an all-encounters livesuit.
Great Powers That Be. That was a flakking Centaur. Carrying on a bickering conversation with what appeared to be a Human on their back.
"All I'm saying is it's awfully convenient how you softfeet twist your ankles and suchlike whenever the hills get steep," said the Centaur. They were large, their horse-parts resembling a Clydesdale, and the human portions scaled to match.
"I'll remember you said that the next time you get a stone caught in a rear hoof," said the Human - normal-sized and not at all unusual by comparison. "What the fuck?"
Tes barely remembered to breathe, let alone say, "I come in peace? Uh. Script. Hello and welcome to the United Fellowship of Terran Planets? Uhm. You're invited to..." they were staring. What was it like under that plaid shirt? Where did bare flesh meet horsey fur? "Uhhhh... join the Galactic Alliance?" Tes' head filled with stunned static. "Oh! And. Um. Congratulations... you're the newest Ambassadors of your united people. Hi. I'm Tes."
The Centaur and the Human aboard him looked at each other. "You talking to me or Jean?"
"Uh. Both of you. It's a seniority thing. It takes hours to explain." The Human was named Jean. Further conversation would reveal her name as Jean Audrey. The Centaur was called Champignon. Weird, but who was Tes to argue?
There were Elves here. And lizards that kind of looked like dragons if one squinted. And people with the upper halves of humans and the hindquarters of goats as their legs. Fauns.
They named their world after the theme park venture that failed whilst those fantastic beasts were still in the labs. Mythos.
Introducing this lot to the Alliance was going to be very interesting. Especially the part where Tes had to explain the difference between an ELF and an Elf[3]. Repeatedly. At length.
And they thought just explaining the intricacies of Alliance Ambassadorship was going to be the problem.
[1] Genner: Alliance slang for genetic manipulation, either by scientific interference or selective breeding programs. The descendants of any genetically engineered life forms are referred to as Genners.
[2] Some things don't travel well through history.
[3] ELF is an acronym, Engineered Life Form. Elf is a species.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / studiostoks]
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