7. Ong Kong

"Sir, initial reports are in." Orjty looked far too pleased with himself.

The Captain sighed as he looked up from his console. He had been busy fiddling with the oglydinks and the last thing he wanted to do was read whatever garbled report these planetists had cobbled together. "What does it say, give me the short version."

"Sir it's quite fascinating. We observed the inhabitants for a period of no less then 13 quablocks. Something like  the time it takes for this planet to circle it's star. We estimated that a full season would give us at least an intial assessment period, long enough to make some basic assumptions. However, I must stress that we are of course only scratching the surface, so to speak."

"Yes yes, so what did you find out. What is the dominant species on this planet?" The captain reached for the Hoklink. delicious they were, if one could subdue them enough to eat them.

"It's a rather odd species sir. Small, extremely squishy and quite odd looking. Instead of growing their own protective coverings, they seem to make them from organic materials grown. They are not very agile, strong or fast. We had to wonder how they became the dominant species." Orjty looked quite excited, squishy organic species being his particular favorite to study. The captain his his suspicions on why.

"Intelligent?" The captain bit into another hoklink, ignoring the little squeel.

"We had to assume so sir, because they do have technology of some interesting standards. What interested us more was the speed at which they seem to be developing new technologies, as inferior as it is compared to our own." Orjty looked nervous.

"Did you study the species as an entirety or pick any particular tribe?" The captain felt this was a good, sciency question to ask, better to hide how little he understood what planetists did.

"That... would be difficult. Specially with the time frame we were given. We picked what we thought was a good representative of the species. We picked an island on sector 149. It is a small island which as far as we can figure the natives call Ong Kong."

"Ong Krong?" garbled the Captain. "What an odd name. Why did you pick this spot?"

"Well, we wanted either a tribe or subspecies that was sufficiently well advanced to best respresent the species. Sector 149 showed a very dense population within a small space. We also noted a great abundance of high structures, far more then anything surrounding, intricate pathways and of course, this sector was an incredibly bright spot on the dark side of the planet. There were of course many other brightly lit settlements but we chose this sector for the great variety of subspecies that seems to cohabit quite well."

"Is sector 149 the only place with these statistics?" The captain sat back and rumbled his Grblplon. He could use a sip of Wfbm right now.

"Well no, not precisely. There were other sectors that could have yielded usable data... but we tossed a hooblecrod to decide and Sector 149 was it."

To be honest, the captain didn't care how the decision was made. "Alright, and so what did you find out?"

"They seem to be intelligent..." Orjty trailed off.

"But?" prompted the captain.

"Well, it's rather interesting, while they do boast some interesting technological advances in recent years, they have done so little with it."

"What do you mean?"

"Well... "

"Spit it out, Orjty. I don't have all day."

"Perhaps I should put it this way, They build these entertainment units and almost every individual seems engrossed in them. They spend almost all their waking hours staring at these units as if connected on a subatomic neural level. They have big ones at home that flashes images at them. They have different units that they are connected to via primitive consoles and even tiny ones they carry around. While some productive activities such as communications are performed on this consoles, for the most part they seem to be used to observe images."

"What kind of images?"

"Well.. it's very strange, they stare all day at images of another species they seem to revere to some extent. It's a small four legged creature with soft outer follicular coverings, pointy ears that emits a sound like 'Miaow'. They will watch all day if they could."

"Surely they don't do this all day. What is their society like?"

"That is fascinating also. In this Ong Kong. The species seems to be divided into two genders."

"Only two?!" exclaimed the captain. Orjty nodded. "How terribly boring. Go on."

"Yes well, they are divided into something they call man and woman. Womans seem to spend a lot of time trading pieces of paper or swiping this strange piece of plastic for items to cover themselves with. They spend much of their time adorning themselves. It seems the more garish the combinations of colors and textures or outlandish, the better."

"And these... mans?" The captain fumbled saying the words.

"Well they will adorn themselves also but to some lesser extent. This is a species that seems to like fast things.  They spend quite a lot of time zipping about great distances. I have posited a theory in my report that much of their mating ritual occurs while speeding about. I have personally observed, at great risk to myself, some of these mating rituals in their underground transport systems."

"Do explain," said the captain in spite of himself. Who didn't like hearing about mating rituals?

"Well, some males seem to work hard to increase their own scent emissions as a sort of attractant to females. They may not bathe for a long period of time and insure oral uncleanliness. In the close confined spaces of their underground transports, the species will often force themselves in almost to bursting point. My theory is that inside these transports, their heady scents will be better scented by as many females as possible and the competition of other males can be better judged."

"Fascinating."

"Yes and other behaviors have been observed. It seems to be extremely unpopular to give up seating units to the elderly or infirm, especially by the more sexually mature. Perhaps as a way of asserting their dominance or perhaps attraction is heightened by inconsiderate behaviors."

"Very interesting, anything else?"

"We have observed gatherings of large groups together in different places. They often carry large placards or signs and loudly proclaim things. The best we have determined is that they are angry about something. We haven't yet ascertained the purpose of these loud noisy gatherings but considering how frequently they have been observed in this behavior, we surmise that this has some sort of reverential element such as worship. Perhaps they have a primitive practice of celebrating complaint."

The captain shook his head, "all this is interesting, but the question we came here to answer was this. Are they advanced enough to make contact with. Will our species benefit from any contact whatsoever?"

At this Orjty looked a little worried. "Sir, this is a fascinating planet and I hope to be granted permission to return for more research studies, however I am not sure they are suitably advanced."

"You need to be more specific," snapped the captain.

"I do not believe they are advanced enough. Indeed, I fear they never will be."

"That is a rather alarming assessment," said the captain.

Orjty shook his head sadly. "Well, sir, While they have built a quaint city of more then a thousand fairly high structures and designed some rather sweet if piddly transport units, their planet is dying around them. It's rather disheartening to see so many other inhabitants of this planet struggling to survive while they have not even figure out that what they throw out doesn't necessarily go away. They haven't even figured out the basics in waste management sir. It does not bode well for them as a species nor does it commend them as an even remotely advanced species, sir and if they continue on this course, their planet will be irrevocably changed."

"They haven't figure out waste management?"

"They bury the bulk of their waste sir, their recycling efforts are too small to be even considered."

"Oh dear nebulae. A species that doesn't consider waste management as paramount is not a species worth talking to."

"Exactly sir. I suggest we return to show our findings to the council. The next course of action should be decided by them."

"Yes Yes... " the captain considered awhile, "Imagine if our waste management systems were as backwards as theirs," he laughed.

"We'd be swimming in our own fglydoos!"Orjty finished for him laughing.

Yes it was rather sad sometimes how rarely they encountered a planet with a species worth talking to, but one had to have standards!