Part 80 is here! Haysi settled for hiding in the hospital, and drops contact again after seeing Sara unmasked on a holopad. Glim, however, is long gone; a trip to the oddly-friendly extermination office turns up nothing. Will humans be able to locate Glim? Can Noah and Sara win over either rescue, if we do?
Also, what are your thoughts on our progressive exterminator branch...and their hiring choices!
As always, thank you for reading! Part 81 will be here Saturday.
Can we get a Glim PoV? I want to see his reaction to other humans. Maybe he will freak out and someone will call the exterminators on him, believing he has preditor disease. What a way to be captured though, oh the irony.
With the exterminators, I can just see some humans signing up to the exterminators to use the flamethrower. Maybe it would be good to use on some pests like termites or wasps.
I'd love to Glim become super friendly with humans after running into some. I also want to see what pest control tool from earth do like sonic repellers.
> Maybe he will freak out and someone will call the exterminators on him, believing he has preditor disease.
I think it would be absolutely hilarious if the exterminator gets the exterminators called on him.
I want a cat POV.
Cats rarely jump nails first at adolescents, or sheep etc., so I really can't see them starting a killing spree on Venlil. On the other hand, a pet cat would love a Venlil as a comfy bed. It's the same as on Earth: don't let your cat roam free to kill and be killed.
The Venlil do have some problems with small vermin, so cats could be spun in a different light.
Given that i suspect humanity will eventually enforce a regime of restoring the natural ecosystem of Venlil prime cats may actually serve as a useful transplant species. Everything that makes them invasive and destructive on Earth could be an asset to restoring predator populations to Venlil prime. at least once enough Venlil can be convinced that they cant hurt them worse than a scratch or two.
I love the progressive Exterminators! Volek obviously understands the need to modernise if she wants to keep her beloved institution going. Why, she even hired some humans! Equal-Opportunity Exterminators add-campaign when?
I don’t think they’ll be that radical, but I think the flamethrowers will be retired in favour of more humane methods. Mostly, can’t see them showing mercy to predators that realise they can attack Venlil for an easy meal
That depends, as my professor reminded me yesterday, there was that woman who found a spider on her gas cap after refuelling her vehicle, and did the only logical thing (/s), light it on fire... The gas cap was open too.
But what is considered "living space", that's the question. At the outer limits of what the Venlil consider livable, there's in all probability areas where humans would feel at home but Venlil only visit once a year if forced.
You know, like North from the Arctic Circle or in the dunes of Sahara or the Australian Outback, or Himalaya Mountains.
I think the humans need to help catch the cats. And I'm wondering if mice and/or rats have snuck in and haven't been identified yet, because they're sneakier.
ecological disaster, hi ho! -.-
> rats would fill an empty niche
That in fact is an important step in causing an ecological disaster. Almost all invasive species are filling an empty niche without its natural checks and balances from the old ecosystem, and in the process due to lack of natural control end up significantly damaging the ecosystem.
What? No. Most invasive species are outright filling an existing niche but are plain better at it. Bird havens don’t react well to mammals because they don’t know what a mammal is, but Australia had plenty of amphibians doing what cane toads do. Australia just couldn’t deal with the prolific breeding and poisonous toads.
Rats would be filling a niche the extermination officers artificially made empty. Then you need something to kill the rats…
Well, in reference to the prior comment about Hawaii, rats will eat ANYTHING. Including dead and dying members of their own species. IIRC the rats, and the efforts to control them did massive damage to the local ecology.
it can be one or the other. that said, "being an amphibian" doesn't count as a niche. cane toads are fast-breeding, small, generalist omnivores, slightly large and powerful enough to outcompete rats, as well as being more well adapted to natural environments compared to rats' urban habitats, lending well to australia's sparse population. it may appear similar, but most other small frogs in Australia are far less active, with more specialised, typically insectivorous, diets.
I think the progressive exterminators are well-written and reasonable, but there is going to be hell to pay when they inevitably start trying to exterminate stray pets. I hope the humans stress just how strongly humans pack-bond with their pets. The Venlil are good allies and friends, but we have lived with cats since the early days of civilization and dogs even longer. The emotional reaction to someone killing a puppy can be as strong or stronger than seeing someone kill a human. "Kicking the dog" is synonymous with villainy. The existence of idioms about skinning cats shouldn't be interpreted as a sign that humans don't care about them just as much.
While cats can be an ecological disaster, they pose little physical threat to larger organisms even if they get aggressive. They served us well as a biological protection against small birds and rodents that would infest our food stockpiles and spread disease. Dogs are a greater physical threat, but they are some of the most empathetic and loyal animals you will ever meet. They grew to have an instinctual understanding of human body language.
It would be best to send a human to handle situations regarding domesticated Earth animals. They will know how to deal with both the animal and any belligerent humans better.
____
I wonder how the ecosystem on Federation worlds are balanced after the extermination of predators. Maybe they introduced biological agents to increase mortality or decrease reproduction depending on population density of an organism? The former would be problematic since they exterminate scavengers as well.
As has been mentioned a few times already, they don't balance the ecosystem really, just murder anything that eats flesh whether it's an obligate carnivore or an opportunistic scavenger.
>I think the progressive exterminators are well-written and reasonable, but there is going to be hell to pay when they inevitably start trying to exterminate stray pets.
I think the fallout from that largely is going to depend on how clear and upfront the rules were about bringing them along. After all, we already have our own quarantine and travel restrictions that make it very difficult or even impossible to travel between countries with animals - and while I haven't checked I'm willing to bet euthanising the animal is a fairly common practice in many places for breaching those rules. I'd imagine most people (especially the majority that will have followed the rules and potentially left beloved pets back on earth) would actively support enforcing the rules if they were made painfully clear beforehand.
If nothing else, given that the cultural sensitivity around predators was well known, I doubt any errant humans who've let their smuggled cat escape are going to get much sympathy - it'd be one thing if they were actively kicking down doors searching for the possibility, it's quite another if (as seems to be the case) they're responding to reports of loose cats running freely around a nice little Venlil suburb. Very much a "if you're gonna be stupid then you're gonna have to deal with the consequences" attitude.
>I wonder how the ecosystem on Federation worlds are balanced after the extermination of predators.
My guess, due to the militant veganism style culture; they didn't. Probably used technological solutions to aggressively discourage interference with settlements, agriculture and maybe a select few 'planetary park' type areas, and left the wider ecosystem to try and balance itself (with all the consequences that would entail).
It seems very unlikely that most species are interested in what happens more than a few miles outside of a given settlements borders - after all, part of our interest in ecological preservation is that we actively use the spaces for recreation, be it hiking, camping, climbing, swimming etc etc. Many of those things many of the fed species are going to biologically incapable of engaging with - look at the horror at the idea of persistence hunting, a technique/evolutionary trait that ultimately culminated in hiking for pleasure.
The very existence of exterminator guilds on established fed planets also suggests this is the case. How many species have we hunted to extinction, without the benefit of using satellite/orbital military resources? If we as a species decided tomorrow that we were going to actively hunt down (as in deploy the military, full bore, everybody on board) every last member of a given species, how long do you reckon that would actually take with even current technology? Add in the level of genetic and chemical weapons capability the feds seem to possess? Rats would probably be the most resistant to such an attempt, but I suspect even they wouldn't last long if we went full genocidal bio/chemical warfare. So it seems likely they only bother hunting those that encroach on their settlements and the major apex predators (so in the case of earth they'd actively hunt the big cats planet wide, probably the canids as well, then hunt the smaller predators like domestic cats/similar size animals if/when they appear near settlements).
>Maybe they introduced biological agents to increase mortality or decrease reproduction depending on population density of an organism? The former would be problematic since they exterminate scavengers as well.
Again, this seems like they'd ignore the problem outside of their 'zone of control' around settlements. Within that zone of control however, it seems like they'd actively destroy corpses, both in the name of deterring predator infestations and because of the severe aversion many seem to have to the smell of meat. So it seems as though part of the exterminators job would be the disposal of any corpses that are found.
Best way to deal with a predator is a better predator and humans are some of the best this planet could produce given the tools to do so. The Venlil must know by now that our planet has some form of predation nearly everywhere. Lions, Tigers, Bears, Dogs, Cats, Sharks, etc etc
I want to see what training materials humans provide the extermination guild, and hear a frank conversation about human pets.
Exterminator: "They're cute, can't be your answer to everything!"
Human: "But they are cute. They have big eyes which triggers our need to protect them like our big eyed babies, and they're fluffy looking."
Exterminator: "But what about the larger ones, the lions and tigers? Surely you realize that they're a threat to your lives. You can't be attracted by their 'cuteness' as well"
Human: ...
Exterminator: ...
Human: "Jan, please pull up the Petting Fails playlist on YouTube."
Exterminator: "Why is he rolling down his window!?"
...
Exterminator: "Where did your evolution go so wrong?"
That's the second playlist. The third includes the story of Siegfried and Roy. First we show that we really do find animals that can kill us cute. The second that sometimes we can "domesticate" them. Third shows that sometimes the "domesticated" ones still try to kill us, and we still love them. And maybe the exterminator guild decides that humans can't be held accountable for our actions towards predators because we're insane. By comparison the house cat is nearly harmless, and felling it purr on your lap is really soothing.
Yeah but remember that Venlil are fairly small enough to ride on humans. A house cat to them is like a bobcat to us. A Maine Coon cat would be like a mountain lion. Sure it's cute but if it's pissed at you grabbing it by the scruff or punting it isn't an option for them.
Isn’t the current theory that cats (unlike dogs) kinda domesticated themselves though?
Human stockpiling of grain leading to increased population of small grain-eating critters who in turn provide relatively easy hunting for the cats. Eventually humans notice the cats, and make the correlation that with more cats around, their grain gets raided by fewer rodents. Bob’s your cat!
yup, the current theory is house cat ancestors basically showed up one day and never left, becoming more chill and tolerant of humans over time - a win/win for both parties: food, shelter, protection, extermination, snuggles
Great post as always, you know it would be interesting to add a scenario that flips the perspective of the whole "predators are super primitive and backwards" thing
Like imagine a herbivore was like "Humans should be shunned or exterminated because they eat meat"
And a human's response is "oh really, how about we switch this around. Lets say humans burned down forest and fields because it was hiding their food source and the only reason we survuve is because we have technology to do so. We synthesize a atmosphere and create animals that can survive with bio-engineering. Now lets say we meet you in space and call you savages because you would rather eat the heinous plants insteadof the nutrient rich animals, we call you primitive and barbarians for something you had no control of. I wonder what must feel like"
A good sign, if true.
I guess the exterminators function as a social service. We could probably gradually modify them into pest control. Maybe even towards mediating between humans and Venlil as local "human experts".
Like him or not, Kalsim at least made every effort to understand humans, and that understanding can be valuable to deescalating situations or sorting out misunderstandings.
I like this method where you take something alien and horrible, and then slowly expand on it until it becomes familiar and even somewhat acceptable.
Gasoline spraying street lamps, and burning puppies with flamethrowers sounds horrible and crazy, but then you meet a progressive PR rep, and suddenly Venlil exterminators sound more like real human pest control, which is still a common profession, to which most of us don't object.
Speaking of which - weren't cats originally domesticated for their pest control abilities?
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYPJzQppANo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYPJzQppANo)
The video is educational, but also full of cute cat pics, for those weirdos who think predators can actually be cute...
Any way, I am suddenly less concerned about our runaway, and more about human reaction to Venlil taking a flamethrower to a cat.
Not everyone is a cat person, but that still wouldn't go over well with most humans I would say...
what size are the Venlil again? If humans can live in their existing society (buildings , infrastructure) , they have to be closer to human sized than cat sized. There is no way a house cat poses an actual physical threat to them, to the point where they need flamethrowers or to kill the shit out of it instead of capturing it
Cats carry a brain eating parasite that infests even humans. It's worth keeping cats solely on Earth just for that reason alone. The universe is not ready for the Venlil version of the crazy cat lady.
listen- I don’t got much time to get this out, but someone ratted me out to the exterminators, and now they’re at my goddamn door trying to get me because I have ‘predator disease’ or something, they just want to stop me from getting the truth out to you all, if I disappear you know what really happened, I’m getting the hell out of here now.
Makes sense. Especially when the exterminators realise humans have equivalents. Less respected, but still interesting and and usually less violent concepts for the more mainstream extermination officers to adapt to. Another interesting cultural exchange
And Noah. Stop putting your foot in your mouth. Literal Hyenas roam the streets of Addis Ababa. They get left alone. Some people believe they eat evil spirits. So long as there are no attacks and it does not hurt there health. We ignore most predators in cities
Now that I think about it, they aren't that different. Their exterminators use flamethrowers and our exterminators use canisters of poison to spray everything down.
"We control our pest problems by coating our homes in poison" probably would sound insane to the Venlil.
We also try to be humane, and focus on removal and catch and release when possible usually. Animal cruelty laws usually demand it. Our poison methods would be interesting for study. If unnerving. That, and we banned flamethrowers under the Geneva convention
It is a valid cultural exchange that hopefully means the extermination officers are less trigger happy and more pest control. Even we tend to take action to keep tigers out of our cities and to stop feral dogs attacking people
As a matter of fact, our pest control poisons are usually softened versions of our own chemical weapons. And flamethrowers are NOT banned from use against human targets, nor as anti-material weapons. The US and the Commonwealth are it's main users.
There are also wild coyotes in every major city in America, people just treat them like stray dogs and ignore them. For all the efforts we put into controlling local populations, mother nature DGAF.
Plus, as you mentioned, living around humans long enough and the problematic animals get destroyed, and the remainder are effectively pseudo domesticated...at least to the point where they don't require destruction.
Also, as long as you have easy access to antibiotics, house cats are pretty much incapable of killing something human-sized. Wounding or even disfiguring, sure, but not killing.
yeah. *And* a housecat is a hunter by nature still and will try to bring down animals that are as large as they can do safely. the fact that they can't take down anything larger than an adolescent bunny (at least from my experience with the two cats that i have / have had, although they both liked to showboat and capture animals alive, so the limits for a medium-sized housecat could probably be higher) should show well enough that they aren't a threat to adult venlil who have antibiotics in order to prevent infection. cats are pragmatic. even if the giant fluffy thing's reaction screams "this is prey" it can still trample the cat and as such the cat will steer clear of it.
this is something i was afraid of, i mean seriously this deception makes it seem like the humans rule venlil prime in secret or something, to these refugees who thought they had just been saved this can lead to a complete mental breakdown!
in german, the second seat is called the co-driver.
that's because the person sitting there is usually the person to assist the driver with navigation and other issues.
Does someone have a blurb on why it's called shotgun in english?
I heard it is from way back in the ol' west and to horse-drawn carriages and caravans. When traveling long distances between towns you needed protection. The person on the second front seat would be the gunner protecting the carriage from bandits/criminals/beasts.
In the time of horse drawn carriages, you had two people riding on the front. The driver, in charge of the reins and horses. The shotgun seat was for the person carrying a loaded shotgun to shoot at thieves and wild animals while the driver focused on getting away.
In the times of western expansion here in the U.S. stagecoach drivers would have a bodyguard beside them with a shotgun for protection. Later on, when cowboy movies got big in the early 20th Century, the term "riding shotgun" was coined and used by characters riding on a wagon or stagecoach with a shotgun in hand.
I hope that helped.
In the USA, there was a period of time when huge sums of money for industrial payroll were delivered by horse-drawn stagecoach. These stagecoaches had one driver and one armed guard. The guard sat on the passenger seat, and was usually armed with a shotgun.
This is also why double barreled shotguns are often called coach guns in the USA.
Apocryphally, it’s from the old Wells-Fargo stagecoach days of western expansion. The driver was busy controlling horses with the reins and wasn’t able to do anything else while driving, so the person sitting next to them provided security, from bandits attempting stagecoach robberies. Given the simplistic suspension of stagecoaches and the complete lack of anything approximating a road much of the time, the preferred weapon was something with a lot of punch and a little more margin for error than individual bullets, a shotgun.
Definitely. I give better than even odds that Glim is inside that building right now and the friendliness is a front to distract, though perhaps with some truth in there as a core. People probably do often flee to the transit hub and they probably are taking the opportunity to learn human techniques.
Not entirely surprised about the exterminator offices adapting, that just makes sense
Also like how they stopped used fire on infants (though the wording means they still do so against adult predators)
After Solvin explained why fire is used, I understand using it to dispose of the corpses (don't agree, but understand), but doing so against a living creature, even one that is a genuine threat, is nothing but pure sadism
I don't doubt any 'predator' which survived got more pissed off at the prey, heck, even being more sadistic against them, heck, even the first confront may have caused them to ignore the 'prey'...
"Look, I agree we need to be wary about the human. But we need to exist to do that, which is why we splitting up. The capital office will be progressive learn from the humans and stay open. You'll go to the far side and stay ready, either way we'll be prepared, and no burning refugees anywhere don't give them a reason to close us all down"
Extermination office public relations.
***The Terran Sentinel***
***Survival of the Fittest... Mostly***
***October 12th 2145***
**Yesterday, a 23 Year old Arxur named Hirsa while on a hunting trip in Yellowstone National Park was attacked by a grizzly bear according to eye witnesses and her friends.**
**It was estimated that the fight between the 2 lasted for over 20 minutes before park authories came to incapacitate Hirsa and Bear via tranquilizers and was rushed immediately to Mammoth Clinic then Teton Vally Hospital**
**She is currently recovering from her injuries and has said in an interview that "I have a new found respect for you Humans, your species conquered this planet with nothing but your brains and your hands"**
**this might be a good lesson to all Arxur taking a hunting trip to the blue marble, just because you can fight it doesn't mean you'll win**
Hey, find me anyone who can last 3 minutes in the ring with a Grizzly, this lady was past half way in the 7th before the Refs interfered. She coulda gone the distance, she coulda been a contenda.
Arxur sees a Grizzly Bear on all fours from a distance: ohh it's a little man!
Grizzly Bear charges before rearing on it's hind legs: IT'S NOT A LITTLE MAN! IT IS NOT A LITTLE MAN! IT'S A VERY BIG MAN
AH! I had a new Idea by the way, in case you run short again.
Humans have INSANE reaction speeds, especially gamers, racers, and those who play most sports. We can even react to things we can't immediately see by anticipating where they will be.
Seriously, the speed a baseball player needs to react at to hit a ball thats traveling at 100mph with a PIECE OF WOOD, is mindblowing.
It doesn’t surprise me that some humans tried to bring their pets to Venlil prime, but I’m still disappointed. If you want Mittens or Fido to be turned into a flambe, go right ahead and bring them to a planet that was known for going Pyro on a bunch of kittens or pups. Bringing predator pets just has too much potential to turn into bad blood this early on. However, maybe the UN could capitalize on this. It might be a good show of good will for the UN to help round up some of the animals and deport them before the Exterminators get to them.
Speaking of the exterminators, it is good to see some of them are heading in the right direction. They still have plenty of their flaws, like hunting “predator disease” patients, but seem to have given up and are tolerating humans more now. With this one station even hiring humans, it could morph into something akin to animal control in the next decade or two. Although, I am not terrible certain about just up and firing a good bit of the more extreme exterminators. That has the potential to backfire spectacularly if the fired members form their own groups.
Moving on, Tarva needs to write down some questions and have an honest Q&A with either Sara or Noah. I know that human society is complex, but the Feds and former Feds will just take any ambiguity and run with it to the extreme. For example, Tarva thinks that “riding shotgun” was meant to attack bystanders rather than defend from bandits or wild animals. Such a session will allow her to more fully understand the humans and be better equipped to defend them.
(You would think that Sara and Noah would have learned this lesson after Meier)
Finally, I just can’t help but feel sorry for Sara and Haysi. Our resident scientist seemed to grow fond of the rescue and this rejection must really sting. Overall, I blame Noah and his fat mouth for this predicament, his pride really got in the way of the mission. Moving forward, maybe we can explain our aggression and forward eyes by showing other aggressive herbivores of Earth. Maybe you could use the Gelada Baboon for the eyes and teeth, while using the Cape Buffalo to explain our aggression. If they knew that we grew up in a world where even the non-sentient herbivores can seriously harm you, it would make our feats still seem possible for herbivores.
It's understandable that dogs/cats will fall through the cracks on such a large scale evacuation, but it's surprising the humans have not pre-emptively ordered these pets to be rounded up, considering their incredible damage potential to a new ecosystem.
Also, the hippopotamus is far more dangerous and aggressive than cape buffalo, while also having side-facing eyes. It's the second deadliest non-human animal behind the mosquito after all. According to [this article](https://safarisafricana.com/most-dangerous-animals-africa/) they kill 3000 per year, compared to 200 per year for lions and cape buffalo.
Extermination offices being a place of comprehension isn't that far-fetched either. They are people who managed to let behind their fear in front of a predator. They are required to maintain their logical mind and to receive, understand and analyze a large bunch of informations in a small amount of time and under pressure. Like we saw with the eradication fleet or the insectoids, you have many maniacs focused on the destruction of every predators with almost a religious euphoria. Okay. But *good* exterminators are the ones who don't enjoy killing and instead know the importance of this procedure, and who do it methodically. They may have been educated to consider every predators as a real threat, but they aren't necessarily conditioned.
Since the first contact, the scientific experimentations, the war against the federation and the revelations about the possible omnivorous past of many "prey" races, Venlil exterminators must have been through a rough ride, but they can't state that humans are inherently dangerous because they are predators. Not with all the proofs
You've never owned a pet, have you?
Imagine someone told you to leave your child in the blast radius of an antimatter bomb. Would you?
That's how owning pet feels. They trigger our parenthood instincts. Losing them is like losing a child.
Also, we have no idea just how much the average human refugee really knew about extermination officers before the move. They might not have taken it that seriously because they'd not interacted with aliens before.
And finally, the majority of humans won't let aliens boss them around, they're not Noah, they'd just see this as irrational racism.
I assumed the people who brought pets were the people who were evacuated from Earth. It doesn't surprise me at all that people would bring their furry family members with them when evacuating as opposed to leaving them behind on a ravaged Earth and hope you'll be reunited.
[TNOP Abridged](https://www.reddit.com/r/NatureofPredators/comments/yhv9qg/ok_so_get_this/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf), now brought to *you!*
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80 - Slave Haysi has barricaded herself in a closet and failed to evade capture, but Glim is still on the run! Tarva, Sara, and Noah take a trip down to the local Extermination Office in search of the wayward ex-EO-ex-Cattle-Current-Slave Glim, and end up finding the most progressive Extermination branch in the story so far! They even refuse to use flamethrowers on juvenile predators! The trip ends with the EO public relations person giving the team tips on where to commonly find runaways - Noah doesn’t seem to like learning about this because he is a bigot and a coloniser.
It's not funny! They refuse to burn babies alive out of the kindness of their own hearts! You should be ashamed at finding this incredible generosity humorous.
okay honestly if volek and likeminded exterminators get just a bit reformed they might actually be able to help balancing the ecosystem and stuff, sure some are murderous speciests who kill everything with forward facing eyes but i do agree with her policy of not letting offworld beasts disrupt the ecosystem of venlil prime, or at least what is left of it.
Convincing them to kill SOME but not ALL predators, just the overpopulated and invasive, same for prey, would be a boon to the horribly balanced local ecology
Maybe it's a descendent of [Potato](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7672805/Meet-Potato-googly-eyed-cat-expression-won-50-000-social-media-followers.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490&ito=1490), and he doesn't recognize that it's a predator, at first?
With the exterminator's penchant for flame, something keeps coming to mind.
For the "prey" species, everything is about survival. It's about how it benefits you. Any short term loss the humans incur to prove themselves is just a ploy to infiltrate.
Because of this, humans have seemingly no way to clear their name. But what I am reminded of are the self-imolation protests, particularly of the 1960s and 70s.
Imagine the reaction to a "predator" burning itself alive in protest of the violence against their species. Imagine the public response. It seems like it would be very powerful, though obviously horrifying.
It just occurs to me that Haysi runs and warns Glim that the Gaians are predators, and Glim flees the hospital and *leaves Haysi behind to, from his point of view, be eaten.* I get that he’s hella traumatized and everything but damn the woman warned you and you left her?? Oof.
Whelp. I was wondering what the ‘treatment’ for ‘predator disease’ was. I think we just found out. That’ll be a point of contention later I am sure.
Kudos to SpacePaladin15 for being willing to show slow change and resistance to that change rather than going for some variation of ‘oh the humans don’t like it? They’re obviously correct we will change everything right now.’ It makes the story a lot more interesting even if it makes me headdesk at some of the characters. (In a good way, I promise):
Gotta love the irony of aliens being so extremely paranoid about anything predatory and yet Tarva still describes Noah as "chocolate (a food product) skinned".
Though on a serious note: Human exterminators make me feel really wrong as they are most definitely just rebranded poachers.
Or pest control specialists. Dog catchers. Ecologists. Game Keepers. Etc. A jobs a job at the end of the day. You can always advocate from not killing from the inside
This feels all to similar to dealing with certain types of people in real life. Who act like they are so much more tolerant (which, relatively they are), but still hold incredibly harmful beliefs.
I wish they mentioned that cats are good at pest control, and that they don't attack humans unless threatened. However, I'm not sure what they would do to a Venlil baby (shudders) ...
...
... D-don't look at me like that! I'm totally not a cat supremacist or anything!
This whole scenario feels beyond frustrating. Trying to save people FROM themselves. Reminds me of when a semi-wild young donkey finally got herself stuck BEHIND the manger, and I had to rescue her, knowing she was as likely to kick and bite me as let me fix the problem.
Hello, and welcome to this episode of Keeping Up with the Venli!! Today ,we see our lovers, Tarva and Noah, get into a spat while searching for their angry boy Glim. The stress seems the be building on them as they not only keep their relationship secret from others, but keep secrets from each other too. I suppose this is just what happens when you have a workplace relationship.
Meanwhile, Sara has had a rather rough falling out with Haysi. Sara keeps trying to get back together with her, but Haysi just finds keeping a secret that you can eat flesh a big turn off. As such, Sara will have to resort to drastic actions if she has any hope of keeping her relationships together.
Will our Humans be able to keep their Venlil lovers by their side? What will be the broader implications once their secrets are exposed? Will the humans finally unlock xeno-compatibility? Found out all this and more on the next episode of Keeping up with the Venlil!!!
Thank you for yet another chapter!
It was to be expected that some of the institutions would quickly adapt to the new circumstances, such was the case with many religious, political and cultural entities throughout our history so it only makes sense it applies here as well. Human Exterminators though are a scary concept. It makes sense, the best way to take down a hunter is to make use of another one, even better if the second one is under your complete control.
Also I do have a question, I am not sure if it was addressed earlier but with Meier dead alongside big portion of UN personnel following the siege of Earth, who exactly is in charge of Humanity? I assume most national governments have also either collapsed or are too busy trying not to collapse under the weight of damage done to the planet. Yet clearly someone still is in charge, orders are made and carried out. Is it perhaps the military council we saw in one of the first chapters? It would make sense, as I would certainly call a total war with a major galactic power, a state of emergency that would if not justify, then at least make it understandable for most humans that such council would take complete control.
Still it would be cool to know whether that's the case or if am I completely wrong about it.
Isif teased who’s in charge of the UN, military rule has taken over the blue helmets. Secretary-General Zhao (the Chinese military general from the early chapters) is in command; considering the beating China took, his policies may be a bit less forgiving than Meier 🙏
I have a question, what are Extermination officers?
We know thanks to Kalsim and the extermination fleet that they can use fleets to destroy predators so I thought that they were a branch of the military, in the tilfish home world they seem to act as werewolves ss divisions, and in venlil prime they act like police for predators and pests control.
Either the role of EO changes depending of the species or I am blind and I am missing something.
So everything predator releated falls under their jurisdiction... I am surprised that they didn't take control of the government, they have to be a powerful faction at least in politics and military force.
And before I forget I want to say thank you for creating this excellent series and I am waiting for the next chapter.
Poor Haysi, and poor Sara. I hope they work things out over time. It's just...a lot to take in, so Sara probably just needs time. Rather, this is the exact reason they were hesitant to break things to her all at once.
Volek seems nice. But, perhaps unfairly to her, I'm focusing on the "seems" part here. Things haven't been fair for humans for a while now, and it is all too easy to imagine that this will turn out to have been misdirection, and it turns out the extermination guild has been hiding Glim this entire time.
Of course, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Glim is specifically a "wildcard", with potential to go either way on this. Maybe the guild just wants to give him time to sort out his feelings without being literally hunted. That's an unacceptable risk for humanity, but perfectly reasonable for a moderate extermination guild.
Oof. Cats, huh? Yeah, no. There should definitely have been a ban on taking pets interstellar. Leave the pet owners on Earth until the alien societies get their poop together at least. Now our kitties are in the crossfire, and even if the concern is legitimate, there's no way pet owners will stand for letting their babies get hurt.
Glim realistically shouldn't be an individual issue. If he takes extreme views there will be issues with many other refugees in the near future (if not current venlil). He's not a threat to society and if he becomes one that's a job for local police to handle.
He's also a citizen and should be allowed to integrate with society. Unless they have a good idea of what to do after finding him, they're better off offering social services and making a nice public summary of recent events and the current state of venlil society. Maybe make a news broadcast or something.
I can only consider this the worst possible response to someone terrified of predators on his homeworld. Don't hunt someone expecting to be hunted, especially if the entire point is to convince him of your good intentions. This needs to be very hands off, he clearly wants to come to his own conclusions now.
Hi
Edit: Hm, the idea of more progressive extermination offices is interesting. Is it possible in the future Humans can coexist without eliminating the offices? I'd like to know more
>Sara cleared her throat. “Volek, how did you arrive at that conclusion so fast?”
>“We track a few people ourselves. Investigating reports of predator disease, you know.”
Heh, nice suspicion flag. Volek might not be on the up and up.
Thanks for the chapter mate!
Ah piss, truncated ecosystems like Venlil prime where the native wildlife has lived without predators for a while are the exact ecosystem cats are known to devastate. Let’s hope we keep a tighter leash on them this time around
People have more reasons other cuteness to keep cats.
Cats are excellent for pest control, they will hunt and eat anything that might something of a nuisance to a genuine threat to a Human, or at minimum our young. Snakes, mice, birds, Insects, etc.
Cats that are raised by Humans are normally extremely social, not just with Humans, but also other cats, which is an unusual phenomena in wild felines, and they will give their Humans extreme love and comfort, and often seek cuddling, which is something most humans will give.
Cats also provide **IMMENSE** health benefits! They help with mental health, have been proven to lower the chances of heart attacks and strokes and there is scientific evidence that the purring of a cat, due to its frequency, can help heal muscle and bone.
There is even some folk stories from where I am from that a cat will know where you're hurting, then it will instinctively lay down on that spot and start purring while sleeping on it to help you heal.
Interested in pest control huh?
Well those feral predators you are so worried about are doing just that.
Simply "deploy" the cat and that's it.
To op: great as always :D
80 chapters and I still await the next one, not many stories have done that.
Except outside cats are only really good for pest control in rural areas, where they do more good then harm
Seriously, unless you are a farmer or something, do not leave your cats outside without supervision, it's bad for the environment and it's bad for the cat
Cats are cute and cuddly murderous purring machines. But what kind of moron would bring their pets in a resettlement only to abandon them once resettled? Send the officers after them instead! Maybe even the human pest control, they will know the right kind of anger for that.
People are stupid. They are on a completely different planet and they insist on bringing a pet like a cat?
How many rats, mice, spiders, snakes and other "pets" have morons brought into an incredibly fragile ecosystem and let get out?
Just how large are the Venlil? I imagine hobbit-sized... they might actually like cats if they met some. Of course if they were smaller than a cat all bets are off.
> Was there really a major infestation, so close to the capital? Government affairs might have to be placed on temporary hiatus, or moved to an emergency bunker.
Or maybe you'll have to close a door
Why do I feel like none of them would listen if a human tried to explain that we picked up cats at around the time agriculture started being a thing, because mice/rats/birds eating your crops and destroying your harvest making you starve to death as a result is, erm, Bad.
Rats and birds out of control, you get crop failures, and before pesticides there were... Cats, and Rat Terriers.
I suddenly don’t hate the exterminator officers. Like I understood where they were coming from, but they just felt so drastic. But now it seems that humanity and the exterminator guild are starting to see eye to eye.
"We even hired a few Terrans for pest control: an interesting concept, by the way.”
I was looking for this exact sencence for a while. Human "exterminators" are a thing. :D
Part 80 is here! Haysi settled for hiding in the hospital, and drops contact again after seeing Sara unmasked on a holopad. Glim, however, is long gone; a trip to the oddly-friendly extermination office turns up nothing. Will humans be able to locate Glim? Can Noah and Sara win over either rescue, if we do? Also, what are your thoughts on our progressive exterminator branch...and their hiring choices! As always, thank you for reading! Part 81 will be here Saturday.
Can we get a Glim PoV? I want to see his reaction to other humans. Maybe he will freak out and someone will call the exterminators on him, believing he has preditor disease. What a way to be captured though, oh the irony. With the exterminators, I can just see some humans signing up to the exterminators to use the flamethrower. Maybe it would be good to use on some pests like termites or wasps.
I'd love to Glim become super friendly with humans after running into some. I also want to see what pest control tool from earth do like sonic repellers.
> Maybe he will freak out and someone will call the exterminators on him, believing he has preditor disease. I think it would be absolutely hilarious if the exterminator gets the exterminators called on him.
Uh oh, pyromaniacs and stuff would probably love to join the exterminators
All hail the Flammenwerfer!
It werfs Flammen!!!
I see you are a fellow of culture as well some people built different I'm built incorrently, I'm just *wrong*
9mm kills the body, 45asp kills the soul.
gotta make sure they don't come back as a lich
Useful for the werfs case scenario!
I want a cat POV. Cats rarely jump nails first at adolescents, or sheep etc., so I really can't see them starting a killing spree on Venlil. On the other hand, a pet cat would love a Venlil as a comfy bed. It's the same as on Earth: don't let your cat roam free to kill and be killed. The Venlil do have some problems with small vermin, so cats could be spun in a different light.
Given that i suspect humanity will eventually enforce a regime of restoring the natural ecosystem of Venlil prime cats may actually serve as a useful transplant species. Everything that makes them invasive and destructive on Earth could be an asset to restoring predator populations to Venlil prime. at least once enough Venlil can be convinced that they cant hurt them worse than a scratch or two.
A Volek POV chapter would also be interesting.
>I can just see some humans signing up to the exterminators to use the flamethrower New story: hans and the exterminators
I second that I would love to see his perspective to this
I love the progressive Exterminators! Volek obviously understands the need to modernise if she wants to keep her beloved institution going. Why, she even hired some humans! Equal-Opportunity Exterminators add-campaign when?
Can’t wait for the inevitable renaming to VP Pest Control! ^/s
I don’t think they’ll be that radical, but I think the flamethrowers will be retired in favour of more humane methods. Mostly, can’t see them showing mercy to predators that realise they can attack Venlil for an easy meal
I wonder, why even use flamethrower in the first place? Risk for collateral damage is very great
They believe you can catch predation
that is likely since some species in the union are predators so they have likely more people that are aggressive ( a sign of predatoration )
But why not put a bullet in their head first?
Risk of spreading predation. Biological contamination from the corpse. Too risky to handle
Is it possible other methods were used in the past?
Who knows. These are all Kolshian lead institutions to begin with
[удалено]
especially when they think "predator" is a contagious disease. remove a step from the procedure. why kill then burn when you can just burn.
To damage the ecosystem and give them a painful death. Inefficiency and harm being the point seems to be a running theme with Federation policies.
To be fair it is also about keeping people in fear and normalizing extreme reactions to anything with predator traits.
That depends, as my professor reminded me yesterday, there was that woman who found a spider on her gas cap after refuelling her vehicle, and did the only logical thing (/s), light it on fire... The gas cap was open too.
Yeah, they’d probably save the flamethrowers for actual dangerous threats or something.
*Venlil Prime office of Animal Control* does have a nice ring to it.
Yeah, plus it seems like she’s interested in our methods of pest control like capturing if possible and then releasing back into the wild.
Venil Prime is tidally locked, so living space is at a premium. Drop them on an abandoned colony with trackers, and study their behaviors.
But what is considered "living space", that's the question. At the outer limits of what the Venlil consider livable, there's in all probability areas where humans would feel at home but Venlil only visit once a year if forced. You know, like North from the Arctic Circle or in the dunes of Sahara or the Australian Outback, or Himalaya Mountains.
Im skeptical of her tbh. With even Tarva not knowing about these things i wonder how much of what she said could be taken at fave value
I think the humans need to help catch the cats. And I'm wondering if mice and/or rats have snuck in and haven't been identified yet, because they're sneakier. ecological disaster, hi ho! -.-
Probably the opposite, the rats would fill an empty niche. And explain why we kept the cats
> rats would fill an empty niche That in fact is an important step in causing an ecological disaster. Almost all invasive species are filling an empty niche without its natural checks and balances from the old ecosystem, and in the process due to lack of natural control end up significantly damaging the ecosystem.
What? No. Most invasive species are outright filling an existing niche but are plain better at it. Bird havens don’t react well to mammals because they don’t know what a mammal is, but Australia had plenty of amphibians doing what cane toads do. Australia just couldn’t deal with the prolific breeding and poisonous toads. Rats would be filling a niche the extermination officers artificially made empty. Then you need something to kill the rats…
Well, in reference to the prior comment about Hawaii, rats will eat ANYTHING. Including dead and dying members of their own species. IIRC the rats, and the efforts to control them did massive damage to the local ecology.
it can be one or the other. that said, "being an amphibian" doesn't count as a niche. cane toads are fast-breeding, small, generalist omnivores, slightly large and powerful enough to outcompete rats, as well as being more well adapted to natural environments compared to rats' urban habitats, lending well to australia's sparse population. it may appear similar, but most other small frogs in Australia are far less active, with more specialised, typically insectivorous, diets.
Australia does also have generalist amphibians as well. The Cane toad just wrecked them
I think the progressive exterminators are well-written and reasonable, but there is going to be hell to pay when they inevitably start trying to exterminate stray pets. I hope the humans stress just how strongly humans pack-bond with their pets. The Venlil are good allies and friends, but we have lived with cats since the early days of civilization and dogs even longer. The emotional reaction to someone killing a puppy can be as strong or stronger than seeing someone kill a human. "Kicking the dog" is synonymous with villainy. The existence of idioms about skinning cats shouldn't be interpreted as a sign that humans don't care about them just as much. While cats can be an ecological disaster, they pose little physical threat to larger organisms even if they get aggressive. They served us well as a biological protection against small birds and rodents that would infest our food stockpiles and spread disease. Dogs are a greater physical threat, but they are some of the most empathetic and loyal animals you will ever meet. They grew to have an instinctual understanding of human body language. It would be best to send a human to handle situations regarding domesticated Earth animals. They will know how to deal with both the animal and any belligerent humans better. ____ I wonder how the ecosystem on Federation worlds are balanced after the extermination of predators. Maybe they introduced biological agents to increase mortality or decrease reproduction depending on population density of an organism? The former would be problematic since they exterminate scavengers as well.
As has been mentioned a few times already, they don't balance the ecosystem really, just murder anything that eats flesh whether it's an obligate carnivore or an opportunistic scavenger.
>I think the progressive exterminators are well-written and reasonable, but there is going to be hell to pay when they inevitably start trying to exterminate stray pets. I think the fallout from that largely is going to depend on how clear and upfront the rules were about bringing them along. After all, we already have our own quarantine and travel restrictions that make it very difficult or even impossible to travel between countries with animals - and while I haven't checked I'm willing to bet euthanising the animal is a fairly common practice in many places for breaching those rules. I'd imagine most people (especially the majority that will have followed the rules and potentially left beloved pets back on earth) would actively support enforcing the rules if they were made painfully clear beforehand. If nothing else, given that the cultural sensitivity around predators was well known, I doubt any errant humans who've let their smuggled cat escape are going to get much sympathy - it'd be one thing if they were actively kicking down doors searching for the possibility, it's quite another if (as seems to be the case) they're responding to reports of loose cats running freely around a nice little Venlil suburb. Very much a "if you're gonna be stupid then you're gonna have to deal with the consequences" attitude. >I wonder how the ecosystem on Federation worlds are balanced after the extermination of predators. My guess, due to the militant veganism style culture; they didn't. Probably used technological solutions to aggressively discourage interference with settlements, agriculture and maybe a select few 'planetary park' type areas, and left the wider ecosystem to try and balance itself (with all the consequences that would entail). It seems very unlikely that most species are interested in what happens more than a few miles outside of a given settlements borders - after all, part of our interest in ecological preservation is that we actively use the spaces for recreation, be it hiking, camping, climbing, swimming etc etc. Many of those things many of the fed species are going to biologically incapable of engaging with - look at the horror at the idea of persistence hunting, a technique/evolutionary trait that ultimately culminated in hiking for pleasure. The very existence of exterminator guilds on established fed planets also suggests this is the case. How many species have we hunted to extinction, without the benefit of using satellite/orbital military resources? If we as a species decided tomorrow that we were going to actively hunt down (as in deploy the military, full bore, everybody on board) every last member of a given species, how long do you reckon that would actually take with even current technology? Add in the level of genetic and chemical weapons capability the feds seem to possess? Rats would probably be the most resistant to such an attempt, but I suspect even they wouldn't last long if we went full genocidal bio/chemical warfare. So it seems likely they only bother hunting those that encroach on their settlements and the major apex predators (so in the case of earth they'd actively hunt the big cats planet wide, probably the canids as well, then hunt the smaller predators like domestic cats/similar size animals if/when they appear near settlements). >Maybe they introduced biological agents to increase mortality or decrease reproduction depending on population density of an organism? The former would be problematic since they exterminate scavengers as well. Again, this seems like they'd ignore the problem outside of their 'zone of control' around settlements. Within that zone of control however, it seems like they'd actively destroy corpses, both in the name of deterring predator infestations and because of the severe aversion many seem to have to the smell of meat. So it seems as though part of the exterminators job would be the disposal of any corpses that are found.
Best way to deal with a predator is a better predator and humans are some of the best this planet could produce given the tools to do so. The Venlil must know by now that our planet has some form of predation nearly everywhere. Lions, Tigers, Bears, Dogs, Cats, Sharks, etc etc
I want to see what training materials humans provide the extermination guild, and hear a frank conversation about human pets. Exterminator: "They're cute, can't be your answer to everything!" Human: "But they are cute. They have big eyes which triggers our need to protect them like our big eyed babies, and they're fluffy looking." Exterminator: "But what about the larger ones, the lions and tigers? Surely you realize that they're a threat to your lives. You can't be attracted by their 'cuteness' as well" Human: ... Exterminator: ... Human: "Jan, please pull up the Petting Fails playlist on YouTube." Exterminator: "Why is he rolling down his window!?" ... Exterminator: "Where did your evolution go so wrong?"
Just show him this... https://www.youtube.com/shorts/LhpFsm9n9h8
That's the second playlist. The third includes the story of Siegfried and Roy. First we show that we really do find animals that can kill us cute. The second that sometimes we can "domesticate" them. Third shows that sometimes the "domesticated" ones still try to kill us, and we still love them. And maybe the exterminator guild decides that humans can't be held accountable for our actions towards predators because we're insane. By comparison the house cat is nearly harmless, and felling it purr on your lap is really soothing.
Yeah but remember that Venlil are fairly small enough to ride on humans. A house cat to them is like a bobcat to us. A Maine Coon cat would be like a mountain lion. Sure it's cute but if it's pissed at you grabbing it by the scruff or punting it isn't an option for them.
True, but we have dumb humans who think bobcats can be housecats.
I'm just waiting for the Venlil to think we're keeping THEM as pets.
I really hope that the rule34 and furry filters are turned on for any venlil browsing earth's internet.
I'd be interested to hear Volek's thoughts on our initial domestication of cats being an ancient form of pest control.
Isn’t the current theory that cats (unlike dogs) kinda domesticated themselves though? Human stockpiling of grain leading to increased population of small grain-eating critters who in turn provide relatively easy hunting for the cats. Eventually humans notice the cats, and make the correlation that with more cats around, their grain gets raided by fewer rodents. Bob’s your cat!
One way or the other, we kept them around *because* they were effective pest control.
yup, the current theory is house cat ancestors basically showed up one day and never left, becoming more chill and tolerant of humans over time - a win/win for both parties: food, shelter, protection, extermination, snuggles
For all intents and purposes, they were our tiny extermination squads.
Great post as always, you know it would be interesting to add a scenario that flips the perspective of the whole "predators are super primitive and backwards" thing Like imagine a herbivore was like "Humans should be shunned or exterminated because they eat meat" And a human's response is "oh really, how about we switch this around. Lets say humans burned down forest and fields because it was hiding their food source and the only reason we survuve is because we have technology to do so. We synthesize a atmosphere and create animals that can survive with bio-engineering. Now lets say we meet you in space and call you savages because you would rather eat the heinous plants insteadof the nutrient rich animals, we call you primitive and barbarians for something you had no control of. I wonder what must feel like"
A good sign, if true. I guess the exterminators function as a social service. We could probably gradually modify them into pest control. Maybe even towards mediating between humans and Venlil as local "human experts". Like him or not, Kalsim at least made every effort to understand humans, and that understanding can be valuable to deescalating situations or sorting out misunderstandings.
I like this method where you take something alien and horrible, and then slowly expand on it until it becomes familiar and even somewhat acceptable. Gasoline spraying street lamps, and burning puppies with flamethrowers sounds horrible and crazy, but then you meet a progressive PR rep, and suddenly Venlil exterminators sound more like real human pest control, which is still a common profession, to which most of us don't object. Speaking of which - weren't cats originally domesticated for their pest control abilities? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYPJzQppANo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYPJzQppANo) The video is educational, but also full of cute cat pics, for those weirdos who think predators can actually be cute... Any way, I am suddenly less concerned about our runaway, and more about human reaction to Venlil taking a flamethrower to a cat. Not everyone is a cat person, but that still wouldn't go over well with most humans I would say...
what size are the Venlil again? If humans can live in their existing society (buildings , infrastructure) , they have to be closer to human sized than cat sized. There is no way a house cat poses an actual physical threat to them, to the point where they need flamethrowers or to kill the shit out of it instead of capturing it
Venlil are about the shoulder height of an average human
They are being hysterical because it's a predator. No other reason.
The progressive exterminators (a bit of an oxymoron) are a funny addition and I like them. I hope Haysi will come around eventually.
Damn Cats.
Cats carry a brain eating parasite that infests even humans. It's worth keeping cats solely on Earth just for that reason alone. The universe is not ready for the Venlil version of the crazy cat lady.
listen- I don’t got much time to get this out, but someone ratted me out to the exterminators, and now they’re at my goddamn door trying to get me because I have ‘predator disease’ or something, they just want to stop me from getting the truth out to you all, if I disappear you know what really happened, I’m getting the hell out of here now.
🫡
You're surrounded, come out and drink your predator cure I HATE THE EXTERMINATORS I HATE THE EXTERMINATORS
Makes sense. Especially when the exterminators realise humans have equivalents. Less respected, but still interesting and and usually less violent concepts for the more mainstream extermination officers to adapt to. Another interesting cultural exchange And Noah. Stop putting your foot in your mouth. Literal Hyenas roam the streets of Addis Ababa. They get left alone. Some people believe they eat evil spirits. So long as there are no attacks and it does not hurt there health. We ignore most predators in cities
Now that I think about it, they aren't that different. Their exterminators use flamethrowers and our exterminators use canisters of poison to spray everything down. "We control our pest problems by coating our homes in poison" probably would sound insane to the Venlil.
We also try to be humane, and focus on removal and catch and release when possible usually. Animal cruelty laws usually demand it. Our poison methods would be interesting for study. If unnerving. That, and we banned flamethrowers under the Geneva convention It is a valid cultural exchange that hopefully means the extermination officers are less trigger happy and more pest control. Even we tend to take action to keep tigers out of our cities and to stop feral dogs attacking people
Dont we use flamethrowers on wasps?
No, we set them on fire. But have seem eusocial wasps! They be evil. Necessary evil, but evil
As a matter of fact, our pest control poisons are usually softened versions of our own chemical weapons. And flamethrowers are NOT banned from use against human targets, nor as anti-material weapons. The US and the Commonwealth are it's main users.
There are also wild coyotes in every major city in America, people just treat them like stray dogs and ignore them. For all the efforts we put into controlling local populations, mother nature DGAF. Plus, as you mentioned, living around humans long enough and the problematic animals get destroyed, and the remainder are effectively pseudo domesticated...at least to the point where they don't require destruction.
Nah. They evolve avoidance. Killing a human isn’t something they want to do, it means death
Seems way to harsh to burn the kitty
not going to trust the xenos, if they hurt cat, they die via dark plasma ultraheavy incindiary rapid fire artillery
Cats ***are*** cute and cuddly.
Also, as long as you have easy access to antibiotics, house cats are pretty much incapable of killing something human-sized. Wounding or even disfiguring, sure, but not killing.
yeah. *And* a housecat is a hunter by nature still and will try to bring down animals that are as large as they can do safely. the fact that they can't take down anything larger than an adolescent bunny (at least from my experience with the two cats that i have / have had, although they both liked to showboat and capture animals alive, so the limits for a medium-sized housecat could probably be higher) should show well enough that they aren't a threat to adult venlil who have antibiotics in order to prevent infection. cats are pragmatic. even if the giant fluffy thing's reaction screams "this is prey" it can still trample the cat and as such the cat will steer clear of it.
But there are an ecological Menace when introduced to new ecosystems and are basically smaller versions our big cats. Humans natural predators
this is something i was afraid of, i mean seriously this deception makes it seem like the humans rule venlil prime in secret or something, to these refugees who thought they had just been saved this can lead to a complete mental breakdown!
Yeah.
in german, the second seat is called the co-driver. that's because the person sitting there is usually the person to assist the driver with navigation and other issues. Does someone have a blurb on why it's called shotgun in english?
I heard it is from way back in the ol' west and to horse-drawn carriages and caravans. When traveling long distances between towns you needed protection. The person on the second front seat would be the gunner protecting the carriage from bandits/criminals/beasts.
In the time of horse drawn carriages, you had two people riding on the front. The driver, in charge of the reins and horses. The shotgun seat was for the person carrying a loaded shotgun to shoot at thieves and wild animals while the driver focused on getting away.
In the times of western expansion here in the U.S. stagecoach drivers would have a bodyguard beside them with a shotgun for protection. Later on, when cowboy movies got big in the early 20th Century, the term "riding shotgun" was coined and used by characters riding on a wagon or stagecoach with a shotgun in hand. I hope that helped.
I gotta finish Red Dead 2.
Me too.
In the USA, there was a period of time when huge sums of money for industrial payroll were delivered by horse-drawn stagecoach. These stagecoaches had one driver and one armed guard. The guard sat on the passenger seat, and was usually armed with a shotgun. This is also why double barreled shotguns are often called coach guns in the USA.
Apocryphally, it’s from the old Wells-Fargo stagecoach days of western expansion. The driver was busy controlling horses with the reins and wasn’t able to do anything else while driving, so the person sitting next to them provided security, from bandits attempting stagecoach robberies. Given the simplistic suspension of stagecoaches and the complete lack of anything approximating a road much of the time, the preferred weapon was something with a lot of punch and a little more margin for error than individual bullets, a shotgun.
Volek roles a nat20 on deception.
Definitely. I give better than even odds that Glim is inside that building right now and the friendliness is a front to distract, though perhaps with some truth in there as a core. People probably do often flee to the transit hub and they probably are taking the opportunity to learn human techniques.
Not entirely surprised about the exterminator offices adapting, that just makes sense Also like how they stopped used fire on infants (though the wording means they still do so against adult predators) After Solvin explained why fire is used, I understand using it to dispose of the corpses (don't agree, but understand), but doing so against a living creature, even one that is a genuine threat, is nothing but pure sadism
I don't doubt any 'predator' which survived got more pissed off at the prey, heck, even being more sadistic against them, heck, even the first confront may have caused them to ignore the 'prey'...
Dunno if I trust this “progressive” extermination office, felt like they were putting on a front
"Look, I agree we need to be wary about the human. But we need to exist to do that, which is why we splitting up. The capital office will be progressive learn from the humans and stay open. You'll go to the far side and stay ready, either way we'll be prepared, and no burning refugees anywhere don't give them a reason to close us all down" Extermination office public relations.
I smell a coup plot from a bunch of disgruntled, unemployed exterminators.
***The Terran Sentinel*** ***Survival of the Fittest... Mostly*** ***October 12th 2145*** **Yesterday, a 23 Year old Arxur named Hirsa while on a hunting trip in Yellowstone National Park was attacked by a grizzly bear according to eye witnesses and her friends.** **It was estimated that the fight between the 2 lasted for over 20 minutes before park authories came to incapacitate Hirsa and Bear via tranquilizers and was rushed immediately to Mammoth Clinic then Teton Vally Hospital** **She is currently recovering from her injuries and has said in an interview that "I have a new found respect for you Humans, your species conquered this planet with nothing but your brains and your hands"** **this might be a good lesson to all Arxur taking a hunting trip to the blue marble, just because you can fight it doesn't mean you'll win**
She saw the bear and immediately yelled out "Finally a Worthy Opponent!"
*cubs waddle about* "OUR BATTLE WILL BE LEGENDARY" Bear: Kids get behind me there's a weird looking lizard yelling at us.
And promptly got dunked upon, despite dishing out some punishment as well
Hey, find me anyone who can last 3 minutes in the ring with a Grizzly, this lady was past half way in the 7th before the Refs interfered. She coulda gone the distance, she coulda been a contenda.
Arxur sees a Grizzly Bear on all fours from a distance: ohh it's a little man! Grizzly Bear charges before rearing on it's hind legs: IT'S NOT A LITTLE MAN! IT IS NOT A LITTLE MAN! IT'S A VERY BIG MAN
"eeey cmon I am just a little birthday bear" SIKE
Credit to u/Rebelhero for the idea
AH! I had a new Idea by the way, in case you run short again. Humans have INSANE reaction speeds, especially gamers, racers, and those who play most sports. We can even react to things we can't immediately see by anticipating where they will be. Seriously, the speed a baseball player needs to react at to hit a ball thats traveling at 100mph with a PIECE OF WOOD, is mindblowing.
I can tell you, I play Wipeout Omega and you could still throw something at my head. Then six years later "Ow!'
And that father who was able to catch a foul ball while feeding his baby...
It's somewhat grimly amusing to me that our approach to big predators was just to throw more people and more pointy sticks at them.
How do you add the human under your name
This little snippet tickled my funny bone for some reason.
It doesn’t surprise me that some humans tried to bring their pets to Venlil prime, but I’m still disappointed. If you want Mittens or Fido to be turned into a flambe, go right ahead and bring them to a planet that was known for going Pyro on a bunch of kittens or pups. Bringing predator pets just has too much potential to turn into bad blood this early on. However, maybe the UN could capitalize on this. It might be a good show of good will for the UN to help round up some of the animals and deport them before the Exterminators get to them. Speaking of the exterminators, it is good to see some of them are heading in the right direction. They still have plenty of their flaws, like hunting “predator disease” patients, but seem to have given up and are tolerating humans more now. With this one station even hiring humans, it could morph into something akin to animal control in the next decade or two. Although, I am not terrible certain about just up and firing a good bit of the more extreme exterminators. That has the potential to backfire spectacularly if the fired members form their own groups. Moving on, Tarva needs to write down some questions and have an honest Q&A with either Sara or Noah. I know that human society is complex, but the Feds and former Feds will just take any ambiguity and run with it to the extreme. For example, Tarva thinks that “riding shotgun” was meant to attack bystanders rather than defend from bandits or wild animals. Such a session will allow her to more fully understand the humans and be better equipped to defend them. (You would think that Sara and Noah would have learned this lesson after Meier) Finally, I just can’t help but feel sorry for Sara and Haysi. Our resident scientist seemed to grow fond of the rescue and this rejection must really sting. Overall, I blame Noah and his fat mouth for this predicament, his pride really got in the way of the mission. Moving forward, maybe we can explain our aggression and forward eyes by showing other aggressive herbivores of Earth. Maybe you could use the Gelada Baboon for the eyes and teeth, while using the Cape Buffalo to explain our aggression. If they knew that we grew up in a world where even the non-sentient herbivores can seriously harm you, it would make our feats still seem possible for herbivores.
It's understandable that dogs/cats will fall through the cracks on such a large scale evacuation, but it's surprising the humans have not pre-emptively ordered these pets to be rounded up, considering their incredible damage potential to a new ecosystem. Also, the hippopotamus is far more dangerous and aggressive than cape buffalo, while also having side-facing eyes. It's the second deadliest non-human animal behind the mosquito after all. According to [this article](https://safarisafricana.com/most-dangerous-animals-africa/) they kill 3000 per year, compared to 200 per year for lions and cape buffalo.
Oooh good point. I would love to see an EO's reaction to a hippopotamus.
Hopefully all the animals were spayed/neutered otherwise Venlil Prime is going to have a major predator problem in a few years.
Extermination offices being a place of comprehension isn't that far-fetched either. They are people who managed to let behind their fear in front of a predator. They are required to maintain their logical mind and to receive, understand and analyze a large bunch of informations in a small amount of time and under pressure. Like we saw with the eradication fleet or the insectoids, you have many maniacs focused on the destruction of every predators with almost a religious euphoria. Okay. But *good* exterminators are the ones who don't enjoy killing and instead know the importance of this procedure, and who do it methodically. They may have been educated to consider every predators as a real threat, but they aren't necessarily conditioned. Since the first contact, the scientific experimentations, the war against the federation and the revelations about the possible omnivorous past of many "prey" races, Venlil exterminators must have been through a rough ride, but they can't state that humans are inherently dangerous because they are predators. Not with all the proofs
Yeah. The good ones are like “I don't enjoy killing, but when done righteously, it's just a chore, like any other."
You've never owned a pet, have you? Imagine someone told you to leave your child in the blast radius of an antimatter bomb. Would you? That's how owning pet feels. They trigger our parenthood instincts. Losing them is like losing a child. Also, we have no idea just how much the average human refugee really knew about extermination officers before the move. They might not have taken it that seriously because they'd not interacted with aliens before. And finally, the majority of humans won't let aliens boss them around, they're not Noah, they'd just see this as irrational racism.
I assumed the people who brought pets were the people who were evacuated from Earth. It doesn't surprise me at all that people would bring their furry family members with them when evacuating as opposed to leaving them behind on a ravaged Earth and hope you'll be reunited.
If only our human protagonists discovered the glory of arson as well...
yeah glorious planet wide Arson. We can call it "Exterminatus". should start using it asap.
[TNOP Abridged](https://www.reddit.com/r/NatureofPredators/comments/yhv9qg/ok_so_get_this/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf), now brought to *you!* - 80 - Slave Haysi has barricaded herself in a closet and failed to evade capture, but Glim is still on the run! Tarva, Sara, and Noah take a trip down to the local Extermination Office in search of the wayward ex-EO-ex-Cattle-Current-Slave Glim, and end up finding the most progressive Extermination branch in the story so far! They even refuse to use flamethrowers on juvenile predators! The trip ends with the EO public relations person giving the team tips on where to commonly find runaways - Noah doesn’t seem to like learning about this because he is a bigot and a coloniser.
God, the flamethrower line got me. Just, yea it's a great start, but by God is it so comedic
It's not funny! They refuse to burn babies alive out of the kindness of their own hearts! You should be ashamed at finding this incredible generosity humorous.
*laughs at the absurdity of the statement*
Hi
Hello there.
General Kenobi
I bequeth this place on the leaderboard to the glorious state of serbia.
Venlil Prime je Srbija
okay honestly if volek and likeminded exterminators get just a bit reformed they might actually be able to help balancing the ecosystem and stuff, sure some are murderous speciests who kill everything with forward facing eyes but i do agree with her policy of not letting offworld beasts disrupt the ecosystem of venlil prime, or at least what is left of it.
Convincing them to kill SOME but not ALL predators, just the overpopulated and invasive, same for prey, would be a boon to the horribly balanced local ecology
Ironic plot twist: Glim finds cat Cat befriends Glim Happiness ensues "Hey Glim, that's a predator" "But it loves me and I love kitty!"
If he finds it, he would honestly either run or kill it.
Maybe it's a descendent of [Potato](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7672805/Meet-Potato-googly-eyed-cat-expression-won-50-000-social-media-followers.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490&ito=1490), and he doesn't recognize that it's a predator, at first?
With the exterminator's penchant for flame, something keeps coming to mind. For the "prey" species, everything is about survival. It's about how it benefits you. Any short term loss the humans incur to prove themselves is just a ploy to infiltrate. Because of this, humans have seemingly no way to clear their name. But what I am reminded of are the self-imolation protests, particularly of the 1960s and 70s. Imagine the reaction to a "predator" burning itself alive in protest of the violence against their species. Imagine the public response. It seems like it would be very powerful, though obviously horrifying.
It just occurs to me that Haysi runs and warns Glim that the Gaians are predators, and Glim flees the hospital and *leaves Haysi behind to, from his point of view, be eaten.* I get that he’s hella traumatized and everything but damn the woman warned you and you left her?? Oof.
Haysi didn’t warn Glim, she ran off down the hallway! The Gaians went to check on Glim, and he was gone on his own. (More on this in the future)
I think glim escaped and haysi refused to go with him, so she went to tell the others he was crawling through ducts.
“Glim trusted you. I thought I could too. So why in the bloody hell do the predators know you”
As much as I like Noah, he does need to stop being so bossy. As for Sarah and Haysi . . . 😭 THIS IS SO SAD!!
Whelp. I was wondering what the ‘treatment’ for ‘predator disease’ was. I think we just found out. That’ll be a point of contention later I am sure. Kudos to SpacePaladin15 for being willing to show slow change and resistance to that change rather than going for some variation of ‘oh the humans don’t like it? They’re obviously correct we will change everything right now.’ It makes the story a lot more interesting even if it makes me headdesk at some of the characters. (In a good way, I promise):
Gotta love the irony of aliens being so extremely paranoid about anything predatory and yet Tarva still describes Noah as "chocolate (a food product) skinned". Though on a serious note: Human exterminators make me feel really wrong as they are most definitely just rebranded poachers.
Or pest control specialists. Dog catchers. Ecologists. Game Keepers. Etc. A jobs a job at the end of the day. You can always advocate from not killing from the inside
I really liked this chapter; it's interesting to get a civil chat with an extermination officer, even if it is one from a "reformed" branch.
Thank you! I thought it was a fun way to subvert expectations 😅
This feels all to similar to dealing with certain types of people in real life. Who act like they are so much more tolerant (which, relatively they are), but still hold incredibly harmful beliefs.
Huh. Zhao took credit for the cattle exchange? That's not out of character for someone in his position. Still upsetting though.
Upvote -> read. Let’s go!!
I wish they mentioned that cats are good at pest control, and that they don't attack humans unless threatened. However, I'm not sure what they would do to a Venlil baby (shudders) ... ... ... D-don't look at me like that! I'm totally not a cat supremacist or anything!
>I'm not sure what they would do to a Venlil baby Cat: *proceeds to use baby like a bed*
I feel ill reading this. Something about that exchange was wrong, but I don\`t think the exterminator was lying per say...
i hope the humans have compact trenchgun pistols
This whole scenario feels beyond frustrating. Trying to save people FROM themselves. Reminds me of when a semi-wild young donkey finally got herself stuck BEHIND the manger, and I had to rescue her, knowing she was as likely to kick and bite me as let me fix the problem.
Hello, and welcome to this episode of Keeping Up with the Venli!! Today ,we see our lovers, Tarva and Noah, get into a spat while searching for their angry boy Glim. The stress seems the be building on them as they not only keep their relationship secret from others, but keep secrets from each other too. I suppose this is just what happens when you have a workplace relationship. Meanwhile, Sara has had a rather rough falling out with Haysi. Sara keeps trying to get back together with her, but Haysi just finds keeping a secret that you can eat flesh a big turn off. As such, Sara will have to resort to drastic actions if she has any hope of keeping her relationships together. Will our Humans be able to keep their Venlil lovers by their side? What will be the broader implications once their secrets are exposed? Will the humans finally unlock xeno-compatibility? Found out all this and more on the next episode of Keeping up with the Venlil!!!
GLIM POV GLIM POV
Thank you for yet another chapter! It was to be expected that some of the institutions would quickly adapt to the new circumstances, such was the case with many religious, political and cultural entities throughout our history so it only makes sense it applies here as well. Human Exterminators though are a scary concept. It makes sense, the best way to take down a hunter is to make use of another one, even better if the second one is under your complete control. Also I do have a question, I am not sure if it was addressed earlier but with Meier dead alongside big portion of UN personnel following the siege of Earth, who exactly is in charge of Humanity? I assume most national governments have also either collapsed or are too busy trying not to collapse under the weight of damage done to the planet. Yet clearly someone still is in charge, orders are made and carried out. Is it perhaps the military council we saw in one of the first chapters? It would make sense, as I would certainly call a total war with a major galactic power, a state of emergency that would if not justify, then at least make it understandable for most humans that such council would take complete control. Still it would be cool to know whether that's the case or if am I completely wrong about it.
Isif teased who’s in charge of the UN, military rule has taken over the blue helmets. Secretary-General Zhao (the Chinese military general from the early chapters) is in command; considering the beating China took, his policies may be a bit less forgiving than Meier 🙏
Ah I see, thank you very much! I can now safely say that I will not be surprised at all if Aafa were to receive that third Punic war treatment.
I have a question, what are Extermination officers? We know thanks to Kalsim and the extermination fleet that they can use fleets to destroy predators so I thought that they were a branch of the military, in the tilfish home world they seem to act as werewolves ss divisions, and in venlil prime they act like police for predators and pests control. Either the role of EO changes depending of the species or I am blind and I am missing something.
Exterminators exist to wipe out predators, and anything that falls under that umbrella
So everything predator releated falls under their jurisdiction... I am surprised that they didn't take control of the government, they have to be a powerful faction at least in politics and military force. And before I forget I want to say thank you for creating this excellent series and I am waiting for the next chapter.
It’s my pleasure! Thanks for following the story 🙏
Exterminators exist to wipe out predators, and anything that falls under that umbrella
give it up for chapter 80!
yummy text 🗿
Poor Haysi, and poor Sara. I hope they work things out over time. It's just...a lot to take in, so Sara probably just needs time. Rather, this is the exact reason they were hesitant to break things to her all at once. Volek seems nice. But, perhaps unfairly to her, I'm focusing on the "seems" part here. Things haven't been fair for humans for a while now, and it is all too easy to imagine that this will turn out to have been misdirection, and it turns out the extermination guild has been hiding Glim this entire time. Of course, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Glim is specifically a "wildcard", with potential to go either way on this. Maybe the guild just wants to give him time to sort out his feelings without being literally hunted. That's an unacceptable risk for humanity, but perfectly reasonable for a moderate extermination guild. Oof. Cats, huh? Yeah, no. There should definitely have been a ban on taking pets interstellar. Leave the pet owners on Earth until the alien societies get their poop together at least. Now our kitties are in the crossfire, and even if the concern is legitimate, there's no way pet owners will stand for letting their babies get hurt.
Glim realistically shouldn't be an individual issue. If he takes extreme views there will be issues with many other refugees in the near future (if not current venlil). He's not a threat to society and if he becomes one that's a job for local police to handle. He's also a citizen and should be allowed to integrate with society. Unless they have a good idea of what to do after finding him, they're better off offering social services and making a nice public summary of recent events and the current state of venlil society. Maybe make a news broadcast or something. I can only consider this the worst possible response to someone terrified of predators on his homeworld. Don't hunt someone expecting to be hunted, especially if the entire point is to convince him of your good intentions. This needs to be very hands off, he clearly wants to come to his own conclusions now.
Made it.
Hi Edit: Hm, the idea of more progressive extermination offices is interesting. Is it possible in the future Humans can coexist without eliminating the offices? I'd like to know more
>. We even hired a few Terrans for pest control: an interesting concept, by the way.” Let me guess. One of them was named Hans.
>Sara cleared her throat. “Volek, how did you arrive at that conclusion so fast?” >“We track a few people ourselves. Investigating reports of predator disease, you know.” Heh, nice suspicion flag. Volek might not be on the up and up. Thanks for the chapter mate!
Ah piss, truncated ecosystems like Venlil prime where the native wildlife has lived without predators for a while are the exact ecosystem cats are known to devastate. Let’s hope we keep a tighter leash on them this time around
What happened to the Krakotl commander that landed on Earth?
well, I must say that the revelation of cats went much better than expected. but not as well as it could have gone
whats goin on with those kratol who >!crash landed into the tiger preserve on earth!< ?
Stay tuned 😅
People have more reasons other cuteness to keep cats. Cats are excellent for pest control, they will hunt and eat anything that might something of a nuisance to a genuine threat to a Human, or at minimum our young. Snakes, mice, birds, Insects, etc. Cats that are raised by Humans are normally extremely social, not just with Humans, but also other cats, which is an unusual phenomena in wild felines, and they will give their Humans extreme love and comfort, and often seek cuddling, which is something most humans will give. Cats also provide **IMMENSE** health benefits! They help with mental health, have been proven to lower the chances of heart attacks and strokes and there is scientific evidence that the purring of a cat, due to its frequency, can help heal muscle and bone. There is even some folk stories from where I am from that a cat will know where you're hurting, then it will instinctively lay down on that spot and start purring while sleeping on it to help you heal.
Interested in pest control huh? Well those feral predators you are so worried about are doing just that. Simply "deploy" the cat and that's it. To op: great as always :D 80 chapters and I still await the next one, not many stories have done that.
Except outside cats are only really good for pest control in rural areas, where they do more good then harm Seriously, unless you are a farmer or something, do not leave your cats outside without supervision, it's bad for the environment and it's bad for the cat
Cats are cute and cuddly murderous purring machines. But what kind of moron would bring their pets in a resettlement only to abandon them once resettled? Send the officers after them instead! Maybe even the human pest control, they will know the right kind of anger for that.
It's probably less "abandoned their pet" and more "pet got out and is exploring the new neighborhood".
People are stupid. They are on a completely different planet and they insist on bringing a pet like a cat? How many rats, mice, spiders, snakes and other "pets" have morons brought into an incredibly fragile ecosystem and let get out?
There are No Predators or Prey in the Galaxy
Just how large are the Venlil? I imagine hobbit-sized... they might actually like cats if they met some. Of course if they were smaller than a cat all bets are off.
Hobbit-sized is about right; the average Venlil comes up to the average human’s shoulders
oh well thats much bigger than hobbit size. i think they would be fine with cats
> Was there really a major infestation, so close to the capital? Government affairs might have to be placed on temporary hiatus, or moved to an emergency bunker. Or maybe you'll have to close a door
This makes me want a scene where Tarva observes how Noah or Sara manage to capture a cat by making noises at it. "pspspspsps"
Does the governor never go anywhere with any kind of venlil guards or aides? That seems a little odd, or maybe just a story oversight.
Why do I feel like none of them would listen if a human tried to explain that we picked up cats at around the time agriculture started being a thing, because mice/rats/birds eating your crops and destroying your harvest making you starve to death as a result is, erm, Bad. Rats and birds out of control, you get crop failures, and before pesticides there were... Cats, and Rat Terriers.
I suddenly don’t hate the exterminator officers. Like I understood where they were coming from, but they just felt so drastic. But now it seems that humanity and the exterminator guild are starting to see eye to eye.
"We even hired a few Terrans for pest control: an interesting concept, by the way.” I was looking for this exact sencence for a while. Human "exterminators" are a thing. :D