Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]
Speculative biology is simultaneously a science and form of art in which one speculates on the possibilities of life and evolution. What could the world look like if dinosaurs had never gone extinct? What could alien lifeforms look like? What kinds of plants and animals might exist in the far future? These questions and more are tackled by speculative biologists, and the Speculative Evolution welcomes all relevant ideas, inquiries, and world-building projects alike. With a member base comprising users from across the world, our community is the largest and longest-running place of gathering for speculative biologists on the web.

While unregistered users are able to browse the forum on a basic level, registering an account provides additional forum access not visible to guests as well as the ability to join in discussions and contribute yourself! Registration is free and instantaneous.

Join our community today!

Username:   Password:
Add Reply
Strangers in the Dark; a.k.a. Graes
Topic Started: Oct 18 2009, 09:58 PM (1,267 Views)
Canis Lupis
Member Avatar
Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the Earth.

My latest short story:

Strangers in the Dark
 
Strangers in the Dark
York Randall clutched his ears as he rose from his slumber, screaming out in pain as he stared at the clock on his bedside table. 3:00 in the morning, it read.

Fourth time this week, York thought. Don’t I ever get a break?

He sat on the side of the bed, tossed on his jacket, slipped on his slippers, and walked to the kitchen to grab himself some booze. York figured that since he was already up, he ought to stay up. In case the buzzing came back.

The buzzing had started about a year ago. Every night in his dreams, he would hear some sort of buzzing.

On one of those first instances, he dreamt he had been eating dinner with his family when an owl suddenly lighted on his shoulder, screeching. That was a low, slow buzzing sound.

However, his dreams had changed over the past few months. The owl had continued to appear, but it was always screeching, high and fast. Sounding like someone scratching a chalkboard while a bat screeched in the background.

Tonight was another classic episode. He had dreamt his girlfriend was sitting on the couch with him. About five minutes into the dream, the pretty twenty year-old’s body slowly morphed into that of a frail, grotesque owl. The beak was open and it was constantly buzzing, high and fast.

York sleepily stumbled into the kitchen, ramming his right shoulder into the wall as he went. He opened the refrigerator door, reached for a beer and some ham, and slammed the door shut.

Then, turning to the sliding glass door, he saw them.

He never thought they could exist, but there they were.

The late night darkness had a tendency to swallow up all visible light, making seeing anything impossible. But he saw them, staring at him through the sliding glass door with their cold black eyes.

He could not help but think of Heather O’Rourke’s lines in “Poltergeist” as he stared at them. “They’re here” just about said it all.

The owls had appeared.

* * * * * *

York dropped the unopened beer bottle on the floor, soaking his feet with the drink. He rushed back into his bedroom and fumbled in his closet.

At last he saw the gun case, left there by the home’s previous owner. There were about five rifles, with the bullets lying in a shoebox not far from the gun case. York had lost the key a few years back and, figuring that he would never use one of those guns, never got a new one.

So, as an alternative, he gripped a Louisville Slugger, which was leaning against the case, stepped out of the closet, and launched it. The all-glass case shattered and there was a dent in the closet’s back wall, but York paid no heed.

“Shoot first, fix ‘er up later,” York said to himself as he quickly loaded the bullets. He ran out of the room, switching the safety off as he ran.

Once in the kitchen, he crouched beside the table and rested the barrel of his rifle on the surface. He attached the scope and aimed at the small space between the owl’s large eyes.

But, as York crouched there, owls in his scope, he realized these creatures were not owls. Rather, these were something altogether new.

The first evidence against these strangers in the dark being owls was their apparent lack of any wings or feathers. In fact, they did not seem to possess any kind of body covering at all. Just pale, grey skin.

Then it was their heads. Owls had circular heads. These marauders’ heads were shaped like teardrops.

The mouth and nose of these creatures did not seem to be apparent either. Nor were the ears obvious.

What was obvious were the eyes that seemed to dominate the face. These eyes were almond-shaped, nearly taking up the whole face. These eyes, jet-black and forlorn-looking, appeared not to give away any emotion. They appeared to just stare right through his heart. Studying him. Reading his emotions.

York crouched for about fifteen minutes while the creatures stared at him, not appearing to do anything but study.

Then, the creature closest to the glass, being of a more purplish hue than the rest, held up its hand. Its hand appeared to be covered in some sort of white form-fitting material. It pressed this hand against the glass, which seemed to melt before York’s eyes.

York fired, but the creature dodged effortlessly.

How could a creature dodge a bullet? York wondered. I ain’t gotta chance!

As soon as the purplish creature stepped over the lump of melted glass, it aimed its hand at York’s forehead and fired.

* * * * * *

York had no idea what hit him. All he knew was that some red light had flooded his body and he became unconscious. Now he lay on his back, on a cold metal table, staring into a red overhead light.

He was completely exposed to the cold metallic feel of the room, his clothes appearing to have disintegrated. But that was the least of his worries: the creatures were entering.

As they entered, he noticed their foul odor for the first time. It smelled like a rose covered in a skunk’s scent. Horrible, and wretched, to him, but his captors did not seem to mind.

The creatures surrounded York’s body, each one’s left hand covered in a white glove-like tool. These beings were more grayish than their purple counterpart, which York simply referred to as Purple.

These gray-skinned creatures, which York called Grays, just seemed to stare at him. As their cold black eyes perused him, he felt emotionally drained. Incoherent and out of touch with the world.

The Grays began screeching that high and fast buzzing noise York had so often heard in his dreams. This time, however, York could not cover his ears and was forced to deal with the torture of their piercing, tormented scream.

Purple was now entering the room, both its hands covered in those alien-looking gloves. The Grays began to calm down, silently communicating amongst each other.

As they were communicating, York felt as if he had entered a crowded concert hall in which all the audience members were a wide combination of scents, both sweet-smelling and foul. He soon figured out they spoke with these scents.

Lucky me, he thought.

Then, he smelled a particularly sweet-smelling scent. One that seemed to represent comfort. Soon after this scent had filled the room, Purple, who had emitted the scent, was up by York’s head, hands clutching his ears.

And slowly, as before, York began to slip out of consciousness.

* * * * * *

The next morning, York found himself sprawled on the floor of his kitchen, emotionally drained.

Then, feeling some sort of pain and sudden warmth in his groin, he rushed to the bathroom. He slammed the door, kicked the toilet seat up, and let it flow.

Afterwards, he felt drained again, continuing to feel pain down there. No warmth; just pain.

Suddenly, he became cognizant of the pain in his forehead. He winced and screamed, then rushed over to the mirror just above the sink.

While looking in the mirror, he noticed a mark on his forehead, hidden just below a bright red line, which appeared to be a neatly-cauterized surgical cut.

“It’s mocking me,” York said as he stared at the symbol. The symbol, which looked similar to , reminded York of the Grays and Purple, the thin perpendicular line separating the half-circles, just like the nose separating the creatures’ large eyes.

As if on cue, he struck the symbol with his palm. A burning sensation raced from his groin to his hand and burned into his forehead, as if to activate the symbol.

“Stay right where you are,” a sinister voice from within the symbol hissed. “We’re not done with you yet.”

The buzzing began again. High and fast.




And the movie trailer that started it all:














Reason I'm posting this:

What's your opinion of the Graes (the aliens)?

And how can we make them more plausible while still keeping in mind the basic things people see? Basically this list:

  • A high and fast buzzing noise, which may be either interspecies communication or just another mode of communication for the Graes.

  • Pale-gray skin

  • A bipedal, humanoid stature

  • A lack of opposable thumbs

  • A frail, child-like appearance

  • Large eyes, which may or may not be a sign of strong vision

  • An underdeveloped or non-existant olfactory, auditory, digestive, respiratory, or reproductive system. However, since a Grae has never been autopsied or studied in detail, these may just be based on outward appearance

  • An interest in human abduction, which appears to be grounded in fact

  • An interest in cattle mutilation and crop circle formation, which appears to be overly stereotypical

  • An enlarged, teardrop shaped head

  • An apparently well-developed civilization
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Holben
Member Avatar
Rumbo a la Victoria

I don't think we would meet aliens like that. Any other races would exterminate them. And the appearance, why would they be humanoid? It's the sign of fiction.
Blues are the nice ones, what other types are there?
Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea.

"It is the old wound my king. It has never healed."
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Ddraig Goch
Member Avatar
Ar hyd y nos

I don't think there's any reason why another intelligent race could not be humanoid - although it is unlikely. Also, the Roswell incident. Around the time, there were reports of about a dozen crashed UFO's. Do these greys not have driving tests, or something?

One thing I've always wondered about is the mouth. Just a line, or a small hole. Apparently, it's only used for breathing. Do they photosynthesize, then?
Save the Blibbering Humdinger from extinction!
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Holben
Member Avatar
Rumbo a la Victoria

They eat the engine of the ship, so it crashes.
Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea.

"It is the old wound my king. It has never healed."
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Ddraig Goch
Member Avatar
Ar hyd y nos

So even aliens have idiots?

Thing is though, a landslide in Peru in (I think the 1980's) churned up a load of skulls. Most of them seemed roughly humanoid, but with a massive cranium. Now, I know the Inca's used to bind the heads of their children, making them weird shapes, but eventhat can't explain how big the brains of these things must have been.
Save the Blibbering Humdinger from extinction!
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Scrublord
Member Avatar
Father Pellegrini
 *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *
But why would alien skulls be made of the same material as human skulls? And di anyone do a DNA sample?
My Projects:
The Neozoic Redux
Valhalla--Take Three!
The Big One



Deviantart Account: http://elsqiubbonator.deviantart.com

In the end, the best advice I could give you would be to do your project in a way that feels natural to you, rather than trying to imitate some geek with a laptop in Colorado.
--Heteromorph
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Ddraig Goch
Member Avatar
Ar hyd y nos

I don't know whether anyone did a DNA sample. But I think the scientists said that they weren't a hoax.

Thing is though, the amount of legends, pictograms, carvings, accounts and actual evidence would seem to suggest that aliens have been flying around our skies ever since the first civilisation occured. Scientists hypnotised people after reports of abductions, and found that almost the entire population of the USA has memories of being abducted! And presumably this happens all over the world... surely the human body isn't that complex? And why travel all that way (presuming that they didn't just come from Venus) just to study a primitive, badly-adapted species? It makes literally no sense! :angry:

(PS Not angry at any of you, just angry at the lack of sense!)
Edited by Ddraig Goch, Oct 19 2009, 04:25 PM.
Save the Blibbering Humdinger from extinction!
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Temporary
Transhuman
 *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *
1. The skulls, some were just caused by the skull augmentation. Others suffered from hydrocephalus or something similar. They were human, if I am remembering the right event.

2. The hypnosis can't be taken seriously. False memories are created through hypnosis.

3. As for legends and myths, well, I'll say this. The farther back you go the harder it is to understand what they were talking about. So mostly, I don't count this as evidence.

4. I want to believe. I honestly do. Do you how many people have seen ufos or something, and weren't lying or nuts? We have serious scientists that, a nuclear physicist comes to mind, that is incredibly famous for these things. Some of the mythological 'evidence' really makes me wonder. That said, I'm still a skeptic. I haven't seen enough to beleive, and I won't until an alien knocks of my door and says 'Hi, can I borrow some antimatter for my super-baryon realtivistic drive?'
Quote:
 
When the student is ready, the teacher will appear


I'm here.

Posted Image

Uploaded with ImageShack.us
Should we bring back Recon? Click here to share your opinion.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Kain
Member Avatar
Adolescent
 *  *  *  *  *
Every time I see representations of Grey's or hear a story about abductions of, or contact with, the Grey's, and given their extremely humanoid appearance, only one possible explaination makes sense for me.

Time travelling archeologists from the future.
Abducting cows is how they study extinct animals.

I mean, think about it:
500.000.000 years ago: The first vertibrae survives because there is no hunter in it's era agile enough to pose a threat to it.
450.000.000 years ago: Fish develop a brain to outsmart the sea-scorpions.
400.000.000 years ago: The first amphibians go to dry land to escape sharks and other giand fishes.
200.000.000 years ago: A mass extinction wipes out the reptile-mammals, and gives rise to mammals and the dinosaurs.
65.000.000 years ago: A meteorite wipes out the dinosaurs and gives rise to mammals.
10.000 years ago: An ice age produces Homo Sapiens.
(...More or less...)

We are a product of extreme coincidences, statistically impossible to happen in another life-faring world with the same results.
Edited by Kain, Oct 19 2009, 05:48 PM.
Everybody wants to find a buried treasure chest.
But no one wants to bury one... If you do, be my guest.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Canis Lupis
Member Avatar
Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the Earth.

My personal opinion: this things could exist. Even with a humanoid stance. If these Graes come from a lower gravity world, the bipedal stance would be rather helpful. Especially as predators.

Now, abducting and studying humans is another story. I don't believe in UFO's or abduction or Roswell or anything like that. But I do believe in aliens. I just don't believe they've come to visit us yet.

But still...what if?




Anyway, about the small mouth, I've noticed that some depictions of Graes have wrinkles around their mouth. To me, this suggests that the mouth can expand to swallow larger prey. It just comforms to a smaller shape when not in use.

I'm of the mind that the Graes have evolved the inner layer of their lips into some sort of tooth-plate for chewing. This would be effective for its ancestors, but I don't see it as being all that desirable in the modern Graes.

Due to intelligence and lack of evidence of any solid food, I'm of the mind that modern Grae upperclass (made of warriors, scientists, and nobility) surgically removes these teeth-plates early in life as the main Grae religion (which perceives the Graes as the pinnacle of evolutionary development and where the Graes worship themselves) teaches that teeth-plates are a remnant from an inferior past. All inferior signs must be removed in order to ascend into even greater evolutionary superiority.




Holbenilord: to answer your question, my research has told me of three different kinds of Graes. These are:
  • Graes with light gray skin
  • Graes with dark gray skin
  • Graes with purplish gray skin





In no way am I suggesting that Graes actually exist, nor am I suggesting that the Graes would be this way if they did exist. It's just some characteristics based on eyewitness accounts, photos, and artist depictions.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Ddraig Goch
Member Avatar
Ar hyd y nos

The grays-religion-thing may be speculation, but it's definately plausable. I too believe that intelligent life may be out there, but the whole grays-thing may just be hallucinations or false memories, like Temporary said.

The idea of an expandable mouth is very interesting. I think it would explain a lot.

I think that if we were to try and explain how such things have evolved, we would have to have an idea of what conditions they evolved in.
Save the Blibbering Humdinger from extinction!
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Temporary
Transhuman
 *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *
Well, as I said, I do WANT to believe, I just can't. But there is one theory that jumps to mind:

Another alien group called the Reptoids, slightly less common in abductions but still present, evolved on Earth and went into space. Eventually they engineered the Greys for slaves and went from there.

Now, as for their appearance, the Grey may have been the product of mixing hominid and cetacean genetics in ways to create slaves. The small mouths and lack of enough room for most known organ structures could be a way of limiting their homeostasis, forcing them to be reliant on injections of certain drugs to keep them as slaves. Their eyes may be modified version of cetacean eyes to be visible in the dark of space, and they have grey skin which would be prone to UV damage.

Finally, the abductions could be explained by a small group trying to rebel, stealing human genes to make their descendents, which in this theory are related to humans, less reliant on the live-giving slave-master Reptoids, effectively helping to make them free.

Or the idea they are from the future makes since too. Especially when considering the oh so common quote "We have the right to do this".
Quote:
 
When the student is ready, the teacher will appear


I'm here.

Posted Image

Uploaded with ImageShack.us
Should we bring back Recon? Click here to share your opinion.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Ddraig Goch
Member Avatar
Ar hyd y nos

Oh, the Reptoids. I'd forgotten about them. Don't some believe them to be planning a"great invasion", to try and turn the Earth back into the Mesozoic-dinosaury place it was when they left? (Some believe that they settled in the Draco constellation, but that would just be way too much of a coincidence).

I think that slaves could be true of the grays. Perhaps not to overgrown dinosaurs with blasters, but they do seem a bit too interested in Earth and humanity. Perhaps they have merely been ordered to abduct and examine as many humans as possible...

That's it! We're the equivilant of frogs in a biology classroom;

"Today, we will be studying the primitive, sapient lifeform of the small planet which we are currently orbiting, Earth. Now, if you all take out your laser scalpels..."

Still, whilst all this is probably most true of the grays (if they exist), I still wonder what conditions a planet would have to have to cause them to evolve into weird goblin-thingies.

Save the Blibbering Humdinger from extinction!
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Kain
Member Avatar
Adolescent
 *  *  *  *  *
What if they were aliens that use some natural form of shapeshifting?
How about an octopus-like alien with tentacles elastic and strong enough to be able to take humanoid form? Something like this (I made it in a hurry).

Posted Image

A suit with gloves could cover the tentacles, so it could pass as humanoid.
The reason for an alien to do all that, though, I can't even begin to imagine...
Everybody wants to find a buried treasure chest.
But no one wants to bury one... If you do, be my guest.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Temporary
Transhuman
 *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *
Look up Mimic Octupus. That sounds a lot like a sophont version of one, I'll admit.
Quote:
 
When the student is ready, the teacher will appear


I'm here.

Posted Image

Uploaded with ImageShack.us
Should we bring back Recon? Click here to share your opinion.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous)
Go to Next Page
« Previous Topic · The Habitable Zone · Next Topic »
Add Reply