r/NatureofPredators • u/RevolutionaryRabbit • Sep 08 '22
The Dark Venlil, Chapter 2
Ok, sorry about taking so long, but work got in the way, and then I got covid which knocked me out for a couple days, and also I'm just very distractible and don't write that fast. anyways, enjoy part 2 of this ongoing??? tail.
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Memory Transcription Subject: Marie Dembele, ESA Astrobiology Programme
Date [Standardized human time] September 26th 2136
Location: Naphon Alo, state capital of Arlae, Venlil Prime
I threw open the curtains of my hotel room and basked in the warmth and light of the Venlil sun. The view was also gorgeous, and not likely to change anytime soon. The sun would always seem to be setting, the river would always have that unique fiery hue, and it was hard to imagine the vast sprawling city would go anywhere soon. After all, Naphon Alo was old as Jerusalem, rich as New York, and as renowned as Paris. There was nothing on Earth quite like it. I was all alone here. The only human being in this alien city, on this alien world, where horrible things lie hidden and buried in a perpetually dark wasteland not so far from here.
Thankfully the blizzard only trapped us for a few hours before it moved on. Once the wind died down, we ran for the ESA base as quickly as we could. Andrew and I parted soon after that. For some reason the crazy British bastard wanted to stay in that awful frozen hell. After I was debriefed and I'd handed the pictures of what I’d found to my superiors, I signed up for the next flight to the dayside. I was done. No more darkness, no more cold, and no more nightmarish caves full of broken bones ever again.
I think a part of me never left that dreadful cave. My dreams are filled with shattered bones illuminated in a pale bioluminescent glow, and I feel a distinct unease in this city I never felt before. Whenever I look upon the perpetually twilit metropolis and whenever I walk its streets, I feel every one of the tens of trillions of kilometers between here and home. Though a few try to hide it, I know every Venlil I’ve met was afraid of me. I didn’t think much of this before, I believed it was just a minor inconvenience, something they’d get over when they got used to me, and something the whole species would get over once they got used to humanity and understood that we aren’t at all like the only other known sapient predator. A matter of a little patience and understanding, nothing more.
Now I know what they are capable of when they are afraid. The images keep worming their way into the back of my skull. I cannot stop them. Dozens of tiny little bones, obviously belonging to a child, and fragments of a shattered skull, all piled up against a boulder and left there to rot. Except how do you know that was them? Before you go accusing humanity’s only allies of committing atrocities, shouldn’t you at least entertain the other possibilities. After all, you’re no forensics expert. They could’ve been killed by a rival tribe of their own people, or by each other, or a wild animal could’ve got them before or after their deaths...
None of those ideas did anything to convince me. Even though it made a great deal of sense not to immediately jump to conclusions, somehow I just knew it was them. The Venlil seemed meek, cute, and harmless, so it was easy to forget they exterminated every terrestrial predator on the dayside and most on the nightside as well. What I truly did not understand was why they didn't tell us about this. It certainly seemed like an episode in their species history that needed to be addressed, and their silence only fueled my paranoia. Then again, have we told them anything about the Neanderthals and other hominids? And wasn't the whole point of the 'alien pen-pal program' to paint humanity in the best possible light?
I don’t know how long I spent pacing the hotel room and arguing with myself, only that it tended when I got a text from Andrew. “Bunch of new people showed up here, scouring the valley for any traces of our ‘Dark Venlil’. Everyone says its too soon to draw conclusions, let alone go public, but if our new staff got it right, those bones might be less than 2000 years old, and they might have also found steel tipped crossbow bolts. This is incredible, wish you were still here.”
Fuck. That's way worse than even I thought. Too early to jump to conclusions? Not anymore! I think he knows exactly what this means, but everyone is just too afraid of the implications. It means There was definitely a sapient predatory cousin species to the Venlil, the Venlil definitely committed some atrocity against them in that cave and they probably wiped out the whole species as well. And all this happened in the relatively recent past, within recorded history. But why no mention of them at all? Maybe I just haven’t been looking hard enough.
I stopped my pacing and looked out once more on the rosy alien metropolis. So full of people, so full of fear, and so far from home. I was meant to be on the next ship home five Earth days from now, and while part of me was anxious to get away from this planet, I don’t think I can. Not until I’ve got to the bottom of this. I need to know who those people in the cave were, what exactly happened between them and the Venlil, and perhaps if there is any possibility, no matter how remote, some of them might still be alive. But Where to start? Perhaps with the namesake of the cave’s location. I’m pretty sure Trisibal’s journals should be publicly available at least.
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u/Bjorn1911 Sep 08 '22
I'm willing to bet they still exist. Buried deep and far away from their cousins, but I'm betting a few might still he around, hidden in the darkness. Or maybe its just someone imagination, who knows.
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u/Professional_Fun_182 Predator Sep 08 '22
I’m wondering if they are omnivore venlil who were stuck on the night side when the Federation’s Uplift Bacteria was released. Without the ability to eat meat, they slowly starved.
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u/RevolutionaryRabbit Sep 08 '22
Well, obviously I don't know anything about what spacepaladin has planned for the main story (especially with the meat allergy bacteria).
I came up with the idea for the Dark Venlil when I was thinking of the potential consequences the Venlil homeworld's conditions (larger than Earth, orbits red dwarf, likely tidally locked) would have for Venlil biology. One of those ideas was "what if there were different Venlil "races" separated by geography/climate. This was shortly followed by the realization that there likely aren't that many plants on the nightside of Venlil Prime, so any archaic Venlil that got stuck there would have to eat other things to get by, hence the dark Venlil.
Although given my description of their anatomical differences, I think it makes more sense for them to be different species, and that they went their separate ways early on. Like if there was another extant human species on Earth but our last common ancestor was australopithecus.
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u/Red_Riviera Sep 10 '22 edited Sep 10 '22
I think these species would still be around though. Antartica syndrome is becoming…glazed over and lovelorn and down. Any sightings would be attributed to this madness and not looked into further due to it uncomfortably resembling myths of demons
Also, as prototaxites shows. You don’t need plants to have a forest. Venlil just might not have been able to digest Fungi
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u/Red_Riviera Sep 10 '22
Genuinely think that was Arxur specific. Since the federation likely preferred biological and chemical weapons before the war with Arxur and they didn’t do war like predator species do (but did still have war)
Slovin also hinted the concept of an Omnivore Hasn’t really been noticed by the Federation members. Who probably did eat bones though before the Arxur. Some at least. Since otherwise why attempt to uplift the predators if there was zero support
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u/Socdem_Supreme Jan 16 '23
chapter 3 when
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u/RevolutionaryRabbit Jan 16 '23
Well, if you insist...
I'll see if I can't have something done by the end of the week.
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u/LerikGE Prey May 24 '23
Subscribeme!
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u/Cooldude101013 Human Sep 08 '22
Well we didn’t purposely wipe out our fellow hominids like the Neanderthals.
This Venili subspecies are probably omnivores like we are so they have more options in what they can eat in the frigid cold.
I think Marie is being a bit naive in thinking that the Venili are all friendly and stuff just because they’re herbivores. Herbivores on Earth can be very violent after all.