07/11/12 Skepticism In The Room


Theoretically I’m arriving with the huge moving truck tonight as this posts. Wish me luck it all went well!

For your entertainment, here is Emily Taylor if she were starring in “A Fistful of Dollars.”


  1. stevegallacci

    Awoo, not another interstellar Johnny Appleseed. Unless, it is JUST Eebs and Earthers. It would also mean that the two planet’s ecologys are dangerously compatible/vulnerable to each other. If we’re talking really early life, there are natural mechanisms (massively unlikely, but not totally impossible) for one of the biomes to inocculate the other. More likely (and within the devious range of our Author) are time travelers or someone out there playing to a REALLY long game.

  2. Prior Semblance

    I’d imagine that it’s just humans and eebs (or maybe a small group of species), if it was everyone then red-9 would have no scientific basis for saying it was impossible and surely this isn’t the first cross-species DNA comparison in recent galactic history.

  3. Sarah P.

    @John Lenton: Wow, the resemblence is indeed uncanny!

    I wonder if Dimitri will pull a Yuri and give himself some superpowers. Although yeah, the fact that Yuri put on permanent cat ears (that have yet to shrivel or atrophy) does mean that physiology is compatible with humans too.


  4. CompaniaHill

    I wonder if Yuri’s telekinetic power are actually enabled by the triple combination of her own DNA, the DNA in the fragment of Eeb brain she acquired *and* the DNA from Flineous’s ears? Or maybe her telekinetic powers only activated because she lost all her limbs. That would suck. “I want telekinetic power.” “Okay, get the Eeb DNA and the ax.” Eww.

  5. Night-Gaunt

    If all interstellar life uses the same amino acids, there are others not in use here, it would lower the compatibility problem. And if you had the ability to make any graft fully consonant with your DNA compliment then graftings would be unlimitless. I just wish Yuri wasn’t in stasis all the time but she needs her R-complex toned down so she won’t have the urge to kill and destroy.

  6. Corpore Metal

    Frankly, I’m far more surprised the Dmitri never ran a approxiscan on the Eebs many weeks or months before then to see if he could get busy with them. I mean it seems to be his usual mode. Every new organism he comes across:

    Can I have sex with it?

    What? He never did this with the Eebs? Or maybe he avoided doing so because they were engineered to be a slave species. And he just couldn’t bring himself to cross that line. (Which means he does have a heart under that drinkin’, fornicatin’, shootin’ witty but mostly detached exterior.)

  7. Muzhik

    @stevegallacci, re: the time traveler hypothesis (wherein Dimitry really DOES get to have sex with his great-great-great-etc. grandmother), not really. I’m thinking the Eebs (aka Homo Sapiens Eeb) would be a prior sapient race on Earth, prior to their destruction/enslavement and the rise of that wild and crazy species known as Homo Sapiens Sapiens.

    And yes, while that would mean that the GOB, for the past 1,000,000 years or so (give or take an epoch) has been using Eeb slaves to do all their work for them, it just means that the entire GOB has been in a creative stagnant pool for the past 1,000,000 years (give or take a few draak-sim rotations). IOW, NO OTHER SPECIES has been doing any creative work, since they’re just able to tell the Eebs to do it for them. This is with the notable exception of the Mihrrgoots, who invented the Dark Light Speed Drive all by themselves. The Mihrrgoots also prove that creativity really does turn you into a real d*ck.

    Duck. I meant to say duck. (Never mind…)

  8. Prairie

    omgomgomgomgomgomgomgomg! super awesome delicious plot, now with extra twistberries!!

    just take the entire paradigm of human history and give it a little turn, like… *this* and Dmitri’s drink falls in slow motion to the floor.

    And lol at “double rainbow” and “eeb magnons”

  9. Snail


    I wasn’t expecting it at all, but it’s entirely believeable and jaw-dropping shocking in a “MAKES SENSE BUT OMG SUDDEN PLOT TWIST” kind of way — and even though I accepted “human/eeb brain merger because it’s wacky scifi technology”, this makes a million times more sense and I appreciate it. 😀

  10. You know this means that Eebs are also related to …mice, monkeys, pigs, all the other species we share some chunk of DNA with, which is, like, damn near everything…

    so I suppose the drink-dropping implication is…uh, we’re all galactic brothers, and all that…is this news, what am I missing here?

  11. Spyder

    I think the implication are more as follows – Humans are sentient(given their reception at GOB this does not seem to be in doubt) but Eebs are not(again this is from the point of view of the GOB) – But now it is revealed that Humans and Eeb are closely related, close enough for an Eeb brain graft to take succesfully in a Human . . .
    Think about what would happen if this got out!

  12. Niall

    I think the most fascinating implication is what the common ancestor must have been. Earth’s a dark planet and the Eebs never left their planet, so that implies that either we don’t know about interplanetary travel or a common ancestor visited both planets.

    Although I’m sure Dimitri has a more important implication in mind that we haven’t thought of.

  13. Muzhik

    @Richard Roberson, we’ll probably have to consult a real biologist on this, BUT I think the correct designations would be “Homo Sapiens Eebian” (them) and “Homo Sapiens Sapiens” (us).

    This whole double sapiens deal is because some scientists argue that one of our ancestors should be called “Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis” rather than “Homo Neanderthalensis”; i.e., we’re cousins instead of direct descendants. To say “Homo Eebian” puts them in the same evolutionary path as Homo Erectus and Homo Habilis.

    @Coffeeteacoffee, it means we REALLY need to win the war to have Eebs declared sentient/sapient. If we’re that close to Eebs and the Eebs are being held as slaves, what does that bode for us and our solar systems enormous deposits of darkhuenium?

    @Niall, what is our common ancestor? I’m voting for the Lemur!

  14. So, did someone already succeed in creating non-telekinetic Eebs (and seeded the Earth with them) or did someone already succeed in creating telekinetic humans (that would be the Eebs). And what aspect of this is Dimitri freaking out about? Aside from the risk to the Earth if it’s classed as a potential threat to the GOB?

  15. stevegallacci

    I suspect the common ancestor might be more on the level of some early bacteria rather than proto-hominid or some such. Very basic DNA compatability could have a three or four billion year separation and still be viable.

  16. KarlMonster

    OMG! Dimitri *dropped* his drink!!!!1!!

    Dimitri couldn’t drop his drink if he was stunned, fornicating in zero gravity AND was using both hands and at least one foot to … um … entertain his … um … companion.

    I mean, just look – Dimitri is having his skin ripped off, but he doesn’t drop his drink. OK, yeah, that’s cause it’s on the table. But the point is that something unusual just happened.

    … so I’m guessing that he’s just realized where the tea cookie recipie came from.

  17. Joraiem

    Not sure if this was Dimitri’s thought or not, but the first thing I thought of was:

    “Ohhh so Dimitri can literally BREED the telekinesis out of the Eebs.” *wink wink nudge nudge*

  18. I think one of the biggest concerns Dimitri might have is that if it can be shown that Eebs and Humans share a common ancestor, then the GOB might just declare Humans non-sentient. That would total screw their plans to get Earth to present the Eebs cause to the Galactic Council. Earth would go from being a “dark planet” inhabited by non-space-faring sentient beings (with rights) to an “uninhabited” planet with RICH mineral deposits ripe for plunder in the outer reaches of its system. Now, of course, its possible to have sentient and non-sentient species that share common ancestors (chimps and people), but the GOB doesn’t seem to be the kind of group that would allow facts to get in the way of political convenience or economic gain. So this seems like something Dimitri and the Eebs should keep to themselves.

  19. zb

    Dimitri has just realized that such a perfect satire of human nature as the Eebs can mean only one thing: He and everyone and everything he knows is actually fictional. The Irken armada will now arrive.

  20. Pingback: Spacetrawler - 09/26/12 Human And Eeb History

Leave a Reply to J Fred Slowvehicle Cancel reply
