All characters are aliens, and it is from their perspective throughout the story. The humans are more like NPCs, and there are no human main characters. The humans in the story will have a purpose, but they are not the focus of the story and are not written from a human perspective. Keep this in mind when reading. Because I will have difficult and uncomfortable parts in the story that I know many people don't want to read or reflect on the deeper reasons why this is, and why it has happened. It will be very different than what we understand and believe, and most likely will be uncomfortable as you learn more about the aliens and their culture and language. Hopefully, the differences won't be too off-putting, but again, the reader will read and learn something outside their comfort zone. You'll see this in their language. This story is about the aliens and how they see humans and Earth. Most of the content in the story has historical fiction with scientific theories and hypotheses and scientific laws (scientific facts), alien mythology and lore, religion, anthropology, sociology, physics, astronomy, pop culture, philosophy, and so much more. Eventually, I will publish all the information discussed and written in the story for readers to look up the knowledge mentioned and to further educate themselves (if you want ;3). The timeline in the story is very fluid, sometimes not existing, because the aliens experience time differently from humans. The aliens exist outside the 3rd dimension that we exist in. There will be parts in chapters where the aliens jump around from one dimension to another, and therefore, past, present, and future are experienced differently for aliens so that they can be in more than one place at once. Hopefully, this won't become confusing. The names of the aliens are the names of a title or position they are seen and placed in (i.e., The Sentinel, The Mentor, The Pupil, Brother, Sister, The Informant, etc.). These titles are interchangeable among the aliens because each one does more than one job or position in their society, similar to us (e.g., a teacher, a student, a parent, a sibling, etc.). You will learn more about this in the story. There are a lot of complex topics and themes that are different from what we know it as, and most of the alien world (e.g., dimensions, wormholes, black holes, space, and so forth) is based on science.
This is my first sci-fi, and I'm not a sci-fi enthusiast, but I do enjoy sci-fi. I had this story idea since I was a child growing up. I didn't write this story because I felt I didn't have enough life experiences to fully write the story until now, and with the encouragement and support from friends and family, I decided to write it finally. I hope that readers can deeply connect and imagine being in a world beyond our dimension. To think outside the box and see things from the point of view of the other, which, unfortunately, is something many people struggle with. The quote above by Alan Wilson Watts encapsulates the theme of the story and something readers should continue to reflect on while reading each chapter. We as humans seem to repeat our atrocities in the most terrible ways throughout history. It has always perplexed me since I was a child why people hate, rape, discriminate, and violence; and it continues to be a question many scholars and philosophers wonder, why are humans this way? Philosophers and scholars from all over have pondered this concept. The truth is, there is no clear answer to the question of what makes a human, human. Are humans born evil, or is it taught? Can humans change? A question The One Between is trying to understand and answer in their quest for knowledge.
When I watch sci-fi films (including TV series) and literature, the aliens always have the same trope, and it always bothered me. Aliens are always depicted as colonizing, violent, evil, committing mass genocide, annihilating humans, or taking over the planet to steal the resources, or a new home planet to steal from the humans. Aliens are usually depicted negatively, and I always wonder why that is. I realize that aliens are depicted this way in pop culture and literature because humans are projecting onto aliens the same things we humans do to each other. It is tragic what humans do to each other since the dawn of our early ancestors, and yet it is the 21st Century, and we still, as a species, have not evolved away from our violent pasts. We only repeat it. Humans have not evolved out of this self-destructive nature. Our history has shown this, and it has not changed throughout the world. I hope that this story will help people understand themselves, to learn and face the difficult topics that humanity has created, and understand what it truly means to be human. Knowledge is a power. Knowledge is neither good nor evil; it is in how we use it. Knowledge can't be taken away, but, a source of freedom and power. Knowledge is pain. Don't allow yourself to be ignorant; educate yourself so that humanity doesn't go down the same destructive path we continue to leave behind for future generations. And if humans go extinct from the chaos we are currently living in: global warming, climate change, pollution, wars, political conflict, migration/immigration, food scarcity and starvation, global unrest, class and race wars, etc.; what kind of human footprint do we want aliens (from an advanced civilization we are no where near close to achieving) to find and learn about us as a species? What would you say to them about what makes us human?
I hope you enjoy the story.
Preface
The aliens communicate both telepathically and verbally. They also project their feelings/emotions and the specific meaning about what it is they are communicating about, so that there is no misunderstanding when they are communicating.
Communication in Italic: telepathy
Communication in bold: the feeling of their emotions (how the individual feels when speaking is also felt by the listener), clarifying the specific meaning when verbally communicating
Communication in italicbold: both telepathy and the projection of the speaker's emotions to the listener, so that they can feel and understand what is being said
The Glossary of the Alien Language is located at the end of this chapter. Words with a capitalized first letter refer to the language of the aliens. The words in this chapter appear in order in the glossary.