[Translated to english by the algorithms of MINERVA. The authors species language uses emphasis marks to denote nonverbal communication that do not translate to english well. MINERVA judges that a significant amount of meaning has been lost in translation. Using this translation for academic works is not recommended.]
Hello extranet! To new readers let me introduce myself. I am a heavily augmented Kusha known by the workname of Tzenter!
For those of you not in the same sector and have never met a Kusha, you can read a quick explanation below. If you are already familiar with us or don’t think its relevant, you can skip it.
We were originally a species of valley and tunnel dwelling fungus harvesters that are spored by ‘queens’ that aren’t considered the same kind of species as Kusha culturally. We are sorta like a drone race but we don’t have a hivemind or anything and all the ‘drones’ have full sapience. Kusha reach [roughly 4 feet] tall with our upright bodies. We have 4 legs that come out of our base at right angles to each other, to form a very steady base for our torso. We have two manipulator arms for harvesting fungus, ending in graspers with 11 slender fingers for harvesting just the edible parts of the fungus we eat without harming the growth potential of the plant. Our bodies are slightly furred for the cooler seasons when not as much light reaches our valleys. We have fairly spherical heads and large eyes adapted to low light conditions, at the standard light settings on most stations we need to wear goggles to not find the light levels uncomfortable. Our heads are topped by two sets of feeler antenna that aid in sensing vibrations and navigation when travelling tunnels, they also glow in the dark! This lets us see in tunnels deep enough that almost surface light reaches down there. The glows change with moods or intent and coworkers say the display can be aesthetically pleasing. After joining the galactic community, our dextrous fingers and higher than average aptitude to living in cramped ships have made us well suited to engineering roles on various starships in our sector.
Anyway! I decided to write this because the next job my crew is being sent on will be working with humans! I am sure many readers are very curious about humans, so I thought I would share my experiences with them as I do this job. There’s been a lot of pretty wild rumours about them ever since they joined the coalition during the latest ravager war. For non locals, the coalition is just the sectors mutual defence alliance and ravagers are a particularly nasty local predator species that eats sentients (I do not agree with those who lump all species with predatory heritage together, eating meat is not the same as eating people. Any comments made lumping all meat eaters along with ravagers will cause your account to lose access to all content). I hope I can clarify some of those rumours for all of you out there. I hope you trust me more than those rumourmongers who are simply making things up for attention. My existing content should give you some confidence of my truthfulness.
[Other content linked to on the authors content hub is mostly a lot of basic engineering guides. Care is made to provide tutorials that would be compatible with many kinds of species appendages or common models of mechanical augmentations used by species without the right kinds of appendages to manipulate the tools required. The other content found on the authors content hub is a few POV holo experiences of what it’s like to travel some of the larger space stations and how to order for food in local languages. The authors content is generally well reviewed.]
I have yet to finish travelling to the job site, so I haven’t met any humans yet, but some of the screening questions for job suitability can give us some hints as to what they are like! Much of it was the standard kinds of questions I would get on any big job with many kinds of species as workers, but some were less common or unique. While I cannot confirm those questions were there because of the humans on the job, we can use the info to at least judge if the rumours going around are more or less likely true.
The first question I got that was unique was if I was comfortable working in environments kept at [roughly .8G]! I can think of no species in this sector that requires environments at a gravity that high. Any unaugmented Kusha having to work in gravity that high would quickly have serious health problems, but I am heavily augmented, so I could handle that fine. I have high confidence that this is because of the human workers, unless some out of sector species I've never heard of before happen to be on the job also.
[TL note: there are some heavy cultural connotations to how augmented Tzenter is describing Ximself to be that you are missing out on. There are some heavy counterculture and counter racial purity ideas tied up in the exact words and light patterns used.]
Maybe the rumours of them being deathworlders is less insane than it sounds. Though obviously thats an exaggeration. [.8G] is high but that doesn’t make it a deathworld. Ive personally met species that came from high gravity worlds, not that high, but close to that high. Though the footage I’m sure most of you have already seen of human soldiers fighting in the war makes them seem much too fast to have come from a world with gravity that high. Take it from me, exosuits and augments can change your abilities pretty far from your species baseline. You don’t see any of them outside of armour in that footage, I find it entirely believable that a perfectly normal high gravity species would have their exosuits or augments tuned for speed for their soldier class.
Another question I got during screening that might be because of the humans, is if I was comfortable being around food items that could be considered [extremely, ranked 3 on a 4 point scale] dangerous to ingest for my species. I’ve worked with plenty of species that eat [high, ranked 2 on a 4 point scale] dangerous foods before. So I don’t have a super high confidence that this is human specific. But it might be a human thing! They could be meat eaters or consume some specific set of complex proteins my species can’t digest. Kusha have pretty robust digestions as long as it’s plant based, but it’s a big universe. That question is based on a baseline Kusha biology, So I can handle pretty dangerous food. No matter what species caused that question, I hope I can try whatever food is ranked that dangerous, as long as it’s not meat.
Something else that might be human specific was a set of questions around If I would be comfortable being around clothing made from animal product. The way it was phrased made me think they weren't talking about using shorn fur fibres to spin thread. Though that is already rather rare. One of my coworkers a few jobs ago gave me a neck warmer made of animal fur thread! [an image of what is essentially a woolen scarf is embedded] The way the questions were worded made me think maybe it was about using the actual hide of animals as clothing? Now before a disgusted mob swarms the comments, if a species is already eating an animal, using its other parts for other things is hardly worse, the animal already died. It won’t be double dead just because you used its skin instead of just its flesh. Could be something else though! Might be about using bones. I’ve known someone who had traditional religious garb that used bone fragments as buttons. This is how buttons work if you’ve never seen one. [embedded image of a diagram of how a button fastens clothes] How delightfully inventive in a low tech way. So this could have nothing to do with the humans, but the question is rare enough that it’s likely to be about them.
I am already anticipating people in the comments mentioning the rumours that humans wear the skins of their enemies. Obviously this rumour is fake. You can clearly see the human soldiers in the war footage wearing high tech armour, not the flayed remains of ravagers. Who even came up with that rumour? That’s disgusting. Even the worst ravagers only kept skulls as trophies.
other non conclusive things that I got asked if I was okay with that I put much lower likelyhood on being human specific: High oxygen environments, religious ceremonies I would not be asked to participate in, possible shedded feathers, music in communal areas, a possible spawning that might happen on the site in an emergency.
I will be reaching the work site in a few sleep cycles, I hope I will be able to meet a human when I get there and have more information for you all soon. Please come back to check the work log of Tzenter the Kusha then!