Chapters tagged roommate

by Zeebop

Chapter 69

> Brain slugs have no written history. They carry their memories in generational hive minds, with important memories shared widely among members to act as a baseline cultural memory. The loss of a single brain slug host and its memories does not mean all of its memories are gone,...

by Zeebop

Chapter 70

> Dreaming is not a common trait among extraterrestrial species; very few experience true unconsciousness as many Earth species understand it, much less the altered state of association that is dreaming. Brain slugs had never encountered a host species that dreamed be...

by Zeebop

Chapter 72

> Every single sapient extraterrestrial species in the Exodus has, at some time or another, been a brain slug host species. For humanity, it was the equivalent of finding out the new person interested in you has a hundred exes, and they all have stories.—*Slug Sutra*, chapter 7...

by Zeebop

Chapter 73

> On their home world, brain slugs presumably had some form of recorded media of their own, but in the diaspora, the various hive minds tend to adopt local media and technologies, and the archives shift to reflect the makeup and capabilities of their host species. It makes no sen...

by Zeebop

Chapter 74

> A brain slug budding isn't celebrated like a childbirth. The brain slug isn't a person until they're integrated with a host. A brain slug is a potential person. It is also a potential meal for any passing animal. That doesn't mean brain slugs don't care for their genetic clones...

by Zeebop

Chapter 75

> Brain slugs have a concept, translated into English variously as *familiar* or *sexpet*, though there are deeper connotations. In various environments, brain slugs have discovered sapient organisms whom they value for production and companionship more than they desire a new hos...

by Zeebop

Chapter 76

For the refugees of the Exodus, the apocalypse had already happened. They lived in the aftermath of the end of everything they knew. Their home worlds, their native biospheres and cultures, were lost to them. They landed on a strange world, outnumbered, outgunned, with limited re...

by Zeebop

Chapter 77

> Brain slugs understand in the way dog or horse breeders do: as a way to concentrate certain traits, at the danger of exacerbating certain recessive characteristics. Human taboos and kinks were alien to them. They adapt. > —Anastasia Massimi, *Slugnomicon: A Guide To Br...

by Zeebop

Chapter 78

> Earth's unrestricted media broadcasts provided considerable cultural enrichment to the children of the stars before the ships even approached Earth orbit. The hastiness of their flight from the collapsing intergalactic node meant their own store of cultural works was relatively...

by Zeebop

Chapter 79

> Consent means many things to many different cultures across many species. From the sparse historical records available, it seems clear that some cultures were willing to sell people to the brain slugs to use as hosts; others sent condemned criminals to the brain slugs as a form...

by Zeebop

Chapter 80

> Humans have dreamed of first contact for over a century. Yet when it happened, there were so many who were scared. They saw refugees as threats, or worse, strategic advantages over their enemies in their own petty, bullshit conflicts. Politicians can be imaginative in all the w...

by Zeebop

Chapter 81

> The oldest cultures had experienced this before. The Murkers, the Brain Bats, and Brain Slugs had all been refugees previously, had gained and lost worlds. They were not the most ; they were the most understanding. They told the humans that whatever happened, things wo...

by Zeebop

Chapter 82

> Imagine something slimy dropping onto your neck. The instinctive urge to reach back, rip it off. By the time you do, it's too late. A painful burn, as intense as if someone dripped red-hot steel on your spine. Then paralysis. Voluntary muscle control is gone within seconds. At...

by Zeebop

Chapter 83

> Many died. They are still dying. The integration of extraterrestrials into Earth's ecosystem and human systems is ongoing. Already, more of them have been born on Earth than remain from the initial group of refugees from the stars. More arrive—latecomers, from more distant poin...

by Zeebop

Chapter 84

> This work would not have been possible without the assistance of brain slugs and other extraterrestrial species who agreed to interviews and to open their archives for this project. When, in one of my emails, I asked why they would reveal such information to a human who might c...

by Zeebop

Chapter 85

> The technological revolution from the Exodus is ongoing. Knowledge is currency, and the various factions among the refugees have generally been careful in the release of technological information and expertise, parlaying their information into resources and political capital. N...

by Zeebop

Chapter 86

> The hive mind is not careless. It rarely intends to hurt individuals. Yet it can, and does. It is too big, and they are too small. In its plans for the future good of the hive, the species, and the world, the dreams and feelings of a single human being are often overlooked and...

by Zeebop

Chapter 87

> None of the extraterrestrial species were built for Earth's gravity, or for exactly Earth's atmosphere. They chose Earth because it was as close as they could get to a habitable world. Yet many species cannot adapt. They remain locked on their ships, unable to leave without pro...

by Zeebop

Chapter 88

> In the Sahara, glass spires rise, an echo of a desert planet whose quasi-insectoid inhabitants looked up from their nests and dreamed of the stars. In the warm waters of Florida, the Greyan pods make their homes half on water and half on land. Lower oxygen levels at high altitu...

by Zeebop

Chapter 89

> The United States, European Union, and most Commonwealth republics and realms have, through explicit constitutional amendments, accepted birthright citizenship for extraterrestrials born within their territory and acceded limited autonomy to their governments by treaty. However...