“I’ve been stationed here and watching them for a long time. I wouldn’t have asked you to come this far if I wasn’t serious.”
“Alright, but I hope you understand what it is you’re suggesting. This would contradict everything we know about them!”
“That’s why it’s important! I needed you to come see it for yourself, describing it just wasn’t enough.”
“Fine, take me through it from the top…I guess.”
“Thank you. Well, as you can see, they use those machines to move their bodies farther and faster. These machines have only been available to them for a short time, but since their invention, they have become essential to this society.”
“That’s pretty standard. Transport machines are an early engineering milestone for a species of their tech-level, no?”
“Certainly, we’ve seen similar machines on other worlds. The difference here is how they treat them, build them, and style them. They are obsessed with them.”
“Perhaps the machines could be religious idols to them?”
“I thought so too. They have been tearing their planet apart to build more machines and keep them fed with raw materials. They even design their cities to be better suited for the machines than their own bodies. But no, they appear to be only travel-vessels, nothing more significant.”
“Okay, if they don’t worship them…why are there so many? They’re everywhere.”
“There’s about one per being. Once they reach the adult stage of their life cycle, the fully grown beings get a machine. They also use them to carry their young sometimes.”
“Hang on, they each receive their own personal machine?”
“Yes! Look, there’s usually only one being sitting in each machine! They each pick out their own and select its color and shape. There is even a hierarchy of shapes. Some machine-shapes are more appealing and fast than others. The most popular shapes cost the most currency.”
“Wait, slow down…why do they need so many different shapes? Why didn’t they make one big machine that can fit many of them at once? Most creatures that use transport machines have a standard, perfected model for them.”
“They do have those, but they prefer these little personal machines. I think it’s all about brain stimulation. They seem to feel immense superiority and joy from possessing a well-shaped machine.”
“Well, I suppose that too is pretty typical of their mental ability. They’re a bit emotional and impractical. It’s to be expected.”
“A bit, you say? We haven’t even gotten to the interesting part. Here, this is what they call ‘traffic.’ Look, it’s all over the planet.”
“…What? I thought these were transport machines. Why are they just sitting there? You’re certain this isn’t a religious thing? They look pretty meditative.”
“I’m positive! Isn’t it bizarre? They do this every day, I have confirmed it! This seems to be how they get around! A very large percentage of their time alive is spent inside a machine.”
“Are they suffering? Does it hurt them?”
“I ran some tests on that. It’s not physically painful, but their brains exhibit prolonged flows of stress hormones during this ritual or whatever it may be.”
“Okay, you weren’t kidding. This is very strange. They really can’t think of a better system? Can I take a closer look?”
“Please. Here’s a particularly large one. As you can see, these ‘jams’ are mostly caused by one negligent machine operator at the front of the pack.”
“Yes, I see…What are they doing?! That one has to-…No! What an imbecile!”
“I had to quit watching many revolutions ago. Trying to make sense of it will drive you insane.”
“That is shocking. What a waste of their experience! They are definitely smart enough to understand how temporary their mortal shells are, why do they spend their physical time in that agony? They have a beautiful planet.”
“They destroy their mortal shells with the machines all the time.”
“…What?!”
“The machines are much heavier and harder than their bodies. They die from them really easily.”
“…Are you saying they use transport machines, every single day, that can kill them?”
“Brutally. It happens constantly. When a being dies with their machine, the others have a huge traffic in their honor. I think it’s kind of beautiful. I’ve seen some big ones that way.”
“Seeing one is enough! That is ridiculous! I’m going to need the logs of all this. We definitely need to re-assess their intelligence rating.”
Thomas Mazzaferro 