The Battle of Titan

by Sudipto Majumdar

  You never have two sub-species of different size living in the same ecosystem naturally. The only way it happens is if one of the sub-species had been artificially engineered and sustained in that ecosystem. It would be worthwhile to engineer a sub-species if it serves a specific purpose.

  When I compared the cells of the two types, and tried to poison them with substances that would be harmful to any carbon based life, like cyanides which are deadly to all earth based life, I found that the response is different. Type – A cells can fight off poisons and corrosive substances at the cellular level much better than type – B.

  So the type B would die of disease and body malfunction much faster. On many other parameters the type – A cell does much better than type – B. The only place type – B excels is in its cell organization, which enables it to have a bigger and stronger body.

  This along with the indication that type – B have been engineered, makes me conclude that type – B have been engineered for a single purpose – War. It does not matter that type B have a weaker immune system, they are not designed to live that long any way. They are designed to fight and die.” Violet let that thought hang in the room as she finished.

  Mischa realized that this was her cue to start talking, so she stepped up and started. “I would like to concentrate and speculate on alien intention past, present and future. For this I have analyzed their past behavior and responses.

  I have also taken inputs from Violet on their physiology, to the extent where it may affect their psychology. From there, I would like to speculate what the aliens may be doing at this moment in their camp, and what we can expect their next move to be.

  After our experience of the Shaitans from the first encounter, the world was divided in its opinion, and rightly so, as to whether they were peaceful beings or belligerent aliens. There actions in destroying Sedna – 1 and the damage to the Sentinel could be interpreted as accidents.

  We can now confirm that they definitely had not used weapons, now that we know how their weapons look. Given that we now know that the first space craft was an unmanned probe, it could even be argued that the destruction of Sedna – 1 was an automated response to collision avoidance, although given the distance between the two probes, it may stretch credulity a bit.

  After our second encounter here both on ground as well in space, there may be a just a few die hard pacifists left, who may still believe that it is all a big misunderstanding between us due to cultural and psychological differences, that they may have construed one of our innocent actions as an act of aggression.

  I should know, because until a few hours ago, I was one of those, even after we had battled them and they had wiped most of us out. I have changed my mind in face of scientific evidence uncovered by Violet as I will explain shortly.

  One of the biggest arguments by those in the belligerent human camp, is that aliens would have evolved by the same Darwinian principle of ‘Survival of the fittest’, and would naturally look at anything but their own species as a threat and hence try to wipe it out.

  This argument is not just simplistic but fallacious as well. You need to look no further than us humans. We are a product of the same Darwinian principles, but we would like to believe that we are not unconditionally belligerent.

  When we encounter an alien, we first try to talk rather than shoot them out of the sky at first sight. So why do we humans behave in such a non-Darwinian way? Have we gone soft? Are we destined for extinction because we have gone soft?” Mischa asked rhetorically with a slight pause for effect.

  “Darwin’s concept of struggle for survival is one of the most misunderstood concepts, especially amongst laymen. When we humans think of struggle, the thing that comes to our mind is warfare. There is another aspect of struggle to survive – cooperation.

  Cooperation between individuals of the same species for the survival of both, is a common concept in humans. We cooperate and help each other as individuals for common good, and we also cooperate and ally as nations for overcoming common difficulties or enemies.

  What is less known is that in nature different species are cooperating with each other all the time for survival. In the Darwinian scheme of things, the ability to be able to quickly cooperate and form alliances with other species for your survival, is as important if not more than how big, strong and healthy your body is.

  That is the reason we humans try to talk to aliens first. We are making an assessment in our collective minds on what will give us a better chance of survival – cooperation with aliens, or war.

  Now suppose for a moment, we humans could genetically engineer or modify Chimpanzees or mountain gorillas in such a way that they would be far stronger than human soldiers and reasonably intelligent to prosecute modern warfare, whom we could send to war at will. Will we humans have less or more of an incentive to explore the option of cooperation?” Mischa paused again for effect at her own rhetorical question.

  “I think most would agree that we would have less of an incentive. We are not putting our own genetic legacy at risk, but rather the genes of a closely related but distinct gene pool at risk. Why would we want to negotiate and share the resources of the universe, when we can put a different gene pool at risk and wipe out our alien competitors?

  Oh… sure we can be brought to the negotiating table kicking and screaming if the aliens comprehensively defeat our Gorilla army and start threatening us directly, but till that happens, we would rather have war.

  Humans however can’t do that, so we have our own kind fighting as soldiers. Humanity feels the pain at the loss of a human soldier, which is basically the tug of our collective gene pool bemoaning a loss from that gene pool. We have much more skin in the game, so we try to minimize the losses at the outset by trying to talk.

  Now I agree with all of Violet’s assessment, except one. Where my opinion differs is that the type – B warrior Shaitans were not genetically engineered in the conventional human sense. It was not the way we humans do, where we take a rat or a frog and insert a certain gene sequence into the embryo.

  They were genetically engineered for sure, but by a far more natural process. It is my hypothesis, which Violet can confirm or prove wrong with further research, that the alien DNA is much more malleable. They can probably alter their birthing conditions, depending on what their birthing process is and slightly modify the DNA, and hence the body and the mind.

  It would be something simple like presence or absence of certain salts in the embryo pool, or the temperature of the egg, if they lay eggs. This is not a fantastic idea, and actually happens in earth animals to a certain degree. Many reptiles’ gender like crocodiles and turtles are determined by what temperature the eggs hatch in. A lower temperature and all the eggs will hatch female, slightly higher temperature and all the eggs will be male.

  Now you would wonder that this is just semantics. How does it matter what method the aliens use for their genetic engineering? What difference does it make if they were made in a lab on a petri-dish or hatched in a warmer egg by a process of nature? It would make a difference. The difference would be in psychology.” As Mischa paused, she could see a few smiles. Finally she was coming to the subject of her specialty.

  “No it is not what you think. It is not about a stronger emotional connection from a natural birthing process. The tug of the gene pool on emotions don’t work that way. There is no evidence for example that mothers who have test tube babies experience any less emotional attachment towards their offspring.

  The tug of the gene pool works on cold hard genetic calculations. The child has the same genes from the mother irrespective of whether the child was conceived in a test tube, or naturally in her vagina. Thus the gene pool makes no distinction between the two birthing process, and makes the mother feel the same emotional tug towards the offspring.

  Imagine however that somewhere along the way during our evolution as modern humans, we developed the ability that during times of war, the mother would simply apply oils
on the womb or vagina, or eat some special herbs, which would result in a slight alteration of the child’s DNA. The DNA alteration would cause the child to be born very fast, and then get into an accelerated growth into a supersized body like that of a mountain Gorilla, ideally suited for war.

  The woman and hence her genes have performed the task required of them, to try to give the maximum chance of survival for herself, her tribe and hence of her gene pool. But this Gorilla warrior, even if it can reproduce will never create an exact copy of the woman’s DNA. That is the fundamental function of reproduction in any living being – to create an exact copy of the DNA. I am simplifying of course, because half would come from the father, but the principle holds.

  How does she see this Gorilla warrior? Does she see it as a son, despite the fact that the warrior will not be able to continue her genetic legacy by reproduction? Or does she see it just like a sword she has forged for her and her tribe’s survival? However the pertinent question to ask from our immediate perspective is how is she likely to behave when she sends the Gorilla warrior to fight her tribe’s enemies, the warrior is able to maul the enemy but is killed in the process?

  Would she break down in grief and raise a white flag of truce even perhaps offer her surrender? Or would she start all over again and produce another Gorilla warrior, knowing that this time the mauled enemy can be easily killed by the next warrior?

  My hypothesis is that the type – A are the main species because as Violet pointed out, they are genetically better suited to survive overall. It has become evolutionarily ingrained in the type – A Shaitans to create type – B Shaitans since long in their evolutionary history, in times of conflict to be used as an implement of war, just like our hypothetical human mother creating a Gorilla warrior instinctively.

  These intelligent aliens are not behaving like instinctive animals when they send these warriors to destroy us, but yes they are governed by genetic calculations, just like our genetic calculations require us to talk first.

  Right now in their genetic calculations it is cheaper for them to keep producing and sending the warriors. These genetic calculations might change however if we were to directly threaten the type – A Shaitans, in which case talks might become a cheaper option for them.” Mischa stepped back a little indicating that she her finished her dissertation.

  “Wow that was intense!” said Alex blowing out for emphasis.

  “It was as you put it… intense, but I found the conclusions logical and consistent with what I had observed during our brief incursion into the Shaitan habitat. With you permission Major, I would like to make some observations.” Major Cheng looked at Takamori.

  “Your opinion is always welcome and valued Major. Please go ahead.” Takamori said with a courteous nod. Major Cheng’s spoke rarely, but when he did it was always pertinent and usually wise.

  “We know that the aliens did everything in powers of two like binary computers. So a question had been bothering me for some time. Why had they raised three regiments of soldiers to fight us? That is an odd number for them in more ways than one. They have always done everything in 2s, 4s, 8s or 16s. It is possible that they held back one regiment and sent three.

  Humans may do that, but they would have held back two and sent two if they had to. For them sending 3 regiments is such an unbalanced number that it would not suit them. I am no alien expert, what do you think Dr. Sterner?” Cheng asked.

  “I agree Major, it had not struck me. Honestly I don’t even know what a regiment means other than it is a group of soldiers. All I knew was that there were over 3000 aliens headed towards us. If as you say they were divided into exact 3 regiments, then that would be the first time they have used the number 3. I cannot prove it, but they almost seem genetically compelled to use groups organized in numbers to the power of two. How many soldiers are there in a regiment anyway?”

  “It varies according to armies around the world, but it is usually around 1000 soldiers. In the case of the Shaitans it had 1024 soldiers exactly.” Cheng replied.

  “That is exactly two raised to the power of ten.” Noted Ramesh.

  Cheng nodded and continued. “I had my suspicions why, and I think I can air it now because it has ominous implications. If you recollect my incursion into their habitat, I told you about the huge room full of Shaitans in tube like Jars filled with liquid.

  We speculated that they could be hibernating Shaitans carried from the ship, who are yet to be woken up. It made sense for them to travel 20 years hibernating. I think we were wrong in that conclusion. I think those were incubation chambers. They were new Shaitans being grown!”

  The implication sank in. “Are you suggesting that they grew the Shaitans in the last 10 months or so that they have been out here? That the Shaitans we fought had grown to full size in just that much time?” Leanna asked incredulously.

  “Yes Lieutenant I am suggesting that, and I have the explanation why they could field only 3 and not 4 regiments as would have been expected from them. They had 4 incubation halls each with 1024 incubation tubes, we destroyed one of them.

  We had ourselves seen the entrance to two of the halls, and we entered one of them. I can also explain why they took so much time after our incursion to launch the attack on our base.” Cheng replied.

  “They were taking the time to prepare for attack, just like we were taking the time to defend ourselves.” Leanna answered with certainty. That was the current thought in the human camp.

  Cheng gave her a smile and said. “Any yet we did not see a single implement of war that they carried with them. What were they preparing? Perhaps the suits for the three thousand new aliens, that definitely is a need and the only thing that they carried to war.

  However that is hardly an unanticipated need. If you are hatching three thousand soldiers for 10 months, you know on day 1 that you would be needing three thousand suits. Wouldn’t the advanced and intelligent aliens be able to anticipate this simple requirement? No. They were not making the suits, which delayed them.

  The answer is simply that their batch of alien soldiers were not yet ready to hatch. The day they were ready, they were brought out and paraded as we observed. They were given training till they were considered ready, and then sent to war. As Dr. Sterner elegantly put it, the alien soldiers WERE the implements of war they were preparing.”

  Everybody looked at Mischa to get her opinion, and she was nodding her agreement, but it was Violet who spoke up. “I can tell you one fact which agrees with Major Cheng’s hypothesis. I examined the aliens lying here with their limbs hacked out.

  I could see distinct ring patterns on the insides of their limb, similar to what you see if you cut a tree down, or what is also used to analyze the rate of growth of dinosaurs from fossils. Being organic creatures, the Shaitans display a similar pattern.

  The aliens lying outside have an accelerated growth ring pattern, with the rings spread out with large distances between them. This is very different from the ring pattern in the limb that Major Takamori had brought back. That alien had grown much more slowly.” It was Violet’s argument that convinced everybody in the room and Major Cheng was probably right.

  “So we have aliens, who manufacture alien soldiers in tubes and send them to war. They still have three of the four soldier factories intact and have probably put in another batch already to grow and would send them out in another 10 months to finish the job of wiping us out. Did I miss anything?” Alex summarized and then asked a rhetorical question, not expecting an answer, but Violet answered anyway.

  “Yes. It could be a lot earlier than 10 months. If they have ways to accelerate the growth by tolerating some short comings like more deformities or deaths, they may be willing to send a batch of 2000 instead of 3000 at us in say 5 months.

  Even now we can’t say that they didn’t hatch this batch of 3000 alien soldiers prematurely as a response to our incursion.” She said with a smile and a wink. That surprised most people in the room. Dr. Manning had start
ed acting sociable and almost normal, which was not normal for her.

  “Great, this thing just keeps getting better and better. Any more good news that you would like to spring on us Dr. Manning?” Alex asked sarcastically.

  “No. I seriously hope not. Not of that kind anyway.” Violet replied seriously and sadly this time.

  There was a long uncomfortable silence in the room, as everyone pondered what their fate would be the next time 3000 aliens attacked their camp. The silence was broken by the hiss of the airlock, as someone burst into the room.

  It was one of the marines. He literally tore away his helmet and shouted. “Sir its… it’s a shuttle! And it’s circling our base! It is not responding to hails from our suit radio, and we don’t have the control habitat working. It looks like the NASA shuttle. I think it is from USS Friendship!”

  Chapter 33

  Preemptive strike

  The entire leadership team had scrambled to put their helmets on and get out of the crowded room to meet up with the new arrivals. Their conditioning due to the siege mentality had been such that even the civilians had not forgotten to take their weapons along with them just in case. They were relieved to find Capt. Cloutier and his six crew from USS Friendship alive.

  They were equally happy to have a functioning shuttle with its power supply available, which would be able to extend their life support systems a bit longer. They quickly explained their current situation to Daniel and suggested only he come into the only hut available, since it was already cramped. The others could stay in the shuttle if they were tired, or help the soldiers rebuild. The crew just wanted to get out of confined spaces after so long, and eagerly volunteered in the reconstruction and repair efforts.