A Question of Human Design or why Aliens tweaked us.

I have been tossing around some ideas on the Why of human creation. No, this has nothing to do with religion, although if some of you are adherents to the Ancient Alien theory I suppose it does.  I have been watching one of my favorite movies regarding an invasion of earth. Battle: Los Angeles. A movie shot as a documentary that depicts a Marine platoon during an invasion by aliens of our world. 

Oorah 2/5! Retreat Hell!

Now granted there are some Hollywood embellishments in the film, like why the aliens have landed forces all over the world, and particularly centered on coastal cities when it is much easier to hammer the oceans with massive rocks to create waves to exterminate roughly 40% of the world’s population without getting boots on the ground.

The recent events in the Philippines and the host of destructive Tsunamis that have done damage across the world since 1993 show how effective mass driver weapons would be in wreaking havoc and forcing the surviving humans inland, without an infrastructure or viable supplies of food and water to sustain them around the world.

However, I am getting off point. What if Aliens had come Earth in the past? I know I often argue the feasibility of such a thing, but I am suspending my own bias and saying they have been here. According to several prevailing theories, our distant ancestors were altered and somehow enhanced by Alien’s tampering with our DNA to create the modern human.

 

Bear in mind they had a plethora of Hominids to choose from;

Sahelanthropus tchadensis, Orrorin tugenensis, Ardipithecus ramidus, Australopithecus anamensis, Australopithecus afarensis, Kenyanthropus platyops ,Australopithecus africanus, Australopithecus garhi, Australopithecus sediba New, Australopithecus aethiopicus, Australopithecus robustus, Australopithecus boisei, Homo habilis, Homo georgicus, Homo erectus, Homo ergaster, Homo antecessor, Homo heidelbergensis, Homo neanderthalensis, Homo floresiensis and finally Homo sapiens sapiens.

That’s a long lineage of experimental DNA to tamper with. Bear in mind that while we perceive ourselves as masters of our planet, we are not the most numerous species on the planet. Moreover, our four-appendage frame is not the most common number of limbs on our planet that is reserved for insects with six-limbs.

Ah dear reader, you are wondering at what I am getting at, what are these aliens and DNA and the human forms all about? I posed this question to several of my Ancient Alien/UFO theorist friends, did the aliens breed us to develop a certain type of creature the way we breed dogs to create the traits we want? And if so what traits did they breed in us? There was a long uncomfortable silence when I asked that question, I suspect that when confronted with that possibility, that humans, were bred for certain traits  becomes disconcerting. Of course, the follow-up question must then be why? Certainly, we breed traits for a reason, what possible traits were bred in to humans?

Again, the question invokes uncomfortable silence. I have read the theories of course; humans were bred for mining gold. Really? In what universe does a race of intergalactic traveler’s tweak the DNA of the native race to mine gold make any kind of sense? Clearly, it doesn’t because if you can travel thousands of light-years you can utilize machines that are much more efficient at mining and extracting minerals.

Now I know I will probably invoke the ire of my friends who believe that humans are of course the product of alien intervention. But I have an idea, if, and this is a huge if, the aliens tweaked us did they breed up our aggressiveness? We breed dogs for their loyalty and their aggressive natures, could not the aliens have done the same to human beings?

Humans are a hyper-aggressive species, we get riled up at the littlest things and our instinctive response to perceived danger is to kill or destroy it. What if aliens bred us to be their guard dogs? Look at it logically; the Grays are a small spindly race with big bobble heads. Perhaps they needed humans to be their protectors, snarling savage creatures to keep their enemies away. I hear you, I have the same question, if this is what happened then where are they? Moreover, why are we not doing our jobs? I think somehow we, like some dogs, became too aggressive and they let us go in the woods. Of course expecting us to die off, but like some dogs, we managed to survive and even thrive in the woods.

I admit that the idea is a bit far out, but I submit, no more out there than the idea that humans were created to mine gold.

    

Too Good Books and Hot Cocoa

Call me old school but reading a book is never better than settling in a comfortable place, a mug of a favorite drink, with the time to savor and enjoy a tale superbly crafted and told.  Admittedly, it may be a sign of my age, after all, I have been reading and writing for nearly 30 years and when I started there wasn’t the plethora of e-books and self-publishing options available to writers now.

Don’t get me wrong I am glad that there are so many options open to writers to get their works out and sharing them with the public. These writers are setting forth on blazing paths carved from the traditional structures of creating stories that don’t fit in the modern paradigm of e-publishing, where the world is indeed open to writers because they don’t adhere to “old-fashioned rules” or in some other way are written in an outdated manner that doesn’t connect with the modern reader.

However, I am more and more concerned about the decline in truly quality writing. In our quest to get our work out there, to be read and devoured by the masses, we have inadvertently created a way for writers to by-pass the long slough of learning to actually write well. Because of the advent of the rapid communication technologies people are taking short cuts with their words and story craft that is becoming notable in self-published writing. Where sentences no longer carry full words, but the text equivalent, I believe an entire book is written this way.

I understand the inter-webs provide everyone with a portal to share their fiction with a vast audience, an audience they probably would not be able to garner had they to face an editor.

I enjoy working with younger writers, people who have great vision but little direction. I think that these talents can produce some amazing works, but just because publishing has become easier doesn’t mean telling stories has. It still requires work and understanding how to build tension, dialogue and learning plot structure. 

Character development appears to be a lost art as so many characters are M/Gary Sue’s (See my post on this) and they can do everything with little or no growth in the story. After all how many teen-age wizards, witches or vampires can save the world?

I love to read a good story, and I look for new and upcoming talent but I find myself increasingly going back to my library of established writers to get my fix.