//------------------------------// // Aliens of Mothership Zeta // Story: Student Six Watch Fallout Lore: The Storyteller Series // by Rated Ponystar //------------------------------// Chapter 15: Aliens of Mothership Zeta "Wait a minute," Ocellus said, eyes widening. "Don't tell me that we're going to learn about..." "Aliens?! Cool!" Sandbar said, looking more optimistic than ever. "I've always wanted to know if life existed outside of our own planet!" "Technically, we're not learning about our planet. Or even our dimension," Silverstream pointed out before asking, "Also, what's an alien?" "You've never heard the term?" Ocellus asked, to which Silverstream, Yona, and Smolder all shook their heads in response. "An alien, or extraterrestrial, is a sentient being like you or me who lives or comes from a different planet than our own." "Then would humans be considered aliens to us?" Smolder asked. "Possibility, but they would be extradimental since they're from an entirely different dimension instead of our own," Ocellus stated as a correction. "It's debated whether aliens really exist or not. This could be the only planet with life in the entire galaxy, or there could be other planets with life outside of our own. Unfortunately, there really isn't any proof to prove either theory." "Most of the stuff you see in science fiction has them as conquers seeking to enslave us or peaceful beings who want to help us," Gallus said with a smile. "Personally, I'd like to see an alien." "Well, let's see what the ones the humans have faced are like?" Sandbar said as the video started. The narrator started off by stating that humanity was no longer the only species that existed on Earth. There were now mutants, ghouls, robots, and dozens of other creatures of various kinds of intelligence that now roamed the Wasteland. However, a race of beings arrived long ago that was non-human and not from this world. Even when America started out as just a bunch of colonies, they were being watched by a dangerous race of space-faring beings. "Sounds like it's going to be the bad alien kind humanity's going to have to deal with," Sandbar said with a disappointing sigh. "To be fair, if these were benevolent aliens, they would have helped them the moment everything got nuked," Smolder pointed out. "Or saw they were so stupid and decided to leave them alone," Gallus suggested. The group watched in awe as a giant rotating disk in space floated above the planet. It was a flying saucer that was even bigger than the entire school. Everycreature inched closer to get a good look at it and its glowing aura. The narrator pointed out the irony in a world with walking corpses, talking Deathclaws, and brains in jars; few people believed that aliens existed. To them, it was the stuff of pre-war fiction. Still, there was undeniable evidence that aliens did exist, such as a crashed spaceship lying in the middle of the desert, as shown in another image. Some people waved it off as Pre-War experimental airships that looked like UFOs. Still, chances were they were just forcing themselves into denial.  There was a strange ship just North of Washington D.C. that was part of a series of alien aircraft that had been crashing all over Earth for the past 100 years. Even the Vault Dweller was said to have discovered such a craft during his adventures and used an alien ray gun as a weapon. The crew saw him, armed with the ray gun, blasting giant scorpions into atoms with a powerful energy blast. After his death, it fell to the NCR's top scientists, who have tried to recreate it, but it doesn't work anymore, and the power source cannot be made on Earth. The one thing that can be agreed on is that it's so advanced that there was no way that it was made by human hands, even before the war. Sadly, the item is lost now and was sold off by some merchant who didn't know its value. So it could be anywhere or in anyone's hands. "How do you lose such an important item! That's ridiculous!" Ocellus shouted with a roll of her eyes.  However, there are other alien artifacts out there, and rumor has that some of the more advanced technology mankind has made is based on unknown design. For example, a group of people mutated with psychic powers that most believed didn't exist. Still, upon seeing the full extent of their abilities, it was clear they were no joke. The only thing keeping them from losing control of their powers and dying was "Psychic Nullifiers," that was said to contain alien tech inside of them. The Master was said to use these to keep his more powerful mutants under control, but the design can still be seen in various parts of the Wasteland.  "What are psychics?" Yona asked. "Creatures with mental powers like telepathy, telekinesis, and pregoconition," Ocellus answered. "So...magic?"  "Um, kinda?" Ocellus rubbed the back of her head. "It's more mental than magical." "Then what big deal if magic does the same thing?" Yona asked. "I think it's more of an ability that a non-magical creature can do without magic," Gallus said as he pointed to Sandbar. "Like if Sandbar suddenly could lift things by flicking his hooves or read our minds just by looking at us!" Yona then gasped and closed her eyes which made Silverstream tilt her head. "What are you doing?" "Yona want thoughts to be private so she shuts her eyes so friend Sandbar can't read them!" Yona declared. "Yona, I'm not psychic," Sandbar said with a chuckle. "Though I admit it would be cool if I was." The scene then shifted towards a group the six weren't happy to see again, The Enclave. It turned out that much of the technology they used was rumored to be made by reverse engineering alien technology. At the same time, some military bases held A.I.'s. Artificial Intelligence that were essentially self-thinking machines that could rival, or exceed, human intelligence. The U.S. Government knew that aliens existed but kept it a secret from the common folk to prevent panic or for personal purposes. Just as explained earlier, they knew the apocalypse was coming, and that war was inevitable. While there were multiple ideas on how they could survive ("While leaving everyone else to rot," commented Smolder), such as the Vaults or the Enclave Oil Rig, there was one bold idea to leave the planet itself.  Since there were other life forms besides humanity, there were other habitable worlds that they could colonize and reform society under. There was a bold and giant plan to create rocket ships that could transport humans to these worlds and start anew, but the war started before they could accomplish this goal.  "Question is, would they just try to save themselves with space travel or with all of humanity?" Silverstream asked. After a moment of thinking, the six quickly answered, "Themselves." Although considering what these creatures were like, the Enclave was probably lucky. Those who have met these malicious aliens can tell you they aren't the friendly sort and were some of the most brutal fights in their lives. A few years ago, someone from Vault 101 got teleported upon one of the ships, as seen in a video of a man in a blue jumpsuit approaching one of the ships. It turns out that most of the ships seen in the Wasteland are just scout ships. An entire army of them kidnapped and experimented on humans for the past six hundred years in space. "So not only is human life making twisted science experiments, but alien life as well," Ocellus sighed as she shook her head. "Is this a dimensional problem then? Using science as a means to hurt people?" "How did the narrator get video footage of the alien's ship to begin with?" Smolder asked as it showed humans floating in some kind of white and blue pods that held them in suspended animation. The answer never came as the narrator stated that the aliens could have been around as long as medieval times since some of their prisoners were wearing ancient armor and carrying swords. Whatever technology the aliens possess, those that survive the experiments are still around even after being kidnapped all those years ago. Now they come home to an earth that is quite different than what they imagined. "Wow, that would have to suck," Gallus said grimly. "Imagine waking up hundreds of years later to find everything you know and love ruined and turned into this craphole." "I wonder if Princess Luna felt something similar when she returned from the moon after a thousand years?" Sandbar asked, sadly. "It couldn't have been easy." These people who were in suspended animation are one of the few pure non-mutated or radiated beings in the entire world who not only lived in the wayback times but can talk about them with clarity. They also were the few who managed to survive living with their captors and are among the lucky ones, as indicated in a gruesome picture of two grey and greenish-looking aliens in spacesuits experimenting on a human being who was being torn apart with strange tools and equipment. The sight of which made the other wince.  "I can see where the Enclave got their inspiration," Ocellus said in disgust. The aliens don't see human life as equal to their own. Instead, they see them like cattle or other animals. Perhaps it was a sense of superiority, or maybe they just were outright malicious beings? According to the survivors, after a human is captured, they are interrogated before put into stasis until they are ready to be experimented on. What started out as vivisection soon turned into mutating their "lab rats" into mindless half-human and half-alien freaks that appeared on the screen like living grape men. Perhaps they were foot soldiers for a war they were dealing with? Or maybe it was just a failed experiment? Or perhaps they were just jerks?  Nobody knows, and perhaps mankind never would. Their reasoning was just as alien as they were. Lately, they've been using their teleportation beams to suck up junk from the Earth for some strange purpose. Some rooms in the ship are even designed solely for specific objects, such as an entire room of robot ponies. "Robot ponies?" Sandbar asked, looking at them with raised eyebrows. "They look nothing like us." "Yeah, they don't have big rumps as you guys do," Gallus said.  "Yeah, and wait...what?" Sandbar said, covering up his flank. "My rump's not big!" "Um, compared to other ponies? Not really," Ocellus said with a shrug. "But I think everyone here can agree that you ponies kinda have big rear ends." "Yeah, kinda hard not to notice when you're walking behind a line of students with their butts jiggling everywhere," Smolder said with a nod. "Plus, the toilets are much bigger than in Griffinstone," Gallus said, crossing his arms. "I kinda always thought we hippogriffs had big bottoms, but you ponies take the cake!" Silverstream said with a smile.  "B-But what about Yona! She's big!" Sandbar shouted, pointing at Yona, who smiled back. "Oh, thank you, friend Sandbar! Having a big butt in yak culture is a sign of good beauty!" "Sure, Yona's butt is big, but her whole body is big. You guys have small bodies but big heads and butts," Smolder pointed out. "Plus, you show off your special talents by having tattoos on them. Kinda like you want everyone staring at your behinds." "Let's...just finish the video," Sandbar grumbled as he took a few pillows and surrounded his lower body with them. Humanity wasn't the only species the aliens experimented on, as evidenced by the decapitated two-headed brahmin. It seems they went through a few of them before realizing that humanity was the most intelligent instead of brahmin despite the creature having two heads. "Guess two heads are not always better than one," Silverstream joked. Despite the apparent differences, there were some similarities between humans and aliens. Both needed oxygen to survive and could eat each other's food. The aliens' diet seemed to be based on some kind of space squid and worms that, while gross looking, were edible. Their biogel was also a means to cure wounds, and their strange gel might be the stuff that keeps brains in jars alive such as the Think Tank. Not that the aliens care all that much since they still see humans as lower beings compared to themselves.  Suddenly, the view changed to a giant space battle between one of the motherships against the others in a light show of space lasers and explosions that had the six in awe at the display. It seemed that the one from the vault had staged a rebellion against the aliens with the humans on board. They took over one of the ships and destroyed most, if not all, of the fleet. However, some of the aliens survived, and some farmers in New Vegas swear they have been seeing funny flying ships at night. So far, there has been no major invasion from the aliens, and instead, it's just the scout ships. Maybe there was nothing worth taking over on Earth since most of it was ruined by the war, but that didn't stop people from claiming they had seen alien species walking among the planet. The problem with mutations is that it's hard to tell the difference between something mutated by radiation or from out of this world. One example was the wanamingos from California were thought to be aliens but were just creatures mutated by the FEV before the war. While they were believed to be wiped out after killing their queen, some are still seen, which means there might still be more queens. Hopefully, they were all dead since they were mighty hard to kill to the point where you needed to burn it and then shoot it in the groin. A fact that made Gallus and Sandbar wince and crossed their legs. Still, thanks to most of the aliens being wiped out by the rebel humans, the skies were a bit safer, but not completely. So the aliens were still out there that they could still be sighted today. Still, it's hard to think that they're just going to leave like that. An advanced race of beings doesn't fly down thousands of light-years just for raw materials and water.  Speaking of water, the narrator pointed out that it was perhaps the most crucial resource in the Wasteland. For he who controls the water controls power. And that was a story for another day.