To Lord Xenon and all of my fellow Taranians:

It is a pleasure to present to you my discoveries during the multitude of orbits in which I have spent on this mysterious planet. I have learned many things on this expedition. I can attest that the sentient species of this planet is in fact compatible with our own, and that we are capable of reproducing with them, but in addition to that, I have learned so much more.

My time here on this distant planet called Earth began with many troubles. These weren’t the kind of troubles one expected when visiting a foreign planet. The air is perfectly breathable, and the gravity isn’t much different from our own. The difficult part was interacting with this species that was similar to us yet so very different. First, of course, I had to learn the language of the region in which I landed. But even when I thought I understood it, I couldn’t bring myself to understand these people.

Many times, I openly expressed my mission here on this planet. I found no reason to hide it. I meant them no harm, and I figured that, if they were as sympathetic as they seemed, they would pity our quandary and wish to help. However, I was very wrong. 

On my first day here, I wandered down the streets, surrounded by large, impending structures and fast moving vehicles that filled me with fear. There were so many of these beings walking about. These creatures that looked somewhat like us: humans. Now, they didn’t look entirely like us. Most of them didn’t have white hair, and the ones that did had vastly different faces from ours, full of wrinkles and skin that sagged. For the most part, these beings only looked like us in the sense that they stood on two legs and had the same general shape, with hair mostly on their heads. Whereas a lot of the other aliens of this planet had full body fur or scales or feathers and often walked on four legs or had other appendages quite unlike ours. These ones that looked comparitively similar to us had the same appendages and features and could speak in intelligent language, but there was one thing about them that truly set them apart from us: they all looked different from each other.

You can’t even imagine the varieties of this species. It took me quite some time to accept that all of these various creatures fit under the umbrella term called “human”. They had all different skin tones and hair colors. Their bodies were different shapes and sizes. I noticed at least half of these humans had an especially unique curvature to their bodies. I was immediately drawn to these beings that had round lumps on their chests, and it wasn’t until later that I understood what they were and why they drew my attention.

After parking my ship at an inconspicuous location and making it blend in with the other houses, I had gone straight into the populated area, which I later learned is called a city. This is where the buildings loomed above me, and I am confident that I saw more beings within a mile in this city than exist on our entire planet. I was mesmerized, but that wasn’t enough to stop my quest. I approached a human on the sidewalk and spoke frankly. “I am from another planet. Our species is dying due to our cloning machines malfunctioning, and I come here in search of a being to sexually reproduce with,” was what I said word-for-word. “Would you perhaps be able to reproduce with me?”

The creature, with its round stomach and thick fur on its face, scoffed at me and made a strange gesture where he lifted his hand and stuck only the middle digit out from his fist. He said something very unkind, which I won’t repeat, now that I know the meaning. But from this, I could ascertain that I somehow made a horrible mistake.

My first guess was that the creatures here were not used to visitors from other lands, so I decided to omit the fact that I was from another planet. I approached another being. I felt more confident about this one. It was one of the beings with lumps on its chest, and I couldn’t help but think the creature was rather beautiful. But that wasn’t what made me decide to approach it. In its arms was a smaller creature, presumably of the same species, but it was mysterious and phenomenal. It seems these humans start off small when they are born and increase in size up to a certain point as they age. It makes sense, considering they are born through natural means and not copied from a machine. Seeing it, I couldn’t help but wonder whether we Taranians were also intended to be born small.

“Excuse me,” I said as I approached the larger being. I had learned in my studies that this was a polite way to start a conversation.

“Yes?” The pretty lumped being replied with a smile, as it held the small offspring in its arms.

“I see that you have an offspring. My people are dying, and we desperately need someone to provide us with offspring. Could you perhaps create one with me?”

The human put the smaller human into the wheeled device beside it. It then lifted its bag off its shoulder and swung it at my face.

I was hurting for a while after that. I retreated in shame back to my abode as I recouped and decided to rethink my strategy. They seemed to not like when I asked them to reproduce with me, but I couldn’t yet comprehend why.