Ah. You elect the person with the most worms.

May 23, 2016 12:56 AM

A young man sits on a large blob of slowly undulating plastic. This is DAVE. Each time that he shifts his weight, the whitish mass beneath him adjusts itself slightly, forcing him to move in a constant search for comfort. [slreddit, beware!]
posted by katrielalex (10 comments total)

I only read the first installment, but I didn't like it at all. War is uniformly terrible, but it's the worst sort of PHIL101 nonsense to boil it all down to people fighting over "imaginary lines".
posted by codacorolla at 6:23 AM on May 23, 2016 [10 favorites]

Once again someone misunderstands the Diet of Worms
posted by beerperson at 6:49 AM on May 23, 2016 [31 favorites]

War is uniformly terrible, but it's the worst sort of PHIL101 nonsense to boil it all down to people fighting over "imaginary lines".

Especially since the aliens clearly understand war, just not apparently within a species -- the interplanetary equivalent of "Why are all those Africans fighting each other?"
posted by Etrigan at 7:02 AM on May 23, 2016 [3 favorites]

GTA 5 alone has sold 65 million copies. These aliens must be pretty confused how much interest this non-spacefaring culture has in them.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 7:19 AM on May 23, 2016

I think the author needs to work a little harder with his thinking meat.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 7:46 AM on May 23, 2016 [6 favorites]

It's always tricky writing about conversations between aliens and people. On the one hand, the alien comes from a vastly different world, but on the other hand, is far more technologically advanced. So a delicate balance needs to be struck between Alien Doesn't/Can't Understand Earth Thing vs. Alien Smart Enough To Know/Learn It. Striking that balance is a matter of making it interesting and funny, but above all it should "feel" believable.

That's what I think works about the "thinking meat" story TheWhiteSkull links to, as the aliens are so advanced they're not even bound by C-space or biological functions, so the idea of beings made out of meat would be absolutely absurd to them. By contrast, an alien with a hand-held tablet not understanding species fighting each other ... you can't technically say it doesn't "ring true", I guess, because what aliens do we have to compare it to and all, but it reads oddly obtuse for this particular alien.

Hadn't thought that much about this before, but this example is at least thought provoking. Sci-fi is hard.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 8:28 AM on May 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

Looks like the reddit comment linked in this FPP has been removed.
posted by glonous keming at 8:55 AM on May 23, 2016

After the bits about the undulating plastic and the worms, I was hoping for something a bit more _9MOTHER9HORSE9EYES9.
posted by infinitywaltz at 9:01 AM on May 23, 2016

Well, I liked it.

Even though, to my surprise, it had nothing to do with endoparasite-based hierarchy at all.
posted by Fantods at 9:12 AM on May 23, 2016 [2 favorites]

Further down in the replies:

> I'm a theatre student. My school does a yearly one-act play festival that is entirely student driven. I would love to adapt this comment as a one-act play and produce it for this festival. PM me and we'll talk more, if you're interested.

> I'm a film student ATM and have been looking for a project for the summer. This would be perfect if /u/RamsesThePigeon would give me permission to make it.
posted by egypturnash at 9:36 AM on May 23, 2016