Alien Newsletter #25: Chemicals Are Forever
In which our alien visitor reveals a bold attempt from an unseen source to make all living things impervious to decay — if it doesn't kill them first
Network Note: Until recently, the alien that we have been examining has focused almost exclusively on the human race for the communiques it makes to its home civilization. However, it apparently has not ignored the multitudinous, non-communicative compounds that have been unleashed by our unwitting industriousness. And as it turns out, the alien already seems to have developed a long-standing relationship with at least a few of the compounds referred to as the “forever chemicals” — so named because their carbon-fluorine bonds are so strong that they never diminish, no matter how extensive a time frame is proposed. Apparently, these chemicals are nothing new to the universe at large, but if the organisms of our world intend to somehow coexist with them, it would mean coming to grips with our immortality, which, as our alien has discovered, might be even more difficult than grappling with its counterpart.
One of the first things I discovered about the Greatest Apes when I first began observing them was how easily saturated they could become by the liquids around them. Water, clear gelatin, not to mention this odd white substance they seem fond of depositing upon themselves in certain filmed documentations I have seen of theirs — their own outer surfaces don’t seem to repel them as well as ours does. However, they are quite adept at creating all sorts of items which do, from digestible substance packages to transportation seat coatings and the pots and pans they use to create their sustenance. On this planet, the compounds used to make these items are referred to as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. Yet while these items possess qualities that are desirable to the GAs, such as putting out fires and repelling unaesthetic stains, they have begun to colonize the rest of the world with an agenda that has begun to raise deep concerns since their invention in the middle part of the last earthian century. Because they have been up until recently generally impossible to break apart and degrade back into the environment, remnants from this family of over 4000 substances have been found throughout the entire planet, including in places where no living creature roams. And every living creature on this planet has PFAS in their bodies, coursing through their serum-streams and rumbling in their lungs through the air they breathe. Such are the “forever chemicals,” and now that they have integrated themselves into everything the GAs eat, drink and breathe, what they will do to the health of the GAs in the years and decades to come has become a matter of increasing concern amongst them.
For unlike us, GAs can incur a great deal of potential harm from PFAS. Some may be linked to several types of cancer, a disease which ravages the bodies of many GAs, although this linkage is uncertain at the moment, as well as thyroid disease, reduced response to vaccines, obesity and several developmental dysfunctions. Their specialists believe there is no safe level of exposure to them, yet because of their ubiquity, the GAs are exposed constantly to them regardless. Even those variants that have been phased out for several earth decades in most of the GAs’ larger countries continue to be found in the earth’s soil (and can still be made by GAs in smaller territories). And even when preventative measures are taken not to disturb the land and put more of them in the atmosphere, the PFAS’ prevalence is such that these measures have to be abandoned, as they were in the Northern Hemisphere Plate II territory of Holland in 2018. Otherwise, the GAs would not be able to build, anywhere on earth, were they to be followed strictly.
The Environmental Protection Agency, an empowered governing body in Northern Hemisphere Plate I, has recently moved to designate two PFASes as hazardous substances, thereby mandating that the entities that create them report their spillage and pay for their removal. But it is hard to tell how this can ease the predicament of the GAs. Much fear exists over nuclear weapon technology for its ability to contaminate the world, but in the case of the PFAS, this has already happened, and businesses continue to create more of them at a rapid clip. Since GA organizations such as the EPA do not pass edicts upon PFAS as a class, the GAs continue to seed their bodies with these substances even as they attempt to rectify the situation.
Of course, they could alter their physiognomies to coexist with these chemicals. I for one am glad to have a surfactant exterior, and I’m sure the GAs will appreciate one themselves as their supplies of potable water continue to disintegrate. However, as you may recall with the Unsaturates, that can create unintended consequences as well. The Unsaturates, you may remember, was a once-small planet in the Six Sparks region of Nebula Fantastica. Their leader was particularly fond of cosmetic enhancements, and found such PFAS could render such bodily organs virtually indestructible. However, once this technology was extended throughout the entire planet, it created a race of literal plastic, and therefore single-use, organisms. For instance, building one bridge would render 50 of them useless, so 50 more would have to be created for the next bridge. Pretty soon, their planet was several times its initial size, as the new were continually building atop the immortal corpses of the old. You could hear their moans all the way into the next galaxy.
You will be interested to hear that the GAs, for once, have already chanced upon the very solution our confederation used upon this galactic tumor: a heated solvent called DMSO, which some in the confederation have used for millennia as an external digestive tool. This apparently, when treated with the right genomic splicer, can create an entity that can rip apart PFASes wherever they can be found. However, as prevalent as they are in our bodies when we deign to appear in physical form, it would be suicidal for us to make it. But for once, it appears that the GAs are on the right path with this. Still, the “forever chemicals” predicament does illustrate an odd dynamic at play with the GAs: when faced with whether to solve a problem or make it worse, often, they do both. This makes me figure that the fate of the Unsaturates may very well be theirs as well, Or perhaps not. I do know this much: the minute the GAs start throwing away their water-absorbent towels, I shall be putting in my request for transfer to another planet. After all, we all know how important a towel is throughout the universe.
Dark Matters
After two unsuccessful attempts to visit their closest astral neighbor, the GAs will try again later in the 23rd or 27th portion of their September time packet.
At some point in between these two dates, NHP1’s NASA will also fire another rocket, just to prevent another asteroid from bringing about the next mass extinction event. Such missions often do work on non-sentient projectiles, I’ll give them that.
GA galactic entity hunter Frank Drake has passed, thankfully without correcting his equation that could otherwise have alerted his fellow super simians of the true population of universe dwellers that live amongst them.
And for the record, I have not been interviewed for the following program. My cover is secure for now.