Exciting times on Venus…
Note, for most of this essay I will go over the history and current status of those living on Venus. Towards the end, I will explain more recent news and how it pertains to Earth’s Human population.
36,000 years ago, Venus was colonized. The Creatures also visited Earth and studied extensively and then went about transferring Venus to match Earth’s atmosphere with some improvements. The 616 Creatures also modified themselves so that they could exist quite easily in this atmosphere. They used Earth’s bacteria, plants, insects and some mammals as a base for their new planet. They were also pleasantly surprised to find two relatively advanced species on Earth. This was somewhat unusual and after some debate they transferred 150 or so tribes consisting of about 1200 Humans to help with the development of their new planet. The transformation took about 5000 years. It is estimated that the project was completed perhaps 25% quicker because of the humans. (Although there is some debate about this as Humans question whether the Aliens just say this in order to make the Humans feel better about themselves) And from the beginning the Venusian Human population was in far better shape than their cousins who still lived on Earth. This is due to the far superior technology and also due to the gentle and benign nature of the Aliens. In this essay I will refer to the Creatures as Aliens and the Venusian Humans as Humans. In the Venusian’s language the term for Aliens would be roughly translated to Comrades from Afar. And the term for Humans would roughly translate to Children of Earth.
Venus is now chemically remarkably similar to Earth. Which makes sense for a few reasons. The Aliens used many of the Earth materials, such as bacteria, plants and insects to make Venus livable and used the climate of Earth as a model. In addition, hundreds of animals and fish were imported. Most of the animals were brought in as wild animals for Venus’s park and wildlife areas which make up about 60% of the land on Venus. In addition, a giant buffalo and a few of species of goats were domesticated. The Aliens in the first 5000 years or so moved in what is seen today as in two different directions. First, they combined themselves with Humans through DNA mixing to become more Human like. They are about eighty percent Human. Their bodies are fairly similar to humans with goldish skin and light white hair. Their eyes change color. They are taller and slimmer in build. On average Alien men are about six foot four inches tall and Alien women are about six foot tall. They are more uniform looking than Humans. The other thing they did was separate themselves from the Humans for the most part day to day. The Earthlings are spread out in five different countries. Four of the Human countries have about 200 million people in each country. One country has a little over 60 million inhabitants. The Aliens mostly live in a sixth country of about 220 million, which politically serves as the first among equals. In the Alien country called Nada about 2% of the population is Human. These are a small number of Humans who have lived in Nada from the start. The Aliens have tried to keep this number about where it is. In the Human countries there are Alien populations who make up about 2.5% of the population. In addition, there is a diplomat population made up of Humans and Aliens that exist in all 6 countries. The Alien leadership has expressed a wish for the Aliens to live apart from Humans. However, there has been a lot of pressure from the Humans wanting to keep Aliens living day to day with Humans. And the compromise has been for there to be a population of about 2% of Humans living in the Nada and the Aliens making up about 2.5% of the population of the Human countries. The Aliens have in the spirit of compromise worked hard to keep these numbers almost exactly where they are.
Politically the Nada population is the first among equals. There is a royal family in which a King rules in conjunction with what we would call a parliament which is split up between an aristocracy and directly elected commoners. (The other five countries are also basically what we would call constitutional monarchies where a King and in one country a Queen, share power with their parliaments.)
The Alien's nature which is communal, benign and very consensus-based leads to extremely peaceful rule. And also, slow and deliberate rule. The Human minority in Nada takes part in the political process. And a corresponding part of the Human population is even part of the aristocracy. Humans make up almost exactly 2% of the Nada parliament and there is even a nominal effort to include them in the decision making. The Alien King is technically the supreme leader of each of the five Human countries. And is referred to as the High King. And he has a representative in each country. However, the High King and his representatives are extremely reluctant to step into human affairs. They usually only step in to settle disputes over power. And in these cases, they almost always come up with a resolution that has a power sharing arrangement and takes into account the concerns and feelings of all sides. They also step in to keep Humans out of both civil wars and warring between countries. In avoiding war, the Aliens have been at times more forceful and have for short periods of time even stepped in an occupied some countries. This has been a relatively uncommon event. And the short-term occupying of a Human country has not occurred for over 600 years.
Besides keeping the peace there is one other area where the Alien leadership holds a hard line. Members of Venus are not allowed to disclose their existence to the Earth Humans, nor interfere with Earth Human affairs, nor share technology. This policy is officially called “Non-Interference”
The Nada feel strongly about this and have held a hard line on enforcing this. (More will be mentioned about this later). This reflects an Alien philosophy that they should let Earth Humans make their own path.
As part of the Non-Interference policy the Venetians have built a virtual dome of sorts that hides their existence from Earth Humans. This virtual dome was created well before Earth Humans began to experiment with telescopes. And it is the reason that Earth Humans think Venus is a baron waste land. The Russians in 1961 and others have sent land rovers to Venus and the Venusians had these rovers land on what we would call very sophisticated sound stages. The Venusians Visitors Bureaucracy (more about which will be mentioned further) runs the whole process, steering the ship to the sound stage while creating the illusion that the rocket is being controlled from Earth. When these rovers arrive, they have created a huge sensation with lots of press coverage. These rovers have also provided almost endless material for Venusian Comedians.
There is little of what we would call racism on Venus. This is primarily because there is little skin variation among the Humans. (Or for that matter Aliens) There really have not been any prolonged separation of the Humans. The skin color of most humans is probably what Earth Humans would call Brazilian with some variations. And there is not all that much variation. The weather is fairly uniform on all 6 countries. In addition, Nada, fairly early, on curbed exploitation among the Humans.
There is one exception regarding racism. But I am not going to delve into this in this essay. But I will address this mystery item in future writing. This concerns mostly the smallest country, and I am sure a student of ancient history who would note the approximate date when The Aliens first visited Earth can guess what I am alluding to.
There has been trouble with what we would call Nationalism. Dust ups between the five Human countries have been known to happen. Nationalism has been a problem. But as mentioned above The Aliens by nature abhor violence. And have a history of avoiding violence and war whenever possible. Indeed, over the years they have expressed shock and abhorrence at Mankind's occasional violent tendencies. They are particularly bewildered by the 5 countries occasional difficulties in getting along as The Aliens themselves set up the Human countries.
As mentioned before, the Aliens have had to at times had to make real efforts to keep the peace. The Aliens have a running joke that 36,000 years they gave 2 Humans some sticks and they threw them at each and thousands of years later they gave two ancestors of the original two humans some complex rockets and they immediately tried to figure out how to shoot them at each other.
What really would stand out to an Earthling Human visitor would be the all-around advanced technology and very high standard of living. Even with the technology leaps that Earth Humans have made since the start of the Industrial Revolution and in particular in the last 125 years or so the Venusian technology is still far and away superior. This would be in all facets, in transportation, medical care, mental treatment, food production and computer technology. Pretty much in any field you can imagine. The average Venusian’s life span is well over a 100 years and people are healthy almost always to the end of their lives. Food and housing are plentiful. Humans on average only have to work about the equivalent of 15 hours per week to support what we would consider a very privileged lifestyle. The cities and living areas resemble something Earth Humans could only dream of. There is no poverty. Venusians everywhere live a fairly comfortable existence, there is no hunger and no disease. However, there are still some problems, but I will not address them in this writing.
The six nations share a common language, although there are dialects and accents. The Aliens have a second very sophisticated form of communication by using very slight variations of movements and changing colors in their eyes. This language is extremely difficult for the Humans to understand. And understanding and communicating in this language is possible for only minority of Humans and even for those Humans who have the potential to learn this language, it takes many years of training. The result is that less than 20% of the Human population can communicate in this language. And even then, Humans have to substitute the eye coloring part with blinks and hand signals.
There is among the Venusians population even among the Aliens a fascination with Earth. Which the Venus population refers to as Mother which is short for Mother Planet. At any given time, there have been Venusian visitors on Earth which has always been permitted under strict supervision. The Venusians have a huge bureaucracy called The Visitor Bureaucracy, run by the Aliens at the top, governing and managing Venusians visits to Earth. They refer to those who go to Earth as “Visitors”.
Although as mentioned before, Visitors are strictly forbidden from either disclosing their status or introducing Venetian technology. After being vetted by The Visitor Bureaucracy Venusian Humans are permitted to live on Earth usually as tourists for a season. But Visitors have stayed for years and in some cases have lived out their lives on Earth and even had families.
And this has led to a rather odd situation in which the low technology, poor and backward Earth has had a fair amount of influence on Venus’s culture and daily life and even in a very few cases technology. Low tech, backward and violent Mother has always been the “cool kid” to Venusians who have emulated the Earth Humans for a long time. While Earth, due to ignorance, has been almost completely devoid of influence from its far more advanced sister planet.
Perhaps the first major Earth import was dogs which Earth Humans took as pets about 23,000 years ago. And Venusians soon after imported these dogs as pets. After Earth’s agriculture revolution which occurred about 13,000 years ago a number of imports have trickled into Venus's culture. Everything from the design of buildings (pyramid type buildings have dotted the landscape of all six countries for thousands of years) to fashion have been imported from Earth over the years.
Some trends, innovations and art that were imported include chickens, Christianity, (which I will discuss more, when I discuss the Venusian’s religious and spiritual practices) clothing and fashion. The toga is still worn as traditional formal wear for males. Chocolate, coffee and the art of the renaissance are all things that slipped back to Venus. Visiting Venusians almost immediately recognized the genius of Vincent Van Gogh and 51 of his original paintings are on Venus.
There are also products and practices that first occurred on Venus and then occurred on Earth without influence from Venusians. Some of these products include beer, distilling of alcohol and video games. The concept of Monogamous marriage as an ideal state was something that occurred in Venusian’s society thousands of years before it became common among Humans. Schools, both lower levels and upper levels have been a part of Venetian society long before they occurred on Earth.
There are some Venusian innovations that were probably introduced on the sly while Venusians were visiting Earth. But it is hard to say for sure because these innovations (“Spills” is how the Venusians refer to them) have occurred only at a very spaced-out rates and because the Venusian visitors who Spilled these innovations would be unlikely to admit it. And the Nada government even if they suspect a Spill has occurred have almost always taken an official policy of just denying that the Spill happened. Some highly suspected products that were most likely Spilled include tea, noodles and vaccines. (This is highly controversial) On a lighthearted note break dancing from the 1980s was most definitely a Spill as this sort of dancing has been a part of Venusian tradition for years. And I would also be remiss if I did not mention that standup comedy and comedy clubs which are one of the 22 forms of Venusian live theater were almost certainly Spilled. One Venusian comedian famously noted that Earth Humans looked just as stupid break dancing as Venusians do.
I ought to say a bit about religion because it plays an important part in both Human influence upon Venus and Venusian influence upon Earth. About 2,450 years ago (461 BC) some Visitors in Japan introduced a slightly modified version of Shintoism in Japan. Shintoism is an Alien religion that traces its origins over 30,000 years ago. The details are murky, but the Visitor Bureaucracy seems to have looked the other way and ignored this serious Spill. There are all sorts of theories on why this was allowed to happen. The most common being that the leader of the Visitor Bureaucracy at the time and the High King were both rather fanatical adherents of the religion and looked the other way while the Spill occurred and then got away with this by saying that Japan is a backwater area and that the country would never amount to anything, and the religion therefore would not spread. In this, they were only somewhat right.
The second religion I should mention is Christianity which spread in Venus in about 100 AD about the same time it began to spread in the Roman Empire. Visitors who lived in Rome converted on Earth and then returned to Venus. There the religion spread quite rapidly particularly among the Aliens. Today in the Human countries Shintoism is practiced by about 35% of the population and Christianity by about 25% of the population. The remaining population practices smaller religions or are non-religious. In Nada, the Christian religion is practiced by a little over 60% of the Alien population and Shintoism is practiced by about 20% of the population.
One of the things that has brought cultural imitation to it currently height is TV. Venetians have had the technology for TV and film from the beginning but for whatever reason it never really took off. When radio technology first took off on Earth in the 1920s a small percentage of Venusians (both Humans and Aliens) quickly took to listening to Earth radio, but this group was more of a cult following, sort of the equivalent to ham radio operators in the USA in the 1960s. There were a bunch of these radio hobby clubs spread out among Venus in all 6 countries. And while they would never be that many as a percentage of the population this group of Venusians would help launch a much wider movement in the 1950s. These radio hobby groups would also create a few Venusian radio stations broadcasting a mix of news and music. However, again this was a hobby that at the most was only taken up by a small percentage of Venusians and most Venusians did not own a radio. Movies also for whatever reason never really captured much interest of the Venusians. When the talkies came out in the late 1920s there was a smaller group of Venusians who would occasionally screen Earth films which would be dubbed into the common language. Again, these movie clubs only encompassed a small percentage of the planet. The result being was that films were viewed by only a small percentage of the population and almost no movies were made on Venus. And therefore, these movies had little influence on Venus. This might have been because the Venusians population has a strong tradition of what we would call live theater. As I mentioned before, there are 22 popular variations of live theater, some that resemble plays, some that are standup comedy, others that resemble operas and musicals. However, what really changed things was the development of TV in the 1950s.
When television started in the 1950s in the USA the Venusian radio hobby groups and clubs that followed Earth radio almost immediately created televisions for themselves and unlike radio and movies, television immediately took off among the mainstream population. TVs quickly became common in family houses across all six countries. And during 1950s most television shows were from the USA. (And while Venusians did eventually start producing home grown TV this was a trend that started slowly and even today about half of television is “foreign”) The cultural impact on Venus has been startling. While there had been a fair amount of borrowing before 1950 the borrowing took up a far larger scope. Earth toys such as hula hoops, frisbees, dolls and board games all became popular. Human fashion became more popular than ever, such items as jeans, suits, miniskirts, high heels all are popular. Pizza, (Which by the ways using the giant buffalo cheese is something that blows the Earth version out of the water) soda, Americanized Chinese food, cocktails, rock and roll are all trends that have flooded in because of TV. There was also suddenly a lot more interest in visiting the old world. And there was also a lot more empathy towards Earth Humans.
Suddenly, Earth was not just something that a percentage of the population visited for a season or so instead due to TV Earth’s plight was right in front of most Venusians on a daily basis. And while, for the most part, what was watched was lighthearted sitcoms showing upper-class families like Leave it to Beaver, (I love Lucey was also an early Venetian hit) overtime, Venusians would watch more news type shows and they were horrified at all the suffering. And as a result, have more sympathy for their downward barbaric cousins. Starting in the 1950s there has been a slow building movement to help out our backward world. It started as a trickle in the mid 1950s and has slowly been building over the last seventy years. There are political parties in all six countries that have a platform that Venusians should reveal themselves to Earth Humans and then lend their technology to Earth to alleviate the suffering. This of course flies right in the face of the long held official Alien line of Non-Interference. This movement has grown slowly and steadily. At first in the mid 1950s small groups formed to meet and discuss the plight of Earth’s Humans. In the 1960s these small groups formed small political parties. And also began to publish their opinions. And in the late 1970s these “Pro-Reveal” political parties started to get a slight percentage of votes. The Pro-Reveal parties have slowly grown from fringe parties to more mainstream parties. By the 1990s and early 2000 these Pro-Reveal parties even had a few members in the Parliaments of all six countries. And in the last five years Pro-Reveal parties are the second or third largest party in each Human parliament. And even in the Alien government a Pro-Reveal party recently won about 20% of the Nada Parliament. This last occurrence has sent shock waves through the public. Now as mentioned before, the nominal leader of all six countries is the Alien High King who very much tries to rule by consensus. And it is the Alien High King whose say is final, but you will also remember that the High King only very rarely steps in an interferes. The royal families of the other 5 nations, which work quietly and closely with the Alien High King have all held a staunch Anti-Reveal line. But perhaps the most shocking occurrence is that the Royal King of the 2nd largest Human country recently suggested that perhaps a Reveal would happen in the next 500 years. This may not sound that groundbreaking. But it is for two reasons. Firstly, King James the 42nd has a very close relationship with the High King and it was taken by everyone across the political spectrum that King James was speaking for the High King and this was to use an American political phrase a trial balloon. Secondly, no timeline has ever been given before for a Reveal. And thirdly, everyone thinks this number will come down drastically and it is now widely assumed that The Reveal could occur far sooner, maybe, even in the next 100 years or so.
If this Reveal does occur, it will change day to day life like perhaps no other event in Earth Human history. The technology that the Venusians produce would lead to a drastic upgrade in Earth Human existence. It would upgrade the Earth Human condition in every aspect such as health, transportation, energy production and food production. In the next essay I will address several other aspects of the Venusian's way of life, history and I will also go into detail on the arguments for and against a Reveal.