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Thanks for reading!
Apo
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Humanity discovered intelligent alien life in the year 2064, approximately 32 light years away on the planet Ort. When the Ortians were first discovered by a United Nations Space Agency deep space exploration probe, the decision was made to keep their existence a secret until such time that they could be classified as non-hostile. In 2071, first contact was made with the Ortians using an experimental FTL communication satellite, and for the next decade the UN secretly monitored the Ortians while maintaining basic communication with them for further study. In 2079, humanity finally directly interacted with the Ortians in the form of a crew of 50 diplomats which had travelled to Ort in an effort to further study the alien species.
This marked the true beginning of the relationship between humanity and Ortians. And so, while the UNSA conducted more and more in-depth research into the Ortians, especially their anatomy that seemed to mirror that of humans, the UN prepared a plan to reveal their existence to the world. However, mere months before the planned reveal, a breakthrough was made by a Eurasian Federation biologist named Hugo Lee on the brain structure of an abducted Ortian. They appeared outwardly similar to humans, except for having brightly coloured skin that seemed to be for camouflaging in the native flora of Ort, and horn-like growths on their foreheads. However, this similarity was determined to have been independent parallel evolution as Lee's research showed the brain structure of Ortians to be vastly different to that of humanity's.
Lee's research indicated that while both humanity and Ortians were both social species, Ortians had evolved into a more pack based social structure instead of the early tribes humanity did. While this hadn't led to a massive difference in their current society, it had a profound effect on their brain structure. While humans had a small amount of so called "mirror neurons" in the frontal cortex that leads to effects like contagious yawning, Ortians had magnitudes more to encourage a pack structure. After much trial and error, and the sacrifice of many Ortians, Lee and his team discovered a technique with which to exploit this fact to produce more amicable test subjects. It was the Project Lead that saw promise in this technique, and successfully petitioned the Eurasian government to postpone the public revealing until it could be fully explored.
After 7 months, much progress had been made in the "Pacification" process, as it had been dubbed. Pacified Ortians retained their higher brain functions and thought processes, but by bombarding them with the correct stimuli while certain areas of the brain were suppressed their sense of will and resistance could be degraded. While some staff raised concerns over the morality of the process, the UN made the decision that Ortians were not to be afforded the same rights as humans in light of these discoveries. Some tried to make the argument that they were in fact intelligent, sentient and capable of communication. However, the Vogler corporation campaigned that the existence of the Pacification proved them to be sub-human, and therefore undeserving of equal rights. Due to their work, as well as many surprising and sudden changes of position in the opposition group, the UN's planned peaceful coexistence was reassessed and the global reveal was postponed.
In 2089, the UN finally revealed to the general public the existence of the Ortians, under the name of the Vogler corporation. They were branded as luxury pets for the rich due to the high cost of transporting them to Earth as well as performing the Pacification process. Within the first year of their release, over 45,000 Ortians were sold worldwide and the infrastructure to produce them was vastly expanded upon. An Ortian Pacification Centre was founded on every continent to support the influx of starships bringing Ortians to Earth. And thus, a new industry was born.
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I had dreamed of being a brain surgeon when I was young. An expert in my field, saving lives on a daily basis. Sadly, reality likes to crush the dreams we have as children. I dropped out of medical college just one year before I would've gotten my doctorate. And so, where was a poor, burned-out college dropout with a background in neuroscience and psychology to go except Vogler?
I started working at the North American Pacification Centre when I was twenty four, doing basic busy work. Over the next forty years, I worked my way up the corporate ladder to the position of Head of Production of the North American Centre. One of the benefits of working at Vogler was that they were more concerned with results than the qualifications of the person achieving them. That let me get promoted over people with more education or experience since for whatever reason, I took to Ortian neuroscience like an Ortian takes to sucking dick.
And so, I take great pride in my work. And work very hard to meet the expectations Vogler sets forth, especially whenever the new batches come in at the start of the month. Vogler had been ramping up production over the last couple years, and now every month a starship would deliver 3000 Ortians to our facility to be Pacified. By now the process had been all but perfected, so I liked to leave the other staff to work their way through the other Ortians and focus my efforts on a couple of the tougher cases.
Contrary to popular belief, Ortians were quite intelligent before they were Pacified. They had their own language and culture, their owns hope and beliefs. Vogler obtained the vast majority of Ortians willingly, promising them work and a better life on Earth. However, some caught on that life on Earth wouldn't be the perfect life they were promised in Vogler's propaganda when they arrive at the Pacification Centre and rebel a little. Usually, these rebellious subjects are discarded as they had a much lower successful Pacification rate and aren't worth the resources to train properly. But lately I had picked up a hobby of trying Pacify them myself.