Coffee anyone?

Coffee is a brewed beverage prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans.

The Hive produces some of the worst coffee known to Mankind. Fortunately, the Hive also makes it close to impossible for Mankind to get this coffee...

- Wikipedia (2017)


Straight from the reception, Noo wandered to the coffee corner. He was still pondering the Goggl Translat. If this was meant to be a Universal Translator, its many glitches and botched translations certainly were introducing a number of communication hazards...

Noo arrived at the coffee corner. Nobody could be seen. At the end of the corridor he could see some da heiwa watch him with their round, unblinking eyes ("expectantly?", Noo thought, puzzled)

He saw the coffee machine and swallowed. It was large, black, looming and slightly sinister... Noo looked for a coffee menu and finally found a small button labelled 'menu'. He pressed it, and almost jumped as the machine came to life with a deep groan.

"Access to [digger digger] restricted", the coffee machine said in a strangely metallic slurred voice, "Stand still". A hatch quickly opened and his photo was taken with a dry click and a blinding flash, then the hatch whirred close again.

"What the...", Noo started, still blinking and disoriented but he was interrupted by the machine.

"Insert employed passsss", it barked and another hatch opened, exposing a slot. For some reason, the slot was at floor level. Noo was too startled to ask any questions, and started to really need a cup of coffee now, so he bent over and inserted his new pass in the slot. It buzzed lightly, then quickly accepted the card and swallowed it.

"Hey! My pass!", Noo shouted and was again cut short by the coffee machine. "Passss no acceptance!", it started humming in a menacing way, "termination imminent..."

"Listen", Noo said, "I just want a cup of coffee..." The menacing hum-hum-hum stopped immediately.
"Please choose 'menu'", the machine said, suddenly very calm. The 'menu' button lit up in an inviting pink color.

"What about my pass?", Noo asked suspiciously, "I really need it..."

The coffee machine ho-hummed and then said solemnly, "Must follow [dogger] proceeds, step uno: coffee, steeep duo: passsss". Noo grinned. Apparently Goggl Translat was deeply embedded in the Hive, and the silly translation errors could be amusing. But they were also becoming quite impractical.

He sighed and clicked 'menu'.

"Access to [digger digger] restricted!", the coffee machine said immediately, "Stand still". Again the photo hatch opened and Noo was blinded yet again as his photo was taken. The hatch whirred close again with a small amused hickup.

"Are you crazy???", Noo shouted, "what's this all about?!". "Insert employed passsss", the machine announced and opened the floor-level hatch again.

"I can't insert my pass, you idiot", Noo retorted, "you already took it!"

The coffee machine seemed to take this into consideration. "You need pass?", it asked.

"Yes", Noo said testily, "you took it away from me..."

"Please state name", it was now back at being large, looming and mechanically official. Noo had the uneasy feeling that this conversation was going into increasingly erratic circles. "Agnew Tudisz", he sighed, but the machine again interrupted. "Please use flowing formant: [latest name], [foist name]", it said and let out a small beep.

Noo struggled to understand, and then thought he did. "Tudisz, Agnew", he said.

"You say 'Tudisz, Agnew', conform?", the coffe machine asked. "Yes", said Noo.

The machine went silent with an occasional ho-hum, as it sorted through the collection of passes it had acquired over the years. "Hello?", Noo asked, "what's happening?"

The machine ho-hummed one more time and then announced, "Passsss no find. Names no match". And it went silent with an annoyed click.

Noo's mouth fell open. "You gotta be kidding!", he exclaimed, "Give me my pass!". He was now really getting irritated. "Oh come one, you have my pass..."

With a tired groan the machine came to life again. "Yes...?", it asked.

"You have my pass, I want it back". Noo was now determined, "Oh, and I want coffee"

"Please choose 'menu'", the machine said, sounding tired suddenly. The 'menu' button lit up in pink again, but it didn't really convince this time.

"No", said Noo firmly, "Give me back my pass first."

The machine groaned and clicked a couple of times, and asked, "Please state name". Noo opened his mouth but then decided not to answer yet. After an interval that was just a bit too long to not answer the question, the machine continued, "Please use flowing formant: [latest name], [foist name]", and beeped again.

"Tudisz, Ag..", Noo started and then realized that this did not work earlier. "Agnew, Tudisz", he corrected quickly. "You say 'Agnew, Tudisz', conform?", the coffee machine asked. "Yes", said Noo.

The machine immediately went into ho-hum mode again, and after a number of minutes whistled. "Find passss", it murmeled, "please enter [digger] covery code". Yet another panel opened, exposing a keyboard with three-thousand thirty-seven different da heiwa characters.

"Are you out of your mind?", Noo almost screamed, "what recovery code? I have never been given a recovery code! And how am I supposed to navigate this alphabet?"

The coffee machine re-asserted itself and started looming again. "Covery code embedded in passss combinatered with biological metricals!", it boomed, "Failing know this mandatorial procedure may result in termination!". It loomed some more and said, "Termination imminent..."

"It's re-co-ve-ry code, you moron!", Noo screamed, "And nobody explained anything when I just got my pass!!! Who approved you getting my biometrics anyway???". He was now positively seething with rage.

The machine found a way to scrape its throat and make itself taller. "Hrmph... please provide biometricians for [latest name] Agnew, [foist name] Tudisz!", it bellowed. Two new hatches whirred open. The first hatch provided fingerprint identification whereas the second hatch provided optical identification. "Please provide biometricious simultaneous", the coffee machine intoned.

Noo looked at the hatches. How was he ever going to do this? The fingerprint identification unit had obviously been built for a da heiwa hand: it hand a thumb and three fingers, and for some reason, the optical unit was about half a meter below the fingerprint unit.

Noo shrugged. "Sod it", he thought, put his hand in the fingerprint unit and bent over to show his eye to the optical identification unit. "Please hold position...", the machine admonished, "this will only take five earth minutes...", and it started singing a rather warped rendition of 'My Way'

"And now, the not-now future end is near,
And so me facial the end-of-now certain."

The machine sang, turning the text into gibberish and the song into a sombre dirge.
After a couple of minutes, Noo started to cramp as the coffee machine moodily concluded:

"Yes, there not-now-past are times, I'm sure you new,
When I bite off more than I [digger digger digger] chew,
But through it all, when there not-now-past is doubt,
I consumer it up and split it out.
I facial it all and I not-now-past stand high
And not-now-past do it myyyyyyyyy road."

Singing stopped abruptly and the machine squeeked politely. "Identify complementary. Helooo Tudisz Agnew. Your passssss covery code is 'の1ア弓23矢区切り点'...please enter in passsss covery consolation"

The keyboard with the three-thousand thirty-seven different da heiwa characters lit up in friendly pink.

"You have 10 earth seconds", the machine advised friendly, "1...2..."

Noo groaned as he got up from his cramped position and wailed, "Listen, I don't know your alphabet, how do you expect me to enter a code I only heard onto...", he looked at the alien configuration in front of him, "...that???"

The coffee machine stopped counting. "Count downward abortion. Please provide biometricians for [latest name] Agnew, [foist name] Tudisz for document covery code for sound impaired", it said. Again the biometric identification hatches opened. "Please provide biometricious simultaneous", it concluded. 

Noo felt like crying. "Why are you doing this?", he shouted, "you already know who I am!"

"High secure coffee, secure must be pushed!", the machine answered, then admonished, "Please provide biometricious simultaneous"

Noo cursed and assumed the position. Immediately the machine started 'My Way', possibly a bit grimmer than before.

After five minutes, the macabre chant stopped and yet another hatch opened. A small piece of paper was spit out.

Noo picked it up and read 'の1ア弓23矢区切り点'

The machine immediately started its count down, and Noo scrambled to find the right keys in the bewildering array of characters.

"8...9...", grumbled the machine threateningly, and Noo pressed the last code character.

The machine blipped and the floor hatch opened. Slowly Noo's pass came out.

"Passss verified. Please take covered passss", the machine said. Noo did. He still needed coffee, now more than ever. Gingerly he pushed the 'menu' button.

"Access to [digger digger] restricted!", the coffee machine said immediately, "Stand still". Yet again the photo hatch opened and Noo was blinded as his photo was taken a third ttime. The hatch giggled and closed.
"Insert employed passsss", the machine went through his routine and opened the floor-level hatch. Noo bent over and inserted his pass. This time the machine let out a small surprised burp and stated, "Identify completely", and was silent for a moment.

Then, on the megalomanical sounds of Strauss's 'Also sprach Zarathustra' ("Where did they get that from?" Noo thought), the front of the machine opened up. Lights shimmered in many colors and Noo was again blinded, this time by the shiny interior which showed an intricate web of tubes which ultimately culminated in a discrete small valve with a cup under it. The machine buzzed as it produced a panel entitled 'MENU' with a single button: 'Coffee'.

Noo pushed it. The machine again broke into the degenerated version of 'My Way' as something came dripping out, one drop at a time.

After 5 minutes, the machine proudly concluded on a "I not-now-past do it myyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy road!"

Noo took the cup and tasted it as the machine closed up and shut down. It was revolting.

Out of nowhere Vaseline appeared. "You like? Is heiwa lastest product! We produce many now, make millions!"

"Huh?", Noo started, "You want to sell this monster here???"

Vaseline interrupted him. "Marketing report is late. Please bring to me today" and he was off.

Noo sighed, shrugged, and took his little cup of ghastly stuff to his desk. He made a mental note to bring a thermos with coffee tomorrow.

First day in the Hive - Now

The George Lucas Numbering Paradox states that the value of any given number depends on its position in space-time.

Though scientists had their own uncertainty paradoxes before, the introduction of the Star Wars Prequels - which effectively shifted such basic numbers as 1, 2 and 3 to 4, 5 and 6 - made their worst nightmares come true: numbers were from this time on rational or irrational based on the observers perception of time.

And as an observer tends to be the most irrational factor in life, rationality went out of the door quickly, both in numbers and in debate

Ironically, this fact placed George Lucas number 1 (if t = 2016) of the list of 'Disruptive Innovators of Science' and quadrupled the sales of Star Wars films and memorabilia.

The scientist community countered by condemning all Star Wars Prequels to be 'crap' but this was naturally dismissed by the larger public.

On a side note: the Number of the Beast to this day remains 666, independent of time but that's only logical...

- Wikipedia (2017)

Agnew Tudisz ('Noo' to his friends) read the daily office mail. "Have great 24-hour celestial body axis rotation!", it proclaimed, but Noo was not having a great first day at work. Not only had it taken him a full hour to get through security and obtain bad coffee from a paranoid coffee machine, he now was also trying to get rid of a da heiwa that kept appearing at his desk.

Just out of nowhere this guy stood there and sort of smiled sort of politely. "Hellooo... you meeting now", he said and smiled expectantly.

Noo smiled back, "This is my first day at work, and I haven't even logged in yet. Did you send me an invite?"

The da heiwa smiled again, sort of. "Aha, me...", he pointed to himself, "me, Lemon. You, meeting now."

Noo frowned, "Lemon, you are called after a fruit? Why??? By the way, I am Noo" and he smiled.

Lemon smiled again, but started to think that this conversation was not going as he needed. "Yes, me I choose good name! Fresh! Good for spirit!", and then got back to business, "You are Noo? Noo Tudisz? You, meeting now. We wait for you. Now."

Noo smiled even broader and said, "I will come in a minute, will need to log in first. OK?"

Lemon thought he understood, turned around and was gone. Noo made a mental note that Lemon, unlike the girl at reception he met earlier did not use a Goggl Translat.

One minute later, Lemon was back.

"Noo? Do you come to meeting?"

Noo groaned, "I told you, not now"

"Ah, but meeting now"

"What's the meeting about then?"

"You find in mail", Lemon said happily.

"When was it sent?"

"Just now", Lemon said. He was getting a bit impatient, "So you come to our meeting?"

Noo gave up, "OK, let's see what this is all about. You were going to keep asking anyway, right?"

Lemon smiled, "Yes, for now..."

Together they walked to a meeting room, rather shabby compared to the magnificence of the reception Noo thought. Thirteen da heiwa were waiting and busily chatting in their own language. Noo saw M'Axuel amke some notes in his black book. Noo sat down and talk stopped immediately. Thirteen pairs of unblinking, black round eyes stared at him. M'Axuel scraped his throat and said, "Hello Noo, welcome to meeting. You are late."

"I'm sorry M'Axuel, but I wasn't aware of this meeting...", Noo started. He found it still difficult to pronounce that name correctly, even though he had practiced all weekend, "so, what's the meeting about?"

"Firstly, me Vaseline", M'Axuel announced, "we past now complete to pick customer style name. Me Vaseline, because smooth and soothing qualities for me...", he pointed at Lemon, "she Lemon...", and going down the line of faces introduced Noo to a bewildering array of chosen names: Mario, Heineken, Silk (a rather large brutish looking da heiwa), Audi, Paris.

Noo listened in disbelief, "Why have you chosen those names? People will laugh!", he started.

"Good!", declared Vaseline, "we make customer happy, we sell! Now we do meeting."

He truned to Noo apologetically, "We will now speak in da heiwa language, because very hard to translate and Goggl Translat not updated for technical..."

Then, reassuringly: "Version 2.1 will come soon!", and he smiled. "We will communicate our decision after we talk"

All, thirteen da heiwa immediately started chattering chaotically, and all Noo could gather was that his name was mentioned every other sentence.

Finally, Vaseline sat back and looked at Noo. "Good. We set sales target and discussed action points for you. Most important, you bring me marketing report now..."

Noo tried to say something coherent, but Vaseline cut him off saying, "Lemon will explain and send message. Now I go."

And he was gone. As was everybody else.

Noo went back to his desk and logged on to his computer. There was the message wishing him a 'great 24-hour celestial body axis rotation' and informing him that there was a meeting. Now.

He sat down for a moment, took a sip from the now cold horrendous coffee he had freed from the paranoid coffee machine and thought back over the last hour. It was all a bit much. He had expected a culture gap, but he was quickly learning that he would have to cross a cultural abbyss.

The morning had been good fun. Getting a work pass, having his picture taken. Nice people, the Hive. Very much like us, except their eyes were quite a bit rounder. Very round and black.

And they rarely blinked.

Noo found that he started overcompensating for this when he was talking to the receptionist. Within two minutes he was blinking like a maniac, until she politely asked through her Goggl Translat, "Excuse da heiwa? Is you probably ill? Maybe you need some [undef]?" and handed him a lemon.

"I am sorry", Noo apologized, "it's just that..." and then noticed that the Goggl Translat was probably delivering gibberish to her as well as she started hickuping in amusement.

"Never mind", he said, gently pushed the lemon back to her and went off to his next challenge: the coffee machine...

First Contact

We are not alone!!!

- New York Times headline (2017)

When the dust had settled, the numbed crowds converged on the building that had plummeted from the skies and taken out two city blocks.

The building was massive.

It was massive in the way that, though very shiny – big parts of it seemed to have been constructed out of glass - it was impressively unnoticeable. This was even more massively impressive as in itself it massively lacked the intention to please the eye.

The air smelled of ancient cabbage.

Camera crews from all major networks were immediately present, excited to get the scoop on this enormous event.

“Yes, this is huuuuge!”, babbled a reporter, making sure to be kept in view as the camera man filmed the Sin T’zin, “and I am here, Gerald River, making sure YOU see it all!!!”

“For the first time in history we have encountered extra-terrestrials. Nobody knows what this spaceship will bring us, new knowledge, death, war??? But I, Gerald River, will risk my life and show YOU everything!!!!”. The reporter dragged a crying man in front of the camera, “Hello there, I can see you are in the moment! Tell us, what are your feelings???”

“My wife, my kids… everything gone…”, stammered the man, pointing  at the monstrous building.

Quickly the reporter pushed him out of sight and babbled on. “Yes, you can see! Everybody is excited to see them come! If only my wife and kids could see this!!! But wait, something is happening…”

 Slowly, two big doors swung open and the smell of old cabbage intensified. The reporter hopped up and down in excitement as a tall figure appeared, followed by a very short one and another one holding what appeared to be a black notebook. “Ooooh wow!!! They are humanoid! This is great! This is Gerald River reporting, we have encountered intelligent life like us!!! The tall one is obviously the leader, leading out his people!”, Gerard continued is mindless banter, the crowd started applauding and cheering the newcomers, when suddenly the short figure pushed the big one to the side, fidgeted with a small device on his wrist and spoke…

“Insan hierdie planetin Liewe! Da Heiwa bizə, biz yaxşı şeyi gel! İndi sodat julle naminə bizim ofisi ilə biz nə edə oop edir!”

The VP smiled uneasily at the lack of response, frowned and adjusted some settings on his Goggl Translat, then spoke again…

“Dear people of this planet! We Da Heiwa, and we come with good things! We opened our office now so things you can do to us!”

He smiled broadly and expectantly at the crowd which responded with some hesitant cheers, gradually growing louder until it became a storm of approval, even though not all was clear.

“Who are you guys?”, shouted a voice from the crowd.

“We Da Heiwa”, the VP shouted back and the crowd instantly picked this up. “Da Heiwa, da Heiwa, the Hive! These guys are the Hive!!!”

“Well, there you have it folks!”, Gerard River beamed into the camera, “we’ve met the Hive! And they seem to be friendly enough! This is Gerard River, back to the studio!”

In the background festivities broke out, and the Hive people disappeared back into their building.

It must be noted that three weeks after the arrival of the Hive yet another spaceship made its way to earth containing twenty-six beings of a similar race. When these stumbled out of their office ship, they were greeted by a herd of cows.

The Hive however wanted nothing to do whatsoever with these newcomers, stating publicly that these beings were traitors and should not be trusted.

On earth therefore the newcomers became immediately known as ‘the other hive’, and quickly went about their business of repairing their office and setting up shop to do business with planet earth…

Introduction

The Drake bar equation (sometimes called the Green Bar equation or the Green Bar Formula) is an equation used to estimate the number of detectable extraterrestrial civilizations with bars in the Milky Way galaxy. It is used in the fields of exobiology and the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence (SETI)

The Drake equation states that:

N = R* . fp . ne . fℓ . fi . fb . fc . L

where:

N = the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which communication might be possible;

and

R* = the average rate of star formation per year in our galaxy

fp = the fraction of those stars that have planets

ne = the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets

fℓ = the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop life at some point

fi = the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop intelligent life

fb = the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop night life and cocktails

fc = the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space

L = the length of time for which such civilizations release detectable signals into space.

- Wikipedia (2012)

Mankind has always been on the lookout for a buddy to share a beer with.

In ancient times, knights roamed the earth to find other knights to drink and do battle with and save the occasional damsel in distress. Of course this was seen as a low-tech way to solve the issue, and as technology evolved and swords got rusty, the internet came about and finally social media were introduced. This filled the need for gossip, virtual bar brawls, senseless broadcasting of half-baked opinions and really bad hangovers. Mankind finally had its global bar.

This of course was not enough and thus Mankind set out on its great quest: to found an intergalactic bar. In a parallel approach, SETI tried to canvas the universe and listen for signs of intelligent life. At the same time, earth started broadcasting commercials into the universe, saturating all wavelengths with inanely simplistic but cunningly designed beer-related messages about beer nuts, liquid detergent, toys, cars, toothpaste, sex, furniture… Top marketing and advertising agencies were involved in this grand scheme and everybody made billions.

Earth had effectively turned itself into a huge Twitter, tweeting away into space, drowning out any intelligent communication and generally annoying its neighbors, who were less and less likely to share a beer with us.

Still, somebody responded and came to see…

…

As the spaceship dove into earth’s atmosphere, chaos was complete on the bridge of the Sin T’zin. Various alarms were blaring, the ship’s steering console was lighting up in various spectacular neon colors, making it all but impossible to make any sense of the instruments. The VP was screaming commands into his Goggl Translat, which translated calmly “thirty-six new odors to choose from, choose one for every armpit”.

“What zark he talk about?” shouted the marketing manager for Converged Billing, K’azz, who was trying to read the ship’s instruments and at least get his bearings while adhering to the ‘speak customer language’ protocol.

“No know”, the technical sales manager, K’izz, shouted back, “new language hard to understand!” He tried desperately to unlock the controls but somebody had apparently reprogrammed the key passwords the night before. The fact that their Goggl Translat units clearly had not been properly tested despite assurances from HQ did nothing to alleviate the situation. K’izz groaned in frustration, “shit!!!”

Both looked up annoyed when M’Axuel expressed being pleased at their improved command of the new language as decreed by HQ.

They never had considered it a hot idea to have language training during planetary descent, and now was certainly not the time to test their Goggl Translat universal translators.

Both K’izz and K’azz were acutely aware that M’Axuel had recommended to the VP that they be promoted to ‘Director of saving Da Heiwa’ and have responsibility to safely land the Sin T’zin on earth. Unfortunately, this had happened only 15 minutes before entering earth’s atmosphere and they were in no mood to exchange niceties in what could be the last 10 minutes of their lives. “Shut up!!!”, K’izz shouted at M’Axuel, “we’re trying to save your ass here! How’s that for customer language?”

M’Axuel looked as if he tried to swallow a bath sponge, and then said “You will be fired for this, K’izz…”

The VP’s voice rose to a piercing squeal and Goggl Translat quietly announced “I know a little song. Do you want me to sing it for you?”

K’izz kept pounding in new combinations only to get access denied messages, K’azz had started to scream and cry, the VP kept screaming orders quicker and louder (Goggl Translat: “You too can shave your feet and be happy!”) and M’Axuel had withdrawn to his desk to make some notes in his black book.

As the Sin T’zin was turning into a fiery ball plummeting to earth, K’izz tried the last combination he could think off and typed: 1-2-3-4-5

Immediately the alarms stopped, with the exception of one which kept wailing on until someone unplugged it. The controls came alive and the ship more or less stabilized itself and started to slow down automatically. K’izz slapped K’azz to snap him out of his panic and gingerly took the controls.

K’izz found out immediately that wiring had gone wrong somewhere. He tried to steer left and the ship slid to right in a sickening dive. Quickly K’izz adjusted and found that the ship was remarkably easy to handle as long as he mirrored his movements.

By this time the VP had decided that the Goggl Translat still needed some more testing and shut it off. “K’izz, we need to land to the left as ordered by HQ!”, he barked and K’izz moved the controls gently to the right. The VP glared at him. “I gave you an order…”, he started but then saw that the ship was effectively moving left in a gentle swoop and hesitated for a bit. “Consider yourself demoted from director of saving Da Heiwa to technical sales manager…” he concluded.

Finally, the Sin T’zin landed with an inglorious thud, taking out two city blocks in the process.

M’Axuel was the first to get up, dusted off his black book, made a note and announced “It seems I did rather well”, which earned him a polite round of applause from the VP and administrative support. K’izz and K’azz rolled their eyes but kept their silence.

“OK, time to go out there and open our office”, announced the VP. He pointed at K’azz, “you go first, the customer may be hostile…”

M’Axuel added “Please make sure to speak customer language as ordered by HQ, we must conquer this market! Don’t forget, we must give customer what he wants so ‘yes’ is preferred answer to all questions!” He looked at K’izz, “I expect marketing report on my desk tomorrow morning”

5,000 technicians were immediately set to work to fix all Goggl Translats within 5 minutes to make sure that the first communication with the inhabitants of this planet would be seamless.

When this was done, the VP looked around and said, “I just received message from HQ: the 26 have followed us into this market! They should be blocked from entering this market at all costs! Failure will be punished!”. Then he pushed K’azz toward the opening doors.