Eating Everything

Intergalactic Journal of Biology and Medicine


Humans have one of the most resilient digestive tracts in the known universe. As an Omnivorous predatory species, humans are capable of digesting muscle , fat, carbohydrates (simple and complex), proteins and fibers taking many nutrients and extreme energy from them. Their use of carbs gives us an explanation as to why humans are so powerful because they require a lot of energy to use their bodies. Additionally, the stomach acid of a human is capable of digesting, non-food items though no nutrients can be pulled from it.


Generally speaking, the rule is that if you can eat it, a human can eat it, though, whether it is to their taste or not is questionable.


Furthermore, the human body reactivly ejects toxic substances once detected, so within reason, humans are capable of trying many foods without the negative consequences many of us would associate with sticking foreign substances in our mouth.


There GA intergalactic summit was held, on what was Earth time, November 5th, 4022. All members of the GA council were expected to attend, or at least a representative for every species in the known universe. At this time that would include the Rundi, Gibb, Tesraki, Bran, Vrul, Drev, etc. but worst of all, the humans.


The Rundi steward, a class of government official who was specifically tasked with dealing with the drudgery of bureaucracy, was not pleased in the slightest. It was primarily his job to put everything together, and depending on how well he did, it could either make or break him in social hierarchy of his species. The Rundi were a primarily governmental planet, everything they did was based upon a structure of hierarchy and rule. Government was the greatest form of service, and Anarchy wasn't even an afterthought in philosophical debate. The rundi were not capable of anarchy.


It was a planet of politicians in some form or another, every interaction had political underleanings, and their speech was always heavily guarded. For this reason, the Rundi had been the first in suggesting an intergalactic system of government. The terasaki had agreed only upon realizing they would be tasked with overseeing economics, but had benefited from the Rundi system of government seeing as they tended a bit towards social anarchy, a thought that the Rundi had seen as horribly barbaric, especially since their system was based primarily on the equal distribution of goods to support government structure.


The Vrul had only agreed to join based on their own personal interest in survival. Generally they wanted nothing to do with intergalactic politics and would have been happy to maintain their own peaceful homeworld, but the introduction of other species into the galaxy had offered a great threat to them, and they had decided, out of necessity, to join the GA as being friends with the other species was in their own self interest. In turn that had meant sending their very, very skilled workers to help the rest of the galaxy, and that included their scientists and their doctors, and their mechanics.


And then of course there was the issue of the Drev and the humans, both scarily similar in social hierarchy and temperament. The Drev were warlike and honor bound, but once choosing a leader, they had been surprisingly willing to join in as long as they were given the opportunity to participate in any and all armed conflict that happened to take place across the galaxy.


The humans..... The humans were another story. There was no one characteristic that helped to identify their motivations. The humans themselves were well versed in war, politics, economics, and science, but they did everything to the extreme. Where the Drev practiced war for honor,when humans waged war, they did it to kill, while the Rundi maintained government and played games within their own circles, the humans played against each other often mixing war and government into one. Their economic practices varied widely, but their current system played for keeps and focused on the greatest accumulation of wealth possible far beyond what the Tesraki did. Then when it came to science, they never considered WHETHER they should do something, but only if they COULD do something.


And now here the steward was forced into the position of setting up this summit for all the different types of species. The catering alone had been a complete nightmare, and he had been forced to ship different sorts of food for thousands of miles in order to feed everyone in the proper manner. There were some species he did not have to worry about, like the Vrul, who were more plant based and so did not eat, but there were others, and that included the rundi and the Tesraki, who had every strict diet consisting of only very specific foods to eat. He found that he could tack the Drev onto some other species, seeing as their bodies were capable of metabolizing almost any plant as long as it retained a similar structure to human plants and fruit.


However, the humans themselves were the hardest part, because the range of food was so wide, he could hardly determine what was going to work and what was going to be a massive disaster. He honestly didn't know, different sources said different things, and he couldn't bare to think about putting MEAT on the table.... That was just against his constitutions.


In fact, he was scrambling right up until the council had convened for the evening, and the mass tide of bodies came pouring into the room filling the vaulted ceiling with rockus chatter in dozens of different languages.


He could hear the humans coming a mile off.


The humans and the Rundi had a similar register when it came to hearing, and humans were known to be able to mimic Rundi vocalizations to some degree simply because they generally tended to communicate in deep grunts, hums and guttural vocalizations. The humans, wlel their language was just as varied as their culture clicking, hissing, snapping, humming and grunting filling the air with discordant and somehow, rhythmic quality..


Their presence turned heads.


They walked with the Drev delegation, which was no surprise to anyone. The humans had been unable to send their usual representative due to a social disagreement between earth and its neighboring sister, Mars. So who had they gone and sent....


Them....


The rundi Steward knew all about them..... Crewmembers of the UNSC Harbinger, the widest ranging vessel in the entire galaxy, and home to a crew that was indisputably certifiable. They were the most reckless, most dangerous, and most terrifying amalgamation of creatures in the galaxy somehow including one Drev, and a rather out of place Vrul whose behavior suggested he had caught whatever brain malady had overcome the humans, and was just as insane as they were.


He cringed horrifically at the sight of them.. Humans were a destructive force, and were known to cause chaos and mayhem wherever they went, even at the best of times, so this was bound to get interesting.


The delegates were seated, and the Steward welcomed them with gracious words of introduction he had spent months preparing. It was a very political thing for him to do, and included subtle compliments to all delegations involved, laid down some ground rules but made sure not to undermine the authority of the people he was speaking too..


However, to the humans, the attempt was obviously heavy handed brown nosing, though none of the other delegations seemed to notice.


He invited them in for refreshments and encouraged discussion between the parties.


Of course, the humans weren't exactly ones to pass up the idea of food and were some of the first to the table examining the contents with great interest even the food that was not theirs. They seemed very amused watching the other delegations pick up their specific food and then move away to sit.


"What is this." one of the humans commented holding up a rather stringy green tube that wriggled and squirmed in his hand, "Are these worms?"


One of the Tesraki looked over, "No, it's a Cavestalk, a kind of plant. Probably not to your taste, they are known to be poisonous to other species. In other words, not human food."


The human raised an eyebrow, "Buddy, humans are the sharks..... Or wait.... Maybe that's the goats of the universe, we can eat anything within reason, and even a couple of things outside of reason if given enough time."


The Tesraki made a sort of shrug and wave with its large ears and then walked away. The steward watched the humans with a worried expression. It wouldn't due to allow the humans to make themselves sick on his watch, but it seemed as if that idea was only becoming more and more likely as the humans poked and prodded at the leftovers of other species hardly bothering with the food that had been laid out for them.... Mostly strange fibrous plant materials.


And that is when it came, "I dare you to eat it."


The two humans locked eyes, one still holding the wriggling Cavestalk, "What."


"I said, I dare you to eat it."
The human stuck out his chin at the other human in a primitive position of posturing, "How much do I get if I do."


There was a moment of thought before, "Twenty credits. I'll give you twenty credits to eat it."


"What happens if it poisons me?"


There was a hand wave, "We have a doctor on board, he can just pump your stomach.... Chicken."


A moment of silence passed between them, and the Rundi steward began moving towards them to stop something horrible he felt was about to happen. He wasn't fast enough, and before he knew it, the human had thrown back his head and dropped the wriggly green thing into his mouth swallowing it whole like an alligator or a snake.


People around looked on in somewhat fascinated disgust as the predator's throat bobbed and he smacked his lips making a face, "Eh, I can still feel it moving.... Eh." He paused, "Though, taste wise it isn't so bad kind of like a wiggly asparagus." After a moment his eyes narrowed, and he smacked his lips again, "Spicy asparagus, uh, that's really really weird."


He reached the table just as the Vrul came running up shoulders squared in a very un-vrul way, "HE LITERALLY JUST SAID IT WAS POISONOUS TO OTHER SPECIES, AND NOW YOU'RE EATING IT! AND YOU OVER THERE." A human looked up at him from where it had been prodding the Drev coiltree berries, "GET THOSE OUT OF YOUR MOUTH!"


They had attracted the attention of some of the closer tables now who were looking on in entertained confusion and worry.


A human waved a hand, "It's alright Doc, we have you don't we"


"I AM NOT THE MAGIC CURE FOR NEUROTOXIN."


Another shrug, "Well it's a good thing that I'll throw up before anything really bad happens."


The rundi steward tried to intervene as the humans began prodding through the other food, "Drev can eat human fruit, so I bet these things are like fruit." one of them pointed out popping the berries into his mouth and chewing with a contemplative look on his face, "Not bad."


"Please, please, if you would remain within your own food groups." The Rundi begged. HE was now realizing he should have written up some legal documents to avoid litigation if the humans were to be damaged on their property, but now was too late.


A human waved him off, "Don't worry, everyone else is done eating, besides." He Pointed towards the human food, "That's literally a pile of lettuce, I am a man, not a horse."


"Horses don't eat lettuce, also that's not lettuce,it's spinach." Another human piped up prodding at a strange squishy red ball sloshing with a strange pink nectar, "This looks like candy."


"Please don't put that in your mouth."


The humans swarmed away from the two dissenting voices. One of them picked up the strange pink orb and licked it. It's eyes lit up and it bit into the piece wiping pink juice from it's face as it did, "Ok, this, this is good 10/10 would try again." And that only caused all the other humans to move over to try one.


"I SAID GET THAT OUT OF YOUR MOUTH!" The vrul demanded.


The Rundi steward looked on in horror and worry. Vrul didn't behave that way, everything here was just wrong.


A Drev joined the party just then pointing to the pink orb, "I love those, but you should definitely try these too."


"No, no they should not."


He was ignored, and the humans scooted over to look. It was a strange spiral plant in a light yellow color that made a distinctive crunching sound as the humans bit down. They shrugged, "Sort of just like space celery if you ask me."


Did these creatures have no sense of self preservation!


A group had gathered around the table strangely amused at the humans, who just ate.... Everything.


The Rundi steward almost keeled over watching his future go down the drain as other species began offering humans food. Whatever it was, they seemed unable to resist putting it in their mouths. A human made a face spitting something back out into his hand, "Ax bleh, tastes like Satan's feet."
"Quick question. When was the last time you licked Satan's feet."
"The last time I was at your mom's house."


The humans made strange noises at each other as the Rundi stepped in and began grabbing things from the humans only to find the Vrul to be doing the same, "Stop it! Stop it all of you!."


The human's paused, as did the other delegates in surprise.


"STOP PUTTING THINGS IN YOUR MOUTH THAT YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY ARE." The intervening silence was broken as one of the humans loudly crunched on one of the pink orbs. Everyone turned to look at her and she just glanced around the group.


"What?" She wondered past a mouth full of food.


A human waved a hand at him, "Keep your shorts on, we promise you won't get in trouble if one of us dies."


The Rundi stared on incredulous.


They were going to kill themselves, they were really going to kill themselves.


Maybe it was best if he resigned before being fired, at least he would be able to keep his dignity

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