Intergalactic Journal of Behavior And Biology

All the species that we know of have a generally similar set of senses including, some form of sight, and some form of hearing..... Though these depend heavily on the species and cover a wide range of abilities, for the purpose of this paper. Despite these differences in this area, all species are known to have a general sensory distinction to, touch including pressure and pain, as well as vestibular and proprioceptive senses, though those vary widely and by degrees from species to species. As far as we understand, humans tend to have the most developed set of senses, and maintain the highest number and the most sensitive set of senses, of which we know. They do, however, lack the ability to see into specie of light ranges, and cannot detect radio frequencies. However, even after this consideration, we find that what they lack in these areas is made up for in other sensory areas.

For instance, there is a sense that humans are known to have, that cannot be found in any other species. Of course we understand that any species, consumer in nature, that requires the intake of food into their body to survive, as having a sense of taste however rudimentary it may be. In fact humans themselves can only taste about five tastes including sour, bitter, sweet, salty and umami however, the human sense of taste is closely intertwined with their olfactory sense which is estimated to be able to detect at least 1 trillion different scents .

For those of you who are unaware of this sense, humans have receptors inside their nose that allows them to detect chemical particles in the air and identify it. This allows them a multitude of advantages including, the detection of dangerous gasses, locating food, and even smelling out the potential health of a mate. Aside from the humans, only one other sentient species is known to possess a sense of smell half as advanced, and that is the Drev.

For many of the reasons mentioned in the previous excerpt, the Galactic Assembly couldn't have known what was going to happen during the first interspecies PR conference held at GA headquarters on the Rundi homeworld.

i t was late in the evening when the delegations started to arrive. The Rundi delegation, of course, had been the first to arrive as they were cursed with the inability to be anything other than excessively early. The Vrul delegation and the Tesraki delegation arrived exactly on time one for the reason of logic, if they were supposed to be there at such a time than they would be, and the other for knowing that time was money, and it paid to show up at the correct time and to leave at the correct time.

The Drev The Gibb delegation arrived a single minute late flustered to the point that Vrul medical officers were put on standby to watch the nervous creatures. Of course no one particularly cared that they were a minute late, but with the Gibb's nervous disposition leaned them towards hysterics.

Slowly, the rest of the delegations began to drift in.

The Drev came in their own time. The Drev had never seen the importance of showing up on time, or even developed a proper way to measure time on their home planet. Of course they knew how long it generally took to go somewhere, but in their culture things began when they began and ended when they ended, you couldn't exactly schedule a battle.

THe newest delegation, members of the Iota sector, arrived shortly after having been delayed by an issue on one of their ships that needed to be taken care of during landing.

Members of the Iota cluster came form a grouping of three planets around one star. All of them were rather snakelike in shape but with thick stumpy legs towards the back which allowed them to scoot across the floor. Their anatomy tended towards heavy, and so they did not move very fast. Their heads were almost catlike in structure, though they had no fur, and their skin was covered in a layer of viscous slime

Until this journey, they had never bothered to venture out of their own solar system, despite their clear capabilities to do so, but urging form the GA had forced their hands and, now, they were thousands of lightyears away from home among a congregation of strange creatures. They had done their research before coming reading up on all the species, and examining all the proper cultural behaviors.

Proper etiquette was very important to their species, and they worried greatly about offending anyone with the improper greeting.

They were especially worried about the strange creatures called humans. Though the information on them had been relatively extensive, it had been hard to understand and even harder to put into practice. It seemed that it depended very much on the SPECIFIC human as to the proper way to behave, and that made them very uncomfortable. However, after speaking to the rest of the delegation, they found that most humans tended to be quite understanding, and so were not known to be insulted easily.... Accept when they were.

As far as improper went the human delegation arrived almost forty five minutes late, though to their credit it was for an acceptable reason. Human clothing etiquette required specific standards of grooming and dressing for events like this, and they had underestimated the amount of time that it took to get ready.

They apologized politely on entering, The human's famous Fleet Commander, and the President of the United Nations standing at the forefront of that apology. Strangely enough, they brought with them a Drev and a Vrul.

The humans stopped in the main hall looking around at all the strange species and colorful decorations. They were told that some of the lanterns were in ultraviolet, but of course they were unable to see it.

Commander Vir was the first to notice the smell.

Lifting his face to the air he sniffed and walked in a slow circle, "Does anyone else smell that"

In curiosity and confusion, the other humans turned their noses to the air catching the attention of a few of the other delegations as they closed their eyes, and seemed to follow their noses. As far as anyone knew, humans needed their eyes to see and did not have any other extra senses to let them move around, but that wasn't exactly the problem.

"Something smells good." one of the humans muttered it's innards echoing with its emptiness loud enough that a few other delegations were able to hear it, and looked over with confusion and worry.

The president of the Un glanced over, "Try to keep that quiet, General as far as I know no other species has that problem."

"Sorry ma'am."

Commander Vir licked his lips, "I mean, he's not wrong..... It smells like.... Bacon or.... Breakfast.... Or or.... Well buttered potatoes..... I can't really tell." His stomach gave an involuntary grumble, and he cleared his throat awkwardly glancing over at the UN president, "Sorry."

Although, to be fair to him, the others were struggling just as much to fight down their hunger. Though they would never admit it, when they went in to mingle with the crowd, they were really just searching for a buffet table, which had to be here, but was annoyingly absent.

As the evening went on the smell only grew stronger.

At first no one noticed the human's strange behavior, but after a while it became almost impossible to ignore the internal growling of the hungry humans. Not only that, but as things went on the humans only seemed to grow more feral. The humans thought they were hiding it well, but humans have never been very good at hiding their emotions when hungry, and just like a dog faced with a steak, a human becomes more primal around food..... Not only that, but they also tend to become increasingly aggressive and cranky the longer they are exposed to the idea of food without the ability to eat it.

The humans were becoming increasingly more frustrated that they could not find the source of the smell.

Commander Vir and the UN President were eventually called over by the GA chairwoman, "I would like the two of you to meet the head of the Iota council, they will be joining us in the GA as allies, as we would have hoped.

The humans gave a respectful nod towards the Iota, who in turn reached out one of its hands to the humans in respect having heard that humans generally greeted each other with a handshake.

Everything was fine up to that point, up until the smell hit them.

You see The strange slime coating the bodies of the Iota was a compound filled with specific types of proteins that, when heated, especially in a large room with many people had a similar smell to the proteins and sugars that humans liked to consume.

All at once the pupils in the human's eyes dilated wide and their stomachs rumbled loudly enough to be heard by most everyone within a ten foot radius.

The Iota, having been given a good sense of danger, knew something was wrong immediately. They stared, wide eyed, into the humans wide pupils locked onto them like the hunting predators they were. The commander licked his lips quickly wiping saliva from his mouth with the back of his hand.

The other humans had figured it out as well, and the entire room had gone quiet watching the way the humans eyed the newcomers with glints of hunger in their eyes. Another human wiped a trail of drool that had made it onto his chin looking around sheepishly.

"IS everything alright. The chairwoman wondered, worried. She was under the impression that humans were generally good at controlling their predatory urges, but the look in their eyes made them seem like starving animals. The way their bodies leaned in, their shoulders hunched, and their lips parted past their teeth was enough to make the entire congregation nervous.

The two humans quickly composed themselves, "It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance." The human's glittering teeth flashed, and tongues ran across exposed bone. The commander had to wipe his mouth again.

growling about the room had only grown in intensity. A few of the humans had sidled up to members of the iota delegation, nostrils flaring as they sniffed the air.

One of the humans whined pitifully hand on it's stomach.

"Damn.... I am so hungry." The commander muttered under his breath eyes turning towards the nearest member of the iota delegation eyeing him sidelong like a lion eyes a steak. Of course he tried to force his gaze away for reasons of proper etiquette, but his attention was soon drawn again.

One of the humans put a hand to her forehead and swayed.

"Are you alright."
"Yeah, I get dizzy when I'm hungry." Her eyes dropped to the iota standing next to her, her wide dark eyes glimmering with intense desire.

Another human leaned against the wall hand to his back overcome by a hunger so painful it made his back ache.

Stomach growled, and the Commander Vaguely wondered what would happen to their public relations if his delegation was to violently rip one of the creatures apart and consume it for breakfast.... He eventually decided it would probably be a bad idea and barked to call his humans back to him. They came reluctantly looking dejected.

One of the humans looked up at him eyes welling with tears, "So hungry." She muttered

He placed a hand on her shoulder, "We'll get you something to eat, I promise."

The human delegation left early and in a rush. No one but the humans and their companions were quite sure what had happened, but it was soon advised in the assembly notes that.

In the event that humans interact with species from the Iota cluster, a meal must be provided before or during the proceedings, two meals being preferred both before and after. This rule should be established for the comfort of the human and for the safety of everyone else.

it took almost two cycles longer than expected to establish a peace treaty with the iota clusters, seeing as they wanted a clause in here that protected them from human consumption.

Humans are especially dangerous when hungry.