The Space Jelly

Hey guys! So this week I don't have much to talk about, so I decided I'd write a little prose instead. It's a response to the concept art writing prompt on this io9 post.

"Our self is quite long."

So spake the space jelly. The creature arrived unceremoniously ten years ago. At first, it was taken to be a hoax. One can hardly blame people for being skeptical with headlines like, "Giant Jellyfish Found in Low Earth Orbit".



"It traces a meandering path through the great lights. Regrettably, we cannot see our tail. It is too far before."

The media exploded. As you can imagine, the discovery spurred every kind of chatter imaginable. Some feared it, assuming it had come to kill us. Others expected it to teach us, share it's undoubtedly greater wisdom and uplift us from humanity. Most everybody thought more would come; that we had made first contact with another intelligent species.

"We believe there are others that look as we do. However, they too are far before, somewhere near our tail. We may be imagining them."

The Earth waited for weeks to see what its next move would be. The jelly did not attack. More jellies did not join it. It simply remained right where it was, orbiting our planet slowly. People tried to reach out to it. They used radio waves and lasers. I think a few even tried skywriting. None of these provoked any response. Eventually, we sent up rockets so we could see it up close.

"We are pleased to rest by your world. It is such a lovely, radiant blue. We find it very beautiful."

Fortunately, astronauts that first examined it realized it was trying to communicate before anyone could give the order to dissect it. The jelly communicates by lighting up parts of its body in various patterns. A satellite was put into orbit near it to facilitate communication. The satellite records the flashing and beams it back to Earth. It also has a huge array of LEDs to give our responses. It took a team of linguists months to figure out the language. During the same time, the jelly began learning English. Computer scientists wrote a program that translated the lights it made into English words and read them aloud.

 "It is easier that we speak to all of you before we speak to one. Our greetings are shorter in this case."

The jelly has an... odd way of speaking, to put it politely. Everything it says is in the present tense. It talks about the past and future in the same way we might talk about North and South. To the jelly, they are just two more directions. Hearing it talk this way, scientists initially thought it must experience time differently than we do. The jelly eventually corrected us once it had realized our mistake. It also refers to itself in plural, using 'we' and 'our' instead of 'I' and 'my'. This is suspected to be a cultural trait. The jelly claims it doesn't actually remember why it refers to itself that way.

"We diverge from your lovely planet a short distance after we converge, but in this segment we are glad having your company and answer questions asked to us as well we can.

Once the scientists understood it and how to communicate with it well enough, the jelly was allowed to speak with people as it liked. It began by making a general greeting that was broadcast the world over. It then began taking individual calls. For years, the list of people who wished to speak with it was a mile long. Over time, it became apparent that the jelly actually didn't have all that much to tell us. It was too old to remember where it came from. It was certainly intelligent, but had no great insights to offer us. These days, only a few people ask to speak with it each day.

Myself, I met the jelly two years ago. We've kept talking since and become good friends. For a completely alien life form, the jelly is surprisingly amicable. It never seems to get bored or grow impatient. I asked it once how long it was planning to stay. Near as I could tell, it'll be moving on in a few million years.