The Alien Perspective: Cars

To: The Intergalactic Imperial Alliance

From: Dr. Gargu Lak’tu

Date: Cycle 63/7 8829JB

Subject: RE: Your findings

Greetings, Great Ruler.  May the stars shine well upon your spawn.

As you know, I have spent the last intergalactic business year studying the strange creatures we call Earthlings, and at last I feel that I am ready to submit my findings to you.

In some ways, the Earthlings are brilliant creatures.  As a people, they have created countless masterpieces, such as: The Pyramids, The Papal Basilica of Saint Peter, and the 1992 Australian film, FernGully.

Pictured: Earth’s greatest achievement?

However, in many ways, the Earthlings still baffle me.  In light of this, I would like to request that my funding be extended so that I may further study these strange creatures.  To show that this funding will be put to good use, I would like to present you with an example of how the strange behaviour of the Earthlings can be used to strengthen The Intergalactic Imperial Alliance in our ongoing war against the evil nylar.

Pictured: The evil nylar

The Car:

Now, before I continue, I’m really going to have to ask you to bear with me.  I promise this next part is not a joke.  What I am about to tell you is entirely for real.

Earthlings have come up with this contraption known as a “car” (also: “automobile”).  Essentially, a car is a device that Earthling’s strap themselves into (well, originally they just sat in it.  The straps were a later development...).  Then, they are propelled forward by a series of explosions, which turn wheels that can be guided by a crude wheel-like device (known as a “steering wheel”).  This allows humans to travel at speeds much faster than they could ever hope to achieve naturally.  There are over 800 million of these machines on Earth.

“That means there are nearly four-thousand cars for every gorilla on the planet.”

Now right now you might be thinking: “What?  The Earthlings are just riding around on a series of controlled explosions, going faster than their brains are designed to process, while paying no heed to the plight of the gorillas?  That hardly sounds safe!”

And you would be right!  In fact, car crashes are the leading cause of injury related deaths amongst the Earthlings.  In 2004, it was estimated that “traffic collisions” killed 1.2 million people that year.

“That’s enough to wipe out the entire population of orangutans on Earth more than 17 times.”

Many experts point out that the large number of deaths is only due to how many people drive cars, but that doesn’t make cars any less responsible for those 1.2 million deaths (and 50 million injuries).  Drowning, for example, only kills about a third as many people as car crashes despite the fact that water literally covers more than two thirds of the entire planet.

“Although to be fair, those numbers don’t take into account the countless lives that have been saved by David Hasselhoff.”

In addition, there seems to be a strong correlation between rates of car-use and obesity.  Really, this is pretty much the most obvious thing ever though, seeing as walking, biking, or “doing fucking anything” tends to burn more calories than sitting on one’s ass and riding some explosions.

Now I realise, Great Ruler, that you are probably not familiar with the concept of “obesity”.  I feel it is best to save the concept for a future report, but to summarise; obesity is another leading cause of illness and death amongst Earthlings and affects over 400 million adults.

“Which is around 3.6 thousand times the total number of chimpanzees and bonobos alive today, in case you were wondering.”

Finally, to top it all off, cars are fuelled by a substance called “gasoline”, a refined form of a limited resource known as “petroleum”.  Petroleum extraction is not only harmful to Earth’s environment, but the Earthlings have been known to fight wars over it as well.  When the gasoline is finally put into the car and the car is driven, exhaust gas is released from the car into the atmosphere.  And yes, in case you were wondering, this does cause even more problems.

Essentially, what I’m getting at is that cars are quite possibly the most unintentionally destructive device created by any species in the entire universe, ever.

“But seriously, humans make up more than 99.99% of all great apes on Earth.  This means the combined total of chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, and bonobos on the planet is literally less than 0.01% of the total great ape population.  What the actual fuck?  In fact, there were almost certainly way more humans than that on the Planet of the Apes.  I think it’s clear who the real villain is here.  I mean, I'm not sayin'.  I'm just sayin'.”

Now right now, you may be wondering how this information can possibly be used to strengthen The Intergalactic Imperial Alliance.  Well, it’s quite simple, really:

As you know, the Earthlings are one of the most resilient species in the universe.  They see danger as nothing more than a challenge, there is always a war going on somewhere, and they have even been known to deliberately poison themselves for fun.

"This man is currently ingesting a powerful neurotoxin while standing on a piece of wood that is on fire and yet he seems completely unalarmed.  Perhaps we could use the Earthlings as some form of supersoldier?”

But what if we were to give these “cars” as a sort of false-gift to our enemies?  After all, if it weren’t for the Earthlings’ famed resilience, they would have gone extinct long ago.  Surely, if we were to provide these machines to the ferocious nylar, for example, they would wipe themselves out within a matter of years.  We could literally cause a complete genocide of one of our most hated foes, while making it look like we’re actually helping them.  It’s sheer brilliance!

“Then again, the nylar may actually be smart enough to realise the danger these metallic deathtraps pose.”

I await your reply, Great Ruler.  I trust that you will see the importance of my work.

May the shapers of the stars one day return so we may be swept up into the eternal glory.

Sincerely,

Dr. Gargu Lak’tu

-Thomas Ridout