A copy of the following document was distributed to all crew members
before they went to the planet surface of Arton.
“UPDATED INFORMATION ON ARTON”
May 2, 2175
By Rosy Kurtis, Settler
The last that Mars had heard was that the colonists on Arton had
encountered an indigenous population of humans that were similar to
Neanderthals who lived on Earth from 300,000 years ago to about 30,000 years
ago. It was since learned that the Artonian development was much further
advanced than first thought. The culture was at first evaluated by identifying
markers common to early man. The civilization on Arton had not developed
agriculture, did not hunt animals collectively, lived in caves, had the slightly bent
forward stance of Neanderthals, with knuckles that almost reached the ground.
They did not use fire. Thus they were classified as early to middle Paleolithic
man.
Subsequent contact and interaction with these people proved the earlier
classification to be dead wrong. As it turned out they were different from early
man and couldn't be put into the same mold. They had developed agriculture
but did not practice farming except on certain Islands that did not have enough
natural food. They did not hunt animals because they were vegetarians. They
lived in caves because the caves were cool during the day and warm at night.
They had the appearance of Neanderthals because that is the way they had
developed. They did not cook their food because it had never occurred to them
to do so. They preferred their food raw. They were capable of making small
fires in the caves if they got a little chilly at night. They did go at least 40 feet
from the cave entrance to expel their waste. On the inner islands they had
developed a complicated board game that was similar to chess and were very
good at it. I took our smartest people several months to win a game from one
of them. These people were not war like, they were very friendly and
hospitable. They welcomed strangers and were interested in learning about
them. They had a spoken language that everyone on the planet seemed to
speak, no matter where on the planet they lived. They went around nude
because they liked to and because they had a warm fur coat that nature had
given them. There was a written form of their language that used an alphabet
of 24 letters or symbols but only their scholars and elders who lived on the inner
could read and write. This is about where man was in the tenth century AD.
These people had a profound sense of humor, they loved practical jokes if there
was no serious or dangerous consequence and they could sit around and tell
each other jokes and laugh by the hour. We later discovered that a typical adult
knew the the same 10,000, or so jokes, that all the others knew and they would
tell the same jokes to each other over and over. The object of an Artonian joke
is not in the punch line but the telling. They were in a sense relating short
stories that everyone liked.
Because there were few motivations to improve they didn't bother. They
were patently lazy. Even though there were many hallucinogens available on
the planet there were age old taboos against ingesting them. An Artonian had
rather die than to get stoned, it was part of their culture. They had a concept of
God but no concept of the devil. They had a concept of heaven but no concept
of hell. They appreciated art but only their scholars ever created any. They had
never had a reason to compete physically with others because, I guess there
was plenty of everything to go around. They had doctors who they sought out
when they needed them. The doctors were skilled in herbal medicine and were
quite good at it. Many of these people have learned English but few of our
people have learned to speak Igaghu, their language. When we first made
contact their names were Incomprehensible to us but now they come easily.
They are intensely interested in everything we do, they are little pests,
they will stay with one worker all day and ask him as many as a hundred
questions in eight hours. Sometimes they ask the same question several times,
it is as though they all have Alzheimer's. In their case it is just faulty memory.
They can remember their language and where they live and who their friends
and relatives are and what they need to know to stay alive but to try and teach
them something you are just wasting your time. They did learn and retain our
language because they were motivated. They remember their jokes because
they are motivated but when you try and teach one a skill his mind wanders and
he pays little attention to what you are telling him because he sees no practical
application as to how it relates to things he needs to know.
He may ask a workman “Why did you turn that valve” If the workman
explains that he did it to let some of the gas in this cylinder, enter that system
over there, the native will look very enlightened and nod his understanding.
When the system has been pressurized the native will ask again why the
workman turned the valve and the workman explains that the system I am
working on has been pressurized so I am shutting the valve. Once again the
look of intelligent comprehension comes over his face and he nods his
understanding of what he has just witnessed. If he follows the workman who
takes the same tank to an identical system and turns the valve again the native
will ask the same questions that he asked when the workman did the same job
five minutes before. Natives are curious about why you do something but if it
has no direct consequence on their lives they intentionally forget it immediately.
On the other hand if you were spreading peanut butter and jelly on a piece of
bread and you placed another piece of bread on top of it, forming a sandwich
he would ask you what you were doing. If you ate the sandwich and decided to
make yourself another sandwich just like the first one he would ask you the
same questions again. If you were to give him half of the first sandwich and he
did not like it he would throw his half away. Then if you made yourself another
sandwich like the first one he would ask the same questions again. If he liked
the half that you gave him of the first sandwich he would remember where you
got the bread from, where you got the peanut butter from, where you got the
jelly from and not have to ask you again about peanut butter and jelly
sandwiches. If you left him alone in the room and went outside to do a minor
chore then returned to the room you would see that he had the three items
necessary to construct the sandwich with on the table, had made himself a
sandwich and was happily munching down on it. If he came into your house a
year later, he might very well go to where you kept the ingredients and make
himself another sandwich and offer you half of it.
If one of them is eating a piece of fruit and another asks him for it he
gives it to the person that asks for it and goes to the nearest tree and picks
himself another. They have no monitory system because they see no
immediate benefit to having money. Everything they need in their lives is
abundant and free.
They love to watch each other make love. That is one of their favorite
pass times. They are not monogamous, they have no concept of fatherhood
and no word for father. They are aware that sexual relations between a man
and a woman produce children but they are never interested in who the father
is. If a male is particularly fond of a certain female he is more likely to
recommend her to his friends than he is to try to keep her for himself. Native
men are with women like they are with everything else, they just have no sense
of ownership of anything.
We just accept them the way they are, they are very amusing to watch
and to hold conversations with. They are pests and nascences but they are so
friendly and adorable that you can't get mad at one of them. First off they
wouldn't grasp the concept of getting mad. You can close the door to your
home and lock it but if they want to come and visit you they will try and find
another way into your house and if they can't they will stand and knock on your
door for hours at a time. If their hands get sore they will pick up a stick or a
rock or anything handy and beat on your door with that until you let them in. If
there is no one home they never try to enter, they won't even try your door
because somehow they know you are not at home, but pity the poor
householder who is at home and does not let the native in, he will just keep
knocking until your door gives way. When they come for a visit they may want
to stay for two minutes or two weeks. When they tire of being there and want to
leave they just abruptly get up and walk out. They have no concept of hello or
good by. There are no words in their language to express those concepts.
Some of our people have moved to Islands where there are no natives to
get away from them. The natives fear the oceans so it has never occurred to
one of them to build a boat. When boats operated by Earth people who live on
an island where there no natives visit an Island Island that does have natives
they thoroughly inspect the vassal before casting off to make sure there are no
natives on board.
Our original reports mentioned the presence of dinosaurs, that report
was only accurate to a degree. There are animals here that look like all the
pictures of dinosaurs that we have seen in books but these are quite different.
For one thing the largest dinosaur I have ever seen was about the size of a
horse. Most of them are closer to the size of dogs. Actually when you think
about it the only difference between a dinosaur on Earth and a horned toad is
its size. These dinosaurs on Arton are all vegetarians, in fact we have never
encountered a carnivore on Arton. Nothing on this planet eats anything else on
this planet. All of the inhabitants eat fruits, nuts, vegetables and plants. The
growth here is as profuse as it is in the Amazon Basin, only here on Arton
everything is eatable. Nothing is poisonous. The only kinds of animals that we
have encountered here are the dinosaurs. They will come if you call them, the
little ones would make good house pets because they are so friendly. They are
smart but if you teach one of them a trick he will do it for you again for maybe
the next hour but the next day you would have to teach him the trick all over
again. If they encounter one of our work crews they will just graze nearby and
watch what we are doing for as long as we remain. When we leave they will
sometimes follow us home and sometimes just wander off in some other
direction. There are fresh water pools lakes and streams all over the islands.
The weather is about perfect.
This is really more like the garden of Eden than it is like the Amazon
Basin. The most popular vacation on Arton is to just go native for a while.
There are no continents as we know them. The entire planet is covered by
water and dotted with islands. The natives don't like salt water because in the
salt water there are carnavours. Quite a variety of them. On a few Islands
there are the upper class the people with a better education. The Islands that
they live on have buildings and some of the citizens dabble in the arts and in a
limited amount of science. Their science is about up to where man's scientific
knowledge was at the time of Christ. They have discovered the wheel and
domesticated a few dinosaurs to pull their carts. They have named the closest
stars that they can see with the naked eye. They have built boats and learned
to navigate their boats that are propelled by sails. They have even melted down
gold and made a few coins, not for circulation as money but as cooperatives of
important events and to honor their past leaders.
Artonion natives have an interesting way of disposing of their dead.
They wait for low tide then they drag the deceased out to the low tide mark and
wait the body down with rocks. When tide comes in and then recedes again the
body is gone. They don't grieve for their dead the same way humans do. They
just accept the death as a part of life. They hold a simplistic view of the
hereafter and they do believe in reIncarnation. So in their view the deceased
person has not died he has just moved on to his new body.
We have made an effort to educate these people but with only limited
success. Down deep they have the same personal characteristics as the fools
that live on the other islands. If one of their people is trying to solve a particular
problem when you happen on to him and you show him the solution he will
remember that solution and apply it the next time that he faces that same
problem. If you sit him down in a class room and try to teach him the solution to
other problems he will loose interest and walk out.
One time I went to a boat yard where some men were building a boat.
When I showed one of them a better way to do a certain task he was courteous
and interested and told me that he understood what I had told him and he sure
appreciated learning a better way. When he came to the same task a few
minutes later he did it the same way he had always done it. What I had taught
him just didn't register. If he was faced with a problem he couldn't solve and
you showed him how to solve it he would remember what you taught him and
he would do it that way from then on. So much for their elite people.
The problem with this planet is that once the new wears off there is
nothing to do. You can't really improve it. You don't need to tame the animals,
you can't teach them much. The people are really friendly but they are
worthless. Food is plentiful but we have to conceal the fact that we are
carnivores from the natives. They just wouldn't understand eating another
animal. It would get them confused. On the Island where there are no natives
we have farms where we raise cows and goats and the like for meat and dairy
products but on this Island we do not raise Earth animals or Earth plants. On
the humans Island it is more like Earth We have an observatory that has done
some really fascinating work. They have charted at least one hundred other
planets worth exploration. The observatory however, has been closed down for
the last 20 years.
We haven't had a shipment of anything from Earth in over fifty years so
there are no stores and most of our money has just rotted away. We still have a
few coins left but mostly we just use the barter system or help anyone that
needs any help and give away anything we don't need. The way the economy
works is that if you make cheese you give it away to anyone that wants it. If
you make anything you just give it away. A lot of people just do nothing but
people are always asking them to help with some task like building a fence or a
barn or something. If asked they cheerfully lend a helping hand. When those
freeloaders want something from someone who produces it the producers
usually assign them a small task that they must do first before they get the
product that they want. For example if a freeloader wants cheese the cheese
maker will ask him to sweep out the office in exchange for the cheese. If the
freeloader were to refuse he would not get the cheese.
A lot of the people are just fed up with Arton. I think many of them would
return to Earth if given the opportunity. It sounds exciting there now and I think
most of us would like to be a part of that. My guess would be that 50% of the
people would return to Earth if they could, the rest would perfectly content to
remain here on Arton. If you did take some of these people back with you they
would be of marginal value. The could not or would not do more than was
required to survive.
There has been a feeling of apathy set in on the planet. We had local
Government 4o years ago but then an election came along and nobody wanted
to run for office so they devolved the government. If someone commits a crime
they just give them a boat and tell him to find another island to live on. That has
only happened a couple of times though. We built churches but people just lost
interest and quit attending. All we have ever accomplished is cottage industry.
If the people need wood to build something the women hound the men until
they go out and cut down a few trees. There is a fifty year old saw mill where
they can cut the trees into lumber but the logs usually just lay there for a few
months before a crew gets together and fires up the mill. We have schools that
run through the fifth grade but most kids don't attend regularly and their parents
don't usually make them attend. Besides most of the time a teacher does not
show up. If things continue like this in another two hundred years we will be
living like the natives. The only thing that separates us from them now is that
our women get pregnant easier. This planet could easily become
overpopulated with humans. Our population keeps growing. We have
examined several native women and found that hey only ovulate about once a
year so they have babies a lot less frequently than human women do. That is
why the planet will never be overpopulated with natives. When one Island gets
overcrowded with humans a few of us just move on to the next island. Some
islands have natives living on them and some do not. Everyone just picks an
island to their choosing and lives there.
Many of us from Earth have become aware that there is something about
this planet that changes the way you view things. It never had much effect on
the ones of us who came here from Earth but the people who were born on
Arton are more like the natives than they are like us. Some of us have blamed
it on the atmosphere of the planet, some have speculated that there be
something in the food but I have developed my own theory. That is that the
living here is just too easy.
You wanted me to tell you about Arton that is about all there is to tell.
This document copied and distributed to all crew members courtesy of
Arton Fleet Command since they do not have copy equipment or paper on
Arton.
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