Reporter: rob6264
Scientist(s): rob6264, rhoads,comprox, Blackwolf
Date: 10/30/03

Experiment Conducted:

Following the N20 incident on Hera, the TSA cut our funding for a while. It was only after a rigorously prepared and dramatically presenting appeal by yours truly that we got a small budget again. Rhoads immediately complained about how little chips and soda he could buy on a measly million dollar a year budget, but I convinced him that it would suffice. We were back in business, and that’s what counted.

As a condition of our re-instatement, I was required to produce something extra-ordinary which would actually somehow benefit the TSA marines. While I personally believe ALL our work benefits the TSA, you don’t argue about something like that when you’ve been sleeping in the street for almost a year. And as luck would have it, the idea for a perfect comeback experiment had hit me long ago!

As I lay in the street one night, I think it was about April, my now soiled and stained lab coat covering my decreasingly healthy body, I realized something very obvious about the human race: the more people there are in one area, the stupider those people get. It was perfect! But would it work on the Kharaa?

Quickly after securing more funding, I sat the team down in our conference room and explained the situation. As predicted, rhoads wasted no time in calling me a moron for the mere thought, but he had no better ideas. Blackwolf, in his infinite new guy stumbling, suggested that maybe we should study a specimen and determine what reacts violently to its cell-tissue. We all simply stared at him, and finally he realized we had no time to screw around with biological weapons. We needed something that would work!

To my surprise, comprox took my side. With a vote of two to one, Blackwolf abstaining, we got to work on the Alien Stupidity as a Proportion of Population project, or ASPP. Our basic idea was to construct a glass box, and chuck skulks into it one at a time, observing how much stupider the whole got with each new arrival.

Corporal McDougal had long since quit (I think he was feeling very inadequate around all us brainy scientists…poor guy), but I didn’t have too much trouble securing 20 skulks in a titanium crate for testing. The rest of the team put the box together, and we got to it!

As we were about to start, the TSA rep temporarily assigned for this experiment handed each of us a small device that looked sort of like a cigarette case and told us to put it into our pants pockets. I can’t understand why he’d do that, but I did as he asked. Only Blackwolf refused, saying something about not smoking (and boy would he regret it later, heh). Anyway, I motion for comprox to let the first skulk into the box.

It jumped in and skidded across the floor, slamming into the wall on the other side. Comprox quickly exploded into heavy laughter, and I told him to get his head on straight. For ten minutes we watched the skulk leap at us, banging its head off the glass. Rhoads commented, “If it’s this stupid by itself, I can’t wait to see it when there’s more.”

I was just glad he was coming around to seeing my superior point of view. We let the next skulk into the box, and it approached its kin. The pair stood silent for a long second, then rolled onto their sides and stopped breathing. We were ecstatic! It seemed all you had to do was convince the aliens that they were trapped and they committed suicide!

With this completely undesired result we forged ahead quickly, maybe a little too quickly. I told comprox to let the whole lot in. As soon as they were all settled, the two “dead” skulks jumped to life, and they all stretched back like runners on their marks. Rhoads started backwards, “oh shit…”

“What? Those walls are 12 inches thick, right?” admittedly I was a little nervous.

“Well, we sorta ran outa money, so we had to settle for an inch and a half.”

“We had a MILLION DOLLARS!” I shot back.

“But I had to buy chips and soda, and…” Rhoads was twiddling his thumbs.

“You bought chips and soda without me?! I didn’t even get any!” Needless to say that the 20 skulks about to bust through the glass was bad, but the fact that I didn’t get any ranch Lay’s or Cherry Coke was just criminal.

The glass broke and skulks poured out of the gap, jumping gleefully like a bunch of prisoners who just jimmied their door lock. And just then an entire platoon of marines charged in and started shooting right at us. Well, technically they were shooting at the skulks, but we WERE in the way.

Oddly enough, I didn’t get hit – at least I think I didn’t. A felt a few little impacts, but it wasn’t anything bad, I guess the cigarette’s protected me, and rhoads, and comprox. But poor Blackwolf was Swiss cheese before it was all over. I don’t understand it. But to top it all off, a bunch of alien guts ruined my best khakis.

In conclusion, we don’t recommend putting a bunch of aliens in the same place unless there’s a squad of marines nearby. This valuable information should save many lives in the field.

1 – Rhoads [10/30/03]: That’s it, I quit. This “rob” moron is going to get someone killed. Wait, he already has. Rest in peace Blackwolf, at least you had a brain. And furthermore, that wasn’t alien guts on his khakis; that dumbass pissed himself. So, good luck, you idiot, I hope you kill yourself next time.

2 – Rear Admiral Loki TSA [10/30/03]: To set the record straight, this experiment was not conducted by rob6264, but by the TSA R&D corps. We needed to test our new FriendlyFire system which stops projectiles before hitting our troops. The experiment was a complete success.