Date: Wed, 27 Sep 1995 11:11:38 +0100 (MET)
From: Anders Sandberg <nv91-asa@nada.kth.se>
Subject: The Gools (an alien race)


"The city looked like a series of grassy hills, covered by shrubs and 
long poles in bright colors. As we waited, several beings emerged from 
the shrubs, which probably hid entrances. At first I thought they were 
birds as they began to bounce and glide towards us, but on closer 
inspection they looked more like modern art: bright, almost fluoroscent 
structures of slender limbs and feathers, without any clear symmetry or 
direction. As they began to dance around us, we felt a pleasant spicy 
odor when they touched our skins with their feathers (they seemed to be 
very interested in physical contact). From small metal boxes near their 
centers came an insistent melodic sound: 'gool... gool... gool...'. It 
was quite obvious they liked us."

Gools

The Gools originated on a low-gravity world orbiting a somewhat 
unstable star. From time to time great storms or climatic changes 
wracked the surface, making most life aquatic or adept at hiding 
underground when the weather turned dangerous. Many species 
spent their entire lives in tunnels beneath the surface, emerging 
only to snatch down food into the safer underground. The surface 
was gradually dominated by fast-moving or flying predators, some 
which lived in symbiosis with plants that they protected. In 
response, underground species developed elaborate ways to avoid 
detection and exposure. One solution was to have expendable 
appendages which were used to explore the surface. This gradually 
evolved into a situation where some species had almost 
independent organs which could be used for exploration, gathering 
food and mating, not unlike the workers of earthly social insects.

The Gools evolved from a digging species living beneath the 
extensive plains on the largest continent. Their main bodies are 
spindle-shaped and covered with shovel-like appendages used for 
digging. In a slit along the side their secondary bodies grow folded 
inside pouches; to explore the surface one or more of the lesser 
bodies unfolds and scurries away. Unlike the main body they are 
thin and graceful, adapted to fast movement in the open and even 
limited flight. They were mainly controlled by instinct and complex 
chemical traces from their main body, although they had some 
limited intelligence on their own. 

A few hundred thousand years ago a new species of predator 
appeared on the continent, digging hunters working in packs who 
could attack the previously safe main bodies of the Gools. Faced 
with an evolutionary pressure, the Gools became more and more 
adept at inventing clever ways to evade the predators, both by 
using the secondary bodies and simple tools. Gradually the Gools 
became an intelligent species, and eventually drove the hunters to 
extinction.

The gools invented agriculture, using their secondary bodies to 
spread seeds and guard them from herbivores, and they began to 
grow plants which attracted symbiotes they ate. In time most of the 
plains were cultivated. However, development was quite slow, since 
young gools started their lives without training and protection; they 
had to seek out older gools to learn from them, and this was not 
always possible or appreciated. 

The first true gool civilisation developed after a group of gools on a 
somewhat isolated island learned how to control their mating 
bodies so well they could make sure they fused in roughly the same 
place all the times. This made it possible to gather the young while 
they were newly hatched in an ordered way. Gradually a 
community emerged, where some gool would gather food and some 
care for the young. The latter category also developed better and 
better ways to use the secondary bodies, and taught it to the young. 
In time the island culture spread to the main continent, dividing 
the plains into a large number of more or less independent 
societies, often in conflict for land or resources. However, since the 
gools themselves moved slowly, and never developed techniques 
for riding, the warfare was mainly local. The societies also had 
trouble growing large as long as the main force holding them 
together was the mutual care for the young, the mating bodies had 
a limited range of flight.

Gradually, the plains became covered with an artificial ecosystem, 
centred around their agriculture, and the ground beneath was 
gradually criss-crossed by tunnels and underground pests were 
eradicated. Unfortunately, the cultured areas also lost much of their 
vitality and often were ravaged by unexpected ecological disasters. 
Many gools choose to explore new regions, in search for new land or 
wealth. As the gools gradually spread across their planet they 
encountered environments where they were unable to live 
underground, and they had to develop new forms of living. Since 
the gool severely dislike being out in the open they developed 
buildings, often filled with loose material and linked by covered 
crawlways. As their technology advanced, the single buildings 
became whole cities, often covered with dense vegetation and 
brightly coloured poles designed to help secondary bodies navigate. 
They look quite like decorated overgrown ruins, with very little 
visible over the surface.

The old societies gradually turned into nation-like confederations of 
the smaller units, held together by faster communications, military 
and economic power. However, they never truly lost their 
independence, and often had quite distinct attributes. This both 
caused some friction between different societies inside one nation, 
and in many cases encouraged specialisation. One area specialised 
in farming and the development of ecology, while another area 
perfected the methods of training secondary bodies. By travel, 
consultancy and the exchange of members many societies became 
tied together, not only inside the nations but also between them. 
Some very specialised societies became just as powerful and 
wealthy as whole nations, while others were powerless in their 
mediocrity.

Slowly but carefully the gools developed their science and 
technology. The taming of fire was a slow process, since it was by 
its nature unpredictable and dangerous. It had been known for 
millennia, but it was not until a group of gools managed to train 
their secondary bodies how to handle fire and not flee in panic 
from the heat, that fire became useful. The discovery of ceramics 
and later metals accelerated the developments, and was soon 
followed by the development of complex mechanisms. For a long 
time the gools developed the science of mechanics to perfection, 
building wind and water-powered factories, digging machines and 
mechanical computers. Electricity was known, but not used for 
much. This went on for a long time.

What propelled the gools out of their inertia was a series of violent 
solar eruptions, which disrupted the climate and ecology 
planetwide. Titanic storms and unpredictable rainfall destroyed 
much of gool civilisation, and turned parts of the ancient plains into 
an inland sea. Millions of gools were killed or died of starvation. 
After having rebuilt their cities and repaired their machines, the 
gools began to worry about the possibility of a second cataclysm. 
Many societies began to study meteorology and how it related to 
the sun and moons. They discovered the law of gravity, and 
determined the structure of their solar system. But they were 
unable to understand exactly how the sun worked and what 
controlled it. The fear of ignorance and chaos forced the leading 
nations to temporarily unite to find a solution. Several of the most 
skilled societies were called upon to form an artificial nation to find 
out how to control the sun, or how to prevent another cataclysm.

For quite some time the societies of the nation developed and 
tested its theories about the sun. They soon realised it was not 
based on any known chemical or electrical process. Following the 
gool tradition of sending out secondary bodies to scout, they 
developed small rockets carrying measurement packages and radio 
systems. As they gained expertise, they invented a radio-link which 
could be used to communicate with a secondary body remotely, and 
sent out bodies into space (this technique revolutionised planet-
bound communications and social life). They gave up on trying to 
change their sun, since they realised that its titanic energies were 
far beyond their technology. Instead they concentrated on 
predicting its eruptions and the effects on the planet. After some 
years, they had developed simple space-stations where secondary 
bodies controlled from the ground watched over the sun and the 
weather. They realised one fundamental problem: to keep the 
station manned they had to send up new bodies from time to time, 
as the old wore out or broke down, and this was both expensive 
and inefficient. In order to protect their planet, gools had to live in 
space. 

Over the next centuries the gools created their first space habitats 
and began to expand into space. They hollowed out asteroids (to 
make sure flares from their sun was no threat) and filled the 
interior with air and a thick layer of gravel. Light was seldom 
needed, and the huge interior spaces were devoted to life support 
and other machinery. Each asteroid station became its own 
community, and gradually many of them became nations in their 
own right. The gools explored their system using the huge but slow 
asteroids, eventually colonising the asteroid belts to a large extent 
(today the space-living gools outnumber the planet-bound gools by 
at least 10:1). The reason for this expansion was never clear even to 
the gools themselves. While they were obviously ensuring the 
survival of the species and finding vast new resources to exploit, 
there was something else driving the gools outwards. Somehow 
they couldnUt stand the thought of unexplored places.


Physiology

The main bodies are about 2 to 3 meters long and at least half a 
meter thick, spindle shaped and covered with slick black scales; to a 
human it would look somewhat like a walrus. Some of these scales 
grow into large shovel-shaped extremities used for digging and 
moving, usually in a regular pattern around the body. In the front 
end there is five scales/teeth covering the mouth, which can also 
fold outwards and manipulate things. The slit where the secondary 
bodies are kept are usually tightly closed, and runs along most of 
their length; an adult Gool can have up to 10 mature secondary 
bodies inside it at one time, and often several under development. 
Old secondary bodies are eaten. 

The main bodies of the gools are extremely sensitive to smell, 
especially the skin between the scales. They are quite able to detect 
smells from different directions and how old they are. In fact, the 
gools often communicate using smells, secreted by glands inside the 
mouth. In dangerous situations they can exhale an intense smell to 
confuse an attacker or even SblindS it. The scales are also sensitive 
to vibrations, both vibrations in the ground and sounds in the air in 
the tunnels. Their sense of touch is naturally quite good, especially 
in the ends. However, the Gools are quite blind. 

The secondary bodies are disc-like and dark when folded. They 
grow in pouches, gradually developing until they are fully grown 
(around 15-20 centimetres in diameter when folded tightly). They 
are nourished and protected by a syrup-like secretion of the main 
body. When they are needed, they are pushed out from the pouch 
and slit, and gradually crawl away until they get into enough space 
to fold out. When unfolded, they become around a meter in 
diameter, a graceful irregular construction of very thin and 
translucent insect-like limbs, covered in hairs which form feathers. 
They are extremely nimble, and are able to fly/jump quite well in 
the low gravity of the planet. These bodies have quite good hearing 
and a somewhat developed sense of sight, but they mostly navigate 
using smell and touch. On the surface they mostly gather food, 
watch for predators and scan the surroundings; when they return 
they transmit what they found to the main body using a mixture of 
signs and smells, a bit like bees in an earthly beehive. They are not 
really intelligent, more like trained animals. 

From time to time they form mating bodies, secondary bodies with 
brightly coloured feathers which climb to the surface and seek out 
other mating bodies. When they meet, they quickly build a burrow 
where they enmesh and spin a cocoon around themselves. They 
gradually merge, and after a few days a young gool breaks free and 
starts to dig its way into the ground. The gools are able to decide 
which type of secondary bodies to grow, and mating bodies are 
usually regarded as a more refined way to do something. Normal 
secondary bodies are used for personal tasks and business as usual, 
while mating bodies are often sent as messages/gifts/snacks or 
used to perform certain social functions. 

The gools can partially control the development of their secondary 
bodies, both by mental and bodily control, certain drugs, selective 
breeding and training. This is regarded as the highest art by most 
gools; it is a mixture of self-discipline, animal training, cosmetics 
and etiquette. All gools can control whether to spawn mating 
bodies, and most are able to create partial mating bodies (which are 
somewhere in-between real mating bodies and normal secondary 
bodies) and to control how the development occurs; some gools 
prefer to grow many small bodies, while others create very few and 
big. Much of their appearance and general behaviour can be 
controlled by the ingestion of certain chemicals and foods and the 
conscious control of body odour. The most subtle part of the art is 
however the training to make the bodies respond as the gool wants 
to signals and orders; this is an extremely complex task which has 
been honed by special trainers for millennia. Most gools have 
specialised some of their secondary bodies, especially for speaking 
or handling objects.

The gools have several forms of speech. The most common form is 
by shaking their bodies, which is used to communicate through 
vibrations in the earth (or today through televibrators, which 
transmit vibrations and sounds). They also can communicate by 
changing their odours, a more personal form of communication 
usually reserved only for the young or close associates. Over longer 
distances gools speak by sending secondary bodies carrying smell 
and vibration. These discussions can often become quite complex, as 
several bodies are involved and skilled gools can program them 
with several possible responses. 

One recent development is remotely controlled bodies, where the 
gool can send signals to the bodies and receive responses from 
them. This allows trained gools to reprogram their secondary bodies 
when they are far away. 

Psychology

The Gools are extremely individualistic, and have an intense feeling 
for privacy and property. They dislike even the thought of another 
being in the close vicinity, preferring to signal to each other using 
vibrations or bodies. Anything getting too close to them are 
regarded as an intruder, unless it carries exactly the right smell-
patterns and behaves somewhat predictably. Secondary bodies of 
other gools are usually acceptable, as long as they keep their 
distance from the main body. The etiquette of privacy is 
exceedingly complex, and most gools are very careful not to get too 
close to each other using any of their bodies. However, some 
secondary bodies are bred for their taste or smell as gifts (some 
murderous gools have used poisoned secondary bodies against their 
enemies).

The gools are still not asocial; most prefer to feel the protection and 
kinship of their community. This is especially pronounced after 
hatching; they young are gathered by their teachers and protected 
by them. This is the only time gools are physically close, and the 
mystique/taint of closeness isolates the teachers from most other 
gools; while doctors sometimes have to touch patients, the teachers 
touch the young freely. Today even the teachers can help the young 
without physical contact, but the symbolism persists. They are in a 
way the force holding community together, and are often regarded 
as its symbolic (if not practical) leaders. It is not uncommon for 
their collective smell to be seen as the smell of the community, of 
unity and safety.

The relationship between gools and their secondary bodies is very 
complex. In most societies the bodies are regarded as extensions of 
the main body, but not the true self. The self is seen as the clouds 
of odour around the main body, and the mouth is the noblest organ. 
When a secondary body misbehaves it is regarded as having lost 
the connection with the true self of its owner, and while most gools 
find it both irritating and distasteful, it is not really the fault of the 
owner except in discipline. To be able to control and predict the 
actions of oneUs bodies, and to train them to work together, is one of 
the best expressions of a pungent self. The secondary bodies 
contribute to the self, and by training them well a gool can become 
more pungent.

Something all gools dislike is unpredictability and surprises. The 
secondary bodies are good at handling situations they have been 
trained for, but faced with something unexpected they tend to 
scurry back to the main body for advice and orders. Since it is 
impossible to predict every possible problem and train the 
secondary bodies for it, the gools either have to rely on general 
guidelines for the limited intelligence of the secondaries, or try to 
divide all problems into simpler tasks, preferably problems which 
they have already been solved. This reflects in their thinking: gools 
prefer to reduce all problems to previously solved problems. This 
sometimes makes them miss elegant solutions, but they are very 
good at finding a way, however tortuous, to make things work. 
When someone finds a simple new solution this is greeted with 
admiration, but most of the time everybody is using the old and 
proved methods.

Society

The central unit in gool society is the community, a group of around 
100-1000 gools centred around a team of teachers and a central 
mating ground (the mating grounds are specially prepared by the 
teachers so that mating bodies will seek them out; most commonly 
they are surrounded by highly reflective poles and certain 
traditional smells). Each community essentially runs itself once it 
has been established. Most are governed by one or more leaders 
and their staff, usually selected by the other leading gools in the 
community. Once the teachers usually held this function, but today 
professional politicians and technocrats are more common. 

Each community controls a very defined area of land, and does not 
tolerate another community encroaching without proper 
permissions, even if it is friendly. The borders are clearly marked 
with poles smelling of the teacher-union of respective community. 
The teacher-union is the social core, and highly respected. Today it 
no longer solely includes the teachers who take care of the young, 
but also experts on various sciences, especially the social arts. Most 
politicians still have to crawl lightly not to upset the teachers; if 
they officially pronounce their dislike for a leader, he will be in for 
a very rough time. 

Each community is usually specialised towards certain areas. There 
are farming communities, industrial communities, scientific 
communities and aesthetic communities. While membership is 
usually by birth, it is not uncommon for gools to seek admission 
into a new community to learn or work. If they are accepted, they 
are brought before the teachers and formally initiated into the 
community smell. The cultural differences between different 
communities are often surprisingly large. They employ different 
smells, have different methods of training the secondary bodies and 
other social rules. Prejudice against other communities is quite 
widespread in many places, but many communities are so well 
renowned that their pungency are above all reproach. This includes 
a few extremely famous teaching communities, the remains of the 
artificial nation (today a set of closely linked scientific, political and 
industrial communities) and the exclusive communities of body-
trainers. 

The communities have been linked together into nations, sometimes 
by conquest, sometimes by politics and economics. The nations are 
not as defined as earthly nations, and often just loose 
confederations of communities. Some of the old nations still persist, 
ruled by a small elite controlling all the communities through 
military and social force, but they have gradually been replaced by 
confederations run as generalised communities themselves. These 
are controlled by leaders chosen among community leaders, and 
have a ceremonial group of nation-teachers. However, it is not 
uncommon for communities to simply change side and join another 
nation, or proclaim themselves free. It has become rarer, but still 
occurs. 

Another odd social structure are the artificial nations. Often they 
are created by several nations who wish to solve a mutual problem, 
as a token of peace, a buffer state or for economic reasons. 
Communities are simply gathered into a new nation, with its own 
rulers and economy (although the parent-nations often place 
certain restrictions on its activities or even a time-limit for its 
existence). The most famous artificial nation was the nation which 
developed radio and spaceflight, but there are also nations devoted 
only to trade or culture. One of the most unusual artificial nations is 
a kind of UN located on a peninsula of the main continent. It 
consists of communities from most nations, and seek to unify them 
into a single world-community. 

Religion and Philosophy

The gools are amazingly non-religious and practical. They have 
never even considered the thought that there are anything 
supernatural. Instead they lump all unknown and unpredictable 
things together into a big whole. In the last few centuries this great 
unknown have become more threatening, and several schools of 
thought seek to either discover what it is (and thus render it 
controllable) or to find ways to completely avoid it. These ideas are 
mainly discussed by scientists and teachers, the rest of the gools 
simply avoid them. In fact, one of the main reasons the gools began 
to explore space was simply to make sure it was not too threatening 
or unknown.

The teachers are the closest thing to priests the gool have. In 
addition to their teaching duties, they also perform ceremonies for 
the community, certain symbolic duties (like the scenting of 
border-poles) and generally represent the community spirit. Their 
presence is reassuring on a deep level. 


Technology

Gool technology is contradictory. On one hand it tends to be 
somewhat inefficient and baroque due to their tendency to use 
complex solutions to simple problems. On the other hand, it is often 
divided into simple and elegant modules which have proven to be 
useful, and gradually reduced to simple works of art. If there is any 
problem, the modules are checked and changed, often with 
surprisingly good results. 

Tools are generally of two types: simple, rugged tools for personal 
use by main bodies, and the frail, flexible and often computerised 
tools used by the secondary bodies. The gools have never perceived 
the need to change their direct environment, and still prefer real 
earth and rocks inside their buildings and the classic plants and 
animals for food. The only personal areas they have developed 
further are the production and control of smell and 
communications. Gool cuisine/cosmetics involves the use of spices, 
herbs and chemicals to improve or change the odours they produce 
and perceive. Refined gools rely to a large extent on exotic smells, 
and it is a status symbol to be able to afford the latest spices. The 
manipulation of taste and smell is a appreciated art, almost on par 
with the discipline and training of secondary bodies.

The other main use of personal technology by the gools is 
communications. Today almost all gools use a televibrator to 
communicate with other gools. It is a machine embedded inside the 
walls of the home, which transmits vibration-messages not unlike a 
telephone. It is controlled by a circular panel which is manipulated 
by the teeth of the gool (this is a standard arrangement for most 
gool equipment). A more uncommon but important system are 
small radio modules which are placed on the  secondary bodies. 
With some training, the gool can remain in contact with them even 
when they are far away; by sending signals to the radio, it can 
release different smells and vibrations which they obey, and signal 
back what is happening. This requires a highly trained operator 
with skilled secondary bodies.

Outside the home, the gools are quite industrious. They like to build 
machines to help them, often imitating the secondary bodies or 
even performing similar functions. While they have never even 
considered the idea of an artificial intelligence, they are quite good 
at building simple automata or machines with a set of pre-
programmed behaviours. Many of these are discreetly incorporated 
inside what looks otherwise like normal walls or buildings, ready to 
be used whenever the gools need them. Many buildings are actually 
machines, often combined factories and homes. Transport systems 
have been developed which allows gools to travel in relative 
comfort and solitude, not unlike railways or moving walkways. 
However, most gools prefer to conduct business from their homes.

It is worth noticing that the gools prefer to use ingenious mechanics 
before electronics, even if electronics often is faster and more 
efficient. It seems that the gool simply regard it as soulless and 
eerie, while mechanics is trusted. All forms of technology where 
they can touch or sense the inner workings (at least in principle) 
are acceptable, but electricity, fire, information and anything too 
small to touched is regarded as too uncertain to be truly trusted. 

They are very skilled chemists, and have developed a wide array of 
materials and chemicals with useful properties, ranging from 
medicines and essences to extremely stable plastics and 
superconductors.  On the other hand, they hopeless at biology; they 
only learned about ecology the hard way when the ecosystems 
began to collapse around them. Biology is simply regarded as too 
messy to deal with, and the gools prefer to simplify ecosystems 
around them to suit their needs. They donUt see any inherent value 
in diversity or complexity, so if a species is interfering or just in the 
way, they exterminate it. 


Art

Gool art is quite incomprehensible to humans, since it relies mainly 
on smell and texture and is based on a completely different 
aesthetics. They seldom create individual artworks in the human 
sense, most gool art is either just experienced once or built into 
other things. They enjoy to touch complex patterns of textures, 
which artists cover their machines and buildings with, and this is 
also the basis of their written language. Practically all surfaces in 
gool society are covered with elaborate patterns pleasant to the 
touch; tools and machines are adorned with surfaces describing 
their use and hallways have patterns which subtly shift as one 
moves along them (this also makes it simpler to orient oneself). The 
patterns are both decorations and useful, like all gool art.

The art of creating and controlling odours is very complex, and 
many spend a large amount of time developing just the right smells 
for themselves, their secondary bodies or their possessions. 
Perfumes, spices and chemicals are artfully combined into various 
mixtures, added to food, applied to objects or bodies or just 
savoured by the connoisseurs. To a human these smells range from 
the sublime to the disgusting, and even the gools have 
disagreements about the interpretations of certain smells. Different 
societies have developed their own smell-symbolism, often 
disquieting or even irritating to other societies. The mating-bodies 
of the gools are especially finely scented, representing the odour of 
their main body at its most refined state, subtly altered and 
decorated. Of course, a human would not notice it. 

Training of secondary bodies is the most revered art/craft of all in 
civilised nations. Everybody is doing their best to learn how to 
master their secondary bodies, and especially skilled individuals 
are often seen as important for the well-being of the community as 
the teachers. Techniques to control the development and use of the 
bodies are often jealously guarded within a community. The 
methods range from physical/mental discipline over psychological 
tricks to chemical and even surgical modifications. The most 
complex part of the art is however how to program the bodies to 
work flexibly. By teaching them different behaviours linked to a 
code of smells and vibrations, a gool can build SprogramsS for the 
secondary bodies, but it is very hard to make sure it will behave as 
it should when on its own. That is the skill that distinguishes the 
masters from the merely skilled. The introduction of radio links 
have complicated things somewhat, but the 
psychological/programming skills are still needed, maybe even 
more than ever. 

