The Human Ranch (RAR!)

[Zor]

In this scenario humanity makes it's first contact with an alien race, which is on the whole a friendly one who call themselves "Avians" as their languages can't be made by a set of human vocal cords and they are capable of flight, looking like a combination of pterosaurs and bats. This first contact goes quite well, the Avians are friendly and offer to help humanity out with a few problems relating to climate change and energy production and while they are a bit smug and condescending they are on the whole friendly. There are a few human dipshits who try to start problems, but the avians dismiss them by saying that humanity has no monopoly on hateful idiots and there are worse cultures. However, they did make contact with humanity a bit ahead of schedule because there is a problem that they need to sort out and they figure that for various political and moral reasons it was best if humanity sorted it out for them. Discussion of these specifics are done in secret at first. They arranged for a ship to carry a team of scientists, sociologists, diplomats and a few politicians and bureaucrats which involved about seven months (six months in transit taking advantage of a wormhole network) to examine the specifics of what was outlined in reports.

For the last three centuries Avians have been in contention (ranging from uneasy ceasefires to out and out wars) with another species of aliens, a race of quick breeding highly hierarchical individualistic creatures that resemble what you get when you crossed an alligator with a baboon and gave it an extra set of half leg half arm limbs that the Avians call Sufferancers. The name comes from the notion that in their society nobody has a right to life, everyone exists on the Sufference of those higher up in the extended corporate hierarchies which dominate their society as long as they're useful. From what they gathered one of their exploration ships reached sol about five centuries ago, though fortunately said ships were kept on a short leash to prevent unchecked colonies from emerging beyond the control of the ruling elites. They did however collect a few humans for study and eventually collected about a thousand of them, nabbing them from villages or off roads or from ships before making their way back to their space. Several more expeditions were sent out over the next few decades, collecting another 20,000 humans. Over the last 50 years the Avians have managed to roll back the Sufferencers and liberated a bunch of their worlds in their last war as the balance of power turns to their favor. This included another world that they called "The Ranch", which is the purpose for contacting humanity.

The Ranch is an an Agricultural World, which most of it's landmass dedicated to the cultivation of various foodcrops. Mirrors were set up to provide 24 hour sunlight and eliminate the polar regions of this world. A small population of 25 million Sufferencers maintained the infrastructure of the planet, run the fertilizer factories and operated a few elevators to deliver payloads into orbit. However there were about a hundred complexes, each composed of uniform cubical structures about 1.2 km to a side which have about 200 stories, most of which are full of humans.

The standard configuration for a floor in these facilities can be described as a series of largely empty rooms broken up by water toughs, food dispensers, toilets and support columns. The floor is covered in a soft waterproof material with drainage holes. There are lights in the ceiling as well as sprinklers and water cannon turrets. Each floor can accommodate up to 75,000 people, which will spend the majority of their lives on said floor of their structure wandering about it naked save for a tracking ear tag. The food dispensers produce hockey puck shaped starchy cakes with vegetable matter mixed in (as well as medication) made on an industrial scale in the lower stories and external silage factories on a regular basis, save for periods twice a day in which showers are applied. Individuals which cause problems are mostly hosed down with the water cannons while alarms would cast a red light on them, occasionally remote controlled treaded vehicles or Sufferencer Stockmen in padded power armor would come in to collect problematic individuals. For the most part people just mill around eating, playing with the small number of Toys left about and making more people. The only breaks in routine are the occasional "drills" in which certain individuals are selected to go to the elevators to either get a small sweet treat or to go onto the elevator. While a few are moved about to other floors some are loaded onto a series of trains which run day and night from the spaceports, but while a few are shipped off world alive most of them are sent to a slaughterhouses and packing plants. The Avians have shut down the slaughterhouses (while leaving them intact, along with refrigerated warehouses full of their product) though they have not yet shut down the factory farms for the simple reason that they're are some 7,500,000 humans on The Ranch and nowhere else to put them if they don't want them to starve while their logistical network is rather strained in securing their new holdings.

The Sufferencers can and do grow meat in vats and have more productive meat animals than humans, but they like the taste of humans and there is a snob factor amongst the upper strata of of their society for the meat of another sapient species. Most of the humans have some trace of their culture and vague stories of "The World Before" in languages which have their origins in Spanish, Mandarin, Old German, French, Arabic, Russian and various Indian, African and Native American languages and a few polyglots. A lot of them hold to some vague idea of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hindusim, folk religion or odd mash ups of this in which the cycles of industrial Factory Farming had been woven into their beliefs. A few understand how to read and write, but they are ill equipped for life outside them. While the Sufferencers saw giving up The Ranch with it's Human Farms as being a reasonable concession to make, they did complicate issues by spreading the notion of Avians as being cruel demons just before they handed the reigns of the planet over to them.

Now that they've returned with various documentation of what the Sufferencers have done, the Avians have announced that they will defer what is to be done with these people to the various human governments. They are willing to provide six ships to make the circuit from Sol to The Ranch every two months or so able to carry up to 250,000 tonnes of cargo or 6,250 people along with dropships to supply them.

What should be done?

Zor

[Shroom Man 777]

Save the humans, the methods to do so will depend on the retaliatory capacities of the Sufferancers (hah not a bad name, ridiculous but not too shabby) and what can get the job done cleanly - and depending on what the Avians can do.

EDIT:

Oh The Ranch has already been recovered. Well, give the populace the option to return to Earth while enhancing their living conditions and giving them the option to develop the world as theirs too if they wish (though that may be like asking Holocaust survivors or freed slaves to make their prisons their homes... but the Ranch people have been there for generations, the prison may have become their home... like slaves taken to America, so they might be able to make it their own world). Also, depending on Avian capabilities and willingness, perhaps a way to get reparations from the American government Sufferancers.

[madd0ct0r]

Are the Avians willing to allow the humans to remain on the planet as farmers, towns, industrialists ect?

[Zor]

Are the Avians willing to allow the humans to remain on the planet as farmers, towns, industrialists ect?

Yes they are.

Zor

[bilateralrope]

What do the Avians want from this planet ?

Any solution I can think of is going to want their help for more than just transportation to the planet. Using Avian/Sufferencer tech when is comes to construction is probably a good idea. Which means we will want Avian engineers until they can train enough human engineers in Avian technology.

Unless the planet is made self-sufficient, the Avians will always have a lot of economic leverage over it. So, while I'd like to see this planet become a human ruled world, that's all going to depend on what the Avians allow.

[madd0ct0r]

7.5million people. The highest estimates for the rohyinga in bangladesh is 1 million, and they arrived steadily over the year.

And the rohyinga are farmers and village dwellers already, while the Farmed don't know anything about the world outside their pen walls. They are used to comofrt, shelter and infinite free food.

It's not quite a Trapped in Matrix situation though, as the farm sounds incredibly dull, so there might be possiblities of opening the farm floor to a sheltered outdoor area, and after a few months open that to a less sheltered area with huts and from there open it to the forest. Give them access to tools as toys and anthropologists or hippcratic sworn settlers to live amongst them as examples.

Let them set the pace for their development. It might be a generation or two, if everyone has grown up with so little stimulation.