Osgus Interlude (Post-Tripartite)

The Slurm, who had forgotten his hatchling name to be known as Slurm, as all Slurms do, was most excited. This year’s Urnu season was ending today and the three-team championship match would be an explosive bout. Being Slurm, he was to kick off the game by throwing the first net in front of nearly the entire Osgus State. Urnu, or the “trapping game” for its emphasis on snares to keep the enemy from getting their mismatched puzzle-cube from their plinth, was quite a popular sport. Quite traditional, too. It was a favourite of his and many millions of other Osgus.

Slurm took the glass of pebbles from the Slurm den’s cupboard and swallowed several. They would help the eel-jelly unadon he’d eaten for breakfast digest by early afternoon, when the Urnu was scheduled. Slurm was proud to be Osgus. By dictate of the Osgus State, every Osgus was proud to be Osgus. The Osgus were stronger, smarter, and greater than every lesser species, and more, had been united under the wisdom of Slurm for tens of millennia.

No other life-form could compare to the supremacy of their cephalopod kind. Every Osgus knew this. It was self-evident to any squid whose brain hadn’t started to lapse into ferality. The Osgus were the supreme race! To be Osgus was more than to be better, it was to have the burden of maintaining that superiority! The lesser species envied or hated the Osgus and could not be trusted. Every member of the Osgus State, from the lowest to the highest, knew that a war of mutual extinction- the ultimate team-sport, with the ultimate stakes- was inevitable and prepared themselves accordingly.

Of course, the Osgus State had been a little less hardline, in the last several years. Slurm laid on a seat, sprawled out his tentacles, and idly viewed the footage of last night’s Jumpcrawl match. Now, that was exciting. Fast, violent, with a complex strategic layer and emphasis on close teamwork, one would think it came from an Osgus mind, but it didn’t. One of the Humans, Emperor… Slurm reminded himself that the Humans selfishly kept their hatchling names next to their titles… Emperor Albin, pitched the idea to Slurm many years ago, back when his reign was fresh and he didn’t have the slowly heightening aggression that comes with age. Slurm was astonished, at the time.

It had been generations since any Human dictator approached the Slurm and this was the first time in memory it had been done with peaceful intentions. Even better than trade, the Humans brought with them an exciting new game and so doing revealed that they had far more in common with the Osgus than previously thought. For the first time, the Osgus State had opened itself to another star nation, filthy aliens at that, and was enjoying the fruits of mutual gain. It was surreal then and it was now. Humans were strange, with their rigid frames and preference for dry air, but their psychology was distinctly Osguslike, in that they recognized that authority was necessary, even if they insisted on attaching it to a bizarre hereditary clan structure.

For a Slurm this was somewhat treasonous, but Slurm honestly liked the Humans. They weren’t equals of the Osgus and never would be, but they were the closest thing their species had to peers on the galactic stage. Worth engaging with, and so far, worthy acquaintances of the Osgus State. Every year, more and more Osgus tuned into the Jumpcrawl and the hostilities of past generations faded into history. In a few more generations, the Jumpcrawl would be a fixture and purely Osgus sports broadcasts would be a relic of the past.

Maybe this would be a good thing. Slurm noticed from mentions of the ISL that the Humans had descended into a conflict over which of them should be Emperor. Battles to determine which aspiring Slurm was worthy weren’t unheard of among the Osgus, but outside of the eugenic pressures, they were seldom of any benefit to the Osgus State. If the pattern of their own species held true, the Human State would be experiencing some damages. Their Emperor Albin, already becoming frailer by the hour due to the inefficiencies of the sub-Osgus genome, would be overburdened. The Slurm felt strange at the thought.

He was broken out of his contemplation as his alarm- an Osgus patriot with a pair of cymbals, waiting to within a fraction of a second on strict schedule- sounded, reminding him that the Urnu press conference was imminent. Slurm ate another pebble and sighed. It was good to be Slurm, but he could do without the press.