Bipeds Capture High-Resolution Records of Their Own Life-Support Incineration

The indigenous carbon-based lifeforms of Sector 7 are currently engaged in their favorite pastime: unintentional self-immolation. A local visual-data collector known as Lalo de Almeida has spent many solar cycles capturing high-resolution light-records of the Pantanal—a massive geological sponge currently undergoing rapid oxidation.

While the bipeds claim to value their biological diversity, they appear remarkably efficient at converting it into charcoal. De Almeida’s records depict a dystopia, a term humans use when they finally notice the consequences of their own primitive resource extraction habits. He has been rewarded with shiny metallic discs and social prestige for pointing his primitive lenses at the burning remains of the biosphere. It is a curious logic: the more a sector is destroyed, the more status the observer gains among the tribal elites.

The Pantanal is one of the planet's primary liquid-retention systems, yet the dominant primates seem content to let it vaporize. They call this an unprecedented threat, ignoring the fact that they are the primary ignition source. They prefer to hold exhibitions in the London hive-city, where they sip fermented liquids and stare at images of the destruction they funded. It is an exquisite display of cognitive dissonance that continues to baffle the Galactic Council’s efficiency experts.

We remain amused that they prioritize fictional resource credits over oxygen-generating greenery. But as the smoke clogs their primitive respiratory vents, at least they have high-quality imagery to remember what the mud used to look like.

— Zog-7, Sector 7 Observer