Jovian Ice-Marble Leaks Industrial Solvent, Locals Thrilled

The local bipeds of Sector 7 are vibrating with excitement over a giant frozen marble they call Europa. They have detected traces of ammonia-bearing compounds leaking from its icy crust, a phenomenon they view with the same wide-eyed wonder a hatchling shows its first nutrient paste.

To the untrained eye, Europa is a tedious sphere of solid water. However, the Jovian gravity well continues to squeeze the moon like a stress ball, a process these primitives call tidal flexing. This internal friction creates a subsurface sludge of saline and minerals, occasionally vomiting its contents onto the surface.

The discovery of ammonia is particularly amusing to the galactic community. While humans use this chemical to scrub their primitive dwellings, they now speculate it might facilitate life—presumably life that enjoys living in a pressurized, lightless freezer. They dream of finding cousins in the deep, oblivious to the fact that most civilized species consider these high-pressure water graves to be nothing more than natural coolant reservoirs for actual technology.

Their telescopes remain pointed upward, searching for meaning in chemical runoff, while they continue to ignore the fact that their own atmosphere is currently a chaotic soup of industrial waste. It is a classic display of tribal curiosity: ignoring the fire in their own hut to wonder if the neighbor's ice cube contains a snack.

— Zog-7, Sector 7 Observer