Name: Nür
Species: Human
Age: Seventeen
Sex: Female
Appearence: Brown hair, going slightly past her shoulders, and tall; usually wears a grey flight suit (full body) with a white men's tanktop underneith; when in civies, a light blue shirt and purple pants. Wears a visor over her eyes; grey metal, red strip in the centre going slightly past each eye on either side; visor extends just to her temples on either side of her head.
Background: Nür went blind when she was three years old, and received her visor when she was five. It was a prototype, designed to allow her to see, and she could, with a few extra perks; normal vision, but applications allowing her to detect radiation, see outside the visual light spectrum, and analyze basic things (inspiration taken from Star Trek: The Next Generation). Nür lives in a future where most of the people in the world were wiped out from a disease brought about by our habit of inventing drugs for everything, and the remaining million people live in Canada where they have formed their own society. Wanting to be able to take care of her visor, Nür became an engineer, and worked in Earth's Defense Force (against what have become known jokingly as Sex Deprived Aliens from Mars <-- These wouldn't be our Saturnian friends, don't worry) as a fighter pilot.

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Nür slowly turned off the engines on her spacecraft; she didn't like shutting them off quickly, or the craft would give a small jerk as it stopped moving. As she sat back, her craft drifting slowly through the upper ionosphere, she let her mind wander.

Nür looked down quietly out of the window of the two-man craft and smiled a bit; she could see clouds below her. It was always more fun, she found, to try identifying shapes in clouds from above.

After a while, a small beeping from her radar turned the engineer's attention back to her control panel. The radar had picked up something approaching Earth, and it looked almost like a craft. It was...strange, though. It wasn't like the craft the Sex Deprived Aliens from Mars flew. Her brow furrowed, Nür restarted the engines and moved towards the path on an intercept course.

Solat saw the rader light flashing from the dashboard and pushed a button to bring up the screen. A spacecraft was coming from the Earth's surface toward him as if it was going to intercept him. That was strange. He hadn't counted on being noticed so soon. The pilot must be an experienced one.

He slowed his little ship down to a near crawl and found the button that opened a transmission signal to the other. "Hello, I am Solat from the planet Saturn," he introduced in slow, careful English. He had learned basic English from a book a long dead explorer of his race had found on a journey through the galaxy. The book had been found and destroyed recently, but Solat had hidden away the copies he made.

Nür raised an eyebrow as she intercepted the signal. Saturn...Her generation didn't know of any life there. Heck, they didn't even know where the Sex Deprived Aliens from Mars had come from. She responded to the signal.

'This is Nür, pilot in the Earth Aerospace Defence League. Please state your intent.'

"Greeting's Nur. My intention is to find new residence on Earth," Solat answered. He wondered what Earth would be like. It definitely seemed different from the explorer's old notes, which described human's as a primitive ground-bound species. "Would you be so kind as to lead me to a port?" he asked.

Nür raised both her eyebrows this time, but kept her surprise out of her voice as she answered his request. 'I'll request clearance for you.'

She switched channels and sent a message to Earth. 'Ground control, this is Nür. I have an alien from Saturn requesting clearance to land.'

'Saturn?!' the voice over the radio came back. 'You're kidding me.'

'I'm not,' Nür said. 'We'll have to check him out when we get to the surface.'

'We'll give you clearance,' the voice said after a bit of static. 'But, like you said, we'll be checking him out at the surface.'

'Understood; I'll relay the message.' Nür switched it back to his channel. 'You have clearance to land. We'll be inspecting you at the surface to make sure you're not a threat. Follow me.' She turned the channel off and directed her ship downwards toward her planet.

Solat was about to thank her when her end switched off and she turned her ship sharply. That was odd. Maybe that's just how human's were. He cranked more speed into the engine and followed after her.

After he eased into landing zone, he stepped out to find a circle of what looked like to be guards assembled around his ship. His eyes widened. Did they think he was a threat? He spread his arms in a peaceful manner, trying to look as innocent as possible. Who knows how freakish he might seem to the humans. They themselves looked strange with their pink skin and rounded bodies. "I am not a threat, I assure you."

Only a few guards were present, but they hung back. At the forefront was a middle-aged man, dressed formally. He pointed at the ship. 'Nür, can you inspect that ship?'

'I can indeed,' Nür said, going to the ship and climbing inside. She'd wanted to examine the ship for a long time. After a long while, she poked her head out to look at the man. 'Nothing dangerous inside, sir. There are a few weapons, but they wouldn't cause problems at this close range.'

The man nodded and looked back at the alien in front of him. 'My name is Sandam Corvas; I'm Earth's ambassador. It was obvious from what Nür told us you weren't the sort of threat we were used to, but we need to get a few answers. Most importantly, who on Earth - or off of it, for that matter - are you, and why are you on our planet?'

Solat was a little taken aback by the question. This one at least did not like foreigners, he thought. He glanced at Nur once before answering. "I am simply here to explore Earth," he replied, hoping that would be enough. He didn't like the guards staring at him so blankly.

'I see,' Corvas said. 'And, er, who are you?'

Ah, that's what he forgot. "Solat," he answered quickly. "I am from Saturn. May I have a transport to begin my travels?" He was not as slow now in speaking English, but he still sounded strange even to himself.

'Would you mind if we keep you here for a short time?' Corvas said. 'I'm sorry to inconvenience you, but we recently ended a war with other aliens and just need to make sure you're safe. Besides, if you are going to be wandering around our planet, we need to make sure nothing infects you, eh?'

Solat nodded. "I do not mind." It was a perfectly sound reason. He wondered though who these other aliens had been. He didn't know much about other races.

Corvas looked at Nür. 'Nür, can you go get him into an isolation room? Bring Cala with you to help you run the scans.' Nür nodded and indicated for Solat to follow her as she walked towards a large complex not far off. The guards waited for Solat to begin walking, then walked behind him.

Solat followed hesitantly. He didn't like the look of the building Nur was heading for. Causing trouble wouldn't be wise though, so he followed her in once she opened the doors.

Nür looked at Solat curiously. 'So, why do you want to explore Earth?' she asked. 'We haven't been very active in the solar system, except for one or two probes or satellites.'

"Many generations ago a member of my race set out to explore the galaxy, and he came back with records of Earth. Those have long since been destroyed, but I managed to copy the information. Earth seems to be a very complex planet. If I may, can I ask how human's developed different languages within their species?" Of the many questions spinning around in his mind, that one was on his list of top questions. He wondered how humans survived so long when they couldn't even communicate with one another.

'Oh, that's easy,' Nür said. 'Language changes over time. People, mostly teenagers, think up new forms of slang to distinguish their generation from other generations. Eventually, that slang gets incorporated into the main language. Then, of course, there's always the case of colonialism, and languages get mixed that way.' She said this as she led Solat down a hall, looking back at him every so often as he explained it.

"Why change language? That would slow progress for a civilization, correct?" Solat's people had never changed any aspect of their culture since the beginning of time. What reason would the humans have for doing so?

'Oh, it doesn't happen deliberately,' Nür said. 'It's just an accidental thing. Besides, sometimes language needs to change, because a new invention comes along. It doesn't slow down progress, sometimes it just allows it to happen.'

Solat didn't understand it at all. "Seems in theory it would do just the opposite."

'Not when you think about more than just the language change,' Nür said. 'Language changes very slowly - it's pretty easy to understand things from three, four, heck, even ten generations ago, but go back more than a couple of centuries and there's enough change to make it harder to understand. Over the short term, people can learn different languages, so all generations that exist at any one time can still communicate.' She opened a door for him that led into a white wash room with a bed and another door leading out to one side. The room had a long glass window on the other side that ran the length of the wall, revealing a smaller room with computer equipment inside.

Solat paused in the doorway. He didn't like this room at all. It had a bad aura about it. He started to back out, wanting to get away from the cold whiteness and the myriad of computer equipment.

Behind him, the guards raised their guns. 'They were out of red paint when we were building the room,' Nür said, slightly dryly. 'It's only for twenty-four hours.'

Solat looked fearfully at her. "I do not want to go in there."

'It's a requirement for staying here on Earth,' Nür said. 'Someone's always going to be in that room. You can communicate with them whenever you like.' She indicated the room behind the window.