A pure fractal made in Apophysis 2.09
They are not frogs – notice the arms there that move actively for feeding and also communications along with those active mouth – and they are not made of fire, but they are visible in their rich colors at night.
Their voices are as if a frog were ready to fill in for an operatic bass or contralto; they cut through a room easily as individual voices, and they in tandem as a community on the ponds of Altair 8 sound like a concert of digeridoos, audible for a mile.
My bride Khadijah and I went by Altair 8 and went out to listen, imagining being the first human to see and hear the fire frogs, leaping among the softly glowing pond flora –
Another pure fractal made in Apophysis 2.09
– and singing to each other.
But then we started laughing, imagining the shock of the first human with a universal translator to realize that the fire frogs were talking about him.
“I don't know why these big creatures come out here and can't see in the dark. I wish we could tell them.”
“Look, we're waving at the water's edge as much as we can – if they are just too stupid not to go into water they can't breathe in or get sucked down by the suruak [the pond flora], we did the best we could.”
When I tell you that the first human with the universal translator backed up with the quickness and then did not publish his findings for years … .
Today, humans and humanoids stay well back, because the suruak is caustic, and in essence, the fire frogs are a civilization whose natural environment is a strong alkali bath. Nor did it end there. The first person to pick up a fire frog realized its colors indicated how it survived: its skin was acidic enough to bring the pH to neutral on its body. The problem was, the gloves set up for the alkalinity of suruak became the site of the reaction, and the gloves were not set up for that.
It finally all stopped because wiser heads prevailed; the fire frogs were a sentient race of being, and as such, they had the right not to be fooled around with.
So, Khadijah and I enjoyed listening, without the translator on, to the fire frogs enjoying life – talking business, commerce, relgion, interstellar trade, family life and relationships, no doubt, but we left them in their privacy, enjoying the concert they provided us by just existing.