[Earth] Body of Unknown Creature Has Biologists Baffled

Body of Unknown Creature Has Biologists Baffled

A bout of worry was followed by confusion last Thursday as the corpse of a large sea creature washed up on the beach of Cape West Coast, South Africa. The creature was mistaken for the remains of a Destroyer-class Reaper at first, but upon closer examination was made of flesh and cartilage.

The corpse resembles that of a giant squid in shape, only about twenty times as large as previously documented specimens. From the tip of its longest tentacles to its posterior fins, it measures approximately two hundred meters long. Its mantle (the squid’s “head”), by comparison, is thirty meters in length. The corpse bears a number of plasma burns and is missing some tentacles, suggesting that this creature fought a Reaper.

"We understand far more about life on other planets than we do about what lives in our own ocean," says human biologist Doctor Rachel Snow. "A giant squid this size should not be able to support its own mass, yet somehow it does. I am very eager to study this corpse."

Locals have taken to calling this creature the Kraken.

"There are numerous legends of a giant squid capsizing ships that date back to as late as Earth's nineteenth century," noted xenohistorian Dr. Maia T'Mesa. "We're talking squids so long that they dwarfed ships, with apocryphal accounts of such creatures being recorded in the wild. The legend of the kraken was long thought to be the greatest exaggerations of these, but finding this corpse seems to prove otherwise.”

Well, I guess it's official, the Reapers killed Cthulhu.

On a serious note, I suppose that things like that could be living in the oceans. There are still huge areas that have never been explored, even during the height of the Naval powers of the Nineteenth through the Twenty-First centuries. Maybe an area worth looking into, you know, once we fix the damage from the Reaper War.

Behold the majestic blue whale, it is 30 meters long and weighs 170 metric tonnes. It also feeds almost exclusively on krill. Considering a squid's internal organs are contained exclusively in its mantle this does not seem out of the realm of possibility.

Again, if its primary food source is just other aquatic life, why would it rise to the surface to fight a Reaper?

In any rate, a simple DNA test should determine whether its native or altered in some fashion, like I suspect.

I was told the Reapers resemble a certain terran fish species. Perhaps it mistook the machine for that, and then retreated when it realized that metal dense enough to block dreadnought warheads is not good eating.

... You guys know that giant squid've been found in the Earth oceans before, right? Like, a number of times?

Man, you guys are a bunch of superstitious folk. And that's coming from a dude who's seen ghosts.

Job, none of the previous examples of either Giant or Collosal squid breeds are anywhere near this size. Its head is equal in length to that of a blue whale, at maximum recorded growth.

Can you tell me that isn't suspicious at all?

I find it more odd why it would be killed at all. I mean, what would it attack the Reapers with? Its beak? It's tentacles?

I mean, thresher maws can at least spit acid. What's this going to do, be big and squirt ink?

And why would it care? What, was it sentient enough to come out of THE TURGID DEPTHS WHERE IT DWELLS to do GRAND BATTLE with it?

Who knows what mystical powers such a thing might possess? Cthulhu vs. Mecha Cthulhu. Man that sounds like a terrible disaster movie.... I'd watch it.

You all assume it was killed on purpose, it was probably killed during the bombardments of communication cables or submerged facilities. Aren't these things attracted to electrical impulses?


As for the "suspicious" size of the thing... who knows, ask the marine biologists, what I do know is that it is not a classified entity because otherwise you would not getting reports of it, the Alliance would instigate a media blackout if it was.

...


What?

Ghosts. You know, spirits. Specters. The unhallowed dead. The restless corpus. The unquiet forms of those who have yet passed.

Ghosts, motherfucker, ghosts.

You mean the folks on that station you keep pulling into the air by "accident."

Damn, wish I was the one that found it. Calamari, yummmmmmm.

Maybe a Reaper tried huskifying it, and the squid objected. While I don't see a creature like that being particularly useful to the reapers on Earth, it could be pretty terrifying if unleased on the hanar.

That's an impressive size for a nonbiotic cephalopod. Avita down at the club has been going on about this ever since the story came across - she's studying megafauna at NAU, I think she's hoping they'll get invited to the project (NAU's got Prof. Narit T'Sabe in charge of the marine xenobiology, so there's a good chance), and she'll be able to talk her way into a junior intern spot.

seriously rir i was born on earth, giant squid are not new

all squid taste good though and squid might be new to some of your mouths, you should toooootallyyyyy try it. yum yums

so what kind of drugs are you on?


shit

I seen 'em too man, don't worry.

That makes three of us, Job and Jules.
I've seen a few ghosts in my time.

Yeah, but have you seen ghosts?

That's the real question