by Jamillah Ross

In our geek improv comedy show, Holodeck Follies, The Dandies play long-running characters. That gives us plenty of time to discover what our characters think, feel – and, even, eat for breakfast (seriously, ask us after a show sometime)!

And don’t think that just because we do geek improv comedy, we don’t touch on serious issues…

At The Dandies, we know that the serious and the comedic are bound together. Just like the fandoms we satirize, we deal with larger issues in our geek improv comedy. That also means we find our characters’ positions on the important things in life. For Captain Rehoho Xerc, thinking about the important things in life goes hand-in-hand with studying humans – and pointing out their many inconsistencies.

So, from our geek improv comedy show, Holodeck Follies… here’s the one and only Captain Rehoho Xerc’s first installment of her quintessential essay series on humanity!

HUMANS: A 25 PART STUDY AND ESSAY SERIES

BY

CAPT. REHOHO XERC

Humans have always confused me. Confused and fascinated. Ever since the first time I hear the word “human” as a young child, I admit, I have strived to learn all I can about them. I still remember that time.

Some of the elders had come to my father’s home to engage in some friendly moQbara practice, of which my father was considered a master as he had taken the most amount of lives in the last Klingon battle of The Frozen Ones. The men were taking a break and father did not know that I had been hiding near by watching them and copying their movements. One of the men made a joke as to how many humans it took to achieve warp drive. The answer, we all now know of course is zero, but it does not translate very well out of Klingon.

Many have questioned my interest, but I find humans to be a most puzzling species. Everything they do seems to be in conflict with their very existence. The way they treat each other for instance. It took them many centuries to realize that they are in fact ALL HUMANS! The stories of their wars with each other for instance. It is extremely rare in any corner of the explored known universe to find another race that warred with itself quite so many times. To the point that they would even damage the planet they live on before they knew how to get off of it (More on that later)! It took them until the end of the 21st century before they could work together. Now I know what you are thinking. How odd for a Klingon, a race that loves a good war not understand human war. To that I say, ha. We Klingons have warred with each other. But at the end of the day we agree to disagree, then take the fight off planet.

I have questioned many of the humans I have met over the years why this was the case.  Most of them have no answer. They simply shrug their shoulders and order another round of Frimk. Later, they will drunkenly try to defend their human ways and often times foolishly try to fight me. After losing the fight in an embarrassing way, they become bashful and order more drinks. Then they will want to sing old human songs from the late 19th century and try to get everyone involved. The night usually ends with a human trying to take me back to their quarters or them becoming sick and still trying to take me back to their quarters. Always an interesting night.

So, they knowingly do damage to themselves through war. But they also had another war for centuries that harmed them that they were united in. The war on their own planet. As we well know, humans have basically destroyed their planet and were using their space exploration as a way to find a new planet to inhabit. For some reason they had spent over a thousand years poisoning their own water supply. If that were not enough, they had also spent over a thousand years poisoning their air. As they became more advanced things only seemed to get worse for humans.

There is an old story that my father used to tell about his first encounters with humans. He had been sent to earth on a religious study program as a youth. He said they stayed on a beautiful island in the middle of what they call the Pacific Ocean. He said it was quite beautiful. The sun shone every day. It was lush, green. A paradise. The only thing was it had a horrible smell. Beyond belief. My father once said it smelled like my brothers room before wash day. The humans, he said, never seemed to be bothered by it though. It turns out that the island, this tiny jewel in the middle of the ocean, was actually a floating pile of garbage. I suppose it was very smart of the humans to “turn lemons into lemonade” as they say, but why even fill your water with garbage in the first place? I never believed my father until I went to earth to complete some of my Starfleet training and saw it myself. By this time, the humans had managed to fix the odour problem but still, it is another topic of conversation that humans seem to get very emotional about, in my opinion.

This essay series will be the definitive study of the human race. A race that I see as more questions than answers. Answers that you the reader, and I, the captain, shall find together. LLAP, RX.

Want more of Captain Rehoho Xerc’s insights on humanity? Hear them in-person at The Dandies’ monthly geek improv show, Holodeck Follies! Need a Dandies’ fix before then? Learn more about how we build characters in fandom improv!