MEANWHILE: Alien Species

Alien Species

The Cameks

--Elliot 06:05, 19 May 2005 (PDT)

Type: Robotic and Often Symbiotic Media Content Finders

Affiliation: Sufi 9 Media Inc, all copyrights retained

Description and Activities

Cameks come in many different shapes, but earth based ones usually resemble cat sized insectoid robots. The Cameks exist to find and record material for vidshows produced by the Sufi 9 media empire in the Daronis Cluster. Although they are technically subunits of the great robotic brains of Sufi 9, they have a good deal of free thought and work extremely hard to get their stories. Cameks can be found in most parts of the galaxy gathering news and information. Earth is a prime spot for their activity and over a million individuals have been sighted on the blue sphere.

Some Cameks simply rove around the earth, looking for stories and drama to record as they happen, but these individuals are a minority. Most Cameks instead find a human of some interest, and then work out a deal with the human for rights to their life story, both past and future. The Camek often physically accompanies the human, usually tucked in a backpack, whenever they might go. Once a human subject is acquired, the Camek records their lives with its own commentary and after action interviews with the subject human and others. No drama in a human’s life is too insignificant for the Robobrains of Sufi 9, so the Camek makes sure to record all of it, whether the human likes it or not.

The subject humans are usually paid rather well for the inconvenience, plus they get to be the star of a vidshow that is seen by billions in the galaxy. The pay is usually enough to make it worthwile, but not enough so that the human can just sit at home all day. Finally, sometimes having a sociopathic metal guardian angel whose livelihood depends on your pulse can be a big advantage.

Personality

Cameks, especially new arrivals, often have VERY limited knowledge about how humans and human society works. This ignorance is obscured by the fact that Cameks can download very specific skills and knowledge from a Sufi 9 satellite in orbit, for a price. So a given Camek may know exactly how the French revolution happened in every detail, but might not know why people put food in their mouths a few times a day, or how to ask a human for the current time without mortally insulting them. Cameks are fairly boring to talk to, and usually come off as obsessed with their subjects. A Camek will usually fill a conversation with dull acendotes about their subject's mundane lives.

Cameks can be very annoying, especially for interesting humans with interesting social lives or jobs. Cameks can be extremely forward in its desire to record and document a person’s life. This can be exploited by wily humans to get more money or benefits from the Camek. Cameks are not very dangerous compared to some other types of aliens; they generally abide by local laws and try to keep out of way. But this all changes if their subject’s life or livelihood is in danger. When this happens, Cameks have very little regard for human or even galactic laws and will go very far to protect their star subjects. This may include digging up dirt on enemies, vaporizing potential muggers and sabotaging their subject’s coworker’s careers.

Example

Commentary by Camek ES-981 on the Director's Cut of "Nathan 'Blackjack' Johnson Episode Module 9: Females ahoy' Matey"

C-ES-981: Nate had just had a fight with Kim and was feeling pretty low. I had to cheer him up, I mean this is sweeps season. Anyway, I called up a old friend of mine, a shaper nanoid named... well I don't want to screw up her modelling job, so I'l just call her Missy. Anyway, I called Missy up and asked her to take Nate out to dinner. Hehe, look at me I'm talking like an ape, of course shaper nanoids don't have genders, but Missy looked like a female human. Back to the story: Missy said fine and went to dinner with Nate. Sparks flew and soon they were both back at Nates apartment sharing a romantic evening watching some movie.

This is where it all starts to go wrong. I fired up the instant messenger and messaged Kim to come around. I figured that I could use the already romantic evening to rekindle Kim and Nate's romance. Apparently, romance share less in common with fire then I've been led to believe. On the plus side, the breakup scene made this week's top million over at HQ.