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War of the Worlds! Humans unite!Apr 04 '01 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line Beware of what lurks in the shadows...
A disclaimer (added Apr 5th): As a few of our alien friends have rightly pointed out, not all of the alien kind can be counted among the vile creatures described in this very serious depiction of the element threathening our dear Epinions. Indeed, some of the highly evolved species fight on our side, right at the front lines! So for the purposes of this essay, all ethical alien species should be considered outside the scope of the word "alien" as used in the context of this essay! My fellow normal people. I fear that we have an alien invasion in our hands - and no, I don't mean just those dang foreign people who don't even have regular names like Bob or George (After all, I'm one of those dang people, and besides, what's wrong with "Jarno"?) No, I'm talking about horrific creatures from other worlds and dimensions come to pollute our lovely Epinions world with green slime and whatever else it is the aliens use to pollute worlds with, and to carry out their evil plans to…um…bring their sinister plans to conclusion! What separates aliens from us humans is their dishonesty - the aliens revenge rate, they rubber-stamp and do all kinds of crafty things to try and get to their pennies a bit faster than us honest regular people. (So heed this warning of the aliens among us, and if you recognize yourself among these creatures I'm about to describe, there is still hope for change... you can still switch sides and join us honest Epinioneers!) Some of these foul creatures attempt to suck our lovely Epinions world dry of those nourishing little pennies that we innocent human Epinioneers rely on to get our hard-earned daily rewards... Others just use our dear home as a garbage-dump, forcing us to drudge through knee deep in vast amounts of icky goo in our daily task of dispensing those precious ratings. As you know, it is the law of nature in Epinions-land that we do not directly see each other, but rather get to know the other inhabitants' shapes by their writing and rating habits. We are like that guy in that famous analogy - you know, the guy sitting in a cave trying to deduce what's on the outside by looking at the shadows projected on the cave wall. Granted that regular people sometimes do reveal their faces, but hey… who knows what they really look like… I'd rather trust the shadows. So what are these aliens like then, O odd-named-cave-man-staring-at-the-shadows? If you insist, I will impart my horrible visions on to you, and let you know the truly gruesome shapes these shadows paint on my wall. The Hideous Zombie-Monster A ghastly figure indeed, this one is a creature with no mind of it's own. Their shadows show bits of rotting flesh tearing off… they move rigidly, and only on certain carefully selected places. They come from a parallel dimension, guided by their evil masters. A Zombie-Monster mindlessly follows it's master, or masters, leaving behind only "Very Helpfuls" on their writings. Even the nauseating alien ooze that these masters often produce receive "Very Helpfuls". Occasionally, they may even do their master's bidding in dispensing "Not Helpfuls" around, on whichever poor victim it is in their Master intrests to land this heap of dung on. The Atrocious Zombie Master The shadow of an Atrocious Zombie Master is almost indistinguishable from the shadow of a newbie human, and can only be recognised by the zombies in their wake. A master of voodoo, this sinister creature controls one or more Zombie-Monsters to aid him in his quest to scrape off some Epinions pennies. Fortunately these creatures are not much brighter than their minions, and are often soon discovered and reported to the Epinions headquarters. They are captured and whisked away along with their zombies in black helicopters, never to be seen again... The Eerie Multi-Eyed Green Martian There is one shadow that is stranger than any others - a strange blob with what superficially look like a multitude of limbs extruding out of it's spherical body. These devious creatures, I'm afraid to say, are not always easy to spot, as they hide in the shadows of normal people... From the glimpses of their curious shadows I have, using my... um... unique skills of deduction, gathered that this wave of aliens must be from Mars (the home of all green aliens, as we all know). The "limbs" in their shadows are actually multiple sets of eyes at the ends of long stalks - the eyes move independently of each other, scanning your poor innocent thousand-word-fresh-out-of-the-oven review with speeds that no human eye could manage, and stamp it with their distinctive mark before you can shout "Halt, alien scum!". Martians don't really care about the content, they decide their choice of rating only on length and appearance of your review. Using this unfair speed advantage, these foul aliens try to lure vast numbers of people onto their profile page in a short time, while we humans must spend every waking hour (well...maybe not quite) in reading the reviews of others, in order to rate fairly. Some Martians may even have posted a picture of a regular person (which they no doubt have captured and killed to assume their identity) in an attempt to disguise their real, multi-eyed, green-hued form. How do I know that they are green, merely from the shadows? Elementary, my dear friend - they are, after all, Martians! And what do we know about martians again... Just keep your eyes (of which you hopefully have only two) open. The Eerie Multi-Eyed Green Martian hordes Oh the horror! The huge jumble of shadows that cover my cave wall with a million eye-stalks extruding in all directions! Occasionally, the Martians find each other, and form hordes. They travel together, leaving only "Very Helpfuls" on each-other's work... Despite their unbelievable reading speeds, when in hordes, they don't often bother to produce very much for the others to read in terms of length or quality - it seems that most of them are content with barely meeting the 100 word limit. Be on the lookout for these ravaging hordes! The Galactic Diarrhea Drone The Galactic Diarrhea Drone (GDD), is a sorry creature afflicted with a terrible inter-galactic disease, and it's chosen our dear Epinions as it's out-house. I'll leave it's shadow's shape to your imagination... Fortunately GDD's are also easily spotted by the meaningless dribble they produce to reach the 100-word limit. They rarely even attempt to come up with anything legible. They too are easy pray for the black helicopters. The Slimy Trust Leech Small, inconsequential looking shadows often turn out to be Slimy Trust Leeches. This primitive alien parasite leaches on to poor innocent Epinioneers, providing a luring moment of pleasure by adding their victims on to their WOT - but don't let them fool you! Should you fail to take the bate by trusting them back within a day, perhaps two, they will again remove you from their WOT. Good riddance, I say, and so should you! There is also a Trust Slut subspecies of the Slimy Trust Leach - while this creature won't take you off their WOT if you don't trust them back, they'll never keep up with what you write either. They remain inconsequential relics on your list of people trusting you. The subspecies is characterised by a very large WOT, and only few Epinioneers trusting them. Final Notes Note that many of these foul aliens, especially the more primitive ones, participate in the rather pitiful habit of revenge rating - do not be deterred by such foolish action, revenge ratings earn you pennies too! There may of course be other unearthly creatures out there that I have overlooked... so don't hesitate to add your findings in the comments section... All humans must be warned! It is a treacherous war-zone out there. So what are we to do then? Is the situation hopeless? Are we doomed to be buried in alien sludge? Will Epinions drown in slime? I don't know, but we'll never give up! With our strong human backbone, we can hold our own against the aliens! By our continued efforts, our example and our guidance, some of the creatures that start out alien, may indeed undergo a Kafka-like metamorphosis, find their human side, and join our ranks in the ongoing war of the worlds! By exposing them in this way, I hope I've contributed in a few metamorphoses. One can always hope...  |
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