Planet of the Giants

Chapter Zero: The Prelude

Coming out of your business meeting, your whole body shake in excitement. You have just been given the long term assignment to promote your e-retail company to the inhabitants of To'kust, an earth-like planet in the star system of Proxima Centauri. It has been 5 years since humans first made contact with the aliens inhabiting the planet, and your company is eager to expand and introduce its business to this brand new market.

The indeginous aliens living on To'kust call themselves To'kustar. Though humanoid looking, that is about the only outward aspect that they share with humans. The most obvious difference being that they average about 625 feet (190 meters) tall, absolutely drawfing any human beings and other earthly creatures in existence. They have a large fin above their head, adding to their height. Their skin is mostly a ghostly white, with some red and black accents here and there, and do not wear any clothings. They have extremely long arms with hands that reach their knees. They have four eyes, two facing forward similar to those on a human, and two facing downward, one on each cheek. To'kustars are known as gentle giants. Their downward facing eyes almost seem to be intelligently designed to prevent accidentally stepping on smaller species (AKA humans) while facing forward. Their life span is similar to that of humans, averaging about 80 Earth years, though To'kust orbits around Proxima Centauri much faster, making 5 orbits each Earth year. Local flora closely resembles those on Earth in size. Forests are nothing but grasslands to To'kustars, leveled flat by a single step. Although most To'kustars welcome humans to their planet, a minority of them resent the dramatic changes to their lifestyles since the arrival of humans, which despise humans to their stomachs. They are known as speciesists.

Speaking of changes that humans brought with them, To'kustars used to live a life that humans would call primitive. Most To'kustars are content with living a plain and simple life, and thus there wasn't much technological advancement after the invention of electricity, especially due to their size. Their large sizes prevented the invention of automobiles and any machineries much larger than themselves due to contraints imposed by the square-cubed law, a physical law that states as objects grow larger, their volume grows exponentially in proportion to it's surface area, limiting the size of the given objects due to its weight. It is unclear to humans how To'kustars themselves can become so huge.

Humans, with their much more advanced technology, initially wanted to find a suitable planet for expansion of the human race, due to their ever polluted home-planet. It has long been known that there was a habitable planet near Promixma Centuri, and rocket-engineers have worked hard to build a space vessel that can bring astronauts their and back home. The astronaut was given the task to assess the habitability of the planet and report back any irregularities. When they came into contact with To'kustars, it was obvious that humans will not be colonizing the planet to their liking, and will need to integrate with the domestic resident aliens.

To'kustars mostly welcome their tiny guests after the contact. With To'kustar's surprising ability to learn and acquire human knowledge, the first settlers quickly setup a forum with the natives to transfer their knowledge. It was quickly decided that there needs to be a human district complete with rocket launchers and landers to ease the movement of humans and goods between the planets. The district is also complete with everything a human might need while living there, and was purpose built to make it feel like a city back on Earth.

Access for humans outside the district is not restricted, with some human-sized road infrastructure outside embedded underground that allows human to drive to certain destinations. One could also walk in them, though practically no one does that as it is quite far to get from place to place outside of the district. These roads have glass tops to allow illumination, and are embedded underground of To'kustar sidewalks so that it is not possible for accidental crashes between cars and To'kustar feet, or even for To'kustars to accidentally step on any cars, which obviously would instantly kill the occupants. The underground roads themselves are popular destinations for those that want to experience being "stepped on" by To'kustars, and To'kustar passerbys usually happily provide this experience to the humans under the glass top.

For the longer trips however, human road infrastructure is lacking the further you travel away from the human sector. Your other option relies on the help of the locals. Right at the border, a large structure called the Human Pickup Terminal was built where humans would board an elevator from ground level to a platform about chest height of a To'Kustar. A To'kustar can then bring their hands up to the loading bay, allowing the human to step into their palm to be carried outside of the human district. This is usually done in arrangment with a local matching company that matches humans that need transport with To'kustars that work as these human transporters. You could almost call it To'kustar taxi.

The matching company also matches longer term contracts for the business travellers. To enable a smoother experience for those, an interspecies complex was built right next to the district, and contains many rooms that allow one To'kustar and one or more humans to live in. Each residence is complete with a To'kustar living space with kitchen, bath, bedroom, and a human quarter. These quarters are lavish, multistory accomodations complete with gyms and an outdoor swimming pool on the top of the structure. The human quarter, the size of a dollhouse to a To'kustar, locks into a designated slot in the residence to provide water and electricity into the quarter. The quarter can be picked up by To'kustars to be cleaned and replaced when a contract is complete. The entry door to the human quarter is on the floor of the residence, so as to allow the human full movement within the residence, as well as the complex, without the aid of a To'kustar. It is possible for humans to take an elevator underground to the parking lot, where they can drive to and from the human district through one of the underground roads. The To'kustar living space within the room is in contrast, quite small for their size, as these are free arrangements provided by the matching company. The To'kustar that serves these contracts live with the human(s) that they serve, and are trained to provide the best experience for their human contractors.

As far as information technogy goes, in less than 2 years, they were able to bring their society close to that of the human's. They had an inter-plantary internet setup, and most To'kustars started owning smartphones and computers in no time. This is where you come in. Your company wants to introduce the concept of e-retail to the inhabitants of To'kust as the first to market now that most of them are connected to the internet. Obviously this would require building infrastructure on a brand new scale, literally, in order to ship merchandise to the indeginous population.

···
Now at the end of the chapter, it should be obvious, at least for those that have watched it, that the To'Kustar race is based on that of the same name in the cartoon Ben 10, AKA Way Big, specifically the original Way Big that appeared in Secret of the Omnitrix. Don't worry if you've never watched the show. Besides taking the character as a reference, I won't be referring to any of the show's plot.

This is my first time writing a story after high school (not that college didn't require writing, but it's always technical, non-fictional). This story has actually been in my head for a long time (without all the details above, of course). I hope you liked the introduction. There are a lot to come, including the obviously all important g/t interactions.