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Greetings, Student and Traveler! Thank you for purchasing grade six of the Tenth Edition of the Official Cultural Guide to those lonely, unique Beings, the Human Species! In this guide you will find:

-updated findings on human history

-a complete guide to unique human accomplishments

-why the human failed to survive and join the Intergalactic Commission

… and many more fun and fantastic facts about the human species! To begin learning about the Beings who once ruled the planet EARTH, just enter any topic of your choosing! But first, some important notes about EARTH. It is important to understand how the human planet functioned, especially as it impacted the biology and culture of humans and the non-being EARTH animals that surrounded them.

The EARTH was a small, blue planet (about 0.4 percent of standard planetary mass) in a cluster known to inhabitants as the SOLAR SYSTEM. The SOLAR SYSTEM was named after their star, commonly called THE SUN, SOL or HELIOS. It contained about eight planets, of which EARTH was the only one to develop life. Even so, EARTH took quite a while to become habitable for any species, complex life notwithstanding.

For most of its existence, EARTH was covered in water. Thus, most of its species came to depend on water for most biochemical processes. One striking example is the FISH, a classification of animal which spent its entire life in water and died in any other environment. By far the most common classification of animal on EARTH was the INSECT, also called BUG. BUGs were small animals even by EARTH standards, so they often took advantage of watery environments to store and move food, eggs and shelter. AMPHIBIANs were fish that spent the latter parts of their life near water instead of under its surface. Other EARTH species, such as the classification REPTILE and certain MAMMALs, had adaptions to hold and conserve water with their bodies.

Soon after they began dominating the planet, humans discovered that most of the planet was covered in water. Particularly large, salinated bodies of water were called OCEANs. Because humans could only live on land, they claimed separate landmasses as CONTINENTs, each with unique assortments of cultures that we exo-anthropologists still use to this day. Even the CONTINENTS contained bodies of water. Because humans required non-salinated water for nourishment and preferred watery environments in general for transportation and FISHING purposes, most human population centers formed around sources of water.

As you may have noticed, EARTH had a wealth of different classifications of animal, even disregarding the human tendency toward categorization. Each of these classes contained thousands of species. This is because although EARTH was small, it had a wealth of differing environs. Due to its tilted axis and strange atmosphere, EARTH had both warm and cold areas along with many areas whose climates went through drastic changes over the course of the year. For example, the EARTH civilization AUSTRALIA would go through cold weather while the civilization known as RUSSIA would go through warm spells and vice versa, even though the mean temperature of RUSSIA was much colder than that of AUSTRALIA. In addition, the majority of EARTH became overrun with plant life that would drastically change the habitat of its fauna, most commonly TREEs, ALGAE and GRASS. Because water is a polar chemical, many different reactions meant the majority of the elements formed naturally on the EARTH, further diversifying it.

EARTH’s atmosphere is also exceptionally interesting and useful for life. Because of its rich oxygen content, EARTH air was an extremely easy environment to create and maintain fire. Most of the rest of EARTH’s air is made up of stabilized, neutral nitrogen, allowing for safe experimentation with most chemical reactions. Humans were thus able to practice chemistry easily, especially allowing for their famous breakthroughs regarding fire. As an interesting aside, the composition of the EARTH atmosphere in combination with their small, yellow star meant that the EARTH sky was blue. Stellar radiation that passed through the atmosphere has recently been found to be a factor in the differing skin colors found in humans.

In short, the EARTH was a perfect spot for developing a variety of species and climates. Humans were thus a very creative species, using most animals for food or labor and adapting to different amounts of heat and water in their daily lives. While almost every CONTINENT had examples of each classification of EARTH animal, only humans came to live on every single one. Thus, much of what makes human culture interesting is the fact that, even though the species population only grew to a few billions, there were thousands of vastly differing civilizations on EARTH at any given time in their short history.

Before you continue in this guide, please answer the following questions about relevant terms in this chapter. An exo-anthropologist is you!

1. Given EARTH’s mass, how would you adjust to the gravity? Would it be lower or higher than the gravity of your own home planet?
2. All EARTH animals, including humans, require water to survive. What other beings have this trait? What would a hydrophobic being need to do to live on EARTH?
3. One human idiom was “a FISH out of water”. What do you think this idiom means?
4. Humans could see several planets and thousands of stars even before inventing refraction technology. How could this have helped or hindered their short phase of interplanetary exploration?
5. Humans are the only Beings to have evolved on EARTH. Why do you think this is?

Thank you for reading the Introduction. Enter the next topic you would like to explore below.

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