Fire update on the morning of the 9th of January 2020. It’s… hit and miss. Queensland and Tasmania are less on fire. Everywhere else is either the same or more on fire. UGH.
Send money to the Red Cross in Australia here.
Send money to St Vinnies here.
Good news! Australia is… less on fire than yesterday.
It’s still a heckin’ inferno, but less of it is better than more. There’s a cyclone/tropical storm off the north end of Western Australia, but they don’t hold much hope of rain for the south, where the fires are.
Our elected officials have quite forgotten what “public servant” means and are valiantly holding the fort of Coal Money rather than recognising that (a) climate change exists, (b) it’s biting this country’s butt, and, © we need to firkin DO something about it soon as possible.
Australia will remember this.
[Source]
Challenge #02139-E310: Cute, Fluffy, Deadly — Steemit
First rule of Deathworlder animals - there is no such thing as harmless.
First Invader G'thaz was among the first to discover that to hir detriment. The creature known to the natives as Possum, subclass Ringtail, focussed intently on G'Thaz’s primary gripclaw and clambered up it, sniffing all the way.
“See?” said First Invader G'thaz, unaware that ze was moments away from impending disaster. “It doesn’t even recognise us as a threat.” Before G'thaz could take another breath, the possum clearly recognized hir as food by taking a huge chunk out of hir primary limb.
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Challenge #02126-E297: Uncommon Ground — Steemit
Human Daz spared a dubious glance towards Rilthi Baz and wondered, not for the first time, if she was being very gently wound up. “Uhm,” she said. “What?”
Clancy just sighed. “Yeah… an ‘overflow’ is an area where the flood waters tend to overflow. When the river floods, that’s where the excess water goes. Good for grasslands and grazing.”
“Also rice,” added Human Daz. “I’m guessing your mum was a big fan of ole Banjo?”
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Challenge #01573-D112: The Aptly-named Terra
Correct dress varies from full formal to the Northern Territory Australian version ‘wear a singlet And thongs (flip flops). –
@knitnan
Welcome to the Terran Solar system. All Havenworlder species are advised to engage in tourism inside a livesuit, and with a bodyguard if your Havenworld is of Class 3 or above. For those species who can endure a Class 4.5 Deathworld, acceptable dress ranges from “full head-to-toe covering if female” to “we don’t care, just cover your naughty bits”. A colour-coded map is provided in your tourist material as to which areas are which.
Cultures range from extremely religious (Hazard map areas described in black) to truly egalitarian. Beware of oligarchies if one is running low on funds. Despite the dominant religious message of, “be kind to the needy,” the oligarchies seem to believe that the disadvantaged have been cursed by their most convenient God(s). This is despite the fact that no extant religious text outlines this as a fact.
Pointing this out to theist oligarch humans only annoys them. Do not irritate these humans, as they are prone to fits of violence. These are, of course, the statistical outliers to be wary of. As a whole, Terran natives are friendly, amenable, and willing to forgive minor mistakes from obvious visitors.
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Challenge #01388-C293: Cheerful Charlie
“No worries, Mate! No problem.” – Anon Guest
[AN: Other phrases that Aussies have learned to fear, especially those who remember Joh “I live to fuck up your life” Bjelke-Peterson, are “Don’t you worry about that” and “She’ll be right” ::twitch::]
If there was a worse curse for a ship’s human, T'kethi couldn’t think of a worse option than a N'Ozzie Engineer. T'kethi repeatedly set herself reminders to never again pick a human based on pure aesthetics.
They were all ugly, squishy things, but at least this one was the right shade of brown. And T'kethi could tolerate them bending in every wrong way possible but…
Someone should have warned her that for N'Ozzies… the term ‘deathworlder’ really applied. The most unnerving quality was the chipper, cavalier, can-do attitude to near-death situations.
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Challenge #01364-C269: Here There Be Werewolves
Tidally-locked Lycanthropy Planet. Details here. – @recklessprudence
Rough seas, of course. Rounding the Cape to the trade winds inevitably involved rough seas. It took a good captain to deal with just that. But of course, things had to be trickier. Sailing the Cape had to be done in full daylight or not at all, because the Moon shone her full face on the southern hemisphere. Which left those dangerous lands populated entirely by werewolves.
And even with all these precautions, there was still a crewmate or two who found out that she had that peculiar gene. They could keep their wits - though barely - through their first change, if they had the help of the sun. And from there, they would become immigrants to the dangerous southern lands. Swapped for the few who could not or would not change under the moon’s staring influence.
Challenge #01331-C236: Epic Levels of Bullshit
I knew about this story, but I had never heard the reasoning behind having the ‘roos in the simulation to begin with. Makes a lot more sense, now. – @recklessprudence
[AN: The real funny part was that this story was used as an example of checking your GD code before release. I heard it in one of my BInfTech lectures. Australia just seems to be a nexus of firkin weird stories. See: The Emu War (spoilers, the Emus won)]
“…and then the Kangaroos reappeared over the ridge, but this time, they were armed with Bazookas.”
The audience laughed on cue.
Dusty had had enough, she raised her hand. “Yeah, that’s a thing now,” she said, in full Bullshit Mode. “We never have enough recruits for the army, but we do have some bloody clever animal trainers? And Kangaroos have opposable thumbs, so it’s no big deal to teach 'em how to pull a trigger.”
Challenge #01327-C232: Almost Like Home
Okay… so there’s some places like home. That’s not necessarily a good thing.
I really want a science fiction story where aliens come to invade earth and effortlessly wipe out humanity, only to be fought off by the wildlife.
They were expecting military resistance. They weren’t counting on bears.
Imagine coming to a hostile alien world and being attacked by a horde of creatures that can weigh up to 3 tons, run at 30 km/h (19 mph), and bite with a force of 8,100 newtons (1,800 lbf).
By the time you realise that they can traverse water, it’s too late. The surviving members of your unit manage to make it back by shedding their excess gear and running for their lives; the slower ones were crushed to death within minutes.
You later describe the creature to one of the humans you captured, wanting to know the name of the monstrosity that will haunt your nightmares for cycles to come.
The human smiles as it speaks a single word, slowly and distinctly, in its barbaric tongue.
“Hippopotamus.”
This is giving me the biggest, creepiest grin I might have ever grinned
Imagine being the next crew to go down to earth and thinking “it’s fine, we got this. We have the weapons and equipment necessary to deal with bears and *shudders* hippopotamuses. We’ll be fine.”
And at first you are, you’ve learned how to dodge. You’ve learned where their territories are. You know how to defend yourself.
But then one night you are sleeping in your shelter. You’re in a tree covered temperate part of earth. It seems benign. There are been no sightings of the dreaded “hippos” around. Not even any bears. But there is a slight rustle of the undergrowth. You try and ignore it telling yourself it is just the wind.
Then you hear the rustle again. closer this time.
You peer out into the darkness but see nothing amongst the trees.
The rustle again and now you realise you can smell something. It’s musky and slightly foul. It’s the smell of an omen, a warning. But what of? Where is this smell coming from.
You sit up, but it’s too late. The foul smelling creature is on you. You are hit with 17kg of coarse fur and vicious bites. Long dark claws tear in to you and you are pinned down white the striped creature tries to bite your throat.
It takes some doing but you manage to wrestle free. Blood drips from your wounds and already they itch with the sign of infection. The creature has a bloodied snout, rust rad, mingling with the black and white hairs. It lets out a terrifying growl from the back of its throat and looks to attack again. It’s between you and your knife, so your only choice is to back away.
Eventually the creature gives up and snuffles off in to the undergrowth, down a hole near your shelter you hadn’t noticed before.
When you make it back to your base you once again consult the captive human.
“Badger.” they say, with a solemn nod.
One word: Moose
“Our vehicles are far superior to the local human models, in range, speed, armament, and any other metric you care to name! Nothing could possibly-”
BAMrumblerumblethumpcrash!!!
“That’s called a moose.”
“We should be free of the threat of the ‘moose’ here on our new floating accommodation”
*humans start sniggering*
“… they can swim, can’t they”
*humans start laughing louder*
….
*mid-winter*
‘I DON’T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED! K’T'SURKIK WENT OUTSIDE AND A MOUND OF SNOW ROSE UP AND ATE HIM’“What is this ‘wolverine’ you speak of?”
Tell me the story of the unpleasantly surprised alien invaders and their captive human remnant, getting more smug the more the aliens fail at basic scouting…
I know we’re all talking the big smash-‘em-up type animals, but what about the little ones? Are aliens prepared for spiders? Mosquitoes? Fleas? Ticks? Even humans get sick or die from some of those, who knows what the fuck they’d do to an unprepared alien.
Nobody expects the mosquitoes
I was thinking in terms of the smaller mammals getting organized. It becomes standard to avoid landing in cities because the rats have formed actual armies and can chew through freaking metal. Every single person or thing passing into a vessel is scanned for hitchhikers. A single undetected rat can take down an entire vessel and come creeping completely unharmed from the wreckage.
I would also like to hear from Australia and surrounding islands. We all know they have some formidable wildlife but even the docile creatures are armed.
Let’s see…
There’s all the marvellous wildlife outlined in this charming song…
Most of our macro wildlife is armed to the teeth, regardless of their relative harmlessness. Koalas, the most laid back of Aussie wildlife, can turn into a murderous ball of death at the drop of a hat if they haven’t been socialised.
Most possums (yes, even sugar gliders) can take your finger right off.
Then there’s the Gympie Gympie tree. And in urban areas - Plovers. The only ground-nesting bird to survive the introduction of both rats _and_ foxes, which aught to tell you how tough they are.
Feral species like Bush Pigs are just too damn aggro to realise they’re dead. If you shoot them, you have to run up a tree or they’ll kill you before they die.
Now for your insidious killers, you can’t go much past the insects. Ross River Fever is one of those mozzie-bourne diseases that, once you have it NEVER GOES AWAY. And then there’s the spiders.
And of course you can’t forget that we have nineteen of the top twenty deadliest snakes in the world.
I think the aliens would be better off steering clear of Australia. The whole bloody county’s a death trap.
(via bee-whistler)