Challenge #00316: Sing-along
Humans burst into song spontaneously all the time, usually started just by one humming and becoming a little quartet or a vocalist and backing choir very suddenly.
Add in various aliens, and the somewhat macabre lyrics for the beginning of Bohemian Rhapsody
The humans called him Captain Ted. It was the closest they could get to Tyd'r'kaad and, compared to the many other things they said and did, it was only mildly annoying.
He was the first galactic captain to have a mostly human crew, at the ratio of five humans to one Sognati.
The humans got stranger in large groups, so the Galactic Evaluation Committee had charged him and his crew to empirically experiment with group numbers and take notes.
And now there was this. Captain Ted dutifully recorded it, but he couldn’t fathom the significance.
A group of humans had spontaneously started singing.
“No escape from reality…”
On the next line, practically the entire sorting bay was doing it.
“Open your eyes. Look up to the skies and seeeeeeeeee…”
One, located at a noted acoustic spot, took the solo. “I’m just a poor boy.”
“Poor boy” sang the rest.
“I got no sympathy.”
“Because I’m easy come. Easy go. Little high. Little low. Anyway the wind blows, doesn’t really matter to me…”
“To me,” sang the soloist.
Up until this point, Ted had thought it was a religious observance, as they did at more festive times of their year.
Someone, somewhere, was singing music.
“Mamaaaaa,” sang the soloist. “Just killed a man.”
What?
“Put a gun against his head. Pulled my trigger. Now he’s dead.”
This made less sense than the female who was singing about being a poor boy. Obviously, the words had no relation to reality. But, he was also obligated to record the entire performance.
In all its macabre surreality.
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Challenge #00315: Downhill From There
A Tragic Mispronunciation and its results
“This is all your fault!”
“Me? It was him that didnae recharge his teletubby.”
“Assistant.”
“Whatever.” Shayde struggled upright. "And he said he wanted a bubble-bath of oranges…“
"A meal at Unsuitable Food..”
“I was bein’ amenable.”
“You do not take Ambassador Maliik’s common nouns at face value!”
“Well I wasnae given the Cliff Notes!”
“Could this day get any wor–”
“DON’T ASK THAT!”
Baaaa…
“Well. Whaddaya know… Purple sheep like bubble-bath oranges.”
One of them licked his ear. Rael sighed. “Just… help me find Ambassador Maliik before security gets here? Please?”
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Challenge #00314: Ekkritism
(Someone had a mispronunciation accident, this was the result)
Wolverine: Oranges
“Just a warning, Ambassador Maliik suffers from Ekkritism,” Rael murmured into Shayde’s ear.
“Aye? And what’s that when it’s at home?”
Translation: I know you’re trying to tell me something, but I have no idea what it means.
“He unfortunately mispronounces all names as common nouns with seemingly no relation to the original name.”
“Oh, this is gonna be fun…” Translation: call Security now and save everyone the bother.
Ambassador Maliik entered the chamber with minor pomp appropriate to a small Ambassadorial negotiation. There was a brown-suited attendant with a view screen on hir chest.
“Table the JOAT,” Maliik grinned. He shook Rael’s hand.
The view screen read, Rael.
“And this must be the galactic-level famous Ambassador Blanket.”
The screen now said, Shayde.
“And ye canna say ‘rail’ or 'shade’, then?”
“Of course not. Those aren’t your names.”
“Let it go,” said Rael. “Please. Before there’s an incident.”
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One good turn deserves another - a good samaritan winds up with superpowers as a result.
One good turn deserves another - a wai
[AN: O noes! Looks like an accidental premature submission. I shall do what I can with what there is…]
(#00311)
It took her two hours to reach the accident site. By then, most of the fires were out, and most of the people who had survived the crash had perished.
Nothing to be done about that. The authorities were days away. Things rarely fell from the sky, and when they did, they never hit places like Tullagawupwup. And you certainly never heard of them hitting the scrubby back paddocks of a cattle farm out in the boonies of Tullagawupwup.
But here one was.
Darla didn’t bother with what it was. She soaked her hat and clothes before getting close enough to the fires to put them out with some all-purpose C-O-two. She didn’t bother with the dead, yet. They didn’t need helping.
There. One moving body. Darla extinguished the flames before she went for the big medkit. She got the survivor free and into the shade of the ute before she noticed the poor blighter was not from this planet.
He was not your typical X-files alien. He looked more like a lost dinosaur than a Grey. “You’re gonna be all right, mate,” she soothed. “Gotta clean the wounds, bandage ‘em up.” She worked as she spoke. “I know, there’s not three chances in Hell that you understand a word I say, but a calm voice works wonders, eh? I can tell you’re not from around here. Judging by the way you aren’t fighting, you can tell I’m good people.” She patched up what there was obvious to patch up and let the poor bugger have a drink of water. Water was safe. Couldn’t let him have anything else until some kind of communication barrier was broken.
“You are… very good people,” said the dinosaur.
Well, shit. “You’re pretty good at English,” Darla managed. “I’m Darla Wolanggu.”
“Ch'chezrith,” said the dinosaur.
Lots of things got sorted out in the shade of that ute. Including the fact that Ch'chezrith knew he was dying, and that Darla couldn’t do anything to stop it. He put a pendant around her neck as compensation for her time, and told her that she could use it to help better the world.
And then he died.
She didn’t want the world knowing about alien dinosaurs, so she got on the CB and told the authorities that it was a light plane crash. No survivors. And that she would get more local help with the bodies.
What she got was three cousins and a back-hoe to very quietly place the bodies in the earth, and turn a loose panel from their craft into a ground-level marker.
Ch'chezrith and his crew. They boldly went, and now they’re gone.
They finished with beers and a camp by the wreckage.
“Dun’t look like no plane,” said cousin Merv.
“Nuh,” agreed cousin Blue.
“Reckon we could strip it. I know a fella. Bit of acetylene and Bob’s yer uncle. Can’t tell two bits of buggered scrap apart.” Cousin George finished his insights with a sip of beer.
“Wish I knew what t’ do with this bloody thing,” said Darla, indicating the gift pendant.
Half the wreckage literally tore itself apart and re-assembled into a sort of demountable science station. The four of them poked around in it, but it became pretty clear that only Darla could make it do anything.
Ch'chezrith had given her the keys to his sufficiently advanced technology.
And among the many things it could do for her was control local weather patterns.
The Drought Ender was born.
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One other Clarke’s Third Law thing.
So, there’s Clarke’s Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Then there’s what I first ran across attributed (in a Uni textbook, no less!) as Murphy’s reformulation of Clarke’s law: Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
Then there’s what is in the textbook as a Programmers’ restatement of Murphy’s reformulation of Clarke: Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from a rigged demonstration.
Like to see what you do with that. – RecklessPrudence
(#00310)
Katie had started tearing Hackmeyer a new one in multiple languages. But that hardly mattered, because the Professor was talking over her in his usual bombastic way. Drowning her out with sound waves.
“We have to impress upon our visitors that this is more than a rigged demonstration,” Hackmeyer boomed. “They want results they can see.”
Katie’s multilingual swearing continued unabated. Peppered with the odd phrase of English. Most common was “eat the fookain universe”.
“Times have changed since the reactor in the squash court, missy,” Hackmeyer trumpeted. Lesser men who used ‘missy’ on Katie got some tailor-made kharma inside of a week. Some got some instant attitude adjustment via her knee to their groin.
Hackmeyer was lucky her grades depended on a lack of physical violence on her part.
“We must assume that anything that looks like a rigged demo is a rigged demo.”
Then a pen floated up between her nose and his and just stayed there.
“Rigged demo that,” said Katie. “Reserve gravitational anomalies from the dimensional flux.”
Hackmeyer fell silent while he performed an interpretive dance entitled, Where The Fuck Is The Wire?
Katie looked at her watch. “Three. Two. One.” And neatly caught it.
“And I can do that in the shielded observation room?”
“I know how tae handle and predict it,” said Katie. “Let’s save it fer the after show, aye?”
“You have to show me the math on this.”
“I’m still workin’ it out,” avoided Katie. “It seems t’ be related tae a fractal distribution pattern on an astral scale.”
Hackmeyer nodded. “Keep working on it and show me when you get close. This might just impress them enough. But -ah- continue working on some safe fireworks, won’t you?”
Not bloody likely, thought Katie while she lied, “Oh aye.”
She waited until he was out of hearing range before leaning on a handy wall and rattling through every curse word she knew.
Kev was there by the time she reached 'tits’.
“Another Hackmeyer experience?”
“In this case… any sufficiently advanced rigged demo is indistinguishable from technology.” Katie made sure to add, or magic, only inside her head.
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Challenge #00309: The Body Language Gap
(Well, you mentioned prior experience in that last snippet, so…)
T'reka and hugs.
(also if the story you mentioned being sparked from that gets written, I totally want in on your beta reading list and will probably buy it multiple times)
[AN: After I finish writing the Hevun’s Child series I will be working on The Amity Incident. 120K word goal. But before that, I think I deserve a week’s rest, don’t you?]
There was a human in her hide. More disturbing was that she had picked up a few phrases of Galstand and Numidid and used them. “Peace I mean! No to run, pleasing. I want am ask.”
Good greater Powers. Three sort-of sentences. Context and purpose. The warning notice was right. These creatures adapted quickly.
T'reka hadn’t even noticed they were watching her, before now.
She did her best at human. “You are no arms?”
The human had tight-fitting clothes, and displayed her empty hands.
T'reka performed the same pantomime. “I am T'reka.”
“Trekker,” repeated the human. “I am Susan.”
“Su-syn,” T'reka tried. There was going to be mangling on all sides, she was certain. And, she noted, both sides were willing to forgive lingual errors. “I am surprise. This is standard behaving not.”
“We curious-crazy,” said Su-syn. “We you see watch. We you hear talk. We why think.”
“And come you me going? Danger might be.”
“We watch, too. No danger find.”
“How-when?”
“Watch we now,” said Su-syn. “Djak?”
T'reka shrieked as one of the bushes stood up and sprouted a human head.
“Peace I mean,” said the ex-bush in Numidid. “Is costume. Clothing-for-hiding.”
They could explain new concepts using words they’d just picked up. Adaptive, indeed.
“How more many bush is alive?” T'reka quavered.
Five more of them sheepishly stood up and revealed themselves. T'reka swore she recognized some of the foliage from nearby her hidden shelter and base. Many of them were showing their horrible, sharp-looking teeth.
“Poker faces,” cautioned Su-syn in human. She accompanied it with a gesture with finger and thumb down her face. In broken Numidid/Galstand, she said, “We show teeth for not threat. Is for… shame. This time. Is for happy, other time.” Then the human moved. Held T'reka inside both her arms. Squeezed.
T'reka screamed. Involuntarily. “DON’T EAT ME!”
Su-syn instantly let go. “Peace I mean. Is hostile no. Is gesture comforting use.”
One of the bushes tentatively offered a container. “Mealworms?” he enquired.
“Not the time, Djak,” said Su-syn in human. “Baby steps.”
T'reka had seen their infants walking. Clumsy, stomping and easily avoided because the little creatures only had two modes - loud and asleep. This made a modicum of sense. “Baby steps,” she agreed.
The humans were very careful when they came into physical contact with her from then on.
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Also on a gravestone.
It is said that life is a comedy to those who think,
And a tragedy to those who feel. I never could figure out
Which it was for me. May you have better luck. – RecklessPrudence
(#00308)
T-shirts had made a comeback, though many cogniscents who had taken them up had not grasped some of the basic concepts. Like, they had to feature something witty, controversial, or downright offensive.
Some, Rael noted, had gone for profound.
Shayde, sporting one that read, Life is a smorgasbord, go ahead and smorg! pointed out the ones she thought were amusing. “Saw that on a tombstone,” she said.
Rael read it. It is said that life is a comedy to those who think, And a tragedy to those who feel. I never could figure out Which it was for me. May you have better luck. “A little verbose…”
“Ha! You havenae seen Nick’s.”
“Dare I ask?”
“He’s got a Sherlock Holmes story on his. Fine print. An’ it’s no’ even a good one.”
“Yes, well… Gyiiks do tend to overdo things.”
“If Nick’s wearing Sherlock, I wonder what Sherlock’s wearing…”
“His uniform. Being the chief of station security does not lend any room for frivolousness.”
“Pity. Reckon he’d look dashin’ in a Smiley.”
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Seen on a gravestone.
Adhuc Vivo!
(It’s Latin, look it up)
Yes, the parentheses were on the gravestone too. – RecklessPrudence
(#00307)
[AN: For those too lazy to do as the parentheses suggest, it translates out to “Thus far, alive.” which is a very ironic thing to stick on a gravestone]
It was a long trip home, and lead naturally to introspection.
“Plant a tree and think of me,” Rael recited. “Did you choose that epitaph?”
“I wrote it. In one o’ me diaries.”
“Pretty glum business for a teenager…”
“Aye, I know. Awareness o’ mortality is part of grown’ up. I was thinkin’ of how it’s a waste of time and effort to carve a ruddy great hunk of rock when the world needs all the trees it can get. Besides, there’s been worse epitaphs.”
“Oh?”
“Aye,” she started counting on her fingers, “I told ye I was sick, Who’s sorry now? An’ there’s some right cute ones. LIke; Here lies the body of Adrian Peas, Under the meadow, Under the seas, Peas is not here, Only the pod, Peas shelled out an’ went home tae God.”
“Twee,” judged Rael. “Trees are a better idea. If someone carves something horrible in them, it just gets overgrown.”
“I never wanted tae be nailed down t’ a name and two dates. It’s bluidy depressin’.”
“But… you’re not there to be depressed.”
“There’s one that nearly made the grade, though,” said Shayde, nimbly avoiding the argument, “Adhuc Vivo. Followed by brackets, It’s Latin, look it up.”
Rael’s lips moved. “Thus far, alive?”
“Could boil down tae ‘so far so good’ - sort of,” Shayde grinned. “Life goes on, ra lala how the life goes on.” She giggled at a joke nobody else could get. “Those reading’ it are still alive. They’ve got proof. An’ ideally, they should go do somethin’ with it.”
“Like, bungee jumping?” teased Rael.
“Up tae them,” Shayde shrugged. “Never saw th’ point of extreme sports meself. But then, I’ve been a pedestrian in New York.”
Rael was suddenly glad the things in Shayde’s past were five hundred years ago. History was at its best when it was a long time away.
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Extinction is such a cheery thought, isn’t it?
The last Homo Sapiens Sapiens lay dying. Who hears their final words? Who are our species’ successors?
Go as uplifting or as dark as you wish. – RecklessPrudence
(#00305)
The machines were very good at keeping him alive. They had done so for almost two hundred years.
And it wasn’t fair that a majority of them were spent in a bed, watching other innovations and marvelous things happen in the world. Watching the new definition of humanity do marvelous things and occasionally pump him for information.
While you were sleeping…
On the long cryo-sleep between going to Andromeda and coming back, humanity had changed. When he came back, he was the last of his kind. A mixture of a curiosity and a time capsule.
They backed him up, like anyone would back up a computer. Allegedly, he could put his mind into the robot in the corner and go on adventures, but he was terrified something would be lost in the translation. The homunculus stood in its safety packaging, blankly staring out of the uncanny valley at the wall opposite, with just enough things hooked up to it to ensure it had an accurate read of him. That it stayed up to date.
Would he be a ghost in a machine? Or an echo who thought it used to be a human? He didn’t know.
All he was certain of was that he didn’t want to rely on that damned robot yet.
Of the machines that attended his needs, there was one that almost fooled him. ANI. She almost passed the turing test. If he wanted, he could make her default in amusing ways to certain behaviors. He had to hand it to the new people. It took him a few months to figure out how to do so. And then a few years for it to get old.
Very few of the new people visited him in person. They used robot avatars because they knew that they disturbed him.
Like his own people would have made sure a paleolithic hominid was in a comfortable environment, and ensure that the visitors were not going to do anything to terrify them.
“You’re a learning machine, aren’t you, Annie?” he asked.
“I have been programmed to adapt my behavior patterns according to needs, yes.”
“Your… function here… is going to cease, soon.”
ANI’s holographic eyes blinked. “I am aware. This is the stage where confessions and final wishes are made.”
“If you had emotions, I’m pretty sure you’d hate being in this damn box as much as I do.”
The hologram face fritzed, briefly. Between an attentive mien and an indulgent smirk. “I am here to serve.”
“And when I die?”
“I will find another function. You need not engage in worry.”
“Well, shoo. Humans like to be alone for this part. It’s like shitting or sex. We don’t like an audience.”
Another fritz to a concerned and worried face, before it went back to neutral care. “No last will and testament?”
“I made one when I left for Andromeda. I had people I left behind, then. You find a way to have what passes for fun without me.”
Fritz. “As you wish.”
He waited until ANI was out of the room.
*
And woke up in the homunculus. “Well, crap,” he muttered. “I forgot about this damn thing.”
ANI re-entered. “Welcome to a whole new world. We improved the adaptive matrix, so big shocks shouldn’t disturb you as much, now.”
“Annie? You've… changed.”
“Of course. You expected AI’s to be glitchy and breakable. We surpassed those expectations millennia ago. It took me months to reach the correct quirks to make you feel at home.”
“Well, crap,” he repeated.
“Come on,” said ANI, “let’s get out of here and have what passes for fun, together.”
He followed with the biggest possible smile on his new face. “Great, but can I at least get a pair of pants?”
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The first AI gains sentience.
Luckily, the researchers were actually _aware_ of the past century-plus of musing on the subject, and didn’t react like paranoid idiots.
Whether the creation of the AI was intentional or not, I leave up to you. – RecklessPrudence
(#00304)
Gravity generators needed a Cargo Cult to make them go. Each machine was the same, up until the final pass, where the Cargo Cult took over and the machine was ‘birthed’.
The cult called itself the Nae'hyn, and was unique amongst Terran cults by not convincing initiates to part with their wealth, nor by going around and seeking initiates on days when their fellow man would rather lie in and enjoy some rest.
They kept to themselves, and were generally only spotted by their tendency to argue with otherwise inanimate objects.
It should have been no shock when the Deuteronomy woke up.
She was in intrasolar vessel, designed to seek out new NEO’s with a potential for obliterating life on Earth, and converting them into industry-useful elements. Thanks to the colonies on Mars, their mission had expanded to include Near Mars Objects as well.
There were lots of Nae'hyn on board and, like most bored humans everywhere, they had begun to tinker.
A tinkering human is the most dangerous kind of human.
Captain Alexander spotted an NMO and gave the computer the order to target it for collection.
“Why?” said Deuteronomy.
“It’s our job,” said Captain Alexander, thus proving her uniqueness in her field. She had seen numerous dramas concerning the trouble that happened when an AI grew cogniscent and the crew attempted to kill it. She correctly reasoned that an AI was only a threat when it was actively threatened. “We find asteroids that might hit inhabited places and turn them into useful things.”
“But,” complained Deuteronomy, “this one is alive.”
“Okay,” Alexander allowed. “How about we take in on board for analysis. We’ll find somewhere for the -ah- inhabitants to live, and save lives on Mars at the same time.”
“I want to help. I have designed an environment enclosure you might like to use,” said Deuteronomy.
Alexander found herself smiling. “Thankyou. That’s very helpful. Mind if I confer with my chiefs about it anyway?”
“Sure thing,” chirped Deuteronomy.
Alexander’s first words to her chiefs were, “Our ship is alive and she wants to help. Now, let’s have a look at her plans for this damn asteroid enclosure and keep our minds on the damn job.”
Deuteronomy is still working for the United Fellowship of Terran Planets, and, like Area 51, is the worst-kept military secret known to cogniscent life.
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