Challenge #02708-G151: Bug of Contention
The two humans in this ship are really close. They will do nearly anything to save the other. On the other claw, they destroyed the training room arguing about whether a certain earth insect is a lighting bug or firefly. – Anon Guest
The two Ships’ Humans were out of breath, bruising, and one of them had a dark reddish-brown ichor leaking from their nose. They were also kept well out of each other’s grip by the presence of Companion Jorx directly between them.
“I don’t understand,” said Duty Captain Vredd. “We were under the impression that you were a bonded pair.”
“Oh yeah, we’re still ride or die for each other,” said Human Zo, who was the one leaking ichor. “Right, babe?”
“Yeah,” said Human Stef. “Even though you’re completely wrong about lightning bugs.”
[Be sure to visit internutter (dot) org for a link to the rest of this story, and details on how to support this artist. Or visit peakd (dot) com (slash at) internutter for the stories at their freshest]
Challenge #02706-G149: Terrifying Titans
Crabs are a universal constant. So much so that they are used in first contact. Earth is strange for the amount of crab types that we have. Keep them away from the Japanese spider crab though. The first alien to see one said it was the equivalent of an eldritch monstrosity. – CyberStrikeBeast
[AN: go to your favourite search engine and look up “Christmas Island crab migration,” and then “Coconut crab”. Sweet dreams :D ]
Welcome to Earth. We have weird crustaceans. Honestly, it’s hard to resist a sales pitch like that. Terra has a phenomenal amount of crustacean species. There’s fluffy crabs, big crabs, multitudes of crabs, crabs with human faces on their carapaces, and the terrifying abomination known as the Japanese spider crab. Some bold visitors have claimed that it is ninety-nine percent leg. This is almost true.
The Terran species universally recognised as being ninety-five percent leg is the daddy long-legs. A spider that is aptly named on a colloquial basis. Very aptly named. If you gave a daddy long-legs some gills, and let evolution take its course, then you would very much get something close in resemblance to the spider crab. If you can also picture a proportionate daddy long-legs with a body the size of a basketball, then you have an even closer approximation.
The spider crab also possesses claws at the end of its manipulating limbs that have been known to disconnect Human phalanges from the rest of the Human if they are handled incorrectly. Naturally, Humans view this crab as something of a delicacy. Then again, they are also the species that took one look at the coconut crab and wondered if it was edible. Humans will eat anything.
[Be sure to visit internutter (dot) org for a link to the rest of this story, and details on how to support this artist. Or visit peakd (dot) com (slash at) internutter for the stories at their freshest]
Humans Are Weird
insane-male-alphabeticalsymbol:
So there has been a bit of “what if humans were the weird ones?” going around tumblr at the moment and Earth Day got me thinking. Earth is a wonky place, the axis tilts, the orbit wobbles, and the ground spews molten rock for goodness sakes. What if what makes humans weird is just our capacity to survive? What if all the other life bearing planets are these mild, Mediterranean climates with no seasons, no tectonic plates, and no intense weather?
What if several species (including humans) land on a world and the humans are all “SCORE! Earth like world! Let’s get exploring before we get out competed!” And the planet starts offing the other aliens right and left, electric storms, hypothermia, tornadoes and the humans are just … there… counting seconds between flashes, having snowball fights, and just surviving.
To paraphrase one of my favorite bits of a ‘humans are awesome’ fiction megapost: “you don’t know you’re from a Death World until you leave it.” For a ton of reasons, I really like the idea of Earth being Space Australia.
Earth being Space Australia Words cannot express how much I love these posts
Alien: “I’m sorry, what did you just say your comfortable temperature range is?”
Human: “Honestly we can tolerate anywhere from -40 to 50 Celcius, but we prefer the 0 to 30 range.”
Alien: “……. I’m sorry, did you just list temperatures below freezing?”
Human: “Yeah, but most of us prefer to throw on scarves or jackets at those temperatures it can be a bit nippy.”
Other human: “Nah mate, I knew this guy in college who refused to wear anything past his knees and elbows until it was -20 at least.”
Human: “Heh. Yeah everybody knows someone like that.”
Alien: “……. And did you also say 50 Celcius? As in, half way to boiling?”
Human: “Eugh. Yes. It sucks, we sweat everywhere, and god help you if you touch a seatbelt buckle, but yes.”
Alien: “……. We’ve got like 50 uninhabitable planets we think you might enjoy.”
“You’re telling me that you have… settlements. On islands with active volcanism?”
“Well, yeah. I’m not about to tell Iceland and Hawaii how to live their lives. Actually, it’s kind of a tourist attraction.”
“What, the molten rock?”
“Well, yeah! It’s not every day you see a mountain spew out liquid rocks! The best one is Yellowstone, though. All these hot springs and geysers from the supervolcano–”
“You ACTIVELY SEEK OUT ACTIVE SUPERVOLCANOES?”
“Shit, man, we swim in the groundwater near them.”Sounds like the “Damned” trilogy by Alan Dean Foster.
“And you say the poles of your world would get as low as negative one hundred with wind chill?”
“Yup, with blizzards you cant see through every other day just about.”
“Amazing! when did you manage to send drones that could survive such temperatures?”
“… well, actually…”
“… what?”
“…we kinda……. sent……….. people…..”
“…”
“…”
“…what?”
“we sent-”
“no yeah I heard you I just- what? You sent… HUMANS… to a place one hundred degrees below freezing?”
“y-yeah”
“and they didn’t… die?”
“Well the first few did”
“PEOPLE DIED OF THE COLD AND YOUR SOLUTION WAS TO SEND MORE PEOPLE???!?!?!?”
My new favorite Humans are Weird quote
“PEOPLE DIED OF THE COLD AND YOUR SOLUTION WAS TO SEND MORE PEOPLE?”
aka The History of Russia
aka Arctic Exploration
aka The History of Alaska
Being from Alaska, this was sort of how I felt going to college in the lower 48′s and learned that no one else had been put through a literal survival camp as a regular part of their school curriculum, including but not limited to:
1. Learning to recognize all forms of animal tracks in the wild so you can avoid bears and moose and search out rabbits and other small animals to eat.
2. Extensive swimming and climbing on glacial pieces with competitions to see who could last the longest, followed by a group sit in the sauna so we wouldn’t get hypothermia (no, not kidding, I really did this many times as a kid!)
3. How to navigate using the stars to get back to civilization.
4. How to select the right type of moss from the trees to start a fire with damp wood (because, y’know, you’re in a field of snow. Nothing is dry.)
5. How to carve out a small igloo-like space to sleep in the snow to preserve body heat and reduce the windchill so you won’t freeze to death in the arctic.
“I’m telling you, I don’t think we need to worry about territory conflicts with the humans. You know all those deathtrap hell-worlds in the Argoth Cluster?”
“Those worthless rocks? Yeah.”
“80% of them are considered ‘resort destinations’ by those freaky little primates.”This would be an interesting read if this was a book.
Like, an alien invasion is about to start and the book is a chronicle of how the aliens couldn’t handle both humans in general and the range of environments and ended up being destroyed through the eyes of one of the aliens.
Like a caption from the book would be something like
“So we sent a recon team to this place called Russia, but all we’ve heard back thus far is about the temperatures, giant monsters with fur the humans call “Bears”, and that once again, we have been reminded of how heavily well armed almost ever human settlement is.
Thus far we have lost more than a good chunk of our forces through experiments gone wrong, unsuccessful fire fights, and above all else, the humans seem to be more worried about these strange variation of their species calling themselves “Clowns”.
I don’t know what a Clown is, but sounds as if it is the dominant faction of this planet, and considering we only just found out humans practically poison themselves with this thing called beer and only get stronger and more violent, I don’t ever want to encounter such a being.
I believe this invasion was a mistake.“
And in that moment, all I can think of is that one line from Halo 2, about an intercepted distress call.
Dear Humanity,
We regret being alien bastards. We regret coming to Earth. And we most certainly regret the Corps blowing up our raggedy ass fleet!I’m sorry are you telling me that you all scrolled past that post on Alaska and yet Australia is still considered the death continent???
All we learn is how to avoid snakes and spiders which boils down to kick things over before you pick em up, watch your fingers, make lots of noise to scare the snakes away.
Oh and I guess safe swimming - swim between the flags, swim sideways out of a Rip, don’t swim alone.
And you freaks in Alaska are learning how to navigate by the stars and animal tracking.No, no, no. Where *I* live is perfectly normal. It’s *you* who experience the deathworldness of Earth.
Why I just (insert list of survival skills here)
You had to (insert list of survival skills here).
Clearly I live in the normal place!
Challenge #02603-G046: Also Ferocious
Hey InterNutter, I’m so glad I found your new site. Remember me from way back when, on your X-Men Evolution focused Nutboard? I saw your post on the hummingbird station, with all kinds of aliens enjoying the “harmless” hummingbirds.
Hummingbirds can also be aggressive to the point of taking on eagles, will sometimes fight each other to the death, and were even the basis for the Aztec god of war. What happens when the aliens learn or discover (the hard way) some or all of these things?
Here is your original post: https://steemit.com/fiction/@internutter/challenge-02507-f317-the-jewels-of-the-tour
And two articles that focus on hummingbirds’ dark side: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/hummingbirds-are-beautiful-but-their-personalities-are-for-the-birds/2015/09/21/0280e5b4-5afb-11e5-8e9e-dce8a2a2a679_story.html
Addendum by OP: I thought I’d clean up the above prompt a bit…
Bejewel station was known for it’s beautiful, delicate, impossible hummingbirds. Many of the visiting havenworlders took them as living proof that those with a delicate constitution could survive living on a deathworld. Until some “clever” being had the brilliant idea of reducing the number of nectar feeders so that there were areas of more concentrated viewing. Until a few other “clever” beings had ideas to further concentrate the areas of hummingbird viewing. The special livesuits that included attached nectar feeders were particularly popular. Until the first of a series of incidents.
After the incidents began, the biologists discovered records of hummingbirds harassing eagles 1000 times their size. All havenworlder biologists agreed that the records of hummingbird territoriality around limited nectar sources was extremely understated.
…and the poor fools that were trying to escape the angry hummingbirds discovered they could dive at 45 miles per hour, turn on a second, and that they were willing to use their beaks as spears. – Neemers
They are small. They are delicate. They are brightly coloured. They are creatures that eat nectar. All these things would make you think that they are harmless, but… they are still Deathworlders. The people of Bejewel station chose them as pollinators because they wouldn’t get stuck in the air filters. Visitors must also remember that Terran bees, which are also venomous Deathworlders, are what hummingbirds more or less imitate.
The recent administration change refused to do their homework. They knew that the tourist dollar was the biggest earner for Bejewel Station, so the implemented a policy of installing hummingbird feeders only where the tourists could see them. After all, it took money and effort to maintain the parks when tourists were wandering around wherever they whist. This was cheaper, more efficient, and kept visitors to the paths.
The new administration also refused to listen to anyone familiar with the profitable avians in favour of catering exclusively to the tourists. They would learn their mistakes in full in less than a Standard week. It took that long for the birds to adapt fully to the new locations and, realising that resources were close together and limited, to begin territorial behaviour. Which included dive-bombing said tourists at speeds slightly in excess of twenty sidu per second. Still avaricious and hoping to minimise costs, the new administration began the complicated process of fixing the wrong thing[1].
[Be sure to visit internutter (dot) org for a link to the rest of this story, and details on how to support this artist. Or visit steemit (dot) com (slash at) internutter for the stories at their freshest]
Challenge #02538-F348: Goodnight Everybody
A: Ok look I only have a sawed shotty and a 9mm and I don’t want to fight anything that is bigger than a baby moose. Also if you see a bear follow this rhyme “brown lay down, black fight back, white good night”
B: but can’t you fight back with your weapons?
A: Yes and no. First off the bears in these regions are bulletproof, hell most bears are. More than anything firing this will piss them off
B: well can you tell me is that bear bulletproof?
A: Welp based off the rhyme, good night – Anon Guest
Well. This was a situation. It was not a good situation. It was not even a bad situation. It was a terrible situation. Armin ran through everything he knew about bears. “Don’t make eye contact,” he said. “Keep a calm, level tone when you speak. We’re going to back slowly away…”
“I am starting to regret the decision to document some wildlife on a Deathworld,” said Grox in calm, level tones. “Does this creature eat baby moose?”
“No, your polar bear usually likes fish or seals. Problem is, seals are human-sized and some of these critters have learned that humans are tasty prey. The good news for you is your livesuit will protect you.” For every good news a Human delivered, there had to be an associated bad news. They just worked that way.
[Be sure to visit internutter (dot) org for a link to the rest of this story, and details on how to support this artist. Or visit steemit (dot) com (slash at) internutter for the stories at their freshest]