Challenge #02634-G077: Putting it Together
(Based on experience with Harm-OCD)
The new human on board came highly recommended. They left every area they worked in cleaner and safer than it was when they started, seemed to always find and fix issues before they ever had a chance to become a problem, were quick to talk down anyone that started to become angry or frightened, and even seemed to never have issues with Silly-Seasons. The only issue was that they refused to work with Havenworlders…
Anytime they were around Havenworlders they would become quiet and place their hands behind their back. While never directly rude they would take any excuse they could to leave and often would never directly look at any Havenworlder near them. This gave them a unpleasant reputation despite being highly regarded for their skills.
This continues until a Havenworlder tries to bond with the “quiet human” by silently sitting next to them while they are reading. The human upon noticing the Havenworlder jumps away hard enough to knock the Havenworlder over. The Havenworlder is unharmed but the human is now obviously panicking whispering, “I’m sorry,” to themselves repeatedly. – Anon Guest
Humans can be very strange. Galactics know this. Pack-bonding with some is easier than with others. Conversely, bonding with some is harder than with others. Human Vae was one of the Humans who was difficult to bond with. They were hard-working, safety oriented, and tidy to a fault. They didn’t participate in Silly Season. They didn’t participate in anything.
When invited into social activities, they rarely responded at all. If they did respond, they were lucky to get a “No, thanks,” when the default was, “maybe later.” This was always delivered in an anxious mumble, and followed by their retreat to a different space in which to work. Usually something more confined, and increasingly difficult to access.
Companion Firrith consulted the latest update of the Human Manual, and logically deduced that Human Vae was one of the quiet ones, who could companionably share space and consider that a bonding activity. Firrith selected a space of Human Vae’s downtime and occupied a roost inside Human Vae’s personal space and joined them in the activity of reading through some form of media.
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Challenge #02631-G074: Desperate Measures
You’re not wrong but I don’t want you to be right – Anon Guest
Phryx stared at her Human companion. “Did you mean that to be confusing as it sounds, or are you having one of your verbal shortcuts again?” Verbal shortcuts were always a problem with Humans, especially on the Edge. They had ways of expressing themselves that were difficult to translate at best and needed a seminar to understand at worst.
“Oh. Right. Whoops. Okay. Brief version: Yes, we are going to die. You’re not wrong there. Except, I want us both to die of a very old age and a long, long time after this entire clusterflakk is over.” Humans could also be capable of some very economic means of communication, in this case, Human Qir encapsulated the entire, complicated battle for Science Base Netaan, featuring intermittent skirmishes, mad dashes for safety or improvised weapons, and surprise encounters with invaders who were lost in the labyrinthine halls as, This entire clusterflakk. “So yeah,” ze said. “You’re not wrong, but I don’t want you to be immediately right. Got it?”
“Mostly,” Phryx allowed. She checked what she could of the securicam feeds. Very many of them were down whilst Human Qir was messing around with wires, a keyboard, and a cable fed into hir livesuit helmet’s HUD display. “Dare I ask what you’re doing?”
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Challenge #02630-G073: A Questionable Survival Mechanism
As the Galactic, not a deathworlder, but not a delicate havenworlder either, looked down at the infant human, they had to wonder…
“How does something so small and delicate grow into something so dangerous?”
The infant, seemingly in answer, smiled, then reached up and gently hugged the sentient holding it. Before releasing a truly noxious fart. – Anon Guest
Every species not equal to a Deathworlder tends to look a lot like a Havenworlder to the Deathworlder in question. Some Deathworlders are even aware of this. Like Human Lyn, who was sharing her infant with her Galactic coworkers aboard the Valiant Seeker. The child no longer needed help supporting their head and had been cleared for social interaction at a skin-to-skin level with the rest of the crew.
To Keryx, the wobbling creature before him was next to helpless, and almost Havenworlder levels of squishiness. Though not as small as a newly-birthed Human, this small being was still less than a quarter of Human Lyn’s total body mass. The smaller Human treated the sight of Keryx, a saur-avian cogniscent, the same way they treated anything new. They reached out for him and cooed.
Keryx took the precaution to wipe the much smaller Human hand free of their perpetual slobber before accepting temporary custody of the child. This was how Humans pack-bonded at the most basic level. Touch and accustomisation with socialisation. Keryx quickly learned that even a small Human could become incredibly heavy in a very short amount of time, even with their alleged assistance by clinging to his neck.
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Challenge #02629-G072: Impossible Consequences
Human Dave was an interesting individual. His pack bonding ability is astounding even among his fellow Humans. The downside being where ever Dave goes chaos ensues. Even humans with high restraints have hard time controlling themselves. There are few Humans around Dave that are able to, in human terms “keep a tight leash on him”. I was able to ask one of them about more information about Dave. Saying that him and two other take shifts restraining Dave but whenever the day of Satur comes around it take the forces of all three to hold Dave down, and worry since the breaking of March is coming soon. – Anon Guest
Some Humans just can’t help themselves. They need others to be their sense of restraint or, in extreme cases, act as surrogate brain cells. Some are just… naturally chaotic. They don’t always bring devastation in their wake, or they wouldn’t last long in the space lanes for increasingly obvious reasons.
Human Dave was the embodiment of the catastrophe curve. When not catapulting from one bad idea to the next, he was happening to any threat that the crew might be encountering. When not dealing with threats, the rest of the Ships’ Humans were trying to “keep a lid” on Human Dave’s usual shenanigans.
Human Dave was usually friendly towards any non-hostile beings. He could befriend literally anything and frequently did. The heartache and the chaos happened when he inevitably attempted to drag random wildlife onto the scout vessel with him for the trip back to the Surveyor 34Y8.
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Challenge #02628-G071: The Last Lie
https://steemit.com/fiction/@internutter/challenge-02005-e181-one-line-to-cross
https://steemit.com/fiction/@internutter/challenge-02156-e327-they-ll-be-back
https://steemit.com/fiction/@internutter/challenge-02524-f334-an-appeal
The “Last Lie” is a recurring trend and well-known trait in the Amalgam universe. Yet, I haven’t yet read a story where the “Last Lie” has come true. It seems that our human protagonists always manage to cheat death.
That being said, I think it would be interesting to see a (or a group of) Havenworlder(s) discovering what the Last Lie is the hard way. As well as the subsequent fallout of their human’s final actions.
Because sometimes, you’re playing on hardcore, and well,
There are no continues. – PaladinShane
Humans are not unkillable. They know this. They know their vulnerabilities. They also allow others to assume that they don’t have that many. This has lead to the Last Lie, and so many other cogniscents learning that it was the Last Lie the hard way.
Case 23J-756: There was nothing left of Human Sem. There was also nothing left of the Vorax fleet, half the asteroid belt, and the Fleet Acquirer, the ship the rest of the crew had fled on Human Sem’s insistence. The Fleet Acquirer, the Vorax fleet, a healthy percentage of the asteroids, and Human Sem had been vaporised. What little remained was a cloud of atoms, at best.
The crew who had bonded with Human Sem returned to the area, looking for traces of Sem. Where they had gone, what had happened to them, and why they had not caught up as they had said. Scanners found the scant evidence, tracing it all back to a devastating explosion that wiped out everything, including Human Sem.
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