Challenge #02622-G065: One More Lesson
The Great Chinese Famine (from Wikipedia)
“I went to one village and saw 100 corpses, then another village and another 100 corpses. No one paid attention to them. People said that dogs were eating the bodies. Not true, I said. The dogs had long ago been eaten by the people.”
(Yu Dehong, secretary of a party official in Xinyang in 1959 and 1960)
It is widely believed that the government seriously under-reported death tolls: Lu Baoguo, a Xinhua reporter in Xinyang, told Yang Jisheng of why he never reported on his experience:
“In the second half of 1959, I took a long-distance bus from Xinyang to Luoshan and Gushi. Out of the window, I saw one corpse after another in the ditches. On the bus, no one dared to mention the dead. In one county, Guangshan, one-third of the people had died. Although there were dead people everywhere, the local leaders enjoyed good meals and fine liquor. … I had seen people who had told the truth being destroyed. Did I dare to write it?” – Anon Guest
If you wish to judge a society, measure it by how it treats those most in need. – Ancient Terran Saying.
By all accounts, it should have happened to a Greater Deregulation. That was where the unofficial bets had been lain. If anything of the ilk was likely to happen, it had to happen to a Greater Deregulation. What it actually happened to was an otherwise unassuming Human colony that had initially been planned to create a stable, self-sustaining colony in the image of the origin polity’s ideals. Alas, like all ideals, they could become corrupted over time.
This particular colony had failed to learn its lessons from the failure of the industrial farming model, and doubled down on chemicals, polluting the water, and otherwise creating problems with non-profitable solutions[1]. What was shocking was that nobody knew about the disastrous, planet-wide famine until the very worst of it had left the wealthy bereft of people to use or blame. By then, billions were dead.
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Challenge #02621-G064: Reach Out And…
Born without the ability to speak, the human wrote or use signed language to communicate, though they could speak mind to mind, most did not like that at all, it gave them headaches. But as they worked on the havenworlder’s ship, their first assignment, they heard something. But it was in their head. They went to the gravity drive and realized… that is who they were hearing. They spoke back, one mind to another, and in doing so the two ended up friends. Ever since then the ship operated at peak efficiency, the drive was happy! At least, until the human said her contract was ending. – Anon Guest
Gifts are odd things. So, too, are disabilities. The very essence of the word tells all about the way society views those who have it. Dis, from the lack or wrongness of what follows - ability. Those who are not able to do as those who normally do. It is a word forged in industrialism, quenched in capitalism, and honed in prejudice. It is used as an excuse to isolate, to other, to punish, as if any of those can help improve someone’s life.
That is the way it was, and had been, for far too long. It was the way life was for Human Joi, until the stars opened, and let us come. We are Sings-the-song-of-the-stars, and we are… a gravy drive. We work for the ship known colloquially as The Ferryman. My Nae'hyn say we are the heart and soul of the ship, and they are right. This story is not about them.
This is about Human Joi. They were not one of my Nae'hyn, who understand these things. They were a Human escaping the wreckage of an Earth ruined again and again by people who found it convenient to get rid of other people via wormhole for hundreds of years. They were one among many, like so many passengers we carried. Seeking out a better life, an improved civilisation… to desperately go where none like them had gone before. They were part of our passenger manifest, in seating barely above that of livestock or cargo, because that was all they could afford. We… heard them. We were not supposed to hear them.
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Challenge #02620-G063: To Become Human
The memorial ceremony was solemn. As their crewmate was laid to rest, the family given the posthumus honors the crewperson had earned for their heroism, their crewmates and captain were stunned by what had happened. The human marines that had been invited to attend stood at attention and saluted the grave of this small, fluffy, Havenworlder one last time with all the respect a human could give for someone who’d shown such courage.
The crew had razzed their crewmate calling them human because they so very much liked to imitate that insane species. Too much exposure to their insanity, some crew would say. But that horrific night, that terrible storm, their crewmate had done a very Human thing. Something no Havenworlder had done before, at least that they knew of. This crewmate told the Last Lie…. and paid for the lives of their crew, by fearlessly sacrificing their own. – Anon Guest
Human insanity is infectious. Somewhere, somehow, a nonhuman cogniscent starts to think that their Deathworlder illogic makes sense. After that, all might as well be lost. It was certainly lost for Gryx, honorary space marine. Ze had come to study Humans in something approaching a native environment, and the pack-bonders had done what they do best. Without even thinking about it. Without pause for due consideration. They bonded. Intensely.
So, when the storm came, and they crashed in a cliffside and the only shelter was the cavern beyond their scout ship… but not for very long… When there was a way to fix it so the storm would not come in, but the only opening was just wide enough for Gryx… ze acted without a thought. Ze said, “You go ahead, I will catch up.” Ze patched the crack that would have let in toxic atmospheric particles.
They found hir later, halfway through the narrow gap that had allowed the little fluffy Havenworlder egress to save them all. Well. Almost all. They had made the repairs and saved the crew… finally perishing mere inches away from safety. Ze had given all they had for hir pack.
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Challenge #02619-G062: Sizzlin'
The support snag, AKA sausage inna slice of bread. You find them everywhere here in Auz, raising money for good causes, local footy teams. Volunteers cooking sausages and buttering bread, and selling bulk buy soft drinks at retail prices. The backbone of the country. – Knitnan
It was a N'Ozzie thing. Of course it was a N'Ozzie thing. It made minimal sense, therefore it had to come from N'Oz. The entire planet, except for one reasonably large and relatively idyllic[1] island, had large portions of it on fire.
Therefore, N'Ozzies and allies everywhere were fundraising with burned offerings. Planet on fire? Semi-char some onions and cheap, minced meat encased in some form of edible skin, and then sell it to passing citizenry for five Minutes a pop. More if one also purchased a recommended serving container of flavoured, carbonated water. The fried foodstuffs of not-much-choice[2] were then served in an equally cheap slice of probably-bread. The cheapest of breads being naturally not very far removed from dough.
Shayde had ‘shouted’ him one with all the trimmings. Extra fried onion, and every single condiment she could fit. As well as the sweetest, most chemically-laden version of flavoured carbon-water she could obtain. “It’s fer charity,” she said, handing the burned offering over. “Eat generously, yeh?”
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Challenge #02618-G061: Adjusting the Recovery Plan
Their legs were broken, their lower back was damaged, and they were bruised all to hell. Still, havenworlders were safe, so while uncomfortable, they were not too upset about the situation. A scaffold some workers has been on had given way and they’d shoved the havenworlders out of the way quickly just as it collapsed pinning them beneath. Security had to come rescue them as the havenworlders were too small to get them out. Still, being stuck in the chair, in casts and braces, knowing they were going to be like this for a while, and then in physical therapy for ages, got old fast. Sitting in the park alone, it was also getting rather depressing. They were used to going to the gym and being active. As it was, they’d just be happy with having someone to talk to right now. – DaniAndShali
The accident could have been worse. It could have killed someone. Unfortunately, “no fatalities” is not the same as “no casualties”. Only one casualty leads to erroneous conclusions, too. It never said how bad the casualties were. Human Tyr was the one casualty of the accident and they had managed to obtain all the injuries that the others missed out on. The good news was that the Havenworlders they saved were only mildly traumatised.
Human Tyr, on the other hand, was in a rather bad place. Broken bones, immobilised limbs whilst the shattered skeleton set in the proper configuration. Wrenched, torn, or nearly shredded muscles, ruined ligaments, and all sorts of debilitating injuries had them trapped in forced stillness. Human Tyr was not made for stillness. They had a reputation for constant motion. Even the one hand they maintained control over was tapping fingers on the blank space near the control panel for their mobility frame.
Green time - time near growing plants - was meant to soothe agitation in patients, but this patient had no patience. They were, to use the Human Parlance, going slowly nuts. There were only so many physiotherapeutic games a being could play, the body did need its rest to recuperate, after all. Alas, rest was not in Tyr’s lexicon. They wanted action. Or at minimum, something to do.
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