Challenge #02527-F337: Expression Day
They had a thought. All this time the gravity drives seemed to have their own thoughts, their own personalities. But they never before had been given their own voice. It seemed a shame, really. They couldn’t tell when they were upset, hurt, or needed to be fixed, these vital parts of any ship. The parts that most people treated as mere objects and often had lonely existences despite going through the expanses of space. So why not give them a voice? Give them that chance to express themselves? Maybe it should be recommended that all ships with gravity drives get this modification, but would it work? So three ships were given that modification to test it out. Their gravity drives given speakers to speak through, for the first time since their creation they could truly communicate. And one lovely voice began to sing. – Anon Guest
People only think the Nae'hyn keep the gravity drives voiceless. They have been at this a very long time, both subjectively and by the accepted Standard Calendar[1]. They know when it’s advisable to give a machine a voice. The hostile ones, the ones doomed to exist alone and like it that way - those are never given a voice. It is the kind ones who prefer company, the ones who trust new faces to care for them as they care for others.
There are reasons why the voice is not given before the engine has reached a certain age and level of maturity. Attach a voice to a drive that’s too young and the entire ship cries. Or it becomes an absolute brat. A crew needs some intense parenting licenses in order to deal with an immature gravy drive if it gets a voice too early. The Nae'hyn have been through all possible journeys. Trust them. They know what they’re doing.
Other machines have gained personalities and voices. The Deuteronomy for example. Some other members of the AI alliance have achieved cogniscence care of a Nae'hyn’s hand[2], but the thing most people forget is… Gravy Drives are cusp-cogniscent.
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Challenge #02525-F335: Useful Obsession
Almost everyone has a collection of some sort. Some collect books, some do baseball cards, and others like stamps. Me? I love seeds. Every planet I’ve been to, and every ship I’ve been assigned to, one of the things I’ve always insisted upon as part of my contract as a bodyguard, or whatever, is this. In addition to my pay, I get ten packages of seeds. And they must be diverse packages, no duplicates. To ensure this, I give them a list of my collection so they know what not to give me. I started doing this when I was 18, and now, as I hit my late 30’s? I’m finding there’s a lot of interest by some botanical scientists who want to know more about my collection, it’s gotten really big now. I don’t mind sharing a few here and here, but they can’t take all of any one type of seed. It’s my favorite hobby after all. – DaniAndShali
They call me Svalbard when they don’t want to call me Human Liam. I don’t know - nicknames are weird. They call me that longer nickname because I collect seeds. I usually have five of each, ten at the most; each set in little baggies inside a stasis box for storage. When I started, it was a suitcase. Now? Well… there’s a reason I have my own ship, and why it’s called The Iceberg.
If you need me to explain it… my living quarters are like ten percent of the total mass. The rest of it? Cabinets and closets and drawers of stasis containers full-to-nearly-overflowing with seeds. For every planet I visit, for every culture I do a favour for… I get myself a seed sampler to add to the collection. No doubles, it must be unique to my collection, it must be self-sustaining -no ‘self-terminating’ seeds- and it must be something from either where I visited or where they’re from. As a Human Companion to many, many Havenworlders, you might guess that I’ve got quite the interesting collection.
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Challenge #02524-F334: An Appeal
“On this show we talk about humans, and for the most part it’s scary stuff. But not today. Because there is one thing you can’t say to a human, "you can’t”
Today we will tell the story of a human who was told, “You can’t save everyone. You will just die trying” “ – Hyorky
Go hard or go home, – Terran saying.
The two most fate-inducing words to say to a Human are, you can’t. Humans will defy logic, reason, and the laws of physics to prove that they can. Even when given reasons why not, they will simply endure that and emerge at the other end, bloody and victorious. Sometimes… they pay for those victories with more than blood.
Human pack-bonding flows both ways. They want you to be friends with them. They want you to like them. And despite this, they know that it will hurt us more when they pay for our lives with theirs. Humans have a culture steeped in self-sacrifice for the greater good, and we must all remember that. At Cestus Two, we forgot, and it almost cost our Human Lar her life.
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Challenge #02523-F333: Joy in the Season of Dying
He promised his avian friends a sight on Earth of breathtaking beauty. All they’d ever heard of, when it came to his home planet, was the horrible animals, the diseases, the terrors of trying to exist there. Of course, he knew those things were on Earth, but he loved his home planet even if his job kept him away for long periods of time. He got them dressed in warm clothing and took them to the northern hemisphere where autumn was in full swing. He took them to the parks where he loved to explore when he was just a young boy, and the beautiful trails, the summer’s green gone, now colored with breathtaking glow of red, yellows, orange, and gold in the soft, dappled afternoon sunlight. – Anon Guest
They were the highest rated livesuits on the open market - there were higher, but they were strictly for the military or people who mined gas giants for their volatiles or precipitation. These were more than sufficient for keeping a bunch of avian Havenworlders alive during their field trip to Terra. Moreso, since Human Sal had been fine-tuning their filters.
Nevertheless, the Passerid were nervous. “This is a deathworld,” fretted Sprag, “We have read of many dangerous things on the surface and under the water.”
Human Sal couldn’t deny that those things existed. “Yes, there are dangerous things on my homeworld, but the place I’m taking you has the least you should worry about, especially during this time of the year. I’ve got your suits calibrated to repel any hostile creatures inside of one klik[1] so you’re going to be fine. This does not mean that your repellants will drive away everything inside a klik, it’ll detect all the dangerous stuff and then make your livesuit smell bad so they want to stay away. Minimum harm all around.”
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Challenge #02522-F332: One Way to See
What if humans sight was akin to fantasy elves sensitivities to mana, “I may not have electro receptors like you but I’m able to to detect light with my eyes within the general vicinity” and they were so coy and vague describing light. Also if aliens have electro receptors imagine if they detect our nervous system. – Anon Guest
The semi-amphibious Anatins didn’t need to see light as they were evolving. They could sense the electrical discharges of predators and prey alike when they were close enough. That was enough of a sensory system to keep the species alive until they made it to the stars. After that things got interesting.
The first species they met outside of their own were Humans. Two exploratory crews more or less bumped into each other whilst attempting to get themselves out of a pickle and managed to successfully unpickle each other. It never takes much to get Humans to bond with you, but this one is a practically guaranteed method.
The Anatins were great at sensing creatures in the night, and therefore defending the impromptu camp from the beasts hidden in the foliage whilst the Humans kept away anything bold enough to get close. It was when the sun rose that the party discovered some key differences in sensory makeup.
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