Challenge #02385-F195: How Lucky
A scientific analysis crew of aliens hire a human bodyguard. The human has a strange power over fauna, as in they become friendly/borderline domesticated like earth pets. The human is confused as it’s happened in many planets/stations. Meanwhile the scientists are having trouble between making sure to get the data and making sure the human stays on as a permanent crew member. – Anon Guest
It is a known rule of the universe that Humans will attempt to pet anything. Humans may also attempt to tame anything that crosses their path. They’re a friendly species, and spread their pack-bonding to any creature that responds to them. Many are willing to fail at the attempt.
One is more successful than most Humans. They have a knack for interacting with non-cogniscent creatures beyond that which should be logically plausible. They went by Human Stu (because they were ‘cookin’, they said) and spent a contracted twelve years with the crew of the Non-invasive Probe. Twelve years spent capturing, examining, and releasing every single creature the crew could find on a planet in orbit around TGD-WE4-876.
Human Stu was there to keep the scientific analysts safe from the creatures on the planet they were surveying. They chose to do so by being unbelievably friendly with every single one. Humankind were immune to any venoms and poisons on that planet, but no such venomous creatures attempted to harm them. They were friendly right back in return. It was uncanny.
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Challenge #02384-F194: Attitude Adjustor
There always a foul-mouthed human within every group, but when there a kid nearby, they put on a mask and they’re the politest creature you ever met. – Anon Guest
They say that people who curse a lot are more likely to be honest. If that is true, then Human Nor was the most honest being in the known universe. If they came with a censor beep, others might be mistaken for believing they were speaking in morse code. Unfortunately for those in Human Nor’s aura, they did not come with a censor beep.
That is, until the day that Human Nor and five of the crew of the Consummate Scrounge rescued a life pod from the erratic course it had error’d its way into. The solitary occupant had mashed some buttons with a handful of something else that had been mashed. Forensic analysis would later identify the remains as a banana. This was unsurprising because the sole occupant was less than two years old.
What was surprising was Human Nor’s reaction, and actions after said discovery. Instead of the usual stream of unfiltered invective, interspersed with actual conversive meaning, Human Nor changed their entire attitude to the point of being nearly unrecognisable.
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Challenge #02383-F193: No More Pencils…
Can we hear more about the changes in intergalactic schools? (And can two of them be the removal of perfect attendance “awards” and school lunches that even the most well behaved child can’t choke down?) – Anon Guest
The Cogniscent Rights Committee had a lot to say about Terran Standard Schooling, especially that of the pre-shattering era, relics of which can still be found in Terran colonies. Nothing it had to say about the school system was polite. They tried, but there comes a time when such efforts are not only counter-productive, but sickening to attempt.
For those familiar with class sizes maxing out at ten, and tutorial groups of no more than four… allow us to walk you through the process of standardized Terran education. The evolution of a uniquely uneducational system that nevertheless persisted because the unscrupulous could make money out of it.
It began - as these things always did - with a need. In this case, it was the need of industry moguls to possess a large number of employees who could process the forms and bookkeeping procedures in an era before electronic calculating machines. The current system was run by a charitable few and attended randomly by whomever decided to show up that day. As such, the crowds of barely literate, barely numerate workers were below the standards necessary, and those who could afford such an education didn’t want to work in the kind of employ that had one filling out paperwork all day. Industry and charity merged into mandatory, industrialised education.
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Challenge #02382-F192: It’s Just a Hobby
Captain: “You have nothing to worry about. Our only human crewmember is one of the nicest, sweetest humans you will ever meet.”
Human: “I found my knives! Now, WHO THE HEY HID THEM FROM ME IN THE FIRST PLACE!?!?” – Anon Guest
Rule Eleven: Never go anywhere without a knife. – Leeroy Jethro Gibbs, historical Terran hero.
Civilisation in general holds certain truths to be self-evident. Such as the ability to make and safely use sharp things as one of the stages inherent in civilisation. Where, exactly, that fits is up to the civilisation. Nevertheless, lots of civilisations recognise that sharp things are very dangerous and should be kept in the hands of professionals.
…and then there’s Humans.
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Challenge #02380-F190: Tasty Trade
Alien witnesses true fear in the eyes of a band of country roughneck mercs in the form of a single raised eyebrow of the group’s diminutive elderly “grandmother” figure. Grown warriors, men and women, who have charged into the maw of insanity cowed by a 98lbs octogenarian.
Pretty pretty please. – Yup
In all the known universe, there is little that is as unlikely to be terrifying as the words, “What the diddly gosh-darn heck’re you kids got goin’ on in here?” It was the sort of thing to come out of an extremely proper and extremely elderly mouth and, in fact, that is just where this string of words had come from.
The Sargasso Scouts, big burly Humans, all of them, parted for her like the red sea, giving Thokaz an excellent opportunity to take in the sight. She was grey-haired, and wizened with age, and walked with the assistance of a cane. Her livesuit was one of the older models and evidently patched with so many repairs that it was hard to tell what the original model was. There were stickers on there older than some of the scouts. There was a macaroni necklace she wore like an ancient and powerful totem. She walked between them like the monarch of the realm. Which she probably was.
The Scouts were instantly cowed. The biggest and roughest amongst them hung her head. “…’m sorry, Mama… He was up in our green habitat, though. We gotta defend our eats.”
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