Challenge #02782-G225: Under Starry Skies
This is a prompt that’s actually a mix of 3 stories, the one of the super-soldiers, the one of the dream berries, and the one of the seed collector. Here are the prompts for reference.
https://peakd.com/fiction/@internutter/challenge-02677-g120-a-mind-of-their-own
https://peakd.com/fiction/@internutter/challenge-02509-f319-berry-small-problem
https://steemit.com/fiction/@internutter/challenge-02525-f335-useful-obsession
The person had collected more seeds than any human ever had before. It was their hobby, it was their obsession, and with it they had saved many lives from preventing mass-starvation due to crop losses. An elderly havenworlder who had been obscenely wealthy had no family left, but had always admired this human, so while most of their wealth went to charities, they granted the human a boon. They, in their will, left the human an uninhabited planet. It was a havenworld, though only level one or two at best. The plantings from Rushes-o Station could be expanded to this world.
Unfortunately, there were those that did not like this idea, especially when they found that dream-berries, along with other such plants, were going to be amongst the plantings. But another group had heard of the grumbling. Another group who knew what it was to have their backs against the wall. They had been created for war, and were learning to live in peace. The had no desire to be living aboard ships, but a chance to living on a beautiful world amongst growing crops? And yet still allow their skills to be needed to protect that world from those that would ravage it? It sounded like a near paradise to them.
This was a paradise world where people could buy seeds from the collector to save their worlds, or to start collections for their own. A place where medics could buy dream-berries and other medicinal crops to help those in need, and a place known to be well-guarded by soldiers who wanted to live in peace, but were designed at the very genetic level for war. It was a wonderful place to live. – Anon Guest
The Arcas didn’t do very well in indoor spaces. They therefore did not like space travel. Once settled in their appointed planet, they said, they intended to stay. Which was what lead, in a roundabout fashion, to The Deal.
Rushes-o Station was too big, and at the same time, too small to contain Human Liam’s enormous collection of flora. Further, they were now wealthy enough to purchase and maintain their own planet. A nice safe nigh-Havenworld in a goldilocks zone with plenty of easy-access minerals. All Human Liam needed was someone to guard it.
Liam, chief supplier of the Dreamjuice that kept the Arcas at least calm for transit, had a great need of a protecting force to stop various polities from stealing or destroying any of the plants kept there. The existence of the plants necessitated biological maintenance in the form of insects and avians. There would be very little room for shelter that was not focussed on plant maintenance. Liam needed a special kind of force for that.
The Arcas were few, but they were effective. As far as being a deterrent force was concerned, they were fast, motivated, and brutally efficient. They had also spent twenty minutes at the landing site just staring at the sky and the creatures within it.
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Challenge #01939-E115: Baby's First Flight — Steemit
The thing about wings is, they’re the largest part of any flying creature’s anatomy. They have to be. In order to independently lift one’s own body-weight, most of that weight has to be doing the heavy lifting. And if you’re flapping to do it… well… there’s a reason why the largest flying birds in the world employ the strategy of gliding for most of their flight time.
And flight muscles burn a lot of fat. You can’t just paste wings onto human-like arms and expect them to act like an angel’s. For a start, the leverage is all wrong. And all of these arguments were cycling around the engineering sections of Project Kymera. A combination Black-Ops and Sub-Rosa scientific project to create the Enlisted Man. Again. And like all projects of its ilk, it was doomed before someone even thought it was a good idea.