Challenge #02814-G257: A Good Question
Aliens seeing and hearing lyrebird. That’s it. That’s the whole prompt. – Anon Guest
The rocket thrust engines sounded at full throttle. They sounded from the throat of an otherwise grey and ordinary-looking bird with an ornate tail. After it was done rumbling, it imitated the sound of a few imager trigger sounds. Then it replicated precisely the zoo closing warning.
“Bing bing bong. The zoo will be closing in fifteen minutes. Please make your way towards the exit. The zoo will be closing in fifteen minutes. Visitors in the gift shop, please finalise your purchases.”
The bird stopped to preen, fluffing its feathers and twitching its tail. Thereafter it launched into a series of far more recognisable bird calls, one after the other. Grux was impressed, as many visitors were. It was a non-cogniscent avian from the deathworldiest part of the Deathworld appropriately known as Terra.
[Be sure to visit internutter (dot) org for a link to the rest of this story, and details on how to support this artist. Or visit peakd (dot) com (slash at) internutter for the stories at their freshest]
Challenge #02798-G241: Spit and Determination
This is a second installment for this prompt becuase this was a GREAT one but was a cliffhanger!
https://peakd.com/fiction/@internutter/challenge-02703-g146-gathering-for-time
They’d been on the deathworld for nearly 3 months, their human had lost so much weight his health had begun to deteriorate. The simple sugars extracted from the toxic flora were just barely enough to keep the havenworlders alive, and the human was not getting what he needs. The rescue ship arrived to see the human and havenworlders in very bad shape. But they had to leave quickly because some rather bad news was on the horizon, it wasn’t just the plantlife on this place. It was about to start raining and, unfortunately, apparently, in the forest, the rain ended up turning toxic, too.
This world was most definitely not inhabitable for havenworlder or human, but one thing about toxic plants, many of the properties in the past ended up becoming invaluable for medicines in the future. The medics end up finding some very interesting plants for easing pain, deadening nerves, and as sedatives, with a lot of work and processing. – Anon Guest
Our Human was dying slowly. They knew it and so did we. They said they can make it, but this world is barely habitable. Everything out there is toxic, even to our best Deathworlder.
We can easily synthesise the simple sugars and nutrients we need. We will be relatively healthy by the time help arrives. Even if it is barely so. For our human? It is a more complicated problem. Deathworlders evolve in more complicated environments. They need more than sugar, chlorophyll, and simple nutrient peptides.
Those were what was more easily available. That, and an incredible amount of complicated toxins. If we survived this, all of us, we vowed that we would buy Human Kaat the top-of-the-line livesuit they could not previously afford. As a sign of our gratitude. As a sign that they are a part of our pack. As a sign that we are grateful that they are still with us.
We were doing what we could with what we had. That is the most that we can say. In our labs, we have been working to recreate the nutrients Human Kaat needs whilst watching them wither as they worked. It was frightening.
[Be sure to visit internutter (dot) org for a link to the rest of this story, and details on how to support this artist. Or visit peakd (dot) com (slash at) internutter for the stories at their freshest]
Challenge #02768-G211: Disturbing Deathworlder Deeds
Ki'it thought ze was ready. Ze had survived Human Kev’s “oops"es, learned to anticipate Human Lin’s "I know what I did wrong!"s, and even managed to halve zer dosage of calming medication after a half dozen of Human Ren’s "uh-oh…"s.
This, however, was zer introduction to the dreaded, "Wheeeee!!!! Again!” – Anon Guest
[AN: You are of course free to use any gender-neutral pronouns you love in prompts… it’s just that I cannot conjugate anything else than ze/hir. The rest of them just confound my poor old noggin. I am trying, but for writing, I’d rather stick to ze/hir. Apologies for the offence, dear readers]
Living with Humans is an exercise in unexpected stress caused by untranslatable noises. Not words, but nevertheless sounds that had significant meaning. Humans insisted that they didn’t have a tonal language, but they could infer meaning out of “Hm” or “Um” or other nonverbal noises. Ki'it was learning to do that, since it was vividly important to know what each set of non-word grunts could possibly mean.
“Uh oh,” was a trouble grunt. It meant, loosely speaking, “Something has gone wrong and might yet go catastrophically wrong.” Which was a lot to cram into two syllables with a glottal stop.
“Uh oh,” in Ki'it’s experience, meant, “Make sure my livesuit is ready for urgent activation because the crazy Deathworlders have messed something up again.” Again, a lot to cram into two syllables, but as warning signals went, it was very efficient.
[Be sure to visit internutter (dot) org for a link to the rest of this story, and details on how to support this artist. Or visit steemit (dot) com (slash at) internutter for the stories at their freshest]
Challenge #02758-G201: Organic Pest Control
A shipment of fruits and plants that had gone through a DeRegger station was opened in a very large Alliance station. The plants were bound for a new section that had been added to the botanical garden there. Unfortunately, an unwanted guest came along with it. Within a month or so, that dreaded high-pitched sound that all humans from Earth knew all too well was starting to be heard. An invasive pest that bred rapidly anywhere there were pools for it to breed in had arrived. Humans called them Mosquitoes. – Anon Guest
The stamps said, Inspected and Passed Regulations so the inspection team thought they were safe. In retrospect, they should have checked the point of origin. After all, Greater Deregulation means almost exactly what it says[1]. If they had known then…
This was just one of the many disasters associated with Greater Deregulation and their misuse of clearance codifiers. The Alliance would eventually learn that nothing was going to make Greater Deregulation comply with Alliance standards, and therefore enact procedures to keep the larger populace safe from hazardous Deathworlder infestations.
Of course the living plants were sent with water and soil. Live cargo was, to this particular brand of technophobic Dereggers, the only way to be certain it arrived fresh. Of course said water and soil was the best that this particular polity had to offer. It had passed all their inspections. It did not meet Alliance standards, but the Alliance was still learning about that particular loophole before closing it thoroughly.
[Be sure to visit internutter (dot) org for a link to the rest of this story, and details on how to support this artist. Or visit steemit (dot) com (slash at) internutter for the stories at their freshest]
Challenge #02749-G192: Disentangling Groupthink
Gamer‘s mob mentality https://youtu.be/1DALU-AHb-U – Anon Guest
[AN: offensensitivity warning for toxic masculinity content, simulated violence within the linked video]
No matter what the team sport, Humans will become so invested in their team that hostility becomes part of the identification procedure. – Excerpt from The Galactic’s Guide to Human.
The real trick, the Alliance decided, was to discourage the truly horrible behaviour when it started. Allowing it to persist only resulted in worse examples of more of the same. Humans followed the will of the pack, no matter how eclectic or bizarre that pack might be. Gentle correction and a certain amount of tactical questioning has been most effective.
“I do not understand the humour,” said Vrex, in a textbook example of quelling an offensive attempt at humour via confusion. “Can you educate me in the meaning?”
[Be sure to visit internutter (dot) org for a link to the rest of this story, and details on how to support this artist. Or visit steemit (dot) com (slash at) internutter for the stories at their freshest]