Daily OpusEverything I write is freely rebloggable. Just keep the source and tell people about my books :D [Until I decide otherwise, my pronouns are Ze/Hir/Hirself. As in "Ze went to the shops to get hir medication hirself". Thank you for the respect.]
Challenge #03062-H154: Monkey Gonna Jump
A member of a race of aliens new to the Galactic scene holds the misconception that life can be either land bound or aquatic watches a human climb a steep hill specifically for the joy of jumping off the cliff on the other end into deep water. – Anon Guest
[AN: I have a much more capable program doing the counting for me, so today’s full challenge number is actually correct. I’m not going back and fixing the others because that is full-on nightmare fuel. Just… no. I tried, I failed, and now I have a thing that counts better than I ever could. Also expect further shenanigans at the closing of the year, as my count is off there, too. There will be bonus stories for this year’s anthology. All so I can re-synchronise the calendar. (FYI, I’m out by at least four weeks)]
Companion Gann had heard things about Humans. Dangerous psychotic warrior race who didn’t take “no you can’t” as a warning that some things were bad for continued existence. Those weird hairless apes seemed to believe that they could do anything. Worse, most of the time they were right. There remained one sticking point upon which Gann remained adamant.
“There is no such thing as amphibious and mammalian intelligent life. Mammals are not amphibious. Amphibians are. You have aquatic mammals, or terrestrial mammals. Those are the limits of intelligent mammalian life. Even your lot can’t defy the rules of basic evolution.”
“So…” challenged Human Aura. “If I can prove to you that we’re semi-acquatic, what do I win?” This was the way of Deathworlders in general and Humans in particular. Everything was a contest to these maniacs, and there had to be a prize involved. If Humans didn’t win some form of enrichment to their existence, they could sulk about it for months[1].
I had some other work to do this morning (Figuring out some algae stuff involving 1000 L mesocosm up a mountain) so mystery species has been sitting alone in the lab all morning…..
Made it up to the lab today to find this. It’s probably from the fridge defrosting and not the creepy “algae”.
June 13th Update.
According to a few colleagues it’s either a plant, an algae, or a fungi. So that’s been helpful.
After a day with some sunlight I think I might be seeing some chloroplasts.
It seems to like the nutrient solution I added yesterday though!
I for one welcome our new plant, algae, or fungi overlords.
I was about to say “in a sensible lab people wouldn’t waste time with this, they’d autoclave the bottles and move on” but on reflection I can’t think of a single bio lab I’ve been in that wouldn’t immediately go “ooh, mystery algae, that sounds like a fun challenge; let’s devote multiple hours to identifying it for no reason”.
I need updates tell me about the algae
The mystery algae/plant/fungi/alien is stuck in the university growth chamber. With everything going on I probably won’t get to check in on it until September, possibly not until 2021.
So by that time it will have developed what, writing?
God I hope so, then I can train it to write my thesis!
This entire post is the most on-brand biologist thing I have seen in my entire godforsaken life. The moment this pandemic is over these guys have another crisis ready for us.
Can we get an update cause this is crazy
Update: Due to the global pandemic, the algae has been left alone in a weird hidden growth chamber for a year and will likely stay there for another year. Enjoy that information!
Oh god oh fuck oh Jesus fuck
This is unreasonably funny to me. Like if you wrote it as an apocalypse drama, nobody would believe it… But this is real stuff.
The World ends not with a bang. Not with a whimper. But with a curious voice cooing, “Oooh, what’s that?” and a poke.
An extraterrestrial puts together a video showcase of human do-it-yourself and educational videos, open to the general public who wants to learn more about humans. They have even been smart enough to include offensensitivity warnings so havenworlders can avoid the appropriate films. Included in the film line up is:
Mythbusters
Nailed it
Naked and Afraid
The Darwin Awards – Anon Guest
[AN: Of the four listed here, only one is in any way instructional other than “learn from my mistakes lol”. Real instructional videos would likely be YouTube ones like How to Bake That, Primitive Technology, polynesiancultural, and many many more]
Humans are great at creating entertainment. They’re so good at it that the Archivaas are still attempting to classify lots of it. For instance, there is much debate as to whether Nailed It is a cooking, comedy, parody, or reality show. Many have argued that the classification of “reality television” is actually neither[1].
The Darwin Awards are negligibly verifiable, as most of them can be attributed to urban and internet myth. Nevertheless, Humans are not ones to ever shy away from an interesting story. The alleged docuseries Naked and Afraid seems to delight on how dependent on technology so many people have become. Primarily, many of these semi-instructional videos seem designed to derive amusement from the fates of the people in front of the camera. Nevertheless, that material is still valuable. Just… not for its original purpose.
“This is not an educational collection for explaining Terra,” admonished Archivaas Thel.
“Possibly,” acknowledged Companion Trainee Frep. “It is, however, an excellent educational collection for explaining Terrans.”
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I wanted to sing, but it didn’t work translated to gal-simple. So I tried a mental translators, but then I learn that it most only scan the left side of the brain for the sentence structures. Singing comes from the right side. – Anon Guest
[AN: There’s growing evidence that the left-brain/right-brain stuff isn’t as real as we once thought. However, there are other things that say it’s real in very specific directions.]
Sometimes, you just got to sing. Sometimes, those listening do not understand the language being sung. This has lead to some true travesties in the past. Fortunately, technology exists to bridge the language gap.
Unfortunately, language is complicated. Songs are even more complicated as meter, rhyme, allegory, and allusion all blend together into something in which the literal translation is worse than unrelated to the original work. Some experimentation has occurred in the area of scanning the brain waves of the singer to try and get metaphorically closer to the meat of 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 peakd (dot) com (slash at) internutter for the stories at their freshest]
Humans quickly get a reputation among the interplanetry alliance and the reputation is this: when going somewhere dangerous, take a human.
Humans are tough. Humans can last days without food. Humans heal so fast they pierce holes in themselves or inject ink for fun. Humans will walk for days on broken bones in order to make it to safety. Humans will literally cut off bits of themselves if trapped by a disaster.
You would be amazed what humans will do to survive. Or to ensure the survival of others they feel responsible for.
That’s the other thing. Humans pack-bond, and they spill their pack-bonding instincts everywhere. Sure it’s weird when they talk sympathetically to broken spaceships or try to pet every lifeform that scans as non-toxic. It’s even a little weird that just existing in the same place as them for long enough seems to make them care about you. But if you’re hurt, if you’re trapped, if you need someone to fetch help?
You really want a human.
Humans also get a reputation for being pants-shittingly insane:
Humans want to go everywhere, you see that black hole? They’re trying to go in that to ‘explore’
Humans jump out of flying vehicles at heights that would most certainly kill them with only a piece of cloth strapped to them to save them, they do this for FUN
Conversely humans, a species that cannot survive without air, plunge themselves into the depths of their planet’s horrifying oceans until their bodies can’t take the pressure then they created vehicles to go further
Humanity didn’t wait to develop a sensible propulsion system to escape their planet’s atmosphere they strapped a metal tube to bombs and shot themselves out into the vacuum of space
If a human says something will ‘be fun’ assume that it’s probably life threatening
Several humans were starting to get more than just a little annoyed at constantly being called insane. Even at school, when their kids would goof off during breaks or if the kids were in the park playing, others treated them as though they were mind-damaged. When they joined the Galactic Alliance, they thought they would be treated like equals, but instead, they find that they tend to be treated like savages even by other Deathworlders. Sometimes the view that, simply because they were human that they were automatically deranged and dangerous, was hindering them finding good jobs or having the lives they’d hoped for when they left the harsh, pollution-choked, worlds they’d come from. But would anyone listen to their complaints? And, more important, would anyone even try to help? Or, as one man put it as he angrily spoke with another who, like so many, told him he was nuts, “Humans are NOT insane! We’re just different!” – Anon Guest
[AN: Actually, there’s nothing preventing Humans from finding the jobs that fit them best in my pet universe, and being a little bit off the wall isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I say as much over here More on that philosophy here, I should think.]
There’s two ways to go when the world around you keeps telling you that you’re bad. You can be everything they expect you to be, playing into every trope, or you can fight your whole life against it, breaking your heart and soul in the process. Plenty of Humans had tried both. Sometimes, it’s easier to surrender and agree with everything they say about you until you believe it yourself. On this day, Human Sal had just… had enough of it.
“We’re not insane,” he protested, apropos of nothing in the middle of the Valiant Star’s mess hall. “We’re different. Why does everyone think we’re going to just fly off the handle and hurt everyone and everything around us?”
The rest of the crew stopped what they were doing. Some put potentially dangerous tools down or at least rendered them safe for the interim. Companion Ulla gently put hir hand on Sal’s and said, “Why do you think we think that?”
[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]
A human has fallen very much in love with another deathworlder. These deathworlders are only similar to humans in that they walk bipedal and have a human-ish shape to their faces, but that’s about it. The human had been working aboard ship with the being for almost a year, the contract stated the human would be there for another four years, and they were trying to find out how to get the being to become interested in more than just …. well… friendship. – DaniAndShali
The relationship had been a source of amusement amongst the crew of the Seek and Find. Even the second-densest member of the crew caught on to the idea that Human Dar found Grumesh cute within the first month of awkward flirting.
The densest member of Seek and Find’s crew was, of course, Grumesh. Overtures small and large were interpreted as being such a good friend. It certainly didn’t help that Dar was one of those Humans who were easily embarrassed and therefore fumbled every opportunity for closeness.
Watching Human Dar defeated regularly in the lists of love was, unfortunately, also kind of sad. Case in point, it was lunchtime. The crew watched with a mixture of morbid fascination and amused pity as Dar loaded up their food tray and got some extras of Grumesh’s favourite treats. Again. Deathworlders always appreciated others who brought them nice food. As Dar approached Grumesh, they began turning the characteristic ruddier hues of extreme mortification.
[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]
