Challenge #02695-G138: Message From a Crystal Shore
Let’s go to another universe. Let’s say that instead of humanity exploring the cosmos, they stayed on earth to perfect their crafts, explore the depths of the world, and complete it lifelong mission, immortality. But now the only planet is reaching it maximum capacity to hold human life. A new job must be in place to “regulate” the population. That’s where you fit in, you must find a way to help humanity before it collapse. Out of curiosity I must ask, what is your name? – Anon Guest
Call me Ahab. I’m set on a mission to end white whales, so to speak. You know what whales are, right? They’re the people who fund half of any given casino because they spend big. Most of them don’t even know how much money they have.
Back in the Before, it used to be impossible to have that much money in one lifetime. You just couldn’t do it. That was before one of them funded immortality. The select few could live forever and accumulate wealth. Unsurprisingly, pretty much all of the billionaires invested heavily in the research, and then the results.
Science cracked the mortality issue. It was never released to the public. Only ever given to those who could pay the highest ticket price to live forever. They claimed that the money would run out. They claimed that nature would find a new level. They claimed that the mind-numbingly rich would be good for the economy.
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Challenge #02694-G137: A Deserved Education
One of the Greater Deregulation planets found itself short of breeding stock and extended offers to girl’s schools to come study abroad at their planet. St. Trinians accepted their offer. Greater Deregulation never saw what was coming next. – Anon Guest
[AN: Since I really don’t want to nick anyone else’s IP, for my universe -excepting guest cameos- I shall have to use a St. Trinian’s expy for this tale]
“They can’t be serious,” said Dame Lorx. “An extended offer to add school branches to their territories and foster girls? On a Deregger planet?”
“On a system of Deregger planets,” Lady Fulsom pointed out. “They want to import girls so they can resume their manifest destiny,” here pronounced, deporably distasteful dastardly deeds[1], “and otherwise attempt to outbreed anyone they dislike.”
“If they want incubators, they can damn well make their own,” scoffed Dame Lorx. “They’re going to keep promising to sweeten the pot until some poor deluded souls actually take them up on their offers. We can’t allow that to happen.”
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Challenge #02693-G136: Fighting True Evil
Several politicians within the Galactic Alliance get together to talk about Uplifts and similar beings. They begin a campaign to make it illegal to create them. Why? It should never be legal to create a cogniscent for the express purpose of enslaving and abusing them. All cogniscents have rights after all. They further were trying to get freed the many Uplifts that were currently living as property owned by others instead of being free. – DaniAndShali
True evil, a wise man once wrote, starts with treating people as things. Their un-personhood can either be a matter of philosophy, or as complicated as being created as a product. Since classification as a species is the ability to make more lifeforms with the same physical and mental attributes, the creation of Uplifts skates around laws against creating intelligent species strictly for servitude.
Augments, on the other hand, are trained and programmed to be intelligent only in specific directions. They are created infertile, often cloned, and specifically tailored as assistant creations. They were never made to be slaves. Uplifts are elevated to full cogniscents, and are never rendered infertile by their gengineers. Thus, their own children are used against them as a lever to guarantee subservience. This is considered blackmail, ransom, and illegal.
Unfortunately, those facts do not stop the immoral. Uplifts are always being created somewhere. The morally impoverished will always want power over some creature in their immediate vicinity. Mistreated pets will inevitably strike back. Mistreated people can think forward enough to fear even worse treatment than the current situation.
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Challenge #02692-G135: Should Have Written a Fix-it Fic
There was a knocking at my door, annoyed I ignored it. But they are determined to reach to me. When I eventually answered, I haven’t a foggiest clue about them. Told them I’m not buying what they trying to sell, but before I was able to close the door they stop me and the next word was seared into my mind. “You don’t know who I am, but I know you… I know how your story will end, I-I just want to change it.” – Anon Guest
What would you do? What would you do if someone came by and insisted that they knew your story? What would be the logical course of action when a total stranger told you that they could change your fate?
The stranger on my doorstep was desperate and afraid. I could read that much in their body language, expression, and tearful eyes. They loved me without knowing me. Creepy. I ticked off the red flags in my head. Eagerness to please, claims of knowing ‘my story’, a desperate appeal to add themselves into my life. A complete absence of clues about who they were and what their life had been before they attempted to get into mine.
Their clothing was generic and new. So was their haircut. No visible accessories beyond the most common and cheap footwear available. That, and they had begged me not to call the police four times in their rapid-fire and urgent explanation of why they were there. They could have been stalking me for months. I certainly couldn’t remember seeing them as I went about my life.
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Challenge #02691-G134: Harmless Unless…
“My apologies but you are so similar to my damn cat”
“What make you sayyyy that?”
“Your reaction to catnip is exactly the same way as my cat” – Anon Guest
Harmless substances are only harmless to some. Humans regularly imbibe carbonic acid because they find it tasty. In such cases, harmlessness is relative. In most cases, the phrase is “harmless but”. For example, the Terran catnip plant is harmless, but it also functions as a narcotic for other species. How they prefer to take it is up to them, and it is fortunately not one of the very dangerous narcotics available to the Galactic Alliance.
In such situations, mishaps are bound to happen. Such as the recent spill on the trader vessel Big Jim’s Cargo, which is neither large nor belonging to a Jim, but does indeed contain lots of cargo. Of which, a one kilogram bag of loose-packed catnip has just burst and spilled all over Human Warno. Most had been cleaned up, but small chaff particles have a way of persisting - just anyone who’s run afoul of glitter within the last two months[1]. Human Warno had done her best, but was nevertheless very popular amongst the local Skitty population.
Companion Hrrau found Human Warno grumbling to herself and may have noticed the attractive scent. It was difficult to tell, initially, that the ‘harmless’ plant product had had any effect on them. Companion Hrrau was one of Nature’s Huggers. They just naturally greeted anyone they knew with enveloping arms and the option of physically picking them up.
[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]