Challenge #02625-G068: Toxic Under Certain Circumstances
Alien and Human conversation:
A: And Humans keep drinking these?
H: Jup.
A: Even though it can dissolve Rats?
H: Jup, in Moderation.
A: Why?
H: It tastes good.
(/TIL https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-mountain-dew-really-dissolve/ The Mouse-Mountaindew-Case) – Anon Guest
[AN: Offensensitivity warning for the mouse in the Mountain Dew. Food adulteration implications therein.]
Humans are Deathworlders. It should therefore be little shock that they can enjoy consuming toxic substances. Some Humans claim they cannot continue to exist without their daily dosage of poisons or acids. Others refuse to operate without their first dosage of toxins. For those who are more sensitive to such things, take warning - there are no limits to the chemistry that a Human should not, but will add into their bodies anyway.
Theobromine, acid, toxic amounts of sucrose, not to mention the assorted intoxicants they voluntarily consume for recreational purposes. Combinations of all the above and more are available in Human culture can simply boggle the mind. Always verify with the attending Medik that your Human is actually in good health.
Companion Crix was not in a fit state to remember any of that when they met their assigned Human for morning bonding time whilst eating. They were used to strange noises around their Human and didn’t become concerned until they noticed that Human Ker’s chosen beverage was fizzing.
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Challenge #02624-G067: Seasonal Invasion
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8UFtp_8HAJA
Aka. Ep. 54 “Havenworlder discover Christmas Beetles” – Mike
[AN: “despite being Australian” is an entire mood NGL]
“It’s November,” said the guide. “It’s Christmas Beetle season.” This, seemingly apropos of nothing, was a warning to be taken seriously, since it did come from an Australian about Australian wildlife.
“Are they toxic?” worried Frip. “Venomous, poisonous, or attack-minded?” Frip had learned a lot from their trip to Australia so far. Going to see Australia might be doing Frip a great deal of good epigenetically, but that could only work if she survived to pass on her genes.
“Er. Probably not healthy for you to eat them. They’re harmless, actually. It’s just that there’s a lot of them. Might be a bit alarming for you.” Human Arn said. “I got one here to show you. Nice and safe.”
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Challenge #02623-G066: Occupational Hazards
A: Human, why are you eating with your off hand?
B: Oh, I sprained my dominant hand. It should be better in a few days, maybe a week.
A: WHAT WERE YOU DOING???
B: Cleaning the walls.
A: What.
B: Well, the kids left hand prints on the walls.
A: Just use the auto-cleaner.
B: Auto-cleaner’s not rated for bio-hazardous materials.
A: WHAT DID THEY PUT ON THE WALLS???
B: Their own feces. It was disgusting. They did it while I was asleep, and it liquefied while I cleaned it. Not only was the smell atrocious, I learned in the nastiest way possible that at least one of them’s been eating dog hair.
A: I think I need calming medicine.
B: You do that. I’m gonna get some more ice for my hand. – Anon Guest
There were multiple reasons for forensics-level Cleaners, primarily of those was the pathogens present in crime scenes themselves. Second, interestingly, was the hazards of parenting. Small children, especially small Deathworlder children, have a pronounced predilection towards mess that is also bio-hazardous. Small children across known civilisation will spread about anything they can as a form of play combined with a form of expression. Learning the difference between the approved and disapproved spreadable substances.
Bodily waste, no matter which species scattered it about, is definitely disapproved. Even Havenworlder waste can be hazardous to other Havenworlders. Though the advent of Cleaners as an item of sanitary biotech helped significantly, some levels of bodily toxins require greater actions to cleanse. Some required authorisation to use and, when a house has biohazard smeared across a surface, urgency is a factor.
Through those logical steps, the parental variants of occupational injuries were both logical and shocking through their variation. It goes beyond the standards of stepping on or tripping over toys or catching diseases or infestations from their young. In many cases, it’s astonishingly daft self-injuries. Like the brace on Human Zar’s dominant arm.
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Challenge #02622-G065: One More Lesson
The Great Chinese Famine (from Wikipedia)
“I went to one village and saw 100 corpses, then another village and another 100 corpses. No one paid attention to them. People said that dogs were eating the bodies. Not true, I said. The dogs had long ago been eaten by the people.”
(Yu Dehong, secretary of a party official in Xinyang in 1959 and 1960)
It is widely believed that the government seriously under-reported death tolls: Lu Baoguo, a Xinhua reporter in Xinyang, told Yang Jisheng of why he never reported on his experience:
“In the second half of 1959, I took a long-distance bus from Xinyang to Luoshan and Gushi. Out of the window, I saw one corpse after another in the ditches. On the bus, no one dared to mention the dead. In one county, Guangshan, one-third of the people had died. Although there were dead people everywhere, the local leaders enjoyed good meals and fine liquor. … I had seen people who had told the truth being destroyed. Did I dare to write it?” – Anon Guest
If you wish to judge a society, measure it by how it treats those most in need. – Ancient Terran Saying.
By all accounts, it should have happened to a Greater Deregulation. That was where the unofficial bets had been lain. If anything of the ilk was likely to happen, it had to happen to a Greater Deregulation. What it actually happened to was an otherwise unassuming Human colony that had initially been planned to create a stable, self-sustaining colony in the image of the origin polity’s ideals. Alas, like all ideals, they could become corrupted over time.
This particular colony had failed to learn its lessons from the failure of the industrial farming model, and doubled down on chemicals, polluting the water, and otherwise creating problems with non-profitable solutions[1]. What was shocking was that nobody knew about the disastrous, planet-wide famine until the very worst of it had left the wealthy bereft of people to use or blame. By then, billions were dead.
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Challenge #02621-G064: Reach Out And…
Born without the ability to speak, the human wrote or use signed language to communicate, though they could speak mind to mind, most did not like that at all, it gave them headaches. But as they worked on the havenworlder’s ship, their first assignment, they heard something. But it was in their head. They went to the gravity drive and realized… that is who they were hearing. They spoke back, one mind to another, and in doing so the two ended up friends. Ever since then the ship operated at peak efficiency, the drive was happy! At least, until the human said her contract was ending. – Anon Guest
Gifts are odd things. So, too, are disabilities. The very essence of the word tells all about the way society views those who have it. Dis, from the lack or wrongness of what follows - ability. Those who are not able to do as those who normally do. It is a word forged in industrialism, quenched in capitalism, and honed in prejudice. It is used as an excuse to isolate, to other, to punish, as if any of those can help improve someone’s life.
That is the way it was, and had been, for far too long. It was the way life was for Human Joi, until the stars opened, and let us come. We are Sings-the-song-of-the-stars, and we are… a gravy drive. We work for the ship known colloquially as The Ferryman. My Nae'hyn say we are the heart and soul of the ship, and they are right. This story is not about them.
This is about Human Joi. They were not one of my Nae'hyn, who understand these things. They were a Human escaping the wreckage of an Earth ruined again and again by people who found it convenient to get rid of other people via wormhole for hundreds of years. They were one among many, like so many passengers we carried. Seeking out a better life, an improved civilisation… to desperately go where none like them had gone before. They were part of our passenger manifest, in seating barely above that of livestock or cargo, because that was all they could afford. We… heard them. We were not supposed to hear them.
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