Challenge #02552-F362: Find a Family
She was small, almost dangerously thin, but fast. Her parents, addled yet again on drink and the newest designer drugs, didn’t even notice as she left their quarters in search of food. She heard, as she was contemplating swiping an unattended sandwich, that one of the big havenworlder freighters was docked and was on loading cargo for their next run. Large cargo freighters usually meant larger amounts of food. This wouldn’t be the first time this young human had snuck aboard freighters, swiped food, and escaped them before they left. But this time she wasn’t so lucky. She was in their kitchens gathering food when the doors locked, as they routinely did when the freighter was preparing to leave a station. She was stuck there. When the havenworlder crew member discovered the kid, she was sitting on the floor hungrily devouring another sandwich. But they were now far from the station and, really, she didn’t want to go back to uncaring people who hadn’t even realized she was gone. – Anon Guest
They called her Bub, when they didn’t call her Move, so it seemed reasonable that Bub was her name. She had learned to be fast and had learned what foods were good and what foods were bad, and how to keep as clean as Great Korprat deemed acceptable. The big people were sleeping and all the food Bub could reach had gone bad. The big people could eat it anyway, and would, but Bub needed to find something better.
She had been out of the apartment before. The big people left magic cards lying around and Bub knew that the magic cards made doors open. She found the one with the prettiest ribbon, put on her backpack, and scuttled out into the bigger world. It was always a race in the bigger world, between feet, around movers, through doors that her magic card might not make open, but she eventually found somewhere with food to eat. There were big boxes on trolleys and Bub found a place between the boxes. She could use a screwdriver to poke holes in the cardboard until she had a hole big enough to pick the cardboard apart and extract a packet from within. Lots of times, it was good good food.
This one had a picture of a peanut on it. Peanuts were bad food and made her sick. Bub turned around and picked at another box. Cookies! Jackpot! She ate those one by one while she picked at a third box just to see what was there. Something green. The big people always said Bub needed greens, and when they got them for her, they always made sure she ate them. Well. She had greens now, so she ate them. These ones were crunchy, and salty, and smelled like fish, but they tasted okay, so Bub didn’t mind. She definitely didn’t notice the trolley moving until it stopped.
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Challenge #02551-F361: You Hear Me
“Get back to work and if I see you with something in your ears again you’re fired!”
The human just stared blankly
“Do you understand me? Is your universal translator even working?”
It took the human a moment then wrote something down
‘My translator is with my hearing aids you took’ – Anon Guest
In all things, communication is important. This is why any given traveller will find far more accessibility options available in Galactic space than many other places. It is also why many Alliance polities despise working with, or for, any of the Greater Deregulations. Mostly because those in positions of power in any given Greater Deregulation has never been very involved in communication. They insist on yelling at people until they give up.
They also insist on applying their moral values to everything that offends them[1] and yelling about it until they get their way. Such an exchange has already happened between CEO of CEO’s Hal E. Burridin and one of the Alliance’s Ronin Humans named Quo. Unbeknownst to Hal, Human Quo is wearing assistive devices. One among many that help those with hearing disorders. Hal has just processed these particular devices as ‘headphones’. Let’s watch the chaos.
“YOU!” Hal bellowed, marching over to the offending Human. “Are you listening to music on company time?” Without any heed to Galactic laws concerning approved personal interactions, interference with physical being, assault, and removal of equipment, Hal reached up and removed what he saw as an offense. “If I see you with something in your ears again, you’re FIRED!”
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Challenge #02550-F360: A Hero is You
Grandma I got the big sad, can you read me a story? – Anon Guest
Oh my child, my darling dear. Sadness must be hunted. A story can quell it, but you must trace it to be happy in the long term. It is a hunt only you can embark upon. You must armour yourself with happier times, you must strengthen your soul with the knowledge that your true family is always there to support you, and arm yourself with clever thoughts to defeat it.
Sadness can turn into a monster if you let it, my dear one. It can grow too big to deal with alone. Sometimes, it will grow too large to deal with in company. It will eat you if you’re not aware. Best to hunt it down while it’s still small enough to defeat.
You’ve done well, darling. You have recognised that you have a big sad. You’ve spotted the monster. You know it best, because it is yours. The stories quell it, we know. The stories make it cautious. That’s because the stories tell you that all monsters have a weakness. The stories help you know that monsters can be killed. Remember them as you track your beast.
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Challenge #02549-F359: Misunderstanding
“Why does everyone think I’m a Vampire whenever I tell anyone I transform into a bat?! There are over 1,200 species of bat and only 3 of them drink blood! I’d rather drink a cricket and fruit smoothie then get whatever Hematological disease you’ve got!” – AmberFox
“So… you’re undead?”
“What? No! I turn into a bat at will.”
“But… vampire bat, right?” said Allie. “So if vampire bat, then vampire, then undead? It’s the way it goes.”
“No… there’s over a thousand species of bat and only three of them drink blood. It’s statistically unlikely that I’d even be a vampire bat.” Chiro argued. “I’m more into a cricket smoothie with a side of nectar than -euw- blood…”
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Challenge #02548-F358: Expect Them
Disasters happen and they turn up, usually in a camper-van/workshop. Mechanics, Electricians, Plumbers, the good ones keep their rates reasonable and do the insurance stuff for bread and butter and a bit of jam. The money is good, they leave behind grateful people, and good work. Their bonus is they have contacts everywhere for the next disaster. – Anon Guest
No good deed goes unpunished, – Ancient and confusing Human saying.
Disaster is inevitable. They divide a little patch of the world in which they happen into three camps. Those who suffer from it, those who attempt to profit from it, and those who come to do whatever they can to help those in the first camp. Fortunately for many, the profit instinct is the rarer of the three. Once divorced from the need for plenty, Humans are generally empathetic and compassionate beings.
When disaster strikes, the Humans swarm. They bring tools, they bring solutions, they bring themselves and whatever skills lie in their knowledge and recall. They bring all their tricks, from the seemingly daft to the ridiculous. Sometimes, they come when they sense an impending disaster, which is even more ominous than it sounds.
There are many kinds of disaster, and Humans have been through all of them. Natural disasters are the worst for their unpredictability, but the ones caused by society? Those can be predicted, almost to the second, by the patterns in extant history.