Challenge #02720-G163: A Short Sharp Lesson
Have you even seen humans stomping their feet while chanting the same thing all at once? It’s sometimes hard to believe they’re not a hive mind https://youtu.be/PmILOL55xP0 – Anon Guest
[AN: Video linked contains swearwords and is a war scene]
They said the Human colonists were sessile. They were weak and vulnerable. Look at them, not a single weapon in their entire set of settlements. They were fat and lazy. Allegedly. I learned, just as many of my unit did, that our leaders lied to us.
There is no such thing as an unarmed Human.
They took up tools for construction, random heavy objects, and blades for preparing food, and turned them against us. They organised in less than minutes. We thought their scattering was submission. They were only retreating to regroup.
We followed them to an open field they had marked for one of their games. Upright sticks marked opposite ends and some Humans had gathered at one side. They all turned towards us as one being.
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Challenge #02719-G162: Played For a Sap
Come on body, just hold it in. Suppress the emotion for a few more hours. We can die from embarrassment when we get home. – Anon Guest
He might have said they called him Sap because he was a blunt instrument. There was a story he told about being found in the woods, covered in tree sap and using it to trap and eat small animals to survive. The truth was, he was a City Tief[1], raised in the gutter, educated by osmosis, and like the city rats, steeped in cunning and guile. He called himself Sap because he still believed in love.
What he was now - besides beaten, bruised, and bloody - was also betrayed. He didn’t say, “You said you were my friend” because creatures like himself didn’t get friends. The closest a Tiefling could get were temporary allies who currently found the Tiefling in question to be convenient. He did say, “You let me think you liked me. Well played.”
The villain of the piece - a temporarily convenient ally - seemed put out by the fact that Sap didn’t let them scoff and preen. They tried for it anyway. “What, like it’s hard? Your kind are anyone’s for a gentle touch and a kind word.”
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Challenge #02718-G161: One Cozy Afternoon in a Test Colony Complex
They’d been surveying the planet for several months now, the haven-worlders and their human friends. The planet was more than sufficient for colonization, that seemed to be sure, but they wanted to see how the changing of the seasons played out in full. Sitting within the large shelter base they’d set up, the humans feeding more wood into the fireplace they’d absolutely insisted on building into the design of the base, the captain had an odd feeling of peace as they relaxed on the lounger by the window. Springtime rain was pattering on the roof, the crew and scientists were talking, some playing games of dice, the crackle of the very well contained fire which brought extra warmth into this place. They realized they felt… content tonight. This place felt like… well it felt like home. From when they were young. A rainy night like this? Made them look forward to when this place opened for colonization and they could bring their family here. – Anon Guest
Sometimes, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with a newly-discovered world. It’s almost inevitable. The hazards encountered, planet by planet, result in solutions. Problems solved generations prior in other, harsher environments make the milder ones far more amenable. Sometimes, a world is just right. In this case, just the right amount of challenges to make it a perfect ‘tough love’ colony for level two Havenworlders and a relaxing resort world for their Human counterparts.
They still had to test it for a year. Most of the planetary climate was temperate, but there was always the chance of seasonal surprises. The atmosphere was both breathable and fragrant, the edible flora and fauna plentiful and easily farmed. Life on the new world was good. The Humans did insist on adding a fireplace to the communal space of the habitat, but that was Humans for you. They’d do the strangest things for the most nonsensical of reasons.
The logic of it came at last during a rainy evening with nothing better to do. The Humans were playing one of their more complicated games involving dice, mathematics, and making things up with varying degrees of hilarity. Thork was huddled up with their nestmate under one of the fluffier blankets and listening to the fire crackle and the rain patter against roof and window alike.
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Challenge #02717-G160: A Plot From the Slush Pile
A human gets body-swapped with a short avian havenworlder just before a band of vorax attack, they find the ‘human’ cowering, and the chirpy bird missing… – Anon Guest
[AN: Mind swaps are silly episode ideas so this is entirely non-canon to my pet universe]
“Aw, what the hell?” complained Human De, currently Thelid De, since hir mind was in Thelid Vaax’s body. “This is like every badly-written filler episode in the history of everything!”
Human Vaax, once Thelid Vaax said, “I don’t know what that means, but you must practice the calming breaths. Your current body is not made for Human levels of emotion.”
Worse and worse, the attacking party was coming towards their fortified space. Vaax did not know what to do. De, unfortunately, did. Ze was already breathing in a regulated manner and looking at the world around them as if it owed hir fifteen dollars. “Where’s your combat-rated livesuit?” De asked.
“In my quarters. Why?”
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Challenge #02716-G159: An Oldie But a Goodie
The ship is being raided by pirates, you and the human locked yourselves in the storage bay. The human is applying some liquid on their skin, asking “could you help me put on the shield generator?” You assisted them asking what they trying to do. “I’m gonna do a old scare tactic” while talking they snap their fingers and flames begin to cover their arms – Anon Guest
Humans are insane. Many people acknowledge this on an intellectual level as most Humans can carry on in Galactic Society without resorting to their… more interesting problem solving skills. I, Companion Grox, have had personal experience with it. Trust in me. Any Human can go from “almost normal” to “Deathworlder crabonkers” in an instant.
We were being raided by pirates. Human Co was the Ships’ Human on duty at the time, and the others were getting the crew into their lifepods. Human Co had ideas to save the ship, the cargo, and the crew with ordinary household chemicals.
Always beware of Humans and their concoctions of unregulated chemical compounds. We were in a ventilated hold for the cargo that wasn’t safe for exposure to vacuum, and Human Co was mixing things in a near frenzy with their breather already on and activated. I had to stay well away from the smell. I remember asking what ze was doing.
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