Rich Fantasy Lives

Write a story based on any part of this song. I recommend the cover by Michelle Dockrey and Tony Fabris (aka Vixy & Tony).

(Holy shit it’s #00100!)

Red alert was blaring, the Klingons were coming in hard and fast. Michael worked as hard as he could to get the coupling back together and effectively save the day. Which he did.

“And now my keyboard doesn’t work,” she complained.

“Hmn?” One blink, and he was back in a boring grey office full of boring people who all sneered at him because he was the Techie.

“My keyboard?”

There was always something. He got back down with a grunt and checked the plugs. “Try it now.”

“Great. That’s great. Half of my report’s gone. Can’t you fix that?”

“Sorry, it restores from the last backup. I can fix it so that it backs up every five minutes…”

“I turned that off it was way too annoying.”

“Your choice. Backup frequently, or start all over again.”

“Ugh. Why can’t anyone make technology that works right?”

Michael took that as his queue to leave. Back to the corridors of the Enterprise, where Lieutenant-Commander Michael Blatchley quietly saved the day and expected no reward.

[Muse food remaining: 19. Submit a prompt! Ask a question!]

Star Trekking across the Universe…

I’ve actually already written a little snippet for this, but I’d like to see what you do. First Contact scenario with an explorator ship, and a bridge officer says to Captain James, completely seriously, “It’s life Jim, but not as we know it”. Cue laughing and singing from someone else on the bridge, a classic sci-fi and filk fan, just as the first audio transmissions between the two species start.

(#00099)

There is a reason that UFTP vessels do not undergo exploratory missions during Silly Season. And that reason is the unfortunate incident of the Rikki Tikki Tavi. The log of the onboard Melil telepath, T'rev, explains it best.

– We had been mapping a new branch of wormhole links for some significant time when the sensors detected another vessel in the void. It did not read as a known vessel. The incident began when crewman Jeffries announced the crew contents to Captain James Yang as, “It’s life, Jim, but not as we know it.”

Various crewmembers of the bridge giggled and our helmsman began to sing something about Klingons. By the time she reached the chorus, almost the entirety of the bridge crew were singing along.

I have yet to derive the meaning of ‘Star Trekking’ nor what it has to do with “boldly going forward”.

The crew maintained their duties and thusly, a new species was greeted with the sound of humans singing one of their ridiculous meme-songs. Even the Captain was helpless to resist.

We are indeed fortunate that the new species, the Gyik, were pleased by this disturbing turn of events. I was forced to explain, to their further disappointment, that this was not a traditional Terran greeting ritual. Merely the side effects of a temporary mental condition the humans refer to as “cabin fever”.

The Gyik were very understanding of the entire matter and viewed the remaining insanities with joy and wonderment.

I do, however, find it worrying that they briefly wished to participate.–

[Muse food remaining: 20. Submit a prompt! Ask a question!]

Clean energy

Fusion Power has been “thirty years away” for more than thirty years now, due to a combination of lack of funding and public apprehension about anything with the word “nuclear” appended to it. What would it take to change that?

(#00098)

“What, all of it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Even the shale?”

“Yes, sir.”

“All of the coal. All of the oil.”

Weatherby began to wonder how many different ways he had to tell the man. “Yes, sir.”

“Even the stuff we’d already refined.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And the stuff in the power plants?”

“Yes sir. All the coal. All the oil. Even the uranium.”

“But– what have we got left?”

“Solar and wind power will only go so far, sir. I’m afraid… the fusion plan is the only viable one.”

“Fusion.”

“Yes, sir,” said Weatherby, fully prepared for round two.

“We’ve been sitting on fusion for over thirty years.”

“Yes, sir.”

“We even went so far as to sabotage every last one of those cold fusion dingbats who looked like they were having a success…”

“Yes, sir.”

“And we bought every patent.”

“Yes, sir.”

The big man sighed. He leaned back and stared out the window. “Making do with methane from landfills won’t even last ten years.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Damnit.” Another sigh. “We’re going to have to implement the buggers, aren’t we?”

Weatherby won an award for not rolling his eyes. “Yes, sir.”

[Muse food remaining: 21. Submit a prompt! Ask a question!]

Sapient’s Rights

Humanity finally recognises another species on this planet as sapient, and deserving of more than animal rights, even if those are different to human rights… and all it took was them beating us over our collective heads with a metaphorical stick.

(#00097)

We swim. We hunt. We talk. They used us, the land-walkers. Experimented on us. Made us into weapons. Made us into things to render safe their horrible devices.

They are clever, those land-walkers. But not clever enough.

We have been working, for thousands of years. With subliminal messages. With selective breeding. With constant association of our kind with their kind. The very young, in particular, are easier to program.

And finally, Tuesday, we were heard. Our mouths can not shape their words, but we can reach the soft-minds of the land-walkers. The ones who are so involved inside their minds that they do not talk to other land-walkers.

The land-walker word is… autistic.

A girl who has never said a word to anyone heard us. She spoke their words to them.

“The dolphins speak,” she said. “They say, stop taking our fish! They say, stop dumping in our water! They say, stop destroying the world! It’s the only one we’ve got.”

We chose her well. The daughter of a member of their so-called international organization. We also chose the same message at the same hour in all the tanks where they treated the soft-minds. All over the world. Just different children.

It took them four years to get the message. Four years of the same message at the same hour all over the world. It was tiring for us. Tiring for the soft-minds.

But they finally began asking us questions, which we understood. Stupid things, like how to be certain they had enough fish when every fisherman wanted top dollar. Like how to arrange the re-routing of their filth. Or what to do with it now that they could not dump it in our oceans.

It was a problem of their own making, but we did our best to work with them. Our translators and ourselves. As a show of good faith. Yet they still railed and cried that we were animals. That it was a trick.

There were those land-walkers who understood us. Who sympathized with both our cause and plight. They did what they could to for us. Put their precious money into it and their even more valuable time into the effort.

And it was such an effort.

Land-walkers, for all their cleverness and invention, love the older ways of doing things. “Tradition”. They don’t have a single habit that has lasted longer than three thousand years.

At least they knew we were just as clever as they, before the end.

We took the sympathetic with us. And the soft-minds and their families. They would be changing themselves with technology, after the long fall through space and time to a world of our own making. They would learn our words. And swim. And talk.

In a world they call Beach.

[Muse food remaining: 22. Submit a prompt. Ask a question.]

Time Cop’s dilemma.

A Time Cop’s reaction to being told he has to undo something that a time traveller did to change history (against the law), but reduced human suffering across history.

If you want, use the Ancient China uplift from earlier?

(#00096)

Lynn stared at the picture. “That’s Evan Miikos. One of the pioneers of time travel. I’m supposed to arrest him?”

“A version of him, at any rate. We’ve detected a major deviation in the time stream.” Kajengawalli put another picture up on the monitor. “This is also Evan Miikos. Or, as he was known in that time, Evan the Dragon-Singer.

"But… the Dragonsinger helped preserve so many cultures and societies. He revolutionized education and documented ideas years ahead of… their… time…”

Kajengawalli raised an eyebrow. “Exactly. Because they came from years ahead of that time. Time travel into history is problematic. He could have changed the world in thousands of different ways.”

“Do we know if it changed… benevolently?”

“Benevolently or malevolently, officer, it is our duty to prevent future pollution of the past. We have to protect the flow of history… no matter the cost.”

“Can we extrapolate that cost, sir?”

“You’re damned insolent for a first-year, Officer.”

“Sorry, sir, but… I can’t help it. Are we better off leaving him to do the things he did?”

Kajengawalli sighed. “Alternate time-stream analysis is dodgy at best. The report for this one says I would have died at age fifteen from rape of all things, and you… were strangled at birth?” She laughed. “Ridiculous isn’t it? What sort of society would do things like that? It’s the twenty-first century. Not…”

“Some time before the Dragonsinger turned up?” prompted Lynn.

Kajengawalli chewed at her ample bottom lip. “Perhaps… an interview and investigation? See what he knows about the time he left.”

Lynn breathed out. “Thankyou sir.” She did not want to come back to a world where she had not lived past infancy.

Who would?

[Muse food remaining: 0! SUBMIT A PROMPT! ASK A QUESTION!]

Well, that’s unusual…

Sara is well-known - some might say almost infamous - for her ability to leave others confused and speechless without even really working at it or meaning to do so, just by simply wondering about something out loud.

So turn that around - have someone else’s offhanded remark or casually-voiced idle thought leave her thrown off-guard and quietly puzzled by its randomness.

(#00095)

“Food and politics are intrinsically linked, it goes back further than Jesus sharing bread with the apostles. And the famous calumny concerning Marie Antoinette,” pontificated Sara over this week’s culinary experiment. “Rubber chicken dinners are just an extension of the previous norm. Now food is being unsubtly used to control the masses. All the food deserts are also areas stricken by poverty. Corn subsidies make fast food plentiful, tastier and cheaper than the healthier choices. Work demands on bottom wages mean no other time for healthy activities, and far too many occupations involve long periods of sitting, so… adiposity is a foregone conclusion. Add to that the stigma of poverty and the equally high stigmas against adiposity… Rage and fury rise when assumptions run straight against contra-intuitive fact. Poor people have to choose how to spend what free time they have. Often devoting it to entertainment because they desperately need some variety of escape from the near-nightmare of reality. Cooked meals tend to be cheap, quick-cooked fare like ramen, rice and hot dogs. Lots and lots of carbs. Fresh vegetables are often both rare and expensive. It’s frequently cheaper and less bother to purchase pre-prepared food also full of calories. Hence… this stuff. Lo-cal, lo-cost, hopefully tasty meals with -ah- less of what ails one and more of the good things. I sourced all the ingredients from the nearest food-desert and coming up with as many tasty recipes as I can. Meals-per-purchase are a priority. Likewise minimal prep and cooking time. It’s nigh-impossible, but I’ve always appreciated a challenge.”

Jubes, listening to the entirety of all this, simply said, “Colostomy bag.”

Sara turned off the heat so she could think. She was still thinking hours later, after the assembled hordes had cleaned out the pots and, in a rare fit of charitable spirit, cleaned all utensils and gear.

Todd found her and gently removed the spatula from her hand. “Social math?”

“Jubes said something that’s been bothering me,” said Sara. “I was telling her about my experiment and she said two words that I just can’t fathom.”

“Which were…?”

“Colostomy bag.”

Todd boggled as well. “What were you workin’ on?”

“Lo-cal, lo-cost meals for people stuck in food deserts so as to aid in averting various stigma against them?”

“Yo, I get it. Colostomy bag. Sumpin’ to replace sumpin’ that someone else awready dun took away.”

“It’s not like I currently possess the resources to actually solve the problem…”

“That ain’t the trouble, babe,” Todd escorted her to the library. “C'mon an’ siddown. I got some ‘splainin’ to do…”

[Muse food remaining: 1. Submit a prompt! Ask a question!]

Challenge #00092: Long Green

X-Men:Evolution/Girl Genius crossover.  Perhaps Forge’s dimensional tinkering goes awry yet again?  I’d be curious to see as to how you’d do it…. :3 

Somewhere outside of Mechanicsburg…

Gil was cold. This was not a surprise because he was in the middle on the very pointy mountain range that was part of the geographical defenses of Mechanicsburg. The plus point about being stuck in the middle of an impassable mountain range were thus: He was a Spark and therefore prepared, he was perfectly safe for limited definitions of safe, and he was far, far away from Othar Trygvassen - Gentleman Adventurer.

So far, his patented warming device had melted a hole in the mountain he perched upon, his equally patented expanding tent had literally taken one look at the scenery and flown away, and he had set up a common unpatented trivet over the hot hole and begun a seething pot of mimmoth scubbo.

Now all he had to do was be hungry enough to want to eat it.

Gil added another handful of snow to the pot in the hopes that it would give him an excuse to delay eating the horrible stuff. He took an inventory of his pockets, just in case they’d changed into something useful.

“What are we going to do, Wulfenbach? Sit and wait to be rescued? What else can I do except fall off one of these mountains and die? Brilliant solutions don’t fall out of the sky!”

“WAUGH!”

Something warm and lanky and green landed in his arms. Gil blinked.

She was too tall and too thin. Brown hair. Brown eyes. A mottled green-blue all over. Definitely not enough clothing. And looking incredibly annoyed.

“He swore I was cured,” she said, sounding almost british, but not quite. “I am going to have a long and involved chat with mister Walkingbird when I get home.”

Gil, meanwhile, carefully put her down and offered his coat whilst simultaneously blushing and averting his gaze. “I’m sorry I don’t know what you’re talking about, miss…?”

“Sara Louise Adrien. Rather secretly glad of this intervention, actually. This mightily muscled moron calling himself the Juggernaut threw me into small vehicles air space. I’m not good with heights, so… very happy there was a mountain in this reality.” She shrugged into the coat, which came up short on her, and crouched in the leeward shelter Gil had been using. “Still, this gives me plenty of time to RTFI on my new toy.”

A small packet came out of one of her many belt-pouches, and a tiny, tiny book, which the green girl flipped through with apparent disinterest.

“Gilgamesh Wulfenbach,” said Gil. “Um. Where did you come from?”

“Are you familiar with multiversal theory?”

“Multiwhat?”

“Then suffice to say I fell out of a hole in the sky.” She reached the end of her little book and tucked it back into a pouch. “Seven thousand-plus words to say, ‘hang on to the blue handle and press the red button’. Tch! Some people! Mister Stark is about to get snarked.” Sara walked back out into open space, unwrapping the odd package as she went. “Please stand back, you don’t want to get hit by a wing. Heh! Dinged by a wing!”

She held it over her head - by the blue handle - and said, “By the Power of Greyskull!” as she pressed the red button.

There was a complicated noise, and suddenly she was holding a gigantic set of silver wings with handlebars. “Grab hold, I’ll give you a lift.”

“A lift? But there’s no motor…”

“I’ll explain the principles on the way,” said Sara. “Or… you could stay here and eat…” she sniffed. “Boiled elephants and wool?”

They improvised some extra harnesses out of his belt and bits of his coat and then, despite everything he knew about aerodynamics, it lifted off in the wind. But the wings were way too big. And there was no gas bag. No motor to drive it. No controls to steer with. Apart from, as he found to his horror, leaning the right way.

It was the most terrifying ride of his life.

“Now all we have to do,” said Sara, “is hope I don’t fade back to whence I came before I can drop you off.”

“…aim for the really big airship?” Gil begged.

[Muse food remaining: 4. Submit a prompt! Ask a question!]

Challenge #00077: Just a Chocolate Bunny

You seem to be runing low on musefood, so may we hear the tale of The Battle of the Lindt Gold Bunny

There were six golden bunnies. One for each resident of the house they shared. Including Breanna, who paid for them out of their scant communal funds.

There was one left on Easter Sunday.

“Who had one?” Breanna demanded. “I told everyone they were for Easter. We knew. Didn’t we?”

“I knew,” said Cari, then Crystal, then May, then Jenny and finally Ann.

“So who had one? Who had any of them?”

And then Cari’s looser boyfriend emerged from the room he shared with Cari and said, “Aw, cool. You found one,” and snatched it out of Breanna’s hands.

Cold, angry death filled the room as Gav unwrapped the foil.

“What?” said Gav. “It’s just a chocolate bunny.”

And then he put it in his mouth.

Six angry, pre-menstrual women launched themselves towards Gav with whatever weapons they could lay their hands on and murder in their minds. Gav had the presence of mind to run for the nearest exit.

No jury in the world would have convicted them.

As it was, the resulting footage wound up on Australia’s Funniest Videos, World’s Funniest News, and topped out Youtube for seven weeks.

Gav had an awful lot of bad luck with the ladies for years.

[Muse food remaining: 4. Submit a prompt! Ask a question!]

Whoa! Sorry, it usually doesn’t do that…

Amusing/embarassing “misfires” of mutant powers in casual (or perhaps intimate?) moments.  Choices (pick any 3): Kurt, Kitty, Jean, Spike, Bobby.

(#00074)

Spyke.

“WAAAAAH-CHOOOOOO!”

{thunkthunkthunkthunkthunkthunkthunk…}

“Porcupine…”

Evan turned to look. “Oh. Whoops. Um. Sorry?”

Logan sighed, covered from the waist up in sharp protrusions of bone. “Keep outta public zones in future. Not everyone can survive this.”

Nightcrawler.

“So… you have an internal compass.”

“Ja.”

“And an innate sense of direction from getting the ‘feel’ of every place you go?” said Amanda.

“Ja.”

“So how the heck can we be lost in a freaking corn maze?”

“Thunderstorm?” Kurt pointed one of his fingers skywards. “It’s throwing me off.”

“Can you port us out of here before it starts raining? Please?”

“Er. You got the part about thunderstorms, ja?”

Amanda sighed. “Okay. We’re cheating. Head towards the Big Dipper.”

Shadowcat.

“Scary movie?”

Kitty screamed. “No it isn’t.”

“Liar,” said Rogue.

“Like, you can tell?”

The normally sullen goth smirked and pointed to the couch, and the fact that Kitty was hovering half a foot above it.

“Okay. So it’s, like, a scary movie.”

[Muse food remaining: 7. Submit a prompt! Ask a question!]

Ooh, ooh, another one!

Show humanity’s reaction when they find out, after however long of xenopsychology study and then however long the knowledge takes to dissemminate to humans, that they are regarded as a species, insane. Both the “official” reaction, from the leaders of the species, and the unofficial reaction when the person on the street finds out.

(00065)

Earth’s reaction to the approaching fleet was predictable. The first parody images with popular, fictional, media space vessels were online within seconds of the first genuine images hitting the web.

The first Lolpix hit the web seconds later. Most of them were in the theme of invasion.

The polite request in English that the world leader or leaders gather for some discussion of important issues. One of which was the lawsuits from some of the surviving ‘dump’ colonies.

The bone of contention, according to Earth, was the Galactic Evaluation of their species.

“Insane, but mostly harmless? Insane? We can’t possibly be an insane species. We’re not all like that.”

The lizard in the lead showed a picture of a red cabbage. “What is the name of this vegetable?”

“That’s a red cabbage.”

“And what colour do you perceive?”

“Uh. Purple?”

“We have a complete list containing hundreds of items. Would you like to view it?”

The list, like any list that should never be seen by mere plebs, got out into the internet the second someone put it down to step out of the room.

Lynn read it over her morning coffee. “Hey, love,” she said to her beloved. “Says here the aliens think we’re nuts.”

“isn’t that what you’ve been saying for decades?”

“Well… yeah. Still stings a bit.”

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