Comparative…Let’s Say ‘Humor’
Shortly after encountering the Numidid, someone makes the inevitable “Numididn’t” joke.
(#00744 - B013)
“I am Numidid,” said Ambassador Su'sin, offering her hand.
The newly-minted Ambassador for the Consortium of Steam immediately struck a pose and said, “Oh nu-mi-di-en’t…”
One of the other members of the Consortium of Steam smacked hirself in the face at that. “We’re being ambassadors, today…”
“I don’t understand,” pleaded Su'sin.
“It’s human comedy,” explained Ambassador Stiiv, also of Amity. “Remember the archival stuff in your stereotypes module?”
“Oh,” Su'sin literally climbed up Stiiv to perch on her shoulder and said. “Let me try to get it right,” she fluffed herself up. “Yes she nu-mi-di-id.”
It was one of the rare cases that an alien species got along with the Consortium of Steam straight from the introduction. And one of the cases that caused the Galactic Alliance to argue about the infectious nature of human insanity.
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Challenge #00743 - B012: A Requiem for Glory
The grass is always greener on the other side of the nuclear war.
Sometimes due to glowing with radiation, granted.
“War,” said the Elder. “We had to fight it, of course. Those evil bastards on the other continent were going to destroy our way of life. So we had to destroy theirs.”
“Um,” said Krii, raising her hand.
“Yes, what?”
“Did they know that was why we attacked? Because, um, it might explain why they wanted a war with us… maybe?”
“We never attacked,” snarled the Elder. “We pre-emptively defended ourselves from a virulent enemy who would have destroyed everything we hold dear! Those inhuman bastards didn’t even know how to treat women right. They insisted on making them cover up or the girls would get attacked.”
Krii, already holding one Bad Chit for having a skirt two millimetres shorter than it ‘should have been’, asked a dangerous question. “How were they attacked?”
“Acid thrown in their faces. Beatings… horrible, horrible beatings… tied up and shackled if they put a foot wrong. And a man who married her owned her! He could do anything he liked with her, just shy of murder! Now aren’t you glad you live here with us? We let you vote!”
“Um,” said Krii. “But… We have to cover up. And we’re hit if someone says we’re bad even when we’re following the rules. And… Daddy owns Mom. And she can’t say when she wants Daddy to do his business on her. And he’s allowed to keep her on a chain in the kitchen… and Mom has to vote how Daddy tells her…”
“That’s entirely different and you know it. Or are you a Sympathiser?”
Krii shrank down in her place, holding her skirt as far over her knees as she could make it go. “No? I just… I just want to understand how it’s different…” She added the good girl words, “I’m very stupid, but I want to learn.”
“You’re lucky we’re the good guys,” rumbled the Elder. “The difference is we’re protecting you! Those dangerous animals are lurking on every street corner. Subversives set to ruin us! Agents of evil everywhere! They’d think nothing of hurting a girl because they thought she wasn’t behaving right.”
Okay. So… just like her Daddy. “How can we tell the difference? I think I know some bad men who might be Agents… and I want to be sure I’m right so I don’t wind up in bad girl prison.”
The Elder grinned. “Ah. So you think you’ve spotted some Subversives… You’re old enough to support The Party, so I should tell you everything you need to know about fighting for your country, the women’s way!”
Krii dutifully wrote down the indicators of a Subversive. Neatly and clearly. This was important information, vital to the upkeep of the nation.
But it didn’t make sense.
Every man she knew filled out this checklist to a T. And some of the girls, too.
And they also filled the checklist for a proper Citizen and Party Member.
Krii dared her friend Lel to ask the last question. A girl who asked too many questions was a girl who was Trouble.
“What if someone fills both lists?”
The entire girls’ class got hard labour for that one. None of them understood why. It was a perfectly legitimate question.
It was that day, toiling in the hot sun, that the Girls’ Patriotic Liberation Front was born. And it was going to cause a lot of problems for The Party.
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Challenge #00742 - B011: You Stole What?
To paraphrase Die Hard:
“Now I have a Death Star. Ho Ho Ho.”
“This is your claim. A dwarf planet in a Sargasso. Big whoop.”
“It’s not a dwarf planet,” said Lenn Ybalius. She was busy watching her controls and making certain she piloted her way in on certain vectors.
“Oh, you hijacked a moon,” singsonged Prella. She had a low opinion of her business partner. “That’s above your usual standards. I’m impressed.”
“That’s no moon,” cooed Lenn, and pressed a remote.
The doors opened, shedding a light cloud of dust and revealing a fully operational battle station within.
“You’re kidding me,” said Prella.
“You know that Long Haul wormhole that nobody’s ever been all the way down?”
“…yeah…”
“I’m nobody.” Lenn grinned. “That thing was on the other end of it and I managed to pilot it all the way over to my already-claimed Sargasso.”
The bay was large enough to fit more than just their little vessel. Heck, there were some stations out there that were smaller than this drydock bay.
“It was working when I found it. Hell of a power system. Plasma reactors and all still going after who knows how long. All I had to do was install some atmosphere and a food system and boom. Home sweet home. And all the space you could need. Hell, I even put a safety grill over that one vent that’s like an achilles’ heel to the whole place.”
“Achilles heel,” Prella repeated. “An area of critical vulnerability. You… salvaged the entire thing?”
“Yeah, the weapons system needed like five hundred people to operate it, so I just pulled that thing to pieces for the salvage value. Didn’t need it anyway. Nobody knows it’s here except us.” Lenn smiled as she opened the doors to her vessel. “Merry christmas.”
“There’d be… no limits. We could have all the children we want.”
“And decorate how we want. And the scrounge from the Sargasso is literally pulled towards our doors. Life of luxury, babe. Just like I promised.”
Prella was speechless, wandering around the pristine halls in a daze. “I take back every single mean thing I ever said about you.”
“I knew you didn’t mean it. Come on. I’ll show you the executive suite. Aka our rooms.”
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Challenge #00741 - B010: Not Quite MST3K
“Guys! Guys! I have a loaded machine pistol in my hand and I have no idea what I’m doing!”
Shayde giggled. “Awright. That one had a point. The goal is tae make fun of the movie, not the common hollywood tropes, ye ken.”
“It’s still fun,” argued a SPOEn who called herself Molly Ringwald.
“Aye, it is tha’.” She pointed at the screen. “BOOM! Take a shot!” She took a shot of mini M&M’s and cackled as the fight scene began to unroll.
“They’re wrestling. Do we sing Blue Danube?”
“Oh aye! Da dum, da dum, da daaaaa…”
Rael observed it all from a safe distance. The uneasy peace between Shayde and the SPOEns largely depended on an MST3K night at the Retro Cinema. As long as anyone didn’t launch into their spiel… things might actually settle down for a change.
Rael began to wish he knew of any deities that did spec work.
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[And now I’ve used over 100% of my firkin data. This is going to be SUCH fun :P]
Challenge #00740 - B009: Fighting Against the Stereotype
http://boundlessinspiration.tumblr.com/post/106944373313/hurryupmerlin-thegirlwithgoldeyes-imagine-a
“Bolin! Hey,” Sasha smiled for her. “It’s so rare to see you off night shift.”
“Yeah. Tell me about it.” Safely indoors and out of direct sunlight, Bolin shed her hood and took off her sunglasses.
Sasha burst out laughing. “What’s with the war paint?”
“Zinc oxide is the only sunblock I can wear. It comes in teeny-tiny pots and a range of colours. None of which match. So… Kabuki dragon.” She gestured at her own face. “I need complete coverage if I’m to get through the day without blisters.”
“Damn,” Sasha shook her head. “I keep forgetting about your sensitivities. I mean, apart from the monthly trip to the ER because of your garlic bread binge.”
“Still. Totally. Worth it,” Bolin laughed. She had a careful smile. Never wide or open. Always guarded. It had to be. Smiling too much might make people realise something. “Now… What’s this about all hands on deck?”
“The Closet Monster Ripper sent in a note saying that the next victim was already staked out.”
“If that’s a real letter. I told the Chief it didn’t smell right.”
“Your nose is never wrong…”
“Correction, my nose is wrong one day in the month, and that day is the day after Garlic Bread Day. Which I have to miss out on thanks to this city search. Let me guess. We have a BOLO out on any parked vans with someone inside, outside of residential areas.”
“Yyyyyup.” Sasha finished her paperwork with a flourish. “We’re out in five. Any of your famous inspirations?”
“The ripper’s too smart to be visible. If I were to guess, I’d say the perp scopes out the houses from more than one invisible sources. We’re not looking for a parked van. We’re looking for suspicious joggers or hidden webcams where nobody would look.” Bolin toured in front of the boards. One was full of kidnapped children. “And the next victim is going to be on the lower East side.”
“What? How can you tell?”
Bolin lined up the children on the timeline. Hispanic, Native American, Black, Asian, White. Hispanic, Black, Asian, white. Black, Black, Black White. “Our perp picks at least three lower-class families before going after a more affluent white family. He’s just hit a gated community last week. If we’re going to find him, we’re going to find him in a low-rent area that the police either avoid, or go in like they’re going to war.”
Sasha boggled at the timeline. “That fucking shit… he’s using our own racism against us…”
The hunt was on. And, if she was really lucky, she could drain this bastard and get away with it. Something about pedo blood made them extra tasty…
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Challenge #00739 - B008: Havenworlders V Humans
Hypothetically, a universe where keratin (our hair and fingernails) is a rare and valuable resource. Accounting for the sugar walls from a previous story it would potentially be considered a strong, nonreactive material.
Seeing humans with it on must be like watching someone walk around with steel-tipped claws and spun-titanium jewellery. Yeah it’s a small fortune but a) the person it’s attached to must be scary as all get-out and b) it’s practically a weapon in its own right, you’re not going to mess with them even if they are carrying enough to finance a small spaceship crew.
Space was dangerous. Just going up there was an exercise requiring years of training, conditioning, and a certain amount of armour. Srisi knew this, because she was obsessed with space. And this… thing… that had landed in her Uncle’s fallow paddock had come from space.
Srisi had gone to check the fire, with the special anti-fire suit in her pack and a couple of barrels of fire retardant on the saddles of her mount, Bleerh. But none of that proved necessary, because something by the fire was already putting it out.
She watched from hiding, of course. This creature was immense. Taller than a building, and the craft, half-buried in the soil at the end of a very long furrow, appeared to be made out of metal.
Metal! One of the few substances that could cut pure sucrose, once it had set! The most precious of substances, in a structure big enough to be a city for her fellow Ariaseans. Srisi watched in amazement as it pulled up entire Stonehide trees and ripped them to pieces with its hands.
It took four strong males and special tools to down a Stonehide tree.
This was a monster.
But, instead of going on a rampage, the giant creature built a controlled fire and started talking to itself.
As the light faded, Srisi realised that it was inside metal armour. That did not make it any less terrifying.
She turned tail and ran for her Uncle.
*
Once inside the sterile environment, a converted hangar for immense blimp-ships, the Hoomin female was only too glad to shed her metal suit.
Srisi found herself the next best thing to an expert on the Hoomin despite avoiding contact with her. Srisi stayed on the other side of a re-enforced Plex barrier while she and the Hoomin took turns trying to write to each other. Backwards.
So far, they were up to numbers.
Dot was one. Line was two. Triangle, three… and so on. After four, the Hoomin made stars with five and six, but seven was a square and a triangle, one inside the other.
They were obviously limited by their artistic skills.
Words came through, of course. Some were easier than others. Hoomins could eat sucrose. She said it was sweet. Hoomins grew keratin. Naturally! So far, the Ariaseans had only manufactured keratin in labs, and there was a certain amount of stunned amazement to watch the Hoomin casually clip her fingers, toes and hair into the special basket before it went through a rigorous cleansing process.
A small fortune in keratin on a weekly basis.
Srisi’s nation of Yarine went from an also-ran to a major contender in the space of a season. All because the Hoomin clipped her nails.
Her name was Lyn. Srisi spent as much time learning to say it as Lyn did trying to pronounce hers. They became friends, of a sort. Even though they could never touch.
The bacteria that inhabited Lyn’s skin was deadly to Ariaseans. As were the enzymes in Lyn’s saliva. Srisi learned a new word. Deathworlder. Someone who had undergone evolution on a planet that was actively trying to kill them.
Srisi encouraged the efforts to replicate Lyn’s hair growing capabilities in the lab. Cheered when they had nailed down the keratin nails. But when she found out they were trying to weaponise Lyn’s bacteria and enzymes…
That’s when she hatched the escape plan.
Lyn could do weird things with her body. Including making it appear as if she could detach her thumb from her hand. It was that trick that had the guards in panic attacks, and allowed them to make it all the way to Lyn’s restored ship.
It was for the best that Srisi stayed behind.
Space was dangerous, and Lyn was proof.
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Challenge #00738 - B007: Draco Concilium
Dragon Convention, Not just European please, there are Chinese, Pernese, Cartoon dragons, Reluctant and Mu Shu, Better stick to the Mythical and Literary type. Have Fun.
The place was huge. It had to be. Some attendees needed to break the rules of physics just to exist[1]. And even a relatively small number of attendees managed to make a crowd.
Neg’ret waited patiently behind a Rainbow Serpent making out with a Quetzalcoatl and tried to pay more attention to the singing Luck Dragon dancing in the darkening sky. Luck Dragons had the best voices. Mortals frequently likened it to the ringing of a gold bell. But mortals didn’t have the sensitivity of Dragons.
His personal sense of pitch and tone that made him perfectly suited for his day job in the mortal world. But today was not a day for mortal things.
“Squishy,” rumbled a voice behind him. A claw poked the small of his back. “What are you doing here, two-leg? Are you in the buffet?”
He checked over his shoulder. One of the greater dragons of Europe. A snub-nosed one. And, judging by the dull appearance of hir scales, one of the inevitable ones about to start the traditional convention plague. This was a Dragon who couldn’t smell what was right in front of hir.
“I’m a dragon just like you, hombre,” said Neg’ret. “I just find this form more convenient.” He had been amongst mortals almost too long. While it was still an effort to maintain his human guise, it was starting to be an effort just to become himself. “There’s other shapeshifters in the queue. Go bother them.”
“What are you gonna do about it, Squishy?” Poke, poke, poke. “I could eat you for a snack.”
That did it. Neg’ret relaxed into his true form. Twenty times his mortal size, red of scale and claw, and thoroughly more flexible. And, incidentally, just a smidgen smaller than the infectious European Dragon. “You might want to think twice about snacking on me.”
“Ahem,” said a rather ordinary-looking man in a suit.
Neg’ret waved. “Hey, Oolong. Sorry about that. Every year, it’s the same thing.” He absently signed the book and paid his fees. Gold coin, of course. Nothing less would do for dragons.
Oolong checked the signature. “Er. Who is Steve Negrete?”
“Whoops. Mortal name.” He crossed it out and signed his true sigil. “I should get out more. The squishies are getting to me.”
“It’s not entirely unpleasant,” murmured Oolong.
Neg’ret waved him a farewell and strode out onto the convention floor. Someone was hawking collectable craw stones. So funny.
[1] I’m looking at you, J.R.R. Tolkein.
Challenge #00737 - B006: Fighting Words
“Veni Ad Me Frat”, Latin for “Come At Me, Bro”.
Shayde sighed as Rael caught her out again. “No? How about ‘non me tracagnum’?”
“Don’t beat me,” said Rael. “How about you stop pulling your Hackmeyer strategies, lay off the BS, and talk like a scientist to these people?”
“It’s hard,” Shayde whined. “I’m too used tae no’ being listened to. Too used tae being dismissed oot a’ hand. Too used tae tha’ jammy bastard takin’ all the credit jus’ fer translatin’. Badly. He’s left 'is mark, the spavined sod.”
Rael was ready for this, he’d done his homework. “Fair enough. Imagine, instead, that you’re giving your presentation to,” he consulted his reference notes, “Adam Savage, Jamie Hyneman, William Nye and Steven Hawking.”
Shayde glared at him. “Aye, leave the most important one fer last, why don’t ye?”
Odd. He thought he hadn’t. Evidently, more homework was necessary. “And anyone else I may have missed.”
Shayde re-consulted her e-ledger. “I’m goin’ have tae re-write all'a this…”
He breathed out. At last. The point he had been trying to get across for half an hour. But, on the plus side, he was being paid for this.
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Challenge #00736 - B005: Do We Need Them?
A friend and I, up in tropical Queensland on holiday - land of my birth. We are being buzzed by flies large enough to need Air Traffic Control, and slowly being drained of blood by the clouds of mozzies. The following conversation does not reflect any of my actual views. It was borne of frustration and humour.
Me: -slap- Hey, do we need flies for anything? Like, do they perform a vital role in the ecosystem or something?
Friend (amused): Yeah, I think they do.
Me: Soo… I’m _not_ allowed to plot their extinction?
Friend: No plotting species extinctions. I think that’s a valid blanket rule.
Me: -slap- What about mozzies, do we need mozzies for anything? I mean, unlike flies who are mostly just -slap- annoyances, mozzies carry malaria and denghue and ross river fevers and stuff - are the benefits they provide in their -slap- ecosystem role outweighed be being probably the most dangerous macroscopic animal on the planet, gram for gram?
Friend: I thought we had this rule.
Me: Aww… c’mon, just one little extinction? They’d hardly even notice, they have like -slap- five synapses.
Friend: No. I refer you to the rule.
Me: Not fair. Our common ancestors got to make mammoths and sabretooths and all these other cool things extinct, all I’m asking for is one family of -slap- - _freaking annoying_ - insects. :poke tongue and quickly retract it lest it become a landing pad for insects:
Friend: And wouldn’t you prefer it if you could see some of those species?
Me: You’re only saying this because -slap- they’re mostly ignoring you. I forgot how bad it is here, that’s the only reason you could talk me into this - I was quite fine in _sub_-tropical areas, thankyouverymuch. AH! Goddammit that was a horsefly!(Sorry if that was too long)
[AN: For Americans and other non-Australians, the horseflies we get here are not limited to flies that bother horses. We have the ones you could plausibly fit with a saddle and tack. They’re vicious bastards that can get to over an inch long and feature bright yellow pinstripes from head to tail. They’re not venomous, per se, but they can make you regret your place in life and their place on your leg for as long as two hours. And, according to this article, yes we do need mozzies.]
The influence of man, one author said, is so widespread that he doesn’t notice he was never there.
To put it in more scientifically accurate terms: introduce humans to an environment and watch the trophic cascade happen.
The first year of Wiwazheer was an education in trophic cascades for everyone.
To make room for the colony’s hobbit-holes and Central’s Anthill science complex, large volumes of trees, shrubs and other plant life had to go. There was loads of it elsewhere, of course. Part of the reason why it took six months to clear it all was that everyone was making absolutely certain that they weren’t causing an extinction by accident.
But what they did do, Susan noted, was cause a very localised deforestation, rendering entire populations of birds, bugs, lizards and amphibians homeless. Very few of them died for science, for which Susan was secretly glad.
And where the predators are away, the prey will play. Which, from a human point of view, lead to clouds upon clouds of locally-spawned insects. The air was sometimes so thick with them that it was hard to tell night from day.
And some of them were the kind of insects that no human would miss. The blood-suckers, the stingers, and the ones that loved you like a long-lost sibling. And, of course, the ones that liked to breed inside food.
Susan could only watch as her parents and all the other adults donned face masks and eye goggles and just soldiered on through the thick, living blizzard made of billions of winged bodies.
But the plague of bugs was relatively short-lived. Birds, lizards and amphibians soon caught on that there was a feast available in the burgeoning expanse of Wiwazheer. They were very un-used to humans and didn’t know what these balding, upright apes could have meant to their species. Some of the littler kids lined the windows and laughed at how the birds and other insectivorous species would casually use humans as a roosting spot before launching towards another cloud of bugs.
For Susan, it meant that her parents were no longer covered in bug bites at interviews through the safety partition. They were covered in insectivore crap instead.
“Do we really need to let the ecology settle?” Susan begged. “Look at you. You just got over the bug bites and you’re covered in potential pathogens.”
“We came here with the ideal of living with the ecology, not fighting against it,” said Momma.
"We’re already doing enough damage by clearing this much forest,” added Dad. “The rest is just the critters being themselves. You can’t hate them for that.”
It was a hard lesson to learn, she knew. Humans were used to eliminating that which annoyed them. Or taming it to the point where it was unrecognisable as the original species.
But it was a lesson she took to heart. And why she fought so hard against her instincts when she first saw the image of a Numidid on Doctor Theresa’s screens. And why, when she saw one in person for the first time, told hir to move away for hir own safety.
And why, in the long run, she became Ambassador.
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Challenge #00735 - B004: Might or Flight
“You suggested something diplomatic,” [Person] noted.
“What, I can’t be diplomatic?” I asked, affronted. “I’m extremely diplomatic. I’m just brimming with diplomacy.”
“Of the Admiral Perry variety,” [Person] said.
“Gunship diplomacy is still diplomacy,” I protested.
“This is all very well for definitive terms,” reminded Captain Mij. “But when it’s us versus the humans, perhaps a more delicate version of diplomacy might be called for.”
“They’re closing on us,” noted K'cops. “Five thousand Rels.”
“Also, Admiral,” said the captain. “Gunship diplomacy is universally deplorable. You open fire on a weaker party, and you are reviled as a bully. You open fire on a stronger party and you’re lucky if there’s anything left to inter for a funeral. You open fire on an evenly matched party and you take your chances. Rattling sabres only really works until someone’s smart enough or stupid enough to call your bluff… which leads you straight back to the previous three choices. I told you when you started this ‘pleasure cruise’ of yours that I won’t be a bully and I’ll be a blob of grease only after you volunteer. Well you bloody volunteered, Admiral! Shall I throw you to the humans and take my chances or let us all become vapour in space?”
The Admiral, already slick with sweat, murmured a noncommittal noise.
“Four thousand, five hundred Rels,” intoned K'cops.
“I have a translation,” said Arahu. “According to the computer, the humans are angry because the Admiral opened fire on an unarmed transit shuttle. Full of school children.”
“Best effort message back,” said Captain Mij. “Match speeds with us, and we will send you the individual responsible.”
“MUTINY!” Bawled Admiral D'wolbarh. “Insubordination! I’ll have your stripes for this!”
Captain Mij sighed. “That would only work if you were assigned command of this vessel, Admiral. And only then if you weren’t retired. It’s a big, bad universe, Admiral. Much has changed since your days of Conquer by Command. For a start, we met a bigger, badder, meaner group of Deathworlders who would literally eat us alive if we tried the… idiocy… you did today. My best bet for a continuing peace between us and them is to gift-wrap the asshole who pressed the big, red button.”
“You can’t do this to me!”
“I can and I will, even if I have to stun you and cart you over piece by piece, Sir.” Captain Mij discretely hit the button to summon security before she stood up and advanced on the older woman. Backing her towards the vertical transit. “You opened fire without knowing the situation. You opened fire in direct opposition to the standing orders from Space Fleet Command. You opened fire, Sir, on an unarmed vehicle full of minors. I can and will do anything I please to you and Space Fleet Command will give me a firkin medal. Assuming we survive.”
“Human fleet stabilising at four thousand Rels distance, Captain.”
The security goons arrived, and Admiral D'wolbarh tried to fight. It was pathetic, especially considering the fact that Security was equipped with Stun Sticks as standard issue.
Captain Mij didn’t have to follow Security and the limp and twitching form of Admiral D'wolbarh to the best escape pod to fire her, alive, towards the waiting human fleet. She did not, having followed Security to the pod, make sure the Admiral was safely buckled in. Nor did she have to press the button that ensured a non-emergency release.
But she did all of that, anyway. And then she watched from a local screen display as the humans took the pod, the Admiral, and then took their leave. She watched until the human fleet was just a pinpoint of light in a sea of other pinpoints.
On one hand, it was a lucky escape. On the other hand, it was the definitive loss of a friend and mentor.
Captain Mij dismissed the Security detail and adjourned to her quarters. She had a letter to write to the Admiral’s husband and children.
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