Challenge #02582-G025: History is a Pane
I see the words tossed around here and there but I I don’t fully understand the impact of the “shattering” does fragment of humanity wander space, or something comical like everything went ape sh*t the moment humans enter the galactic alliance? – Anon Guest
Many don’t understand what the Shattering is, how long it took, and what it did to Human history. For a start, it’s named as if it’s one event, but it’s actually an era in Terran history. When the abundance of ‘deep time’ one-way wormholes in the Sol system were discovered, there followed an era of rapid-fire colonisation. In order to go deep, the colonists had to gather and take with them a certain amount of mass.
This included many surviving historical artefacts, landmarks, and so forth. That is, when the colonisers didn’t use other forms of mass to form the critical closure of the wormhole gateway. Most of which was obtained from the asteroid and kuiper belts. After all, the last thing a group of like-minded people needed when busy making a world in their own image was serial kibbitzing from the very world they just escaped.
The delayed result was chaos. History as Terra knew it… shattered. It was a slow dissolution, working over cycles during the centuries following the discovery of one-way wormholes. The assorted lunatic fringes, weirdoes, and cultural pockets decided that life would be so much better if they built a world of their own, or the controlling mainstream concluded that life would be so much easier if they didn’t have to deal with the aforementioned fringe. Either way, parts of civilisation as it was known went down through time and space to sink or swim on a world of their own making. The relevant parts of history went with them, thus making it easier for the remaining fragments to pretend that the fringe never existed in the first place. In this, it is certainly true that those who fail to learn from the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.
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Challenge #02562-G005: The Work Around
A disabled human (“invisible” disability) from a…less than understanding society, grown to adulthood and full of the painful little quirks and habits that one develops in order to survive that situation, encounters a member of the Galactic Alliance. A member of the Galactic Alliance who isn’t sure what to do with a deathworlder who apologizes for displaying distress, and cries from joy when not berated for showing signs of pain when “there’s nothing wrong” – Anon Guest
They call me Human Kaz, and I’m never going back home. Some say home is where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. Others say that home is a state of mind. Still more reckon that home is anywhere you find the people who get you. I like the last one.
Where I’m from? The people who get me don’t count as people. They’re called ‘critters’ by most and 'space critters’ by everyone else. Everyone’s supposed to know what’s meant when it’s said. Me? I never quite got the hang of it. I never quite got the hang of a lot of things.
I never got the hang of casual metaphor. I’ve always interpreted things literally first. I never got the hang of telling who was laughing with me and who was laughing at me. I never got the hang of telling the difference. In places with the wrong kinds of noise, I have to lipread just to hear what people are saying. At minimum, I have to stare at their mouths as they talk. It helps me focus on the right sounds. I’ve tested badly in the past and -to be honest- it took me working my heart to a cinder in order to get to Farreach Station. The furthest outpost my people were ever willing to go to. It was there that my life changed.
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