Challenge #03078-H170: The Inherent Hazards of Knomiras
Common sense is not that common, this most people know.
When you lack even that basic knowledge, it’s sad how things can go.
They were listening to the instructions of the flight attendants as they had boarded their flight from the station. It was the usual routine safety instructions that all flights normally gave, and the usual “Here is what we do for this type of emergency” thing. Except, this time, a person scoffed, rolling their eyes, refusing to listen to a word. Then, half-way to the solar system that held the vacation resort they were going to, there was a system-wide malfunction. The gravy drive got sick, and the gravity was out. Of course, the scoffing person was screaming conspiracy and how it was “just to get back at them for not being sheep”, and the rest of the passengers were getting really sick of their horse-droppings. – DaniAndShali
“Thank you for choosing Barg'hain Transport, as soon as all passengers are seated, the safety briefing and launch will commence.” The message was on automatic and repeat while those headed for Resortia found their seats, stored their overhead luggage, and settled in.
Reis and Ney had heard it all before. For them, it was white noise. They were far too used to public transit safety briefings, automessages, and cardboard-tasting peanuts. So they did their best to get on, get settled, and get out of everyone else’s way as efficiently as possible.
One passenger, two rows ahead, was loud and annoying and refusing to co-operate. “You can’t tell me what to do! I am a free citizen, I know my rights. I don’t have to operate to your dictatorial screeds!”
[Check the source to see the full story]
(Source: peakd.com)
Challenge #02812-G255: You Were Warned
[translated and changed a little bit from polish movie]
A: You want to attack humans?
B: Yes, their planet has some materials that I need
A: This one will be tough. On a daily basis humans are annoying, but they love when they are under attack! I’m telling you! In the first 5 days they’re all going to start a resistance movement and turn into guerrillas! – Anon Guest
[AN: NGL I want to see a dub of that Polish movie. I lack the fortitude for subtitles, please forgive]
Of course they came without warning. They always do. Even if there’s one scruffy scientist type trying to warn them and being ignored. Empirical evidence has shown that a group of scientists, a plethora of the public, and a series of catastrophic events will be ignored if there’s a fast buck in maintaining ignorance.
Of course they laid devastation in their wake. Mass panic, the stock market collapsing and, of course, the deaths of many of the common public. What grabbed the headlines was the stock market. Well. For as long as there were headlines. For the invading Klutarch, it was just another Wednesday[1].
The head of this particular Klutarch expedition was named Rollyx. They made certain everyone knew this, and put out notifications about it wherever they could. That’s the only reason anyone on Earth knew their name. They, too, had been warned about Human nature. The tendency to ignore a prescient warning in favour of short-term profit is seemingly universal.
[Be sure to visit internutter (dot) org for a link to the rest of this story, and details on how to support this artist. Or visit peakd (dot) com (slash at) internutter for the stories at their freshest]
Challenge #02681-G124: Centuries of Facepalming
You hear of them all the time, seeing them screaming on the interwebs, doing podcasts, videos, protesting when new vaccines show up. When the immunoflu was invented, they screamed even louder. That is when the “pure lifers” started. The ones who kept themselves in the equivalent of “bubbles” to avoid them, and their children, ever catching the immunoflu. A large number of them went to a planet to settle in and live. The planet was, if not for the terraformed domes, uninhabitable. But inside the domed cities, it was very pleasant. Until that one visitor. They had kept themselves isolated for four generations, then that one visitor came, a man from the Alliance. They’d never let anyone into the dome before without the person in question, even tourists, being forced to wear hazmat suits to make sure that nothing the person carrying ever got in, but accidents always happen, eventually.
He was in a crowded mall, everyone knew it was an accident. But that didn’t help how angry the people were. He was sitting, reading a map, he’d been lost. Several teenagers were roughhousing when one was shoved into him and he crashed backward into a crystalized statue. The hazmat suit already had some unseen potential flaws, was badly damaged. The immunoflu he carried got out into the community. This was a “Pure Life” society.. and now they were having to deal with being immunized whether they wanted to be or not.
(notation - In a nutshell a society that eschews all vaccinations even ones from the immunoflu, like real life modern day antivaxxers, build their own society. They’re cut off from the biome of the rest of the galaxy, and then.. there’s an accident.) – DaniandShali
Disasters don’t have to be instant. The worst of them happen in slow motion. To the tune of For Want of a Nail, a nation, a polity, an identity, or a culture can die. Dependant on the culture, this can be beneficial to those who formerly held it dear.
For want of immunity, lives were lost… Once upon a time, there was disease. Smallpox, measles, mumps… diseases that could maim. Diseases that could kill. Some people hit on the idea of deliberately infecting children with a weaker disease so that there wouldn’t catch the more menacing one. They named it after the animal that the weaker disease came from. Vaca meaning cow, for the cowpox that forestalled the attacks of smallpox.
One would expect that such a breakthrough would be welcomed with open arms and cheering in the streets. No such luck. There was widespread panic, misunderstanding, and fear of the new process. Over the intervening years, very little changed. For every new intervention, there was an equally opposing reaction. Confusion and fear abounded. Someone, somewhere, drew a correlation between these vaccines and the rise in diagnoses of autism. Many people feared a mental disorder more than they feared the maiming and killing diseases that the vaccines prevented.
[Be sure to visit internutter (dot) org for a link to the rest of this story, and details on how to support this artist. Or visit peakd (dot) com (slash at) internutter for the stories at their freshest]
Challenge #01994-E170: Look Up — Steemit
With every great rise of knowledge and understanding, there is an equal and opposite fall into wilful ignorance. This is one of those latter, dark ages. The last planetarium was closing forever. She was to confess her crimes before her execution. Because the new administration did not appreciate science in any form. Obedience was key, and Aelria was highly disobedient.
Tonight, she was not sleeping. Tonight, she was hacking the municipal power board. So that the city’s power would fail at the appointed time. The time she was about due to die. Aelria was careful. Instead of an entire power failure, the city would keep all emergency services. Hospitals and emergency services would keep running, but for two hours, the city would go dark.
Tomorrow… she would die. Quickly, and cleanly, and to the cheers of thousands who didn’t know who she was or why she was a heretic against the current order. Some would hear her last words, but she would be forgotten inside of a week. A rare few would remember, though. But all would feel the impact of what she had done.