One Year of Instants (2019)

By C M Weller

Throughout 2019, C. M. Weller has been writing flash fictions based on prompts from readers on the internet. This is an anthology of 365 stories, plus a bonus tale for enthusiastic collectors.

• Language: English
• Publisher: C M Weller
• Release date: Feb 10, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463294956

C M Weller

C M Weller has decided to keep their full identity a secret until such time as one of their works becomes a bestseller. They share a house in Burpengary East with two children, two cats, and a spouse who sometimes thinks they're insane.Every October, C M Weller releases a free short story, in honour of both their birthday and All Hallow’s Read.Unfortunately, this author has managed to avoid doing all the things that make author bios interesting reading. Sorry. However, ze has been publishing stories via Smashwords since 2012, and has an Amazon-exclusive novelette titled Free Baby.This writer is allergic to almost all forms of alcohol (long story), too asthmatic to indulge in tobacco, and in possession of a body chemistry that makes the more interesting drugs problematic at best. Thusly, their chief addiction is their own imagination.

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This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

ISBN: 9780463294956

Other works by this author:

Nor Gloom of Night Good Boy Blowing Bubbles Scavenger It Happened One Wednesday Hevun’s Rebel Hevun’s Ambassador Hevun’s Gate One Year of Instants Interview Inside a Terrarium The Amity Incident One Leap year of Instants Better I Wish, I Wish One Year of Instants (2015) I Wish, I Wish One Leap Year of Instants (2016) Kung Fu Zombies Comes Around One Year of Instants (2017) Well Rendered One Year of Instants (2018)

For more information please visit my author site CMWeller.com.

Challenge #001: Unreachable

What if someone was trying to get information out of someone else by threatening them, but the second person was just too positive. For example:

"I’ll cut off your leg."

"Yes! I can get a peg leg!" – Anon Guest

Violence can solve some things - like how to stop a racist in one easy step. What it can’t do is defeat someone with the correct amount of optimism.

They called him Fearless Harry, and the enemy who captured him were beginning to see why. It was certainly not because his name was Harolson.

Well, you can’ get information out of me when I’m dead, can you? You need me alive and able to talk. So all those threats about dental treatment, tongue removal and outright murder aren’t real threats.

Interrogator Masing kept a veneer of calm as they filled a needle with liquid. Have you heard of Raeshegga Virus?

Oooh, that’s a nasty one. Wicked fever, delirium, complete shutdown of inhibitions, but also a complete shutdown of the speech centres. Completely useless for interrogation -oh! And I’ve been immunised so it wouldn’t do you any good anyway. Three cheers for vaccines, eh?

Masing almost let his anger show through. Almost. He put the needle down and picked up a different instrument. We could cut your toes off. Joint by joint…

Yes, please. Start with the little one. Clipping that nail there is a pain in the arse, and once it’s gone, I won’t get so many corns. Dress shoes are never built for human feet, I swear.

Masing glared at him. This man had been kept in the dark, bombarded with relentlessly same-y pop music, exposed to every possible unpleasant experience and he still viewed everything with a sunny attitude. Hell, he sang along to the relentlessly same-y pop music and some night-vision cameras showed him dancing in his cell.

For every threat, there was an equal and opposing bright side that would never have occurred to them, thus leaving them without ammunition.

This is going to be a tough nut to crack.

Which was Masing’s last thought before the rescue troops barged in, lead there by the secret, GPS tracker masquerading as inoperable shrapnel near Harolson’s spine.

Challenge #002: Specific Remembrance

The Galactic Council learn about ANZAC day – Anon Guest

Humans are Deathworlders. They have such an enormous warrior culture that baring their teeth is seen as being friendly, and can get hostile when others fail to follow suit. Thus it is surprising to learn about assorted memorial days. War, they reason, is a common occurrence on Deathworlds. They should be as unmarked as the average rainstorm.

Then they learned about the Great Wars and the immense chains of stupidity that almost obliterated certain towns and impeded their usual lifestyles for the better part of two decades. Most of which was due to the Deathworlder habit of romanticising battle, doing things like calling it ‘fun’.

The senselessness of industrialised war left an impact on the Humans of the era. So much so that mourning for the lost became a tradition. As did the tendency to keep perpetuating war. Group identities formed based on alliances in those turbulent years. Such as the newest nations of the time, and geographic neighbours, Australia and New Zealand. They lost so much, together, that they formed an unbreakable bond. Comrades in arms, a uniquely Deathworlder bond so intense that they made their own day for remembering it.

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn…

Humanity remembered the big sacrifices. Hundreds of lives. Large portions of local populace. Decades involved in rebuilding. Decades before normalcy restored itself. Then, like most Human insanity, they threw themselves back into it all over again.

At the going down of the sun, and in the morning…

Long after living memory faded, long after Humanity sowed its seeds into the stars. The tradition maintained itself. For a duty to family, for those who had mourned in the past, for what it meant to those in their ancestry.

We will remember them.

As far as the Galactic Alliance was concerned, it would have been a better idea if Humanity remembered what had been the big mistake rather than repeating what caused so many lost lives to be remembered in the first place. Unfortunately, there’s little anyone can do to teach Humans not to be insane.

Challenge #003: Operating Soundtrack

The ship’s human brought a ukulele on board, now they’ve infected the gravity drive. – Anon Guest

Many Galactics assume that Humans are naturally musical. The fact is that it rather depends on the Human, and the truth of the matter is that a Human involved in jobs that require waiting for something to happen will take up a hobby for something to do. Some take up fibre crafts. Some take up art forms. Others… take up instruments.

Many wish that the Human would put them down, too.

"She pulls her hair all down behind/ Then pulls down her… never mind/ And after that pulls down the blind/ When I’m cleanin’ windows… Human Jef was playing in the only place ze was permitted to play, in the Gravity Generator Chamber. Idly drifting from wall to wall as ze strummed. In my profession I’ll work hard/ But I’ll never stop–"

We wish you would, complained Kazark. We need you now.

It wasn’t that Jef was bad at the ukelele. Just… annoyingly persistent, like a child with a slide whistle or a kazoo. Every spare hour Jef had, they were playing something on their ukelele. According to the crew of the Fabulous Frenzy, Jef had entirely too many hours to spare.

Things went on like that for the entirety of the six-month tour that Jef was the Ships’ Human for. What happened after ze left that the real trouble began. The Gravity Drive of the Fabulous Frenzy started to sulk. It became reluctant to either engage or disengage. It would clamber slowly up or down from off to on or back again.

Nae’hyn were called in to examine the drive. They were yet another batch of insane Humans, but they were also insane Humans whose insanity could make the Gravy Drives go.

The chief Engineer/Priest of the roaming family went all around the drive. Tapping this, knocking that. Peering through holes. Listening to the drive with a stethoscope. Finally, coming up to specific panels and licking them.

Ze misses the music, announced the senior Engineer/Priest.

Music, echoed Kazark. Any music or… a specific music? The growing vertigo of dread told them that they were going to regret asking that question.

They want the musical Human back… or the Human’s music. Either way, ze has decided to like a few tunes while ze works.

That wasn’t music, it was an affront to sound waves!

The Engineer/Priest got a toe grip on some handles. Nevertheless, your engine wants music. Preferably the kind of music your last Human’s been playing.

"Oh, sweet Powers, we’re doomed…"

You or your crew have adverse reactions to Human music?

No, we just find it incredibly irritating. This chamber really carries sound.

The Engineer/Priest laid a gentle hand on Karzak’s exposed carapace. I strongly suggest you find a way to deal with it.

Challenge #004: Baby Steps Please

Welcome to wizardry, where people with awful ideas and no social skills invoke supernatural forces to gain power and respect. Almost makes you want to tap out and start a little shop selling healing potions, huh? – Anon Guest

They say that anyone could be a wizard. They never say whether or not anyone should be a wizard. This was zipping through Lady Anthe’s mind as she raced after Melvin and the phantasm he had conjured. She was the fastest of the group and Melvin had Wraithvine’s wand.

The good news was that a phantasmal steed was only good for one hour. The bad news was that that might not be the spell that Melvin had accidentally managed to cast. The magic within him had truly erupted in a spectacular way.

Anthe sprang between trees that the… whatever… had had to go around, carrying a screaming Melvin with it. In a handful of leaps, she was on him and screaming, Tell it to stop! It’s yours! Tell it to stop!

It took another handful of minutes, but it eventually worked, and steered back to the campsite that contained a sleeping Rumtum and a pissed-off Wraithvine. The phantasmal beast vanished the instant that Wraithvine got their wand back.

It looked easy when you did it, Melvin complained.

"Because I studied for years to make it look easy, you great hairy dolt, sniped Wraithvine. If you want lessons, I could plausibly teach…"

Melvin toed at the ground, turning redder by the second. …didn’t wanna impose…

"Really? said Anthe. It’s not like that with us. You should know that by now."

…didn’ wanna make a fuss, Melvin mumbled.

So instead, said Wraithvine, You stole my wand and tried out a sixth-level spell without any of the training, preparation, or mental fortitude.

Melvin shrank on himself and mumbled something unintelligible, but could plausibly pass for, When you say it like that…

Wraithvine hugged him. Breathe easy, Humanman. I’ll teach you some easier things the instant we get you a starter wand. Or any other kind of focus.

You’re still gonna–? he fumbled for the next words, and failed.

Dear boy, sighed Wraithvine. I’d rather teach than have you learn by making such epic mistakes.

Rumtum woke from his bedroll. …‘d I miss somethin’?

Challenge #005: Won Family by Combat

It’s the nice, sweet, quiet ones that never argue that you should be afraid of. – Anon Guest

They thought the Human was docile. Quiet and apologetic, they assumed that they had been ‘trained’. The Human certainly acted that way. Always eager to please. Always nice to the point of being excruciating. They thought that Human Zie would never be violent.

They were wrong.

The thing about Humans is - even the soppiest milquetoast has their line in the sand. The point at which no more shit will be tolerated. At that point… all bets are off. For Human Zie, that point was seeing an abusive guardian in one of the Edge Territory markets. Needless to say it was more than a shock for her Thufei crew to see hir charge at another Human and lay them flat with one punch.

It was like watching a duckling savage a rottweiler. It was like watching a mouse take on a cat and win. It was like… it was like watching a diminutive Human face off a Vorax fleet with one small, zippy ship and a set of light laser weapons and win. Only the last of these comparisons was something that was known to actually happen.

More surprising that the abusive guardian had five friends that Human Zie also took on bare-handed and won. They emerged on the other side, bloody and victorious, with a brand-new child adopted by an extremely nebulous local law. All they had to do was prove that they were better at caring for the child. Something the authorities were happy about inside of two standard weeks.

The Thufei were less than pleased to have a rambunctious Human Larva aboard their ship. They were very much less than pleased to see the creature graduate through being afraid to set a foot wrong though confidence and into getting into places that no mortal should be able to get to. This, Human Zie insisted, was a good thing, and part of normal Human development. All Human Zie had to do was keep on their toes until their new larva understood what was safe and what wasn’t.

Once again, the Thufei pondered how the hell Humanity survived to make it into space.

Challenge #006: Mutually Assured Social Destruction

A Havenworlder calls their human companion annoying and embarrassing pet names in front of other humans. – Anon Guest

In every spaceport, there is a minimum of one place where the Spacers go to bend an elbow, tell tall tales, and possibly gain a bedmate or two for some haptic rewards. Such as it was with The Greasy Dive Eat Drink, where a Human calling themself Jeg was holding court to a bevy of attractive and interested fellow Humans.

So there I was, Pibbs under my left arm. Vorax to the right of me, Vorax to the left of me, explosions rigged to go off behind and half a click to the escape pod, my only weapon was a ball-pein hammer…

FLUFFYBUNS!

The general mood of suspense crashed into the rugged rocks of laughter. Jeg leaned on the bar and found the interruption. "Pibbs, you have the worst timing."

A relatively small avian hopped up via decorative and functional struts until their eyes were level. Fluffybuns best human, Pibbs cooed. Has enjoyment time ending?

Might as well have, Jeg rolled their eyes. Gesturing towards the avian Havenworlder to any remaining and giggling audience members. Folks, this is Pibbs, who once saw the hair on my bare bum and gave me a funny name as a result.

More hilarity from the audience. Jeg grinned. If they couldn’t get companionship through bravery, making someone laugh could work just as well.

Human naming self Pibbs, said Pibbs in a broken version of Jeg’s Terran dialect. Full name Rriit’oq’ei’pib-pib’ei’ei. Much humiliation for short form.

Much incapable throat, counter-argued Jeg. Spacers needing short names for urgency. We talked on this.

Thus began the comedy act. Pibbs was a very clever avian, having picked up at least one Terran tongue by osmosis as well as picking up several Human habits, such as nicknames. They also, apparently, worked out how to embarass a Human whilst seeming like an innocent and cute little birdie.

Jeg knew this, and chose not to attempt to make a legal case about it all. Pibbs was clever enough to have plausible deniability despite being smart enough to play the fool at virtuoso levels. More so, being able to do it at a major detriment to Jeg’s social life. At least this day.

As the last of Jeg’s potential bed-buddies wandered off, the Human sighed and said, I can’t pronounce your full name. Do you have a one-syllable call-sign you’d prefer?

Pibbs preened as they thought. Would ‘Reet’ be pronounceable?

Reet, I can do, said Jeg. No more ‘Fluffybuns’?

The freshly-renamed Reet bowed. No more. Self be using ‘Jeg’ for all greetings.

Negotiations can be tricky across cultures. Some more than others.

Challenge #007: The Girl Who Circled Time

"My apologies for the security breach. I was experimenting with temporal rifts and found myself here." – Anon Guest.

Roswell, New Mexico. 1947. Everyone has a story about what happened that year, but it was a weather balloon carrying a top-secret attempt at detecting enemy nukes and that was that. However, since the American Public believed there was a coverup, it and the nearby Area 51 became the perfect stalking horse for other, experimental technologies.

Then there’s the actual Incident that happened a decade later. Deep in the warehouse where excitable people with little in the way of scientific knowledge were allowed to glimpse mock-ups of alien craft, something… else happened to appear. There was electrical discharge and the cameras caught several blurs before a humanoid figure stumbled into the clear zone around the prop spacecraft. The cameras, alas, did not record the sound that occurred at the same time, which witnesses identified as not being wholly unlike a person dragging a house key up and down a piano wire.

The guards snapped into action. Even though they were on Window Dressing Duty, they knew what to do with an intruder and did so with extreme prejudice. They were also smart enough to know that anyone who could just appear in the middle of Area 51 should be kept alive for questioning. Just to see if there was anyone else who knew how to do that trick and how it was done and if there was anything that could be done to prevent them from doing so again. Which was how America, in 1957, got hold of a fountain of information in the form of Cassandra Jones, Experimental Time Traveller.

Of course, it took them a few years to believe her story. It took them more than a few years to actually listen to her. In that time, they realised that Cassandra was not ageing and all the things she could warn them about[1]. By the time the people surrounding her stopped condescending in her general direction, things like transistors, Viet Nam, and Watergate had already happened.

She tried to warn them about the Kennedy Assassination, too. Not that it worked at all.

Ever wondered why there was a sudden technological leap in the 70’s? Cassandra. She could walk them through how computer chips worked and the processes involved in miniaturisation. She was not allowed to take the credit for inventing the internet, and not taken seriously every time she warned them about bad decisions.

Some people just won’t listen. Even if it’s to a person who literally came from the future and has been dead-on accurate for decades on end. They did start to pay attention to things like presidential assassinations, but failed to pay attention to things like which presidents would actually be good for the country, as opposed to the ones who would ruin it.

They stopped listening to Cassandra again by the mid-nineties. She could rant, rave, warn, and predict all she liked, but the people who had the money were the ones in charge. Politics was a rich mans’ game and she wasn’t allowed to play for several reasons.

She was a scientist, and though the people came to her with questions concerning how to avoid the revolution she predicted, they would not listen to her reasonable explanations. She tried. She really tried. Rich people could avoid all their fears by redistributing even a fraction of their earnings to help those who were struggling. If they were just benevolent enough, they could survive the fires of retribution.

They didn’t listen. Rich people never listen to people who tell them to give away their money. Not even when she could prove it would save their lives.

She told them the history she knew, right down to the day and means of their deaths.

They didn’t listen.

Then, one day, they no longer came.

The guards stopped guarding. Those survivors who believed in conspiracies came next. Found the old props. Found the previously-guarded technologies. Found the ages of records. And, eventually, found Cassandra.

They listened. They realised exactly what they had in a person who knew how to avoid the bad things and how to make the ruined world a better place. Things everyone could do. Things only certain people could do. Things that would take generations to do.

They not only listened to her, they also let her out. They let her have her freedom. They let her teach. In doing so, they altered their path into a better and brighter future.

Cassandra started ageing on the day that her other self was born. She aged rapidly, imparting what wisdom she could before the tides of time eroded her away. The cycle would start and end and start again.

With a little girl who wanted to see tomorrow, tripped into yesterday, and created today.

[1] Because most people experimenting with time travel want to go forward, their grasp of the past is sketchy at best.

Challenge #008: Immortality Perversion

Little known fact: Queen Elizabeth II is a descendant of Vlad the Impaler, meaning she, and the rest of the lineage to the throne under her, are direct heirs to the bloodline of Dracula…

Kinda makes her remarkably long life seem a bit questionable now, doesn’t it? – Anon Guest

They say wealth has its privileges. One amongst many of those is being able to literally get away with murder. The only mistake -say- Elizabeth Bathory made was selecting someone who was popular as part of her gallery of victims. The elite have only become more subtle since then.

Teenagers go missing all the time, all over the world…

Science is gaining on them, though. Uncovering their methods. Highlighting the avenues of sanguine rejuvenation for all to see. They have injected older mice with the blood of the young to reverse signs of ageing in the older one. This has since memetically transformed into older people devouring the blood of the young to do the same.

Small children go missing and are never found…

How close, how very close they are to the truth. Every year, the statistics increase with the population. Murder becomes background noise in amongst the others. The relatively small number of sacrifices towards longevity vanish amidst all the other depravities stewing in a world turning slowly mad.

Wars make children vanish, too. Crime makes children vanish. An angered ex, a violent housemate, or simply tossing an unwanted infant into a dumpster. Children die all the time and nobody cares. Nobody cares because they are poor, because they are not the right kind of people, because there’s just too much happening in every city in every country in all of the world. Because there are too many to care about, or for. Because it’s what they deserve for being leeches on society, as some are wont to think.

We’re close to the truth. Children go missing so that rich, influential people can live longer and continue being rich and influential. They have carefully cultivated an uncharitable mindset amongst the movers and shakers for decades. They have made people want to punish the poor just because they are poor and therefore deserving to get an even shorter end of the stick, somehow.

Children go missing so that rich, influential vampires can continue living. So they can continue being a corrupting force on the greater soul of Humanity.

Children go missing so that they can be raised in a healthy environment until their late teens, when they are… let’s say ‘harvested’… for the elite.

A child doesn’t contain much blood. An adult human contains five litres of blood, which is more than sufficient to feed a vampire for an entire month. In order to maximise the longevity factor, it is advisable to take a young adult human just on the cusp of full maturity, before their telomeres begin their long, long decay cycle. Of course, the healthier the -ah- ‘food’ is before it is consumed, the healthier the diner as a direct result.

Some have been doing this for generations. Some have been keeping a healthy stable of growing children in the best possible conditions. Isolated far from anywhere, off the books, in self-sustaining estates with thralls tending every single need. Inhabited by the kinds of kids that nobody in alleged authority is expected to care about.

Once a month, the oldest and healthiest ‘move out’ for a glittering evening that ends in a sharp pain in their neck and a cold feeling creeping up from their extremities. The organs are quickly harvested for other rich people who haven’t caught on to the easier way of staying young and vital yet.

Nothing is wasted. Not even the bits that the organ harvesters can’t use.

Ever wondered why so many rich people have huge aquariums?

Challenge #009: Much Mightier

"The pen is mightier than the Sword."

–insert knife in the Shape of a writing-Feather here– – Anon Guest

[AN: The word combo you were looking for is writing quill btw]

It was a beautiful blade. Someone had made it look like the wing-feather of a goose, only three times the size. Every detail was there. The rachis, the vanes, even the fine detail of the interlocking barbs. Whoever forged it had even made the crossguard look like a cluster of long, flexible barbs. The pommel was made to look like a nib.

It was also, unfortunately, only a sword for Kobolds and Gnomes. For anyone else, it was a dagger at best. It glowed with both magic and sharpness and was almost instantly recognisable to anyone who knew their weapons history.

That’s The Pen, said Melvin, who did. The legendary artificer Reikhold Forgeworthy made it after someone challenged him to duel with a pen while the other party had a sword. So he poured everything he knew into making a blade shaped like a pen and put every single offensive enchantment on it that he could. His fingers twitched to touch it, but he kept his hands off it. It’s priceless, invaluable, and ridiculously OP.

Cursed? asked Lady Anthe, who could kind of sense how these things went.

"What? No! It’s just… this is artisan history. The pen that is mightier than any sword. It does crazy-bad damage and you never need to sharpen it and it’s made of Luth’lorien steel and it’s beautiful and… and…"

You don’t think you’re worthy, summarised Wraithvine.

…’es, mumbled Melvin.

It’s a blade meant for a fighter, said Lady Anthe. I could use it as a sword, but… I so rarely get to use swords at all. It would be a waste.

Wraithvine caught on and added, "You wouldn’t want such a magnificent blade to go to waste would you? Besides, it’s been a tough dungeon. You deserve nice things."

Melvin’s hand drifted closer to the hilt than it had ever been. It’s priceless.

It’s worthless if you just leave it here, said Lady Anthe. You should at least take it so that none of the bad guys get it.

You’ll be protecting it from evil, added Wraithvine.

Rumtum, having ascertained exactly what it was, yawned and stretched. If he doesn’t want it, I could take it.

The rest of the party, clearly picturing what a small Tabaxi Bard could do with a blade like that, urgently gestured to Melvin that him wanting The Pen was the best possible outcome in this situation.

Melvin grasped the hilt gingerly, as if afraid it would bite him. There should have been an arcane wind. There should have been some kind of light show. There should have been something to show that the blade had accepted its new master. Instead of any of that, there was just Melvin, picking up a legendary blade that looked small and ridiculous in his meaty hand.

The remaining villains in the dungeon may laugh, but they would not be laughing for very long.

Challenge #010: Mor Daka is Bad

Aliens learn about the Atomic Bomb.

"You use WHAT to BUILD A BOMB!?"

"cold war…..Cold War, are you shi***** me?"

"YOUR SPECIES HAS HOW MANY OF THESE DOOMSDAY-DEVICES?"

"WHAT do you mean, they are STILL being Used ?!?"

Imagine a shattered Class 6 deathworlder learning about this.

Imagine how Havenworlders would react ^^ – Anon Guest

[AN: Class 6 are purely theoretical, in an environment that would be hostile to most known means of evolution, so I’m going with Class 5]

I wouldn’t colonise that graveworld, if I were you, warned Zef. They were a hundred AU’s from the Hephtous ship, and that was pretty much the minimum safe distance. They were Class 5 Deathworlders, but even those tough nuggets had their limits. The previous inhabitants decided to nuke themselves into oblivion.

There was a few minutes’ wait. In-system comms between non-friendlies took time. Zef did some sudoku to pass the time in-between basic ship and self maintenance.

A reply came back in broken Galstand and the Hephtous vessel had come to a relative stop. We extending comms relays half distance, you doing same. Request clarification for meaning - nuke.

Zef sent out their half of the comm probe handshake, waiting for a connection before using the relay. They defaulted to GalStand Simple. Nuke being ancient Human term. Being short form of longer word, nuclear. Meaning clarification, fissionable materials used as weaponry. Long time pollution. Making sick babies if living there.

The minute between sending and receiving was tense.

We scanning surface, said the Hephtous. Finding many hot spot, high pollution. Much harm. We thank much for warning. We asking - how you knowing?

That being long story, which took longer to tell for it being told in GalStand Simple. Many concepts had to be explained in a much longer format.

Once upon a time, there were warriors who sought out the ultimate weapon. A weapon that would theoretically end all wars for fear of using it. Very smart people devoted months of their time to it.

How a simple equation with three letters, one number, and one operational sign changed the way the world thought about war. How people were turned into shadows by the power of it.

Unfortunately, none of those very smart people were smart about a little thing called Human Nature.

How two cities were basically wiped off the map by the first such weapons used in war. How the survivors suffered from radiation poisoning and how very, very many died. How those two weapons should have issued in a new era of peace for fear of them being used again, but how Humanity raced to create more, have the most, and invent bigger ones.

They made bigger and more destructive weapons. One nation striving to have more than the rest of the world put together. They abused this power to become global bullies.

How the biggest and nastiest of those bombs in pre-Shattering history was large enough to turn an entire nation into a smoking, radioactive crater with nothing left to pick over and no safe way to pick it for a thousand years or more. How the neighbours of that nation would sicken and die, how their children would be born deformed if they were born at all.

Of course, other nations had smart people, too. Those in power urged those smart people to create more of the same. A race began to see who could have more, who could have bigger, who could have most.

How they made weapons that could, potentially, crack the very earth upon which they stood, destroy entire continents, and poison the rest of the globe for thousands upon thousands of years. If they used them.

How the people who originally settled this planet had used them, and how each ‘hot spot’ of lingering radioactivity had once been a continent before those bombs re-ordered an entire world. A world that was only just now entering a state in which it could plausibly host intelligent life - though not for long. So far, even simple life forms were still evolving means to survive the lingering rads.

We thanking you for warning, said the Hephtous. Having one question; these weapons no more existing, yes?

It broke their heart, but Zef had to tell them. No. Other Humans be making more and bigger ones. Acting for deterrent, they saying.

The comms gap stretched in worrying silence. Deathworlders of a higher grade could decide to do anything at all, including attempted genocide for self-preservation purposes. Zef watched the tactical readout with their heart in their throat.

Finally, the Hephtous said, You humans are crazy, and cut the comms before leaving the system.

Challenge #011: Quantity Control

Havenworlders learn about Meat consumption, Animal-Stocking and The USA-Attitude of more equals better. – Anon Guest

Havenworlders are aware of carnivores on an intellectual level. Many understand that one species’ nutrition doesn’t work for all species. Some Havenworlders are insectivorous and adorably claim to be mighty hunters before they meet Deathworlders.

What surprised them is what some Deathworlders did in order to obtain meat.

So. Since your kind invented agriculture, you attempted to farm meat like you farmed plant products, said Kiki, Xenohistorian. Selective breeding, over-breeding, minimising the space that the animals were kept in, keeping them in unhealthy conditions to maximise the meat, feeding them unhealthy and incompatible food…

Amongst many other things, yes, admitted Human Pym. For a long time, quantity mattered more than quality.

Not one of the people involved in the complete process had a single thought about the health of the food relating to the health of the eater?

Not a soul. Or if they did, they ignored it for personal convenience. Human Pym shrugged. Humans are very good at selective ignorance, willful denial, and outright venal profit-gouging.

Typical Deathworlders, muttered Kiki. That’s pretty much normal to varying degrees amongst most Deathworlder species. When did your kind realise that the health of the environment related to the health of your food, which related to the health of your people?

"It. Took. Ages, said Human Pym. Well into the twenty-first century and after the Green Revolution and the Oligarch Purge. It took bloody war to return us from the edge of outright environmental disaster, and even then, it was a close call. Humanity hung on by its fingertips, just before the first exodus down a bunch of wormholes. Eventually, Humanity figured out that greedy, grasping arseholes with more than they deserved were the problem and– Human Pym drew a line across their own neck with a pointing finger and made a harsh sort of gargling noise. With us, reform has always come at the end of a weapon."

Kiki nodded. Typical Deathworlders.

Human Pym sighed. Yeah.

How would you explain the philosophy of ‘more is better’ when more was clearly worse?

Human Pym shrugged. "Humans aren’t satisfied. We want new, we want better, we want to be sure of our resources. There’s something in our brains that wants the easy solutions regardless of how bad they are for us. Just because they’re easy. Now that we can go wherever and eat whatever, the moral choices are easier. We can grow meat in the lab with a perfect nutritional profile. Hell, we can print it if we want to. No cows need to die for our beef and all that. Nevertheless, some of us still want to hunt and kill our own meat, or farm our own fruit. Just because it’s something different. We got to the stars by being impatient, greedy shits and now… we can do that and help people. It’s weird, but it works for us."

Kiki dutifully wrote that down. Every Deathworlder had a different answer for their grasping attitude towards the rest of the universe. Some day, she might even hit upon some that agreed with each other.

Challenge #012: Examining Uncertain Truths

Humans have had alot of time and reasons to think up Gods and Dieties.

How would they(aliens) react If they learn about the flying Spaghetti-Monster-Religion or the disturbing Cult(ure) of Cthulu.

Or even worse…. Boy-bands and their fanatic Fans !

Have fun :-) – Anon Guest

Welcome to Xenotheology, the most complicated course in the field of omnistudies. We begin by acknowledging that all faiths are true, for interesting values of ‘true’. You will come across materials in this field of study that will disagree with your own personal values. This is to be expected. However, I do not expect anger from you about this. This is a study on the nature of religion across all known cultures within the Galactic Alliance. This is not a debate about which one is ‘correct’.

The professor waited a span of minutes for all the forewarned to leave the room. Some would stay for this introductory lecture, but never return. This was normal.

While we expect a certain theme from certain types of civilisation, there are those statistical outliers who will worship anything.

An image on the display board of the ‘warning placard’ from Terra, sent out on their extrasolar probes. There was laughter from some of the audience.

Theories abound in regards to why Humans will worship anything, some say it’s a result of their pack-bonding instincts, others maintain that it is a symptom of their insanity. We are not looking into that. We are looking into their assorted faiths and the motifs and morals behind them. Thus, we begin with the most diverse set of pantheons known to one origin planet. The assorted faiths of Terra, past and present.

We begin with some of the ones with lasting power: Judeism, Hinduism, Tao, Buddhism, and Atheism.

An uncertain rumbling from the audience.

There are more popular and wide-spread faiths, some of you are members of those. However, these are the ones that have lasting power, even measured in subjective time by colonial Humans. These are faiths that have lasted for as long, if not longer, than recorded Terran history. Only two of the five operate on the concept of wrathful gods, and even then, one is the only one with a single deity.

Some have argued that Tao and Buddhism are more philosophies than religions, but they have supernatural entities upon which the believer can wield influence, therefore they are religions. End of discussion.

Many are prepared to argue about the classification of Atheism as a faith. In order to believe in Atheism, one must believe that supernatural entities that influence the physical world are not real. As such, Atheists have a relationship with, and a belief system in supernatural entities. More than a few have made successful arguments about the nature of Atheism being, in actuality, a relationship with the god or gods of the area. Some may even argue that an Atheist does worship, and the being they worship is themselves for being so darn clever.

These are what you might call the ‘base’ religions. The ones that have stood the test of time. Others, such as Animism, offshoots of the core five, Jedi-ism, and belief in the Flying Spaghetti Monster… all are more or less in relation to the cores presented here.

Yes, that does include this fellow.

An image of Cthulu popped up in the board, much to the amusement of the audience.

We will, of course, be exploring the fictional faiths that became realities in later lectures. But first, we will be exploring pop culture faiths as a means to understanding the mechanics by which fiction, fact, and faith can intermingle. This includes the First through Third Churches of Elvis, the Faith of Freddie, and the cult of All My Daughters.

Starting tomorrow, we will be thoroughly delving into what makes a faith maintain longevity. Study up on chapters one through three of Analysing Theologies. Good day.

Challenge #013: Pride Goeth…

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IhnUgAaea4M – Anon Guest

[AN: Offensensitivity warning for anglo-saxon four-letter words in the lyrics]

If there is any sign of a sickening nation, it is national egotism. Every time a nation gets a metaphorical big head, it is destined for collapse. Britannia did, once, rule the waves. Then it’s empire collapsed in a rash of independence after the nation nearly collapsed due to two multinational wars in rapid succession.

America, once, was a great nation. Then it pretty much ate itself via greed and avarice. It lingered in pretending greatness whilst sliding inexorably towards collapse.

Just as France, Rome, Egypt, Turkey, and Mongolia once ruled significant portions of the world. All fell victim to egotism and an illusion of untouchability before their collapse. Other symptoms vary, but a nation doomed to collapse is always egotistical about its own prowess before crawling steadily towards decay.

One would think, with all the examples of history, that Humanity would learn from the past examples of cultural identities that were doomed to failure and make an effort to create better models. Alas, such is not the case. Humanity has a non-unique ability to believe in that which it wants to be true, no matter how many iterations have previously proved it false. Hence their tendency to ‘double down’ on atrociously bad ideas.

Forget making this nation great, said their leader. "That chance is gone. There’s too many of Them in charge."

The audience booed. They knew entirely too well who They were. The people not like them. The people who came in and insisted that they were wrong. The people to blame for ruining everything that was about them. The people who insisted they were equal when the audience believed that they had no right to live. You know. Them.

"However, we have a chance. There’s a whole bunch of new worlds out there. Worlds we can make in our own image. Worlds we can make for the people, by the people, and of the people. Worlds without anyone else in them."

Now they cheered. They could have a world of all the right people in it. People who were the right types. With jobs for everyone and rugged individualists who could make something truly great. They were behind it one hundred percent. A world made of their own beliefs. Where benevolent corporations would make the right decisions without Big Government butting in…

Where, despite numerous examples from the present and the past, they would make their own undoing…

But they didn’t care about that part. They just knew that they could get it right this time. They gave all their money for the cause. Packed up their beliefs and their holy books and their goods and chattels and families… and went.

As it began, it seemed like a paradise. The colonists could live the pioneering lifestyle of their dreams. Open lands that didn’t have to be warred for. Seemingly endless resources. The ability to spread out and do as they pleased. A significant lack of limits… Every single one of them could sate their greed and even have too much to handle.

Generation two began to have central locations. Families were still enormous and the frontier towns had more technological advancements than the ones of the tall tales, but everything was still good for everyone. Those who had needs could fulfil them with ease. Some even lived in the towns for the convenience of it.

Generation three started to solidify things in concrete and stone instead of wood. Factories began to spring up and they made great use of automation so that there was plenty for all. Those who worked worked hard and had great rewards. Cities grew. Bit by bit, those who served the needs of those who consumed lost little portions of their status.

Generation four had people who had never seen a tree living in their cities. Education became a thing for the wealthy, as one didn’t need much education to press a set of buttons in a routine fashion. Make-work began to be an occupation. Paper-chasers and cold-callers. Shelf-stockers and floor-moppers. As always, the rich had more and the poor got the blame for their situation.

Generation five was the one that was convinced to sell any remaining holdings so that their farmlands could be managed by a contiguous corporation. They re-invented serf labor and slavery. Those who were too poor to fight had no choice but to accept it. The age of the Company Store had begun.

By generation six, there was a small faction of elites, then everyone else. There was faith, but it was twisted. The ignorant poor were lead to believe that their deity had blessed the elites and that they deserved their fates because they were sinners. If they labored long enough, worked hard enough, paid their tithes and taxes, they could one day rise into the heavens-on-earth where the elites lived their lives in glittering luxury.

At the end of generation seven, the effluvium and vapours from the factories began to make their impacts known in the populace.

Five Hundred Years of glorious progress later…

We need more people, their glorious leader was saying. People in the fields. People in the factories. People with mops and brooms. They’re the real heroes, here. We’re just the schlubs who keep them pointed towards progress.

Eli cheered with all the rest. She was twelve. She broke off coughing because of her emphysema and concentrated on waving her noisemaker as she fought for air. Her mother helped her stay upright, lest she fall under the feet of the enthusiastic crowd. Fainting was perfectly normal for these rallies, as was death by mass enthusiasm.

Sam, her younger brother, laughed and yelled, Eli wet herself! at the top of his lungs. Pointing out the dark stain on Eli’s stockings. It looks like poo!

Eli looked down. It wasn’t poo. It was blood. She was officially a woman.

Daddy, there only because he was sick from his work, whipped out a special signal light and hollered, We got a bleeder! at the top of his lungs.

Everyone knew what that meant. Especially at a rally. This was Eli’s moment. Law had it that a woman was a woman at the moment of her first blood, and could be sold to the highest bidder by her father. Mama cheered and held Eli aloft. This could mean that any of the Seeyos could bid on her. Fresh woman, Mama screamed. Fresh woman. Guaranteed virgin!

Glorious Leader Seeyo Mathis noticed the hubbub up in the nosebleed stands and quickly directed the spotlight at them. Well. Wonder of wonders, he said. We got us a new lady in the audience. You ready to do your duty by your country, darling?

Eli’s heart nearly burst. She could help her family so much with this. Even though she was terrified, she nodded. The milling crowd was already getting disturbed by the armed security forces, honing in on her and Papa. This was the first time the gleaming, black suits and faceless helmets had been trained on her and hers and she had to trust that they were there for her family’s protection.

She went limp when two soldiers grabbed her by the arms and drug her off of Mama. She did remember to say, Bye-bye, I love you, like a good girl. Woman. She would never see her Mama or Sam or any of her brothers and sisters again. For the greater good of her family, she would be sold to the highest bidder. For the greater good of the nation, she would be bedded with that new husband and have his babies until she died. She might even get lucky and he would pay for her medicine and care while she lived.

So she smiled on the stage as Daddy conducted the auction and Glorious Leader Seeyo Mathis dialled up a lot of his friends and touched her in places that no man had touched her before. With blood leaking down her legs and staining her school uniform. She let it all happen and didn’t question a second. Only listening with half an ear as Daddy started calling higher and higher numbers. He needed help after ‘million’ from Glorious Leader Seeyo Mathis because numbers had never come that high for them before.

Glorious Leader Seeyo Mathis got some of his friends on a conference call, up on the big screen for all to see, so they could bid, too. The numbers got beyond Eli’s scope of understanding. Trillions. Quadrillions. Up to ten Decillion dollars.

Daddy had made a ten Decillion-dollar baby on Mama and Eli had never been so proud of him. She thanked him and kissed his cheek and let the soldiers carry her off into a guarded vault because she was worth a fortune.

…paid out in small instalments and heavily taxed because people like her family didn’t really deserve such a magnanimous windfall. A large portion of it was eaten away before anyone got to spend it at all.

Teams of people came to strip her bare and shave all the hair off her body and dress her up again from the skin out. Including the chastity belt that had helped keep her pure until that day. She got a special belt that caught her blood and more special underwear to make sure she didn’t pop out in the wrong ways and other special underwear to be sure she popped out in the right ways. People put stuff on her nails -hands and feet- and stuff on her face and did things to her hair and pricked her with sharp things and then it all went dark.

Soft bed. Softer and more comfortable than any space she’d ever slept in. She was resting on top of a very pretty bedspread, like the kind she’d only seen on TV. The rest of the room was bare of furniture, but the walls were pretty and so were the lights. Not a naked light bulb in sight.

A door across the way opened up, and there was a man of about thirty with a man as old as her Grampa[2], who had only just passed away. Happy birthday, son! I got you a fresh one. Made her just how you like ’em.

The new man was old enough to be her Daddy, but Eli controlled her fears and put on her best manners. Howdy, she said. Am I your’n?

He laughed, and not in a nice way. Do us all a favour and don’t say anything until you know how to speak better, he said. You’re mine. That means you do what I say and what I say is ‘shut up’.

He started taking his clothes off. He also said, Don’t cry, before he got up and did his business on her.

She did as she was trained to do. She went limp and let him. This was her duty. This was a woman’s lot in life. She didn’t cry until after he was gone, when the teams of people came to fix her up and some tried to coach her in what to say and do.

It went like that for always. The teams would pretty her up, feed her and teach her, and the man would come and do his business and it would start all over again. Almost all of it stopped when she went to pee and her toilet water turned blue. The teams now only just fed her and took her blood and made her do different things from then on. They didn’t even tell her that she was with child. She had to figure that out herself as her middle started growing.

Her man should have been proud. He should have been happy. She couldn’t know that for sure, but she wanted to believe it. He could have a Decillion-dollar baby growing in her. He could have a son to carry his name. Nobody would know until it came out.

She was getting big when one of the teams said something strange to her. They said, Did you want this?

It was such a bizarre question that Eli stumbled on the treadmill she had for exercise. She did not say, Say what? because that was the Dirty way to talk. Instead she said, I beg your pardon? like she was supposed to.

Did you want this? they said again.

This stranger in the team had a funny look to them. Like no other person Eli had ever seen. She knew every word they said but in that combination, it made no sense at all. She said, "Why should it matter what I want?"

Two days after that, a different team came. They took her and like fifty other women outside of their suites. Outside of their gilded cages. Outside of the country mansion on the pristine island that her man was due to inherit. Outside of the whole planet.

Where strangers of all kinds of colours treated her kindly and gave her choices and kept asking what she wanted. Where other people asked her to do things and asked to touch her and asked and asked and asked for permissions. Where she met the other women her man had kept and got pregnant. Where the strangers taught her to read, and ask questions herself, and start to do things for herself. Where they introduced her to concepts like too young to be pregnant.

Where she had her baby without pain, and was allowed to cuddle and feed her from her own body. She cried because she thought she was ruined, but the strangers taught her different.

Where Eli learned about things like ‘bodily autonomy’ and her right to decide what she did, where she went, and how she spent any money she earned. Where she learned that owning people was bad.

She and the other women who had once been owned by rich men formed a collaborative household where all the babies were more or less raised in a creche. Together, they could prop each other up on bad days and help out on good days. Together, they could pool their resources for a better future. Together, they had leverage.

They had never known that they had options before. Especially not the option for man-like freedom.

The old system collapsed as those without options suddenly got them. Eli did her best for her own family, even though they said she was evil and didn’t want to talk to her. They may never understand how she and her sister-ex-wives made their lives better, but that was okay.

At least their lives were better.

An egotistical group identity died. What it was replaced with was new and strange and frightening for the majority, but it was better. In less than a generation, the lowest people on the social ladder would start to live past Seventy.

It was a slow start, but all signs pointed towards an actual great world in less than a century.

[2] That would be in the early-to-mid Sixties.

Challenge #014: Complex Organic Chemistry

Class five Deathworlders have Problems dealing with a planet which Flora contains a mysterious Plant (Wink Wink).

For them it is as deadly as Arsenic is for us.

Their reaction when Humans Line Up to colonise it – Anon Guest

[AN: Going with convergent evolution because the chances of weed happening exactly as it happened on Earth, on another planet, are astronomical at best]

Things had been going badly for the latest J’krog colony. The world, verdant and unclaimed, had promised a plethora of food for their rising numbers, including the plant life. It promised such and lied. Vast numbers of warriors and young were falling sick and dying. Exposed skin blistered, burned, and went necrotic in rapid succession. Something on this plentiful planet was highly toxic to the J’krog.

J’krog were made to gather and hunt. Farming and science were not their strong suits. Their species more or less stumbled into space travel through a series of fortuitous accidents. Therefore, they sent out a call for help. There was no shame in seeking allies when the enemy could get past one’s defences. It had taken the J’krog some centuries to learn that particular lesson.

The Humans were the one to answer the call with their curiosity and powerful investigatory tools. They soon found that the abundant plant life had chemicals they called ‘cannabinoids’, after one of their Terran plants that hosted most of the entire gamut as its defence strategies. The J’krog, whose homeworld hadn’t come up with the poison, were naturally undefended from it. Allergic, in fact.

Then the Humans did something unexpected. We’ve got a class four point five world in a neighbouring system. How about we swap populations? Humans have so many uses for this stuff, it’s flakkin’ scary.

Uses? For a toxic substance?

Lol, have you met us? Human Gar laughed. "Seriously, the cannabinoids are some of the less toxic stuff for us. There’s a plethora of medical applications. Anxiety control, pain control, appetite control, energy control. Lots of helpful stuff. Then there’s the portion of our population who just want to get stoned."

H’kthor had been following until Human Gar lapsed into Human Slanguage. Hit with rocks?

Uh. No. Humans enjoy using this stuff for a certain kind of stimulation. It makes our brains malfunction in pleasing ways.

H’kthor considered this. It took some considerable time. Have your species considered perhaps that you have been misclassified?

The assembled humans laughed at that. "They classify us Deathworlders by their environment, not by their bad habits. You know that. But yes. There have been a lot of requests concerning the classification system."

The eventual colony swap took a total of three months, including transit. The Humans were immensely helpful, to the point of retrieving artefacts previously lost in the toxic shrubbery. Renaming happened, as it was wont to do. The ex-J’krog colony became planet Blayzit whilst the ex-Human settlement became the J’krothi word for Insane Asylum.

The Humans were greatly amused.

Challenge #015: Correcting Memetic Foibles

European Humans have Something around 2 % of DNA from the Neandertaler in them.

Humans share 50 to 80% of their DNA with the Common Banana.

All that separates US from Apes are roughly 1- 5 % genetic differences.

The Aliens learn about these Facts for the first Time…. – Anon Guest

A common mistake in early DNA studies is mistaking content for relationships. Some are indicators, like the two percent of DNA that some Humans share with Neanderthals. Or the ninety-eight percent that Humans share with bonobo chimps. Some less knowledgable people take facts like this… the display showed a picture of a Ladyfinger banana and the text, Humans share 50 to 80% of their DNA with the common banana. …and wonder if some Humans are more banana than others. Content is not always a direct relationship.

A new image, of a banana tree, attempting to insert itself in the traditional chain of Human evolution. It slid back and forth along the line, surrounding itself with an increasing number of question marks. The audience laughed.

Of course it’s ridiculous to expect that Humans are directly related to bananas. That is ridiculous. What’s happened is that the Human genome is made of four nucleotides, as is everything that originated on Earth. Sooner or later, patterns are bound to repeat. It is those patterns that gain the percentage fascination we hear in memetic space. If people counted the nucleotides, Humans would be sharing one hundred percent of their DNA with literally every other living thing on their origin planet.

More laughter.

Not exactly the most fascinating fact, or even one that can be creatively interpreted. Thus, common memetic space tends to overlook that kind of inconvenience. Which just goes to show that Humans will go out of their way to say something silly, inaccurate, or just plain wrong if it means that something weird will come out of it.

Now there was a meme with one figure asking if some people were up to thirty percent more banana than others.

Challenge #016: Microscopic Passengers

The Aliens in Board learn that one of the Human-Crewmembers has Herpes.

Fact: More than 3.7 Billion People have it. XD – Anon Guest

It’s my duty to inform my captain and crew that I have a class two plague known as Herpes. I’m on a permanent course of antivirals to prevent its propagation.

Captain Gorthax, mildly alarmed, consulted the free infonets and read, GalStand Medical Primer for