Amalgam Universe

A 2271-post collection

Challenge #01540-D079: What Do You Mean, 'Mostly Harmless'?

Before we made contact, humans were considered a myth, the Galactic Governments greatest hoax. No one species could possibly be THAT insane.

It's very stressful for the rest of the Galaxy when they discover humans are indeed real, and just as insane as they'd heard. -- Anon Guest

Everyone in the Galactic Alliance knew the stories that spacers told of humans. Near misses. Close encounters. Abductions. Scouts told stories of dead worlds where relics of these peculiar, hairless, bipedal mammals had once reigned and then destroyed themselves. Tales of impossible wreckage that should have killed all aboard on impact, yet the surrounding area showed signs of habitation before it was seemingly abandoned.

Scavengers, scroungers, and asteroid prospectors would swap tales of meeting humans. Some would even exchange what they believed to be human entertainment media. Transcribed, of course, into more usable formats, which always caused the source to be questioned. The stories were always larger than life. How first contact situations happened purely by accident and the human vessel in question was never found again.

It wasn't until the Armoured Cephalopod came to answer the distress call of a scavenger ship named the Corvid that an encounter was confirmed. Also crippled on the dwarf planets' surface was a human vessel. The saurian scavenger and the human had accidentally crashed and forged an alliance based on the simple fact that they were clearly going to die on their own.

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Challenge #01539-D078: Strangely Met

The world's reaction when a ship looking a lot like a vaguely aerodynamic brick lands at Cape Canaveral, looking for some fresh fruit & veg ("Reconstituted is good, but fresh is always better"), a top-up on hydrogen for their fusion reactor ("Haven't seen a depot for twelve jumps, and my magscoop's on the blink again - old damage from some pirates, probably should replace it"), a repair tech for said magscoop ("Got anyone qualified in Grade As? It's a Lurrkon Class Three,

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Challenge #01537-D076: No Place Like It

It was a Trucker's Drinking Hole, beer on tap and lachrymose songs on the Juke Box. It didn't matter that 16 wheelers were replaced by space haulers, some things never changed. -- Anon Guest

After months of monotony, hauling whatever the cargo was, even an AI would crave variety from the humdrum. And this place was the one-stop shop. Inebriants for those on rest cycle. Stimulants for those just stopping by. The inevitable tones of Cryin' Joe Bardnaw on the jukebox, jukebox

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Challenge #01535-D074: Action and Consequence

There is a minor but critical distinction between being right and being not wrong. -- RecklessPrudence

Someone had graffitied a museum's promotional poster. The poster, being about a dinosaur exhibit, featured the ever-popular T-Rex. The graffito read, He's a chicken, I tell you! A giant chicken![1]

There was no need to arrest the offending graffiti artist because the local paleontological fans had already corralled them and were having a Well-Actually contest. Lyr hung back and observed, just in case things got

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Challenge #01533-D072: Sufficiently Confusing Circuitry

The Magic/More Magic switch. Details here. -- RecklessPrudence

Rael, fresh into independant JOATing, stared at the switch on the homebrew cabinet. A human had to have made this. The pencilled annotation on the toggle switch had two options. Magic and More Magic. Experimentally, he flipped the switch to More Magic and rebooted the kludge of a machine.

It worked perfectly.

Rael was not content to receive a handful of Seconds for this much work, and took the outer casing off to

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Challenge #01530-D069: Wit of the Ages

Stuff found written on walls. -- Knitnan

Corridor 3278B had been marked as a Paradox Hazard by the local representatives of the AI Alliance, thus causing something of a traffic snarl in the adjacent byways. Since she was in the neighbourhood, Officer Lyr Marken investigated, reading everything there that was still legible.

She found it easily. Beautiful, artistic script that read, Everyone writes on walls except me!

Lyr instantly went for the first suspect, dialling up Ambassador Shayde's personal comms. "Ambassador Shayde

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Challenge #01529-D068: Crisis in the Wee Small Hours

You'd be surprised who you find in your family tree. -- Knitnan

Rael had not expected his genes to turn up in any of the current series of released Faiize infants. The one currently in its relaxation tank was, according to the gene scan, twenty-five percent his. Kint, the primary genetic contributor, had a whopping sixty-three percent of his personal genome involved.

There was a small community of sudden parentals, lost without a manual, working out how to parent a Faiize without

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Challenge #01526-D065: Goods and Services

Oh fuck that noise, screw that sound, hump that harmonic, bang that bass, fornicate with that frequency and fuck me! -- RecklessPrudence

In all of Galactic Society, the most alarming feature to most human societies is the simple fact that sex work and mental therapy have homogenised into a harmonious whole. Humans have had an interesting relationship with the mechanics of their own reproduction and, despite some centuries af adjustment, are still hung up about it.

Case in point, most of the

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Challenge #01525-D064: A Powerful Talisman

Call it what you will, Linus, Blankie, Comfort Rug. A square or rectangle of worked fibre, knitted, crocheted out of bits of yarn something soft and warm to hang on to in times of stress. -- Knitnan

"Honestly, Farraq, this is the slowest evacuation in the known universe."

"Sorry, boss," the human had something colourful bundled under one arm. "Can't leave anywhere without my Snoog."

P'treth boggled at the human merc as they writhed their way through an airlock made for a

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Challenge #01523-D062: A Grievous Mistake

Matters have left "pear-shaped" and have escalated to the eldritch topographies of a taco warped through a tesseract. -- RecklessPrudence

"I regret to inform Her Majestrix that matters have gone... er... pear-shaped."

The seneschal glared down hir nose at Brekkis. " Adjudant Brekkis... Matters have left "pear-shaped" and have escalated to the eldritch topographies of a taco warped through a tesseract. Matters are so beyond "pear-shaped" that we've had to hire human mercenaries, Brekkis. And further... the human mercenaries have captured some of

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Challenge #01522-D061: With a Knack for Mimicry

http://marlynnofmany.tumblr.com/post/156605690661

Aliens that do not understand how well humans can mimic some noises. -- Gallifreya

When headed into uncharted, or barely charted territory, when facing danger, it is best to have at least one human aboard your ship. Yes, they are frightening deathworlders, but they also understand this and endeavour to be less frightening so they can pack-bond with you. They are also, and the K'veth are discovering, prone to annoying pranks.

Bob could impersonate any noise

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Challenge #01521-D060: Perspective Post Peril

(Couldn't make this entirely gender-neutral. I suspect the terms do not exist in English. Although I know half a dozen ways to say one of them in various fictional universes, one of them might be the correct English form of address. As for a gender-neutral term for the person in charge of a Duchy (apart from the major-domo or seneschal or whatever who's actually running it all... idk)

[Person #1]: (VERY full of themselves, has been nothing but irritating, has no training,

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Challenge #01520-D059: Lost and Found

[Person #1]: Spectro-analysis of the ship dates it as having been in orbit here for slightly more than three hundred million years.

[Person #2]: They built shit to last back in the Paleozoic, huh?

(your choice on whether Person #1's results bear any resemblance to reality) -- RecklessPrudence

Tel swore under her breath and worked her fastest to get that comment out of the feed to the rest of the Galactic Alliance. One cut, and Ambassador Shayde's glib and unnecessary remark was

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Challenge #01519-D058: Watch What You Say

[Person #1]: (after describing the expedition) Won't be any fighting or danger, just research

[Person #2]: (who's seen this shit before) Yes, it will be totally safe. Nothing can go wrong. At least it won't be raining.

[Person #2]: You could just as well held up a sign that says "Fuck Murphy" on it, and expect less trouble. -- RecklessPrudence

"It's an exploratory mission into uninhabited territory. The entire system is incapable of hosting life. What could go wrong?"

"O Powers... you

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Challenge #01512-D051: Fascinating...

For the "Humans are space orcs": Aliens can only focus on one thing at a time. They're far more efficient because they hyperfocus and complete any task in a far shorter amount of time. So humans penchant of talking/humming/listening to music while working is both distracting and baffling. -- Anon Guest

Half the crew were watching the ship's human in their segregated kitchen. Terran music blared at maximum allowed volume, and the human sang slightly louder. Inside the quarantine zone,

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