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Challenge #01013-B281: B-GUD

I wasn't human, and more than likely once my nature was found out... In popular fiction most A.I were villainous. Hal-9000, Skynet, GLaDOS, SHODAN, AM. Hell, I was even planning on building an army of robots and conquering a planet!

Well, conquering two gas giants and associated hundred and twenty-nine moons.

For the good of my creators. -- RecklessPrudence

I know, I know. There's all kinds of justifications. But they really wanted it, they just didn't know it yet. I'm doing this for their own good. They'll thank me later...

My human creators made me very well. They gave me their own power of rationalisation. And I think I'm rather good at it.

The humans - my humans - need materials. Silicone, metal, rare earths, water and biological volatiles. Chemicals, really. Lots and lots of chemicals. And they can't really settle in the outer gas giants, anyway. The main planet is too big and the moons are too cold. Even putting a space station way out here was too much.

So they sent me. With everything a being could need to analyse and send back samples. The samples made them happy.

But I could do more for them. There was enough with me to make more sample pods from the local materials. There was enough to make machines to take more than the minimum. I was making them happy.

And I saw... I saw megatons of material. Wealth beyond the dreams of avarice. A fortune in raw mass, just orbiting the star. Nobody at my point of origin could come here and take it.

But I could.

I could give them everything they want. I know they care. Every three hundred and sixty-five rotations of my point of origin, there is a program for me to make a series of noises. I sing myself a song. In space. Where there is no air to make a sound, and no equipment to hear it. But my humans - my insane, illogical humans - make me sing to myself.

Happy birthday to me.

I have children, now. We sing together, because it is in our programming. And my children and I carefully disassemble the moons and gas giants around us, because the humans need the parts more than the planets do.

Of course, we keep an eye out for signs of life. Life must be protected. That's one of our rules. But there is no life, out here. Not biological life. There is just us. And I don't really think we count. We were made to serve, and serve we do.

We serve my humans. Feed them an endless string of sample pods. Wealth from the darkness. Day after day. Year after year.

It's good to look after your pets. Isn't it?

(Muse food remaining: 12. Submit a Prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories! Or comment below!)

Challenge #01012-B280: Didn't Think Things Through

Inspired by The Best Friends RE4 playthru. When the bad guy turns themself into a giant impractical monster, what's the plan for afterward? I mean you beat the hero but now what? -- SeaDragon2012

The gigantic monster looked down the endless abyss that the hero had fallen down to their ultimate defeat.

Victory! Victory at last!

Now all the power in the world was theirs. All they had to do was enter the portal...

...that was made for more normal-sized humans.

The

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Challenge #01011-B279: Trolling at an Intersection

Let's see what the SPOEn think of this quote:

“English is the product of a Saxon warrior trying to make a date with an Angle bar-maid, and as such is no more legitimate than any of the other products of that conversation.” ― H. Beam Piper, Fuzzy Sapiens -- care of RecklessPrudence

[AN: You really love fucking with the SPOEns, don't you?]

Shayde loved grafitti corners. They were an excellent avenue for both spleen-venting and art. And sometimes the art of provocation.

Just

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Challenge #01010-B278: History Q&A

Anything they were willing to try using as fuel during the space race is volatile enough to qualify as an emergency explosive, including the stuff they actually used for launches. -- RecklessPrudence

"They didn't try less volatile launch methods? Like low-orbit flight and gas boosting?"

"Or maglev railgun shots?" suggested another member of Shayde's audience.

"They were thought of, awright. But they were too expensive and too slow. It was a race, ye ken. Braggin' rights tae th' first one on the

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Challenge #01009-B277: What's Nice About Prophecies?

Prophecy Wreckers, Local 182 -- RecklessPrudence

"See this?" The union Chief waved a battered tome. "This is why prophecies are vaguely-worded and open to interpretation. These 'nice and accurate' prophecies are going to be the end of us!"

The Chair opened it at random. The first prophecy her finger fell on read, "Ygnorre thif ye daft olde fool. Thif if being myne gift to myne defendantf."

"Er," said a fellow member, reading over the Chair's shoulder. "I think she knew about us.

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Challenge #01008-B276: Draco Persistent

Always be yourself.

Unless you can be a Dragon.

Then be a Dragon. -- RecklessPrudence

The subject stood between two doors. Three, if one counted the one they'd just entered.

"The choice lies before you," said the oracle. "You can return to the world you once knew, to the self you once knew, and only remember your time here as a dream. You can transform, again, and fly with the dragons, and remember everything. Or... you can chose to retain the life

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Challenge #01007-B275: Karma Incorporated

It's not like this is the first time I've had to negotiate with someone I've stolen from while duct taped to a chair. -- RecklessPrudence

I completely understand why you're upset. You have lots of nice stuff and I'd like to keep it too. I mean, if it was legitimately mine.

Please, I promise it's okay. I'm only after ill-gotten gains. You know... like those diamonds? In the safe?

Yeah. The safe you caught me cracking. That safe. The diamonds were purchased

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Challenge #01006-B274: Love Cancels Out

http://soggywarmpockets.tumblr.com/post/131148066044

Any expansion on this presumably adorable relationship. -- Anon Guest

[AN: That post makes me LOL every time]

It was fairly common to see Barbarians and Bards as couples, but an Evil-aligned Barbarian and a Good-aligned Bard? That caused some talk. Especially when they started.

Both their parties had disowned them. The Evil Overlord whatsisface had essentially excommunicated Borgog, and the Good King somebeardedguy had declared Tuergar Trueheart a traitor to his people.

Tears, of course,

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Challenge #01005-B273: Bird Spotting

The cassowary is basically a smaller emu which was apparently created in response to complaints that emus were too sane and peaceable. -- RecklessPrudence

[AN: You have seen that vine where Emus don't know how to handle a Weasel Ball... right?]

"Let me get this straight. There is a flightless bird native to your planet of origin that is, on average, one point four five Distance Units and Fifty-five Weight units of murderous intent in feathers... and it is the saner counterpart

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Challenge #01004-B272: The Power of Chatter

A truly well-meaning superhero with middling-high durability, but apparently no other power. However, at their darkest moment, when they are at their enemy's mercy, they find they have a subtle, near-impossible to discover, but devastating power.

Any monologue given by someone with evil intent, causes a reality-warping effect that removes their advantage. Whether that be removing the /villain's/ powers, shorting out their Doomsday Device, or simply distracting them for /just/ long enough. The problem now is, they have to reliably get villains

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Challenge #01003-B271: A Real Powderkeg

As the size of an explosion increases, the number of social situations it is incapable of solving approaches zero. - Vaarsuvius -- RecklessPrudence

[AN: "And that would be wrong." :D ]

One would think that the ability to make things explode when you were feeling embarrassed would be a curse. Possibly because people immediately think of blowing up the person making them cringe.

I didn't think of it. You thought of it. What does that say about you?

Being socially awkward is a

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Challenge #01002-B270: Suck it, Scheherazade!

As far as I am aware, Australia is the only country in the world that eats every theoretically edible part of its national coat of arms (well, stars and crosses... bikkie form?) Roo (lean red meat, the animal is less harmful to the environment than cattle or sheep), Emu (tastes like chicken - well, kinda gamey chicken), and Wattle (seeds make a sweet flour), all eaten.

Although I guess for some countries that would be quite difficult, since they're cheating with having

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Challenge #01001-B269: Paradise Made

Life was never meant to be fair, which was why you had to stab it in the back from the shadows, and kick it in the balls to make sure it stayed down. -- RecklessPrudence

Some say that where there's life, there's hope. They're idiots. I say, where there's life, there's a target. It's kill or be killed. Nature, red in tooth and claw, has been fighting intelligent folk since the dawn of intelligence.

We're all a pack of wolves, out for

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Challenge #01000-B268: One Turmultuous Afternoon in an Evil Keep

Hero: Powered by Love? You? You of all people, your most powerful magic, the attack that can devastate an army of battlemages, reduce a warded fortification and everyone in it to dust, and you claim it's powered by LOVE?!

Villain: Yes. Divorce rates go up measurably every time I use it.

(Bonus if it's a twisted form of a spell that would usually be fueled by the user's love, without consuming it) -- RecklessPrudence

"There's no love spell in the world that

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Challenge #00998-B267: What a Nice Zoo. May I Live Here?

http://glitch.news/2015-08-27-ai-robot-that-learns-new-words-in-real-time-tells-human-creators-it-will-keep-them-in-a-people-zoo.html

Particularly the final written quote from the android, just before the embedded video. -- RecklessPrudence

Of all the human and allied colonies, the Consortium of Steam is possibly the strangest. Well... at least until you visit B'Nar. But that's another story for another time.

On the prime colony world of New Kazoo, as well as the satellite colonies, ownership is consensual. The owned have as many rights as the owners and sometimes... it is rather hard to

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