Instant Story

Challenge #00526 - A151: Names Shape Reality

Early explorers and colonists gave the best new worlds names considered “unappealing” to those back on earth, so as to discourage overcolonization and protect what they viewed as offworld paradises. This led to beautiful worlds with names such as Gehenna, Sheol, Yomi-no-kuni, and New Jersey. Over time, as these worlds became popular, their names lost their old meanings, and thus, the phrase “as beautiful as a New Jersey summer” was no longer seen as satirical. This made interpreting history/old texts somewhat confusing, and in some cases, nigh-unintelligible.

[AN: This doesn’t quite work with one-way-wormhole colonisation, but I’ll give it a go]

During the first wave of Terran Colonisation, The humans left behind couldn’t help but notice a certain pattern. Places named after paradises inevitably came to ruin. Even places where the paradise was subjective.

Citizens of Earth did not like watching the residents of New Q'onos perish of starvation or malnutrition as they insisted they hunted all their food. Neither did they admire ominously loosing contact with Heaven, Hope or Gaia Regis.

And the less said about Greater Deregulation, the better.

Therefore, the humans came up with a typically human solution: stop naming new worlds after paradises. No optimistic names at all.

Thus, there are an abundance of colonised planets with names like Hell, Gethsemane, Yomi-no-kuni, Purgatory, Sheol, New Jersey, Skegness, Minnesota, Woodridge, Bognor and Cauldera.

Which is why Shayde has permanent employment from the Archivaas Collective.

They had a very long list of originally unpleasant places, both real and mythological, for her to define.

Because sometimes, the true key to unriddling ancient narratives is understanding the joke.

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Challenge #00525 - A150: Not Made to be Broken

FREE DAY!

Of course Steve had heard about the secret weapon code-named Rabbit. It was impossible to not hear about other secret weapons when one is also technically a secret weapon.

This was one of the few he got to meet.

He was used to techies referring to their weapons and vehicles as ‘she’ or ‘he’. He was not used to the pale wraith joining their team as “Rabbit’s chief technician”. He was the palest person Steve had ever seen, which

Challenge #00524 - A149: That Ole Time Religion

“All hail the sun god, he is the fun god. Ra! Ra! Ra!”

“Gimmie a Q! Gimmie a U! Gimmie an E-T-Z! Gimmie an A! Gimmie an L! Gimmie a C-O-A-T-L! Whadduzit spell?”

“Quetzalcoatl!”

“Whadduzit spell?”

“Quetzalcoatl!”

“Give hearts! And blood! To make the rain! Why do we love ‘im? We might be insane!”

YYYYAAAAAAAAYYYY!

“Zeus! Zeus! He’s our man! If he can’t do it, Hera can!

Challenge #00522 - A147: Sympathy for the Monster

Rule of Fiction 13: Any monster, fictional or real, will have a romance written about it, often one where it turns out to be “not that bad”. A lot will be absurdly well-written and thought out, and a lot will be barely-readable trash.

Pre-Amity humans and Galactic Alliance again, I’d rather see well written (because your stuff is always well written) but there’s always the Twilight in Space option if you feel like it

[AN: The problem with any Twilight

Challenge #00521 - A146: Necrotheque

“they’re British skeletons of course they’re dancing sarcastically. ”

The place was alive. But only technically.

Crowds of “people” flooded the dance floor and the air was full of the unique miasma of a dance club. Music, people shouting to be heard over the music, stale alcohol and even staler cigarette smoke.

This was Club 86. Where the undead went to live it up.

Maia was busy trying not to freak out. She was the only person&

Challenge #00520 - A145: Given Enough Rope

Observe - a Mad Scientist that’s cracked a little more than usual, and has completely stuffed up their cost-benefits analysis:
“This weapon accelerates the round - any variety of tree nut - up to point-eight-cee in the direction of the target. Observe! An average walnut. Walnuts average between five and ten grams, while this particular specimen is right around the middle at seven and a quarter. If I place this nut here - you’ll see the machine analyses the

Challenge #00520 - A145: Two Types

http://devisamarama.tumblr.com/post/81454106149/nightvaleradiostation-pewdiepiesfanblog

A character that uses every opportunity to throw her prosthetic arm at people, hand it to them etc.

The Membletak used to be a race of conquerors. As far as manifest destinies were concerned, they were mostly benevolent. They did not, for instance, use germ warfare or treat their conquered planets as dump sites or their conquered people as second-class citizens.

They did rely on heavy taxes, but you can’t have everything.

That is,

Challenge #00519 - A144: Unreasoning Profits

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

-George Bernard Shaw

If he doesn’t blow himself up in the process.

-Anonymous — c/- RecklessPrudence

Ax’and’l often struggled to find something nice to say about the human race. His usual compromise, that they were profitable mammals, did not always make it seem like enough of a boon.

Especially when Hwell had managed

Challenge #00518 - A143: Salvation From the Lessers

(since you’re a DS9 fan like I am) It was ironic that after the war, the Cardassian/Bajoran hybrids that Cardassia had neglected and cast out were instrumental in its rebuilding, and its rebirth.

Cardassia was in ruins.

It had never been in ruins. Not in all of its glorious history. Certainly, there had been wars in the pre-spaceflight days, but only individual areas ever became ruined.

An entire planet - and entire planetary empire in ruins… Just sucked the very

Challenge #00517 - A142: Conclusion-Jumping

One of the many early miscommunications when the humans first started to contact the galactic alliance: Alien expresses interest that human is still alive having broken one or more bones, slightly dense human gets the wrong end of the stick entirely and now half the camp thinks people with injuries like that are killed, because why else would something like a trifling broken arm mean you die?

Susan was learning what many in the new proto-city of Wiwazheer were calling Chickenese. Grey

Challenge #00516 - A141: Dem Dry Bones

Zoology revision prompt! This is an excerpt about what you can tell from just a skull.

“A defining trait of mammals is specialised teeth. Mammals are the only class on Earth to evolve specialised teeth, with specific shapes for vegetation, meat, insects and combination diets. Reptile teeth are all very similar, single-point and peglike, often not as firmly rooted. They vary in size, for instance snake fangs, but in general are all very similar.”

There were skeletons all over this

Challenge #00515 - A140: Problematic Material

Video Prompt!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=WgXN0kO1JEA

The music, such as it was, was a collection of intersecting beats. The man in the white suit danced in interesting ways.

He wore a white suit with black tie and gloves.

And the interesting thing about the otherwise ordinary room was the grass floor.

Shayde sat pondering the video as it played out. And Rael stood pondering Shayde.

“So what is it?” Rael said.

“It&

Challenge #00514 - A139: One Dank Morning in the Dire Halls of MegaGlobocorp, West Esterly

“Should you choose to accept it, your mission - which you are required to accept or you’re fired - is…”

Working as a faceless minion in MegaGlobocorp was never fun. It was a dangerous lottery before one even made it to the labyrinthine spread of the offices. As unskilled labor, Dar had the marvellous advantage of having twenty bosses to tell her when she messed up. And a random number generator assigned her at random, to one of the

Challenge #00513 - A138: Poor Unfortunate Souls

In your universe, how do the - as far as I can tell - legal AIs feel about Uplifts being illegal? Considering you could make an argument that they are equally people, and might even have some of the same theory applied to them, in creating/augmenting a consciousness, just applied to silicon or grey jelly.

Especially considering that at least some of the arguments I can imagine being levied against Uplifts could equally be levied against AIs. – RecklessPrudence

Creating life

Challenge 00512 - A137: Gengineer of Note

Uplifting, as opposed to Augmenting, is illegal in your universe, right? Presumably for how easily both the process and the products of said process can be abused, along with the sad examples of such.

But I refuse to believe that such a transformative technology with so many pitfalls along the way was developed solely for money. Sure, there had to be at least the potential for profit, otherwise the people capable of doing it would never have had the resources to do

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Challenge #00526 - A151: Names Shape Reality

Challenge #00525 - A150: Not Made to be Broken

Challenge #00524 - A149: That Ole Time Religion

Challenge #00522 - A147: Sympathy for the Monster

Challenge #00521 - A146: Necrotheque

Challenge #00520 - A145: Given Enough Rope

Challenge #00520 - A145: Two Types

Challenge #00519 - A144: Unreasoning Profits

Challenge #00518 - A143: Salvation From the Lessers

Challenge #00517 - A142: Conclusion-Jumping

Challenge #00516 - A141: Dem Dry Bones

Challenge #00515 - A140: Problematic Material

Challenge #00514 - A139: One Dank Morning in the Dire Halls of MegaGlobocorp, West Esterly

Challenge #00513 - A138: Poor Unfortunate Souls

Challenge 00512 - A137: Gengineer of Note