Challenge #01851-E027: As Long as it Works...

Aliens trying to convince a human crew to change it's ship

[Alien] "You use century old technologies ! The new system is way more efficient and everything is automatic. No need to repair it!"

[Human 1] "And when it broke ?"

[Alien] "It can't broke !"

[Human 2] "So when it broke we just have to pray to whatever god that either another ship will pick up our distress signal or the engine restart by itself before the oxygen reserve are depleted." -- Anon Guest

Some humans have a saying, There's a reason why they're OLD wives' tales. And a great number of other species do not understand this. Especially when such a saying is trotted out when other Galactics sigh at outmoded tech like algal oxygen recyclers, tied with algal food printers. Or old-fashioned ion jets for navigational micro-corrections.

About the only new-ish tech the humans trust on their ships is the grav-drive[1], and they invented it. And since gravity tech came with an attendant human, it was closely guarded in very special ways. Put it this way, there was a reason some humans also nicknamed it 'gravy drive'. It worked by creating a virtual black hole in the direction they wanted the ship to go. As well as forming a specific gravity well below ship-bottom. It was a careful balancing act that only a specific subsect of Humans could perform reliably.

So it was quite a shock to other species that the reckless, gung-ho, explosion-loving Deathworlders were extremely touchy about laying their hands on, and subsequently relying on, tried and true Galactic tech. Their chief protest was, "What happens when broke?"

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