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Amalgam Universe

A 2280-post collection

Challenge #01357-C262: Strange Encounters

"Why is there a man convulsing in the halls?"

"Don't worry, the king's men will see to him."

"That's... not what I asked," -- OohLookShiny

The new Ambassador for T'kerrrita was taking the Tour. Since it was between Ambassadorial Meets, the Tour was meant to acclimate them to the most amount of civilisations in the least amount of time. And, naturally, one of the stops was Amalgam Station, which always had a solid volume of Ambassadors at any given time.

Unfortunately... one of those Ambassadors was Shayde.

The guide, a human named Bob, had hoped to rush T'rrri through the main commercial concourse and thereby keep them distracted with enough shiny objects to choke a Bugblatter Beast. Alas, all those hopes were dashed because Murphy's Law decreed that the worst possible thing had to happen at the worst possible time.

Headphones were a must in Galactic Society. One cogniscent's entertainment was another's hateful tripe, after all. And personal eyescreens allowed anyone to watch whatever they liked in idle moments.

Only Shayde would sing, dance, and otherwise perform whilst entertaining herself.

And only Shayde would do it in the middle of the common commercial concourse.

"He wear no shoe shine, he got TOE JAM FOOTBALL, he got monkey finger, he shoot COCA COLA," Shayde sang. It was entirely possible that she knew everyone in the surrounding area could hear her. Just about everything she did was a performance. "He say 'I know you'," she pointed out a luckless passerby. "You know me' One thing I can tell you is you got to be free. COME TOGETHER! Ri-ight no-o-ow. Over me..."

Aaaand T'rrri had seen her. "Why that one convulsing, so?"

"Don't worry, security will see to her." Bob tried to hustle T'rrri away from the Scene. Already, her JOAT companion, Rael was covertly attempting to get her to please stop.

"Is not question of asking?"

Damnit. "That's Ambassador Shayde... she's one of those people that people write their rules around."

"Is she unwell?"

"No. She's like that all the time."

(Muse food remaining: 14. Submit a Prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories! Or comment below!)

Challenge #01355-C260: Communication Issues.

Followup to Challenge #01326-C231, here: 'It’s not even consistent; it varies wildly by geographical region, ancestry and personal history of the individual, which, like, how is a poor anthropologist meant to know that sort of detail? How do humans divine this sort of thing upon meeting new members of their species? Do they have some sort of associative telepathy? No? Argh!'
(source) -- RecklessPrudence

The planet known as Beach had met the Galactic Alliance, which meant that they had a

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Challenge #01354-C259: One Cheesy Dragon

This post, which lead to this art. Fic away! -- RecklessPrudence

Tara McCreedy looked down at the living sample. It stretched all six of its limbs and allowed its peculiar wings to flutter. "Okay," she allowed. "I can see what it is, I just want to know why."

"Er. This is more of a sketch," the lead scientist of this lab wouldn't meet anyone's eyes. "See, I thought it might be cool to have dragon cheese from real dragons, um... so I

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Challenge #01353-C258: Baffling Footage

Imagine this being the only news clip in existence for this time period (like the comment says) after Shayde pops up, and people asking her about it. -- RecklessPrudence

[AN: Amalgam happens 500 years in our future, but I can deal]

Shayde didn't expect a ceremony. Usually what passed as her work was catching up with news and events she had missed[1], gathering favourites, and occasionally explaining things to a small audience of concerned Archivaas.

Today... the entire theatre was booked

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Challenge #01351-C256: You Try to Teach Them...

Corvids. Just... Corvids. (link)

(btw did you know all modern corvids are descended from Aussie ancestors? Well, technically Australasian ones, but close enough) -- RecklessPrudence

Ravens are widely recognised as one of the more intelligent birds on the planet Earth. Substantial evidence for this includes the fact that they have learned how to tame humans.

Humans tend to object to that minor fact. They will go on endlessly about how they were the ones to teach corvids how to communicate in their

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Challenge #01346-C251: Purse of Holding

Like the Tardis it's 'bigger on the inside'. It can be anything carryable from a Ladies handbag (a notorious source of strange objects), to one of those pull along "granny" trailers, or whatever you like. -- Knitnan

"Here. You'll need this."

It looked like a small, leather pouch. There was some beading on it that had evidently not been designed with hard use in mind. But, it didn't feel like a small, leather pouch. It felt indefinably heavier. "What is this?"

"Bag

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Challenge #01345-C250: Well You Took Your Time

Prompt: the hollow coconut TONK noise that can be produced by tapping the right place on top of someone's head if their mouth is open. -- Gallifreya

[AN: Grats, you got me to hit myself on the head several times]

Rael was currently being a small, blue-black dog that 'just happened' to be where this backwards colony of humans had put Ambassador Shayde.

They had evidently landed with the best technology of their launch-era, but the process of building a colony and

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Challenge #01342-C247: The Terra Curse

1) More has been added to the post about "aliens trying to invade and being foiled by wildlife" http://sharpestscalpel.tumblr.com/post/148783332263/professorofeljay-myurbandream-jabberwockypie

2) Quick, think of a couple of characters that got made for one of these prompts and write something about them -- Gallifreya

[AN: This puts the gap count down to 4. Also, callback to this post]

1)

The first Tyrvaki colony to settle picked what they thought was a nice place. It was nice enough for

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Challenge #01339-C244: Signed, Sealed, and Ignored

If you write a letter of complaint or ask questions by handwritten letter, the recipient is duty bound to answer. Really good way to keep "The Hired Help" aka Politicians and Bureaucrats on their toes. -- Knitnan

Dear Employee, wrote Carval Seng. Letters that started like this were never a good sign for the recipient.

Seng wrote carefully and distinctly about the lack of maintenance between elections, of how people in hir district would like to see the orange of maintenance uniforms

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Challenge #01338-C243: Inconvenience Job

The dreaded 5 minute job. Almost always guaranteed to blossom into hours of frustration and searching for the 'right' tools. -- Knitnan

Time is money. Literally. Citizens of the Galactic Alliance pay for things in increments of time. And since the humans came along, some money has names.

For unknown reasons, five Minutes is a Zac. Ten Minutes is a Bob, and Thirty Minutes is known as the Five-Minute Job.

Human nicknames will forever confuse other cogniscents.

But not those cogniscents who

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Challenge #01337-C242: Unnecessary Invention

It's not only necessity, it's wire coat hangers, paper clips, and to quote Thomas Edison, "All you need to be an inventor is Imagination and a pile of junk." -- Knitnan

[AN: Edison probably stole that line from Tesla ;) ]

Station residents called it the Labyrinth, if they knew about it at all. Every station that's been around long enough acquires a zone that fades through neglect and into an area where people who don't want to be found are wont to hide.

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Challenge #01336-C241: Humans!

"Failure is always an option" -- OohLookShiny

"Look. It was either try it, or give up and die," said Kel.

"There was still a chance for death to not be an option," argued K'niith.

"Yes. And I took it."

"I meant," sighed K'niith, "that there was a chance that did not involve your insane gravity games."

Kel folded her arms. "It's called 'parkour' and it's a form of art."

"It's suicidal insanity, is what it is, you could have broken every bone

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Challenge #01335-C240: Indomitable

"1... 2... 3..."

Crash

"Now we know it's three seconds deep!" -- OohLookShiny

Humans. The Ch'voth had been essentially using them as cannon fodder for a passage of months before they realised two things:

First - humans were extremely hard to kill.

Second - their primary method of finding answers seemed to be 'throw things at it'.

It didn't matter what the question was. They would throw things at it. The Ch'voth theorised that most of their science evolved in the same

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Challenge #01326-C231: Seek Understanding

http://immaplatypus.tumblr.com/post/148474190835/fieldbears-ursulavernon-adamusprime-if

if you didn’t know stuff about humans you would think they get mad at the weirdest stuff

like one human raises their thumb to another human that’s good, humans like that

one human raises their middle finger to another human

humans do NOT LIKE THAT

humans think that is a BAD FINGER

don’t you DARE raise that specific finger at me

any other finger is ok just not that one

--

Anthropology

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Challenge #01323-C228: We'll Let You Terraform Mars For Free

Both from this post: http://iopele.tumblr.com/post/148437315937/bioluminosity-jean-bo-peep-artiestroke

1) I really want a science fiction story where aliens come to invade earth and effortlessly wipe out humanity, only to be fought off by the wildlife.

They were expecting military resistance. They weren’t counting on bears.

2) (Description of monstrous animal, weighs 3 tons, runs 30kph, bites 8000 newtons. Just as fast in water. Only some crewmembers who dropped all their gear and ran survived.)

"You later describe the

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