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Amalgam Universe

A 2338-post collection

Challenge #00866-B135: When You Have a Hammer...

Person #1: Great! You just gave an engineer a problem that can’t be solved with duct tape. Now we’re going to be stuck here all day.
Person #2: There are problems that can’t be solved with duct tape?

“Maybe if I recalibrate the spline actuator frigit…”

“What’s the first rule?” demanded Captain Dalia.

Sub-lieutenant
Branley sighed and toed at the metal plate floor. “Never give a stop-over mechanic a problem that can’t be solved with ductape,” she
droned.

“And why do we avoid doing that?”

Another sigh.
Another drone, “Because they get excited and try to fix every problem
there is on the ship whether we want it fixed or not.”

“Exactly,” cooed Captain Dalia. “And to make sure you learn this, you’re helping him.”

Branley groaned in anticipatory agony.

[Muse food remaining: 10. Submit a prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories!]

Challenge #00864-B133: Versatility

string, 1001 uses.

“Um,” said Rael.

“What?” said Pix.

“It’s more than a
thousand and one,” he said, reaching slowly for a handbook datachip and
slotting it into his reader. “The uses for string pile into the
billions, if not quintillions. Of course, some of it is dependant on the
originating fibre and the definition of ‘string’.”

Pix glared at him. “I might not have enough funds for an infodump, sir.”

Ah. Right. People paid to hear information. He was still

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T'reka just wanted to learn. Unfortunately for her, her entire species views scientific thinking as a form of insanity. And when she wants...

T'reka just wanted to learn. Unfortunately for her, her entire species
views scientific thinking as a form of insanity. And when she wants to
learn all about the various venomous, poisonous, and outright deadly
life forms on a land mass named Toxic Island, you can almost see why.
Little did she know that when she committed her life to the study of
this strange and hostile land, there was already a colony of monsters
setting up housekeeping. Now she’s face-to-face

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Sahra Johnston started as the lowest class of slave. Then at six, she accidentally joined the rebellion against her masters and gave her...

Sahra Johnston started as the lowest class of slave. Then at six, she
accidentally joined the rebellion against her masters and gave her new
allies more than a few nefarious ideas. By the age of nine, she’d turned
five systems on their heads and faced down people who could literally eat her alive. And now she’s toe-to-toe against the united forces of the
Galactic Alliance.
Hevun help THEM.

Part three of the Hevun’s Child Trilogy! Yours for

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Things are not going well for the Rebellion. Their leading strategical genius is missing, presumed dead. Complete with a tearful farewell....

Things are not going well for the Rebellion. Their leading strategical
genius is missing, presumed dead. Complete with a tearful farewell.
Enemy forces herded her into certain death. Their only hope is to
continue trying the tricks she taught them, and praying for salvation.
But the Majestrix -may she die a million excruciating deaths- is lording
her small victory over her political rivals. And when a message comes to the Rebellion from an enemy listening post that isn’t a listening

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Challenge #00863-B132: Shattered Fables

It turns out that some species’ mythical creatures are almost identical to real creatures found on the home planet of another species.

K’karik almost forgot to breathe. There, sitting in the enclosure of the Terran zoo, was  clearly Skybear. It was grey like a storm cloud, and sitting up against a tree. Its ears were the white puffs of high stratus clouds.

Just like in the stories.

Legend said the song of the Skybear was a marvel to behold.

Legend didn’

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Challenge #00856-B125: Just... Don't Ask

I’d ask what else could go wrong, but I think I’ve got quite enough happening as it is, thank you.

“Awright… awright…” the entity calling herself Shayde seemed to
be having difficulty with the sugar-coated and softened information they
had just told her. “I can deal wi’ this. I can… I can deal wi’ this. Wee bitty bits. Aye. Deal wi’ it in wee bitty bits.”

The attending
medtechs were watching her vital signs like hawks. As

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Challenge #00852-B121: Catching Up

Ok If I’ve timed this right it ought to be just after eurovision.

Your prompt today is whatever act won.

[AN: You got it right. I’m willing to bet you were expecting something like Gay Disco Dracula though]

Shayde called it ‘degaussing’ when she didn’t call it “Catching up wi’ five hundred years o’ Tivo” and it usually involved a bucket of popcorn. Buttered, of course.

“So what are you binging on, tonight?”

“Eurovision.”

Her answers always surprised him.

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Challenge #00851-B120: One Fine Evening at a Galactic Mixer Party

Between two cultures, the body language and customs for aggression/anger in one are very similar to the flirting/courtship of the other.

In this scenario: A series of attempts to get an individual to agree to a date are taken entirely the wrong way.

She shouldn’t have gone amongst the Deathworlders. She could already feel her mortality creeping up on her. Havenworlders and Deathworlders never mixed well.

“Pretty,” said one of the Deathworlders. A tall beast with entirely too much

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Challenge #00850-B119: One Fine Bar Fight at a Galactic Crossroads

Between two cultures, the body language and customs for aggression/anger in one are very similar to the flirting/courtship of the other.

In this scenario: An aggressive display is mistaken for flirting.

She got into the human’s personal space. Closed her off from any escape. Rumbled in a low threat, “I like your face.”

The human bared her teeth and uttered a barking call. Then she pressed her rubbery mouth to  Hoq’a’lu’gi’s face. “I think you’

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Challenge #00848-B117: It Just Goes

About the EM Drive, a possible new space drive that no-one has a coherent theory on HOW it works, but as long as no mistakes have been made in the experiments, it seems that it does. …Somehow.

“Well, the future space programs will no longer need propellants. However, they should probably investigate this thoroughly, this looks like an accidental discovery of summoning…things. While using Cthulhu as a propellant sounds hilarious no one wants to know what happens after that. ”

[AN: The

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Challenge #00843-B112: Relics of a Previous Age.

I think that I’ve never seen anything so stupid and so practical in all my life.

They called it The Archive of Earth. A massive tomb devoted to the Twentieth Century. And Shayde had, through adventure and misadventure, inherited the lot.

“How much of this stuff is plastic?” wondered Rael.

“Uh. After the Twenties? Loads.” Shayde was particularly uninformative, unpacking the vaults and sorting random objects. The swarming Archivaas had left her to deal with everything they didn’t recognise. Which

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Challenge #00835-B104: Close Encounters of the Blurred Kind

More encounters between the spider-people and humans, pre- or post-Amity

Ten weeks prior to Amity’s re-introduction to the Galactic Alliance…

Salvage spacers tended to have short names. Monosyllabic and easy to pronounce in an emergency. So it was with Mar and Dee. Both women had longer names, but such names were exclusively on their paperwork.

“I’ve been on this hulk before,” said Dee, pointing to a conglomerated wreck in their pathfinder screen. “There’s an enormous colony of BFS on

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