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Challenge #02815-G258: Best Instincts at Work

Some Positive Vibes and maybe a good story Prompt.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RIhUUt88ZM -- Anon Guest

Humans are not telepathic. They are -on average- not prescient. However, watching Human parentals with their young in a series of miraculous rescues causes many to suspect the Humans may be lying about this. So too do phrases like, "I can hear what you're thinking," which is a common Human expression to mean, "I am reading all your physical tells and can correctly estimate your thoughts."

Combined with peripheral vision, thin slicing, and pattern recognition, Humans do a very scary impersonation of telepaths and precogs. The fact that tests exist to determine the veracity of any extra-sensory abilities is proof enough of this. Even Humans are capable of fooling themselves into believing they have preternatural powers.

Consider a small Human familial unit. One parental and one extremely small child apparently just becoming accustomed to bipedal locomotion. The adult of the pair is attempting to conduct their daily business and the child is attempting to understand the world around them. Neither seem alarmed about anything in their environment.

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Challenge #02814-G257: A Good Question

Aliens seeing and hearing lyrebird. That's it. That's the whole prompt. -- Anon Guest

The rocket thrust engines sounded at full throttle. They sounded from the throat of an otherwise grey and ordinary-looking bird with an ornate tail. After it was done rumbling, it imitated the sound of a few imager trigger sounds. Then it replicated precisely the zoo closing warning.

"Bing bing bong. The zoo will be closing in fifteen minutes. Please make your way towards the exit. The zoo will

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Challenge #02813-G256: So Vulnerable

I want to see aliens that think humans are cute. Like, they get a Ship's Human because Rules, and when they meet them, they're just...

Oh, it's so cute! Must. Protect.

And it ends in mayhem and hilarity. -- Anon Guest

They had been against having a Ship's Human, but they were exploring and documenting the Edge Territories, so it was mandatory. Those meaty Deathworlders would only cause chaos and destruction. They even had to get a new ship made entirely of

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Challenge #02812-G255: You Were Warned

[translated and changed a little bit from polish movie]

A: You want to attack humans?

B: Yes, their planet has some materials that I need

A: This one will be tough. On a daily basis humans are annoying, but they love when they are under attack! I'm telling you! In the first 5 days they're all going to start a resistance movement and turn into guerrillas! -- Anon Guest

[AN: NGL I want to see a dub of that Polish movie. I

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Challenge #02811-G254: A Show of Respect

Have you ever looked at a young human and thought "this is a creature that should terrify me"? I have. My unit came upon an educational facility. We had been scouting the planet, carefully, silently. The humans thought we were just tourists, we did our best to blend in. Find their weaknesses, they seemed to have many. But it was not until what we sat in that educational facility that fateful evening that convinced all of us that this colony was not

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Challenge #02810-G253: Remember Rule One

A new combat instructor was assigned to my battalion. If I remember the instructor is that of the human race. They were formerly introduced to us and to be honest I was not impressed. The human was only two-thirds my size and look squishy as a havenworlder, hard to believe that they’re from a deathworld. I was given the chance to spar with the human, I couldn’t even touch them. -- Anon Guest

Many hear a word like "Deathworlder" and

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Challenge #02809-G252: Don't Be Fooled

Lots of stories with humans and delicate avian Havenworlders. How about one where the 'bird' descended from something like a cassowary. -- Knitnan

[AN: Compared with Humans, Cassowaries still have their weak points. The trick, of course, is getting close enough to exploit them. Cassowaries count as aviasaurs, and may not be Havenworlders by technicality.]

People tend to assume. If a cogniscent species looks like a bird, it's probably a Havenworlder. Many people coming across the aviasaurs make that assumption. Too many

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Challenge #02808-G251: The Revenge Paradox

“Do you want revenge?” I offer this many times, call me cruel or whatnot. The offer still stand. I offer you new life, let’s not be bound by the chains of hatred and live a glorious life! There’s a thing called karma and it pays twofold. Watch as you victim wallow in despair, and become jealous of your new spirit held high. Watch as they beg you to come back to their lives. That’s where you truly know, you

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Challenge #02807-G250: The True Story

I ask you not as emperor, but as a father. I do not demand you become her protector, I humbly request that you become her friend. -- Anon Guest

You know the story of the Lindwyrm. Or rather, you think you know it. You know the most of it. Stories change with each teller. Some add. Some subtract. Names are lost, times and places blur until all that's left is the phrase, Once upon a time...

By then, almost all of the

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Challenge #02806-G249: Not as We Know it

Could intelligent life arise around deepsea hydrothermal vents? -- Anon Guest

Intelligent life is very egocentric when theorising about other intelligent life. They imagine distant worlds like their own, with lifeforms possessing body patterns like their own. They don't often look much further than their own evolutionary path to pat themselves on the back and say, Yes. Aliens will be a lot like us.

The scientists of Earth frequently ignore the intelligent life already present around them. Cetaceans and octopi are examples

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Challenge #02805-G248: A Need of Dragons

They arrived from many places around the world, and yet, they all seemed to know how to get to the village. Those from other nations found funds and tickets to planes waiting for them, as well as all information they needed to get to that place. The ones already in that continent traveling on foot, by surprisingly convenient rides, by rail, etc., all the same, to find themselves on a wide, easily traversed, path into the forests. The strange thing is, the

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Challenge #02804-G247: How Can I Help?

We're out there, you know. The people who slip through the cracks. The ones that hurt too much to really succeed but don't hurt obviously enough to get help. It's a terrible feeling, to be jealous of someone who's in more pain than you are, just because they have legally mandated support. -- Anon Guest

[AN: Speaking as someone who's lived in the cracks, I get it. It's one of the reasons my pet universe has systems that patch the cracks.]

You

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Challenge #02803-G246: TFW Memed in Combat

here, have a rick roll -- Anon Guest

[AN: Link does not lead to a Rickroll but rather a six-second anime clip featuring someone's mondo BFG power attack]

Human Memetic attacks are something to watch. Preferably from a safe distance. Everyone knows the one about the attacking fleet that was brought to a standstill by the power of a Rickroll virus[1]. Thusly, they have learned to feat the threat of bringing Humans into any war.

Those gung-ho balding apes will try

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Challenge #02802-G245: The Difficult Choice

Sometimes the deadliest part of a viral infection is not the virus itself, but the immune reaction to the virus. So what happens if an apocalyptic mad-scientist type unleashes a viral pandemic that will cause every deathworlder species he could get his hands on to die because their own immune systems will basically liquefy their lungs, gills, or other oxygen-extracting apparatus, but forgets to take into account that a virus that uses strong immune systems to attack will completely bypass higher-level havenworlders?

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Challenge #02801-G244: Not as Advertised

A havenworld has heard about the big- dangerous, helpful humans for generations. About a year before they manage to actually make contact, they manage to get their first written-word, non-hearsay written texts on humans. Unfortunately, they don't understand fiction and have never heard of superhero comic books. -- Anon Guest

Human artifacts travel further and faster than the Humans themselves. Some things are just easier to move around in small spaces. Useful Deathworlders also often reach other species before the Humans do.

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