Instant Story

Taken from an author talking about a piece of tech in their setting:

They’ve tried reverse engineering the displacement engine before. It goes a little like this:

Your moon is now a pretzel.

Your research is invalid. – RecklessPrudence

“So what is it?”

“I can’t figure it out,” said Helba, getting her facts out in the open. “I know what it does, it makes the gravity in this… place…” Station, ship… installation felt better, but it had plainly been here long enough to become a small planetoid.

The cargo cult seeing to its upkeep did a surprisingly good job for a bunch of mammals, but how it ran… That was the mystery.

“There are some elements I can understand but…” she shook her head. “There’s no reason for it to work. Yet it obviously does.”

Thokin scratched at her brow-ridges. “Can you try to figure it out? This technology could be revolutionary. We could solve the Long Flight problem. We could… we could build bases like this! Off planet. No central mass to keep things stable. Just… one of these. All we have to do is reproduce the technology.”

“I could try to black-box it. Replicate what it does.” Helba shook her head. It already seemed a daunting task. “I’ll come out the other side, either a genius or a mad thing.”

“The trick,” said one of the apparently-meditating natives, “is to be both at once.”

They shouldn’t have ignored him just because he was a male.

*

From the Last Journal of Helba Greyscale:

I can see it now. I’m so close. The key is the madness and the madness is the key. These insane little mammals made a calm machine, but mine is hungry. It demands a sacrifice.

It shall have blood. And when it has feasted it shall be the very glory of the empire!

Eeya mork g'risin f'thagen daas

Eeya mork g'risin f'thagen daas

Eeya mork g'risin f'thagen daas

*

The Nae'hyn reverentially sealed the invader vessel and tethered it to all the others who had tried and failed to copy their work. The remains would, in time, freeze-dry in their metal tomb.

They offered tours. They offered teaching. They offered to work for them. But every generation, the ones who ‘discovered’ their little station ignored their good advice and tried to repeat the impossible. And therefore went insane.

“Pay heed, my apprentices,” schooled Master Sun Swallow. “When copying unfamiliar technology, it is advisable to never throw yourself into your work. Figuratively, or literally.”

[Muse food remaining: 14. Submit a prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories!]

Dunno if you’ll like this one, but I ran across it:

“The thing about evolving on a death world is that you don’t really realize you’re doing so until you get the chance to leave it. Up to that point the presence of carnivorous monsters, venomous micropredators, extreme climatic conditions, geological instability, the most lethal cocktail of microbial and viral life forms in the galaxy and of course the crushing gravity, seemed entirely natural. Until we left Earth

[In a discussion about technically-proficient people (of any subdivision) and the lies-to-children told to those they have to interact with]

I think we know why wizards just act all cryptic and stuff…

I imagine they had to keep explaining their knowledge of the arcane to the average peasant over and over again until they just got fed up with it.

And that’s how we get wizards, mages and sorcerers who seem to delight in not giving a straight answer. – RecklessPrudence

Fragmen of stupri mauris. Quare non opus est? — RecklessPrudence

[AN: I ran this through a translator and got: “Piece of fucking shit. Why not work?” :D LOL ]

There’s working on repairs with trained technicians… and then there’s working with someone who’s learned certain things by rote as part of a holy ritual. Someone who - though she had the brains to work out that the rituals were supposed to be useful, and had successfully applied some of them in

Series of posts, each blank line denotes a new poster:

[Comparing real-life understanding of tech by the people maintaining it to a fictional universe] Of course, this is minus the stupid witch doctor rituals.

“Have you tried turning it off and on again?” comes to mind. And a lot of other rituals.

Doesn’t that actually help with a significant portion of callers?

[Fictional universe organisation] rituals work too, except when they don’t. Doesn’t make it any less

“On most airplanes, in an emergency oxygen masks will be deployed from above your seat. This is an Australian airplane however; in an emergency, we will deploy drop bears from above your seat.”

Either way, the lack of oxygen problem is quickly solved. – RecklessPrudence

“What? Why would you do something that barbaric?” Esterhazy boggled.

“Well, the oxygen systems are tied to the landing gear, see,” Shirl expanded without missing a beat. “If there’

The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there’s no good reason to go into space—each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision. – RecklessPrudence

Nobody knew what the natives called it. There were no natives to ask. Whatever had happened on this world had destroyed all but the simplest and toughest of organic life, but left the buildings and infrastructure to be slowly buried