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Challenge #02475-F285: Dismantling Babel

Humans may not be able to recreate the visual cacophony of many species in the Allegiance due to a lack of chromatophoric organs,

(though the "body art" some inflict upon themselves both temporarily with chemical compounds on the Dermis, as well as via repeated and what they call "minor" puncturing of said dermal tissue coupled with the injection of colouring chemicals)

But what they can do with their vocal and pneumonic systems in mimetic creation and improvisation is incredible, and now it seems their version of GalStand, often referred to GalSimple, is starting to become the norm on the outer rim due to its ease of use by everyone for communicating -- Adam In Darwin

Communication is... a problem. Most species rely on sound waves, specifically compressing and de-compressing air in rapid oscillation to make specific and unique noise. The form these noises take are as many and varied as the concept of noise itself. Others communicate strictly visually with flashes of light or with movements of their body. Some communicate mostly through scent. Understandably, this has lead to many difficulties and assistive communications devices.

Further problems occurred when linguistic contamination occurred, species picking up other species' words or phrases because they were just so darned useful, mashing them into their own means of communication, and moving onwards from there. Something had to be done, and that something was GalStand. A collection of the most popular, useful, and versatile words and phrases with the pronunciation adjusted so that the most peoples can say them with the least amount of garbling. For those with non-verbal communication, there is GalStand Sight and GalStand Scent. GalStand is relatively easy to translate into GalStand Sight and GalStand Scent.

Then the Humans came along. They had languages with long, complicated histories out of creatively borrowing words from other languages and cultures, and using them for their own nefarious purposes[1]. The creoles fissioned as a direct result. What also emerged was a new, pared-down language with a minimal grammar structure and simple conjunctions of meaning. Humans took one look at the increasingly-complicated GalStand, figured out the minimal possible ways to communicate meaning, and created GalStand Simple. Which, in turn, was quickly pared down to GalSimple.

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Challenge #02474-F284: Conceptual Pretzel

The mysterious mentor, the hero's best friend, a cast of stock characters to pad out the story. Have fun or not and pick one with a twist. -- Knitnan

[AN: If you're inserting stock characters to pad out a story, you're writing wrong. Also please read this thing at the top of my prompts topic. Y'all should know me enough by now that I always pick a twist.]

Imagine, if you will, that there is a space in which everything unwritten, unthought-of,

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Challenge #02473-F283: Yo Ho, Foe No Mo'

A band of pirates attack a ship they'd learned would be mostly hauling civilians, students, and their possessions. What they don't realize is the ship they attacked, though owned by havenworlders, is filled with deathworlders, mostly humans. To pass the time while waiting for the fight to end, the humans pick up their instruments to practice the music they were going to play at the interspecies music competition. But there are other music lovers out there, too. Can a pirate learn to

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Challenge #02472-F282: GG Tho

Paintball, Nerf, Air Soft, fighting competitions, obstacle courses, ect., are all games where humans play at war. It was something their children even played, preparing them to be warriors in the future, no matter their adult occupations. They had plenty of competitions to show their strength, their prowess, their aggression, and their ability to take down an enemy. Often other humans. Some Vorax have the guts to challenge some humans to a game, wanting to prove to their leaders that humans are

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Challenge #02471-F281: Double the Experience

They were twins, identical to the last freckle. It brought them no end of joy with playing pranks on friends, or on unsuspecting galactics, when they wore the exact same clothes and hair styles. Very few have ever seen humans that looked, sounded, and acted so similar that they could practically be ONE person in two bodies. But they were in space for a reason. To learn new foods, new cuisines, new inspirations. They wanted to open a restaurant that could one

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Challenge #02470-F280: Fluidity

A genderfluid human whose sexuality changes along with their gender, attempts to explain how they experience life to someone with very little context, save for that this particular human is sometimes interested in them and sometimes... just wants to play video games together. -- Anon Guest

Humans have so many labels for things. It could be amusing, were it not for the multitude of those who struggle with those labels and what they mean to them. Prefixes and suffixes and interfixes, oh

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Challenge #02469-F279: Close to the Skins

Tighty whities, saggy and baggy, or not much there at all... your wash tells a lot about you. -- Anon Guest

Of all the mysteries of Human existence, the concept of 'clothing' and 'decency' are the pinnacle of Human attempts at civilisation. Primary amongst the examples trotted out for debate are 'underwear'. Human underwear has gone from articles of clothing to protect the outer clothing from assorted bodily excretions, to hardly anything at all designed to cover intimate portions of skin from

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Challenge #02468-F278: Tougher Than Tough

"What's wrong I heard screaming!?"

"Oh, hey can you help me get my hand out of here?"

"I was practicing with Australian Bull-oak and made a hole."

"What were yo- by the stars you're bleeding!"

"I know that so help me!"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allocasuarina_luehmannii -- Anon Guest

[AN: Changed the spelling of Buloke so people could read the prompt a smidge easier]

Humans with a fascination for martial arts -especially fictional martial arts- are more insane than

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Challenge #02467-F277: Human Jae's Video Log

Up next, the top 10 questions you'll get from your intergalactic crewmates. -- Anon Guest

Hey, out there, infonets! It's your friendly wandering Human Jae! Living large on the Edge of the Galactic Alliance, yeeeaaaahhhh... Have no fear, I am mostly harmless, I swear. That thing with the Vorax scout troop was a fluke I have yet to explain. Promise.

So I've been doing the round robin thing, escorting the. Absolute. Cutest. Havenworlders on their scientific excursions, and oh my God I

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Challenge #02466-F276: One Game Round

"I won't let you harm this child!"

"It's not even your kin, why would you protect him?"

"His mom will whoop my ass if I don't." -- Anon Guest

Of all the occupations in Human history, childcare has to be among one of the least respected. It is expected to be easy. It is not. Especially when the child being cared for is not one's own. Especially when that child has a fae-wrought destiny.

For those unfamiliar with the Fae, they are

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Challenge #02465-F275: The Folly of (Rich) Man

with a wave of his finger and flick of his wrist, he cracked his neck and grinned like a bitch -- Anon Guest

[AN: Ugh, the prompts that make me think about my new D&D character who didn't exist when this was submitted... Not doing that noise. Keep it professional...]

There's two ways to go when the forces of fate conspire to brand you for the sins of your father. One, of course, is to sink even deeper into sin,

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Challenge #02464-F274: No Ordinary Fool

Master Chef in SPAAACCEE!!! -- Anon Guest

Chefs tend to treat certain groups of people differently. Professionals who mess up are far more likely to get the chewing out of a lifetime than a small child or a student who is just beginning to learn. The most famous of them who held this philosophy has managed to spread it memetically through most of Human space. Now, every Human chef follows the same philosophy.

Now, because of the Train Wreck Phenomenon, cogniscents all

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Challenge #02463-F273: Night of the Living PJ's

“I fucked up my internal clock and having insomnia always triggering midnight hunger.”

“Midnight hunger?”

“A zombie like state that make me crave food.”

“What's a zombie?”

“You’ll see tonight.” -- Anon Guest

Humans have weird terms for everything. Spacers, even more so. It's as if being locked inside a limited space with only audio channels available for communication triggers its own unique permutations on language. Either that, Grux speculated, or they were just Like That from the beginning.

"Just a

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Challenge #02462-F272: A Not-So-Little List

Rael's introduction to cream pie, please. -- Anon Guest

[AN: You can find something similar in my very first anthology under the title of Time Out From That Good Fight (It should be in the late one hundreds, but if not, here's the link to the version on Steemit.]

Was there any bigger portent of impending doom than Shayde singing a certain song from The Mikado? Rael had unfortunately found out that the answer was 'yes'. It was Shayde singing a certain

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Challenge #02461-F271: Works Every Time

So, based on your story about visiting aliens having to hover their hands over something to check if it was hot, imagine if one alien (or maybe even human) uses it as a pick-up line. Like, they hover a hand over someone's wrist or hand and they just say "hot." I think it would be cute! -- Anon Guest

Love is many things, but it was never logical, reasoned, or well thought. In literary terms, love is that idiot who dives into

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