Prompt

A 480-post collection

Sensible Economic Decision

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.“ - Randall Munroe

[AN: I know I’ve done this twice before. Let’s see if the third is a stretch. Also, my laptop is still dead and all my progress on KFZ is in limbo. I’m using Beloved’s lappy and seriously praying I can at least recover what I’ve written in KFZ T_T]

(#00750 - B019)

They had made buildings to be almost indestructible. Yet the plants were still taking over. The animals were still moving in. Highly adaptable omnivores, all of them.

Tier hated finding graveworlds. There was an intense sense of coming there just a little too late. Even when the evidence indicated that they had arrived more or less a century too late. Whatever had happened here, the ecology had taken some significant time to reach the city hearts.

This planet’s answer to goats faced off in what was once a city square. Posturing and butting at each other.

There was no cogniscent life left on this world. They’d run all the possible scans. Even people regressed back to the stone age would have shown a sign of their existence.

Now it was up to Tier and her crew to unearth this planet’s cause of death.

Data centres, once revived by judicial jiggery-pokery, showed plethoras of information about environmental impact and how profits were more important than the planet’s wellbeing. Lots of arguments along the lines of, "When the last plant dies, we will realise that we can’t eat money.” But of course the profit-making organisations ignored the naysayers, cancelled all efforts to set up colonies elsewhere, and continued on their path to inevitable destruction.

Poorly-researched artificial foods also contributed, causing disease and metabolic failure in the surviving citizens. Monocultures were wiped out by one plague, and the people starved.

Cause of death: Combination trophic cascade disaster, climate change, and disease. Tier wanted to write: Corporate greed into her report… but the Galactic alliance frowned on that ever since they regulated how far bodies corporate could actually go.

They didn’t want the corporations who were doing it right to feel bad about themselves.

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Challenge #00749 - B018: Crazy Apes

http://imgur.com/gallery/IeLuO

something based on this lovely mini-story?

Understanding the entire concept took some time. Earth bombarded the Dracs with popular media. All the stories where someone made a noble sacrifice for the greater good.

How ingrained in us it was that one life for the betterment of others was the good thing to do. How selflessness was a virtue.

The Ambassadors were horrified. Perplexed. Confused. Bemused. And overall, plain confounded.

The Dracs studied us, of course. Examined Earth

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Challenge #00748 - B017: Informed Decision

Keeping the groups that sing “Under Pressure” and “Ice Ice Baby” apart turns out not to be the hard part - the hard part is choosing which area to stay with. Do you want the eerie whispering, or the sudden heart attack?

[AN: For those wondering where this prompt came from, check out story #171 in One Leap Year of Instants, available for whatever you want on Smashwords. Please choose to pay a dollar value for this anthology]

Humans were strange creatures.

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Challenge #00747 - B016: What a Voice

Following in from the last one, the musical shenanigans of Francoeur and Kurt.

Three weeks in…

Audiences loved the acrobatics. Carlotta could have done without the post-show bickering, especially now that Todd was picking up enough French to cuss in.

But this time, the froggy mutant slunk off into the depths of backstage, distancing himself from the slightly demonic Kurt.

Carlotta followed him. She didn’t understand much English and he didn’t understand much French, but she knew instinctively that he

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Challenge #00746 - B015: Unlikely Meetings

Kurt Wagner meets Francoeur. How do Todd and Emile get on?

It was the first show that the audience ran out on. But, to be completely fair, it was the first one that included the surprise appearance of a blue, fuzzy demon and some kind of humanoid amphibian thing.

Carlotta was ticked, of course. Especially at the fact that both creatures could stick to walls and ceilings, far out of reach of the diminutive cabaret hostess. There was something of a flap

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Challenge #00745 - B014: Baldie

B’rka, the adventures of a goose Numidid with no feathers  (For the prompt inspiration, see Borka)

The chick had been left in her nest. It was weak and cold and hungry. Serka knew that she didn’t have the time to call emergency services. And, since it was night, there was a high likelihood that they wouldn’t turn up until morning. By which time it would be far too late for the newly-hatched keet.

She could see why

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Challenge #00741 - B010: Not Quite MST3K

“Guys! Guys! I have a loaded machine pistol in my hand and I have no idea what I’m doing!”

Shayde giggled. “Awright. That one had a point. The goal is tae make fun of the movie, not the common hollywood tropes, ye ken.”

“It’s still fun,” argued a SPOEn who called herself Molly Ringwald.

“Aye, it is tha’.” She pointed at the screen. “BOOM! Take a shot!” She

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Challenge #00740 - B009: Fighting Against the Stereotype

http://boundlessinspiration.tumblr.com/post/106944373313/hurryupmerlin-thegirlwithgoldeyes-imagine-a

“Bolin! Hey,” Sasha smiled for her. “It’s so rare to see you off night shift.”

“Yeah. Tell me about it.” Safely indoors and out of direct sunlight, Bolin shed her hood and took off her sunglasses.

Sasha burst out laughing. “What’s with the war paint?”

“Zinc oxide is the only sunblock I can wear. It comes in teeny-tiny pots and a range

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Challenge #00739 - B008: Havenworlders V Humans

Hypothetically, a universe where keratin (our hair and fingernails) is a rare and valuable resource. Accounting for the sugar walls from a previous story it would potentially be considered a strong, nonreactive material.

Seeing humans with it on must be like watching someone walk around with steel-tipped claws and spun-titanium jewellery. Yeah it’s a small fortune but a) the person it’s attached to must be scary as all get-out and b) it’s practically a weapon in its own

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Challenge #00738 - B007: Draco Concilium

Dragon Convention, Not just European please, there are Chinese, Pernese, Cartoon dragons, Reluctant and Mu Shu, Better stick to the Mythical and Literary type. Have Fun.

The place was huge. It had to be. Some attendees  needed to break the rules of physics just to exist[1]. And even a relatively small number of attendees managed to make a crowd.

Neg’ret waited patiently behind a Rainbow Serpent making out with a Quetzalcoatl and tried to pay more attention to the singing

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Challenge #00732 - B001: The Better Part of Valour

Person #1: A ‘strategic withdrawal’ is running away. But with dignity.
Person #2: So lay in a course and let’s get the dignified hell out of here.

Human ships. A fleet’s worth. Just hanging around in space, as one of their own authors was wont to say, in precisely the way that bricks don’t.

The crew of the Expendable Question could instantly tell that these vessels had been made by humans. They showed a deathworlder’s

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Challenge #00730 - A365: Strange Nest-Fellows

Imagine a life-preserving pod being picked up by a human vessel. Imagine it contains a Numidid keet (and possibly a dead parent or message from them). Imagine that keet raised by humans with no contact or knowledge of the Numidid people besides the pod remains. Imagine that keet as a young adult meeting other Numidid for the first time with no idea of Numidid society.

[AN: I know this is hellishly late, but I was hoping our internets would have returned by

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Dragons need better PR agents.

“Hmrph… but that’s how it always is, isn’t it? Just because they have so many prolific bards and scholars in their employ, they think they get the rights to dictate how everyone else is seen by the future generations - they don’t even TRY to ask my opinion… I’ve got scales on my butt older than their eldest king, and they still think they know more about my kind than I do… Humans are utter idiots.”

Catlike,

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Challenge #00722 - A357: Food That Sings

http://callmegallifreya.tumblr.com/post/104613467865/the-magical-crawdad-mmolio-funkocide

“asexual sirens getting real fuckin pissed about all these sailors interrupting choir rehearsal”

“sirens are already asexual they dont have sex with the men they kill them”

“well no wonder they kill them they keep interrupting choir rehearsal”

“Asexual mermaids being really pleased when an asexual sailor begins singing baritone counterpoint.”

They usually didn’t pay attention to the wooden things that floated on top of their

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Challenge #00715 - A350: The Truth is Out There

Assume the plane in prompt 00691 - A326 is the missing Malaysia Airlines plane, or another mysteriously vanishing flight. It finally lands on the planet and the pilots try to flag down a passerby to ask for directions home.

25th of May, 2003.

As soon as they were out of range, a party broke out on board.

“We did it!”

“WOO!”

“We got our own goddamn JET!”

Shrieks and whoops and general celebration lasted all of

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