Oolite Bulletins

Disembodied, So far (IMHO) you've been the best storyteller on the traveller's tales thread.

So, I'm going to raise the stakes and challenge you to tell us of the time you saved a civilization of horny red toads from an ice age using a food blender and a decrepit racing Adder.

Rules:
-freely ignore this;
-the starter (me) cannot challenge you on this tale nor be challenged to tell the next;
-three other persons may challenge your tale once each;
-you must explain away the three challenges.
-you can then be the starter and choose someone to tell the next tale.

Well, I should say at the outset that I really can't take all the credit. The brains behind the whole operation was Professor Wendy H'ptick of the Ousian Academy of Science on Onenla. I just helped with the practical end of things.

If you check out Onenla on the Co-op database, you'll find it's a rich industrial planet, rated tech level 11, close to the middle of quadrant 2. Unusually for such a high-tech, prosperous system, it's also multi-government. A technicality, in my opinion: they're pretty good at local co-operation, which as things turned out is just as well.

The database also lists them as "Red Horned Humanoids", but if you ask me, they're toads. I know there's the whole so-called damn frog-toad controversy, all the accusations about being "insufficiently amphibious" or "not slimy enough", but speaking personally that's just political correctness gone mad. If it looks like a toad, and quacks like a toad -- it's a toad. My 2 creds, anyway. Sorry if I offend anyone.

The final database entry for Onenla reads "This world is plagued by occasional solar activity". Yeah, well, on this one occasion it was solar inactivity that was the problem -- and how. Don't ask me the physics, but apparently the star was entering a long-term low in its rather erratic cycle. Solar output was down, and dropping sharply, and looked set to stay that way for a couple of centuries, or so Professor H'ptick told me. Energy yields were dropping, and glaciers were already advancing. It was highly unlikely that their multi-governmental structure could cope with an environmental calamity on this scale.

I'd taken a swing through the system purely by chance: it was not long after I'd bought the Radio Maru, and was enjoying my new combat capabilities so much I'd decided to hop through some of the hairier systems in the local volume to see what I could pick up from any passing pirates. I'd arrived at the station with a bunch of stuff to sell that had cost me nothing but a bit of laser-grease, and was feeling well pleased. Maybe the impressive list of in-system kills brought me to the Emergency Committee's attention: anyway, I got a ping from them within a few hours of docking, asking me for assistance. I had no place to be, no pressing demands, so I thought "What the hell," and took the call.

The ebbing star had caught them on the hop, if you'll pardon the pun, and things were getting pretty grim, pretty quick. As the ice advanced, the albedo was rising and they were within an ace of spiralling downhill into a snowball. But I'll give them their due, they had come up with the damnedest solution.

Professor H'ptick had been studying spiders, to see if she could devise a process to synthesise gossamer from fly-waste. They go through a power of flies on Onenla, being toads and all, and it had good commercial potential. She'd created a system that could run in a big industrial food-blender. You know the kind I mean: tip bugs and worms in one end, it hums and glugs a bit and a patty of prime shrewsteak pops out the other. Well, the Prof had converted one to take a feed of liquid fly and churn out a specially adapted gossamer. She'd also put together a set of automatic spinnerets. With enough fly juice that thing could weave you a cable from Lave to Laorlaza, no problem. There was also a gizmo to spray a mist of alloy molecules onto the thread, to silver it up. The whole doohickey was mounted in the back of a reclaimed Adder racer, and the idea was to send the ship shuttling back and forth between rings of satellites and spin up one kickass solar mirror to focus extra heat and light on the planet. What they were lacking was a pilot. Enter yours truly.

It wasn't easy, I can tell you. I had to keep to a precise course and speed, up and round, down and round, up and round, down and round, each time at just a slightly different angle... They'd converted the racing Adder because it could manage the turns, but there wasn't much room left for supplies. Not only did I have to keep dead on course, I also had to scoop extra cargo pods of fly-guts and alloys every few thousand klicks to replace the ones I was using up. Loris knows how long the job took, but for days afterwards I wasn't fit to fly a Frog. If it wasn't for a frankly heroic dose of Dr Sigmund Schmigmund's Mental Fixative -- available at all good convenience stores throughout the eight galaxies -- I doubt if I could have completed the job sane.

Well, to cut a long story short, the mirror did the trick. Or at least it bought them enough time to work on a longer-term solution. I left Onenla with the thanks of their governments, two bridges and a raft of local schools named after me, and a warm stack of credits in my account. Nice folks. Professor H'ptick even mailed me, later, to say that they'd put up a statue of me in the station reception lobby. They light it up, local night-times. If you ever want to see a forty-foot lava lamp, you just head on over to Onenla.

Oh, wow, you actually did it, and well too!

Now we just need three critics, your replies and you may call the next challenge.

Disembodied wrote:

If it wasn't for a frankly heroic dose of Dr Sigmund Schmigmund's Mental Fixative -- available at all good convenience stores throughout the eight galaxies -- I doubt if I could have completed the job sane.

But... doesn't it also work as a laxative? How could you do this precise piloting whilst rushing for the Adder's rather basic toilet facilities every ten minutes?

winston wrote:

But... doesn't it also work as a laxative? How could you do this precise piloting whilst rushing for the Adder's rather basic toilet facilities every ten minutes?

Ah... you're forgetting my rather unique physical characteristics. "Bodily functions" are seldom, if ever, a problem for me! The minor intestinal relaxations which can sometimes be caused by Dr Shmigmund's fine product (ask for it by name!) have not the slightest effect on my shiny, Tezaeded-built Digestatron.

But...

Isn't it true that you had a sizable bounty previously placed on your head by red horned humaniods everywhere after your infamous and unfortunate exploits on the planet Gelegeus?

Oh dear. I'd hoped that people had forgotten about that embarrassing little episode. Really, it was a long time ago, and was nothing more than a stupid misunderstanding that's been blown out of all proportion. I suppose I should set the record straight.

I was pretty raw back then, both as a pilot and as an individual. I was still flying my first ship, the Potage Electrique, a Cobra III, and I was still finding out about myself. Was I a hard-working trader? A sundogging space bum? A stone-cold killer? Of course, now I realise that these crude categories don't really describe anyone, but in the early days I was just the basic core of a personality, built up from wetware wafers and pseudo-experiences, grafted onto whatever rudimentary neural structures remained from whoever was in here before me. I was seeking some kind of definition.

Anyway, I'd fitted out the Potage Electrique with a military laser and upped her shields. I'd had a few firefights before, of course, but on a small scale and in self-defence only. Now I was off looking for trouble.

Gelegeus and its neighbouring systems (Zaleriza: anarchy; Xeenle, anarchy; Eszaraxe, anarchy; Isveve, anarchy; Xeesenri, anarchy) is a good place to find that. Honestly, the whole sector is in chaos; there must be something in the background radiation. So in I went, and although I gave as good as I got, and then some -- pushed my ratings all the way up from "Average" to "Competent" in five jumps -- I scared myself silly in the process. I'll fight, if it comes down to it, and kill if I have to, but I take no joy in it. I was not, it would seem, a pirate, assassin or bounty-hunter. I decided to get out while I was still in one piece, and headed for Biisza, the only island of sanity in the whole volume.

To get there, though, I had to head through Gelegeus. It's a multi-government system, a backwards little poor agricultural. I wish I'd just sunskimmed and headed on for Biisza, but there was a "Free Trade Zone" lurking between me and the star so I ran in to the main station instead.

Well that was a ropey run and no mistake. I fought through a five-way furball, dealt with a lone-wolf Asp, and got jumped by a Fer-de-Lance and his two Cobra 1 friends all in the space of three hundred klicks. As the dust cleared, and I was setting up to collect some cargo, I spotted two Iguanas, a Cat and a big Black Dog sliding in. Being somewhat beat up, I decided that discretion was the better part of valour, and survival was the cherry on the top. I hightailed it out on my injectors. Fortunately they were too busy reaping the rewards of my hard labours to bother with more than a token pursuit.

So by the time I got into Gelegeus station, I was in a pretty foul mood. It got worse after I discovered that the local scutters weren't remotely qualified to carry out any of the necessary repairs. Then I received a demand to explain a discrepancy in my bill of lading; a cannister of luxury goods which I'd had in there had been destroyed in the fighting, but the Gelegeusians were claiming it was still there and was actually liquor and wines. Basically, a whole good ton of Solageonian Tree-Wolf musk had been blown all over the inside of the cargo bay, but the dock crew were prepared to drink the residue so as far as they were concerned it was booze. I told them that if they wanted to drink it, they were welcome and with my blessing, as long as they finished servicing the Potage Electrique first. Okay and thank you, came the reply, but could I just indent the bill -- manually, of all things. I told you they were backwards.

Fine. Right. I popped the canopy and trundled out onto the wing of the Potage: and that's when all hell broke loose. Suddenly there was screaming and shouting, and klaxons going off all over; scutters were bumping into each other, blast-doors were clanging down and a bunch of local Blues came charging out waving a goddam EMpulser, screaming about an outbreak and ordering everyone to crash their systems. Well, I turned around to get back into the cockpit and purge the computer when the bastards opened up -- on me.

I locked up dead. My core systems were shielded, of course, but I was still in my original basic transport body. My manipulators, my treads, my communications, my sensorium, all got pulled down by the EMP. I was caught in frozen darkness: no sound, no sight, no sensation at all, just me and my neurons, all on our ownsome, for what seemed like an eternity but probably wasn't much longer than a couple of hours.

They don't get many cyborgs through there; certainly none as radical as yours truly. Turned out that somebody, some half-witted hick farmer in the control booth who read too much science fiction, had clocked me for an autonomous AI, a rogue robot about to inject an uplift virus into the station systems and fling Gelegeus into a singularity event. Like I said, backwards. Anyway, to cover their embarrassment, and probably to forestall any lawsuit on my part, they charged me with "Impersonating a Hostile Intelligence", "Creating Alarm and Despond", and "Disrupting the Orderly Operation of the Station". Oh, and "Trading in Sub-Standard Goods (Liquors, Wines and Beverages subsection)", too. They actually put me on trial, would you believe, after first fitting me out with a replacement sensorium (black-and-white, it was, and pretty damn grainy) and a voicebox that made me sound like I was gargling gravel. At least they managed to repair my transport body: at one point it looked like they were going to have to wheel me into the courtroom on a cart. This is where all that "Fugitive" nonsense comes from; before the trial, the Potage was impounded and my transponder was clicked up to a stupidly high criminal rating to prevent me "fleeing justice". Standard practice on Gelegeus, apparently: given that their Blues are so damn incompetent it's probably even a good idea.

The whole charade collapsed when it came to court, of course. The charges were dropped, my legal status returned to normal, and my good name restored (although not, I see, before the rumour-mills started to spin all manner of nonsense about me...). I did raise the issue of compensation, but that proved a non-starter: it was, apparently, an "honest mistake" and everyone concerned had "followed operational protocol". I thought briefly about pushing it -- but I'd already spend far too many days of my brief life in numbing courtroom battles. I just wanted to get up, get out, and never come back.

I did, to my later shame, make some intemperate remarks to a local fax reporter about "scarlet-arsed forkheads", which didn't go down too well, and did cause some later resentment among other red horned humanoids who heard it. Well. I was young, I was stupid, and I was deeply, deeply pissed off. Still no excuse, though. People are people, whether they're blue, green, red, black, yellow, furry, bald, slimy, chitinous, or floating in a jar.

So. There's the whole sorry story. I shook the dust of Gelegeus from my tracks and lit out for brighter stars. I did upgrade my personal systems soon after, which I feel was a good thing: it helped ground me in a sense of who and what I am. And I did put out a general statement of apology for my use of the f-word, which I hope was accepted by horned communities everywhere as an unfortunate outburst under stressful circumstances. Certainly the people of Onenla didn't seem to care; then again, they're a pretty enlightened bunch. I, for one, will not be back again in Gelegeus in this lifetime, so what they think of me there I know little and care even less.

Nice!

And of course, 4 new crimes on the call list for V1.1!
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Extraordinary work Disembodied! Of course what else should one expect from a brain in jar! I'm starting to think it was a mistake to let you go first. It's gonna be like the Rolling Stones opening for [insert band nobody likes here].


WE STILL NEED ONE MORE CRITIC!!

I'm absolutely not qualified to critisize (sp?) but I think it is about time to start a new forum with fan fiction. There are some real great stories around on this board and I would hate to see them disappear in the mist of time...

...as it appears to be happening to the EBBS, with tons of jewels that nobody will retrieve (if any more than what already has been).

Mr. Chairbeing, I fully agree with my collegue and second the motion.

@matt634: I may have ruined a perfectly good thread... But this isn't a competition unless you make it one; the point is to have fun.
Or, you could see it as the Oscar ceremony, where renowned celebrities host the new winners.

Hi, I was just passing by when I couldn't help overhearing your story, Commander.

Having a passing acquaintance with spider webs - and organic materials - I'm assuming that the fly product had many characteristics in common with the original.

Organic materials become instantly freeze dried when exposed to the hard vacuum of space. Dry and brittle, that is, as opposed to sticky and supple...

Pray tell, how was that feat of yours ever achieved?

Hm. Well, to be honest, such a technical question has me stumped. So I got in touch with Professor H'ptick at the Ousian Academy of Science to see if she could explain the specifics. I append her message here:

Professor Wendy H'ptick wrote:

FROM: Professor Wendy H'ptick [email protected]
RE: Spiderwebs in space

Thank you for your query. I'm afraid that issues of commercial confidentiality, patents pending etc. prevent me from giving you a detailed scientific answer, but I can give you some general background information. Commander O'Glory is being somewhat simplistic in referring to the blender feedstock as "fly-guts": frankly, I suspect he didn't pay tremendously close attention to the more technical aspects of his briefing. Although to be fair such details were wholly unnecessary to the successful and satisfactory completion of the mirror (thanks again, Blaze!).

To elaborate: a specially processed fly-derived compound did form an intrinsic part of the cable from which the mirror was spun -- the amalgam in the polycrete, if you will. However, this was by no means the only ingredient involved. One vital component was a (proprietary) chain-extended liquid crystal polymer. Low-temperature crystallisation of this polymer produces thin lamellae with complex dendrites, creating an interlocking lattice which gives the cable great structural strength and stability. Further structural support was provided by the reflective alloys which formed the cable's outer jacket. Finally, we also introduced small amounts of a piezoelectric compound into the mix, which helped to control the internal temperature, ensuring a smooth setting of the final mix. This was one reason why the timing of the "weave" was so crucial, and why it all had to be completed in a single run.

Further research and testing is required, but we're hopeful that this technology will result in other useful applications. Murgh Shipyards, for example, has already expressed interest in using the cable and spinneret system, or a similar derivative, as a possible replacement for the rather clumsy solid tow-bar currently in use by Hognose tugs.

I hope this goes some way to assuaging your curiosity. If you want to follow any of this up, you could check out my recent paper, "On the Properties of Polymerised Liquid-Crystal Pseudogossamer Cables in Orbital Conditions", published in Rheologica Acta MXXVII, 2, pp803-847.

All the best,

Wendy

---------------------------
Professor Wendy H'ptick
Department of Materials BioScience
University of Ousia, Phermela
Onenla
Sector 2

Thank you Professor H'ptick! None of that makes any sense to me at all, but I'm sure it will to somebody!

Bravo!, put your hands together for Mr. Glory.

</me whispers to disembodied>
You're forgetting things man... not good if you're a brain in a pickle jar!
So, who're you challenging next?

Hum. Well... there are so many stories out there... but I for one would like to hear Captain Hesperus tell us the tale of how, using a parking meter and a cannister of luxury goods, he started a religion on a low-tech planet, and how he managed to escape the consequences of his actions...