January 2012 Writing Ideas
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There is no way I can write 365+ publishable stories in a year, let alone one publishable story. Last year, I started on 9 stories last year and wrote "the end" on four of them. I submitted one to a magazine and the rest need serious rewrite.
Back on Prodigy Classic, in December 1997, I posted some story ideas I could not use. I soon found the story ideas flowed fast. I posted nearly all the ideas I could come up with, including those I hoped to eventually use.
I follow the belief that if 20 people wrote from the same story idea, we would have 20 different stories. I took one of the story ideas from this year and when I fired it off to the publishers, my version had only a slight similiarity to the original story idea. This is why I don't worry about using these stories later, myself. Since then, I've learned that many people enjoy reading these posts, even if they do not write.
I come up with a basic concept which is seldom more than a paragraph long. I then spin a story around the concept, or explain what is behind the concept so someone can see how to develop the basic concept.
I don't want these ideas to go to waste and hope that others might convert them into published pieces. I hold these ideas to be Public Domain (free to use in any way). They can be used in any form you choose. I hope you can use them profitably, but if not, at least enjoy reading these posts. Let me know if you make use of any of them. That is like a pat on the back and gives me an added incentive to keep this up (Like I really need it....).
I last year I posted two books worth pure drivel, down from my normal four books worth that I used to do each year in these idea posts. This is my Fourteenth year of posting these story ideas. What they say is true. Ideas are a dime a dozen. Developed ideas are like gold. These are not fully developed...
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01 )
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He came before the board of directors for the science department. "We found a discrepancy in some data involving the universe. We are not ready to go public with our data but we asked Cornel and the Hubble guys for some extra information without letting them know why we needed the information, and what we got back suggested confirmation."
"What exactly is this problem you have found?"
"We have to determine if it is in measurements, can be explained naturally or it might even be us. We are not sure yet. We have seen evidence that suggested that there has been a change in the rules of the universe in the past three decades."
"That is preposterous. What makes you think that?
"Like I said, we have to figure out whether it is real or not. A number of the most modern discoveries should not be able to be discovered, planets the size of ours, the lack of global warming, the rate of advancement of our technology. Evidence indicates this should not be possible. something changed.
"Is there any local evidence of this, um, change, or is it just theoretical?"
"When was this supposed to happen?" Another butted in.
"This is part of why we are not wanting to announce our findings yet. It appears as if the change happened at the turn of the century. One of my students joked that God's computer got caught by the Y2k bug and the universe is not working right now. I would not have mentioned that but it fits our data better than other theories proposed."
"God has a computer," snorted another.
"Is there something we could see as evidence for this?"
"There is plenty but, as an example postulated by our political science people, is that before the turn of the century, the Moslem radicals had difficulty getting a serious foothold anywhere. After Y2K, we had the attack on the trade center, radicals attacking many nations, a man with a Moslem name elected president, the overthrow of governments. Out statisticians say that based on what happened before Y2K, these should have been impossible. It is like whatever was keeping them under control is gone."
"Exactly how many departments are involved in this research?
"Well Um, Our whole university system, every department has had a look, though they have not spent any effort in it, just looking to see what the results would be if this were true. They all have seen effects that would fit the theory, and little that does not fit."
"So you are saying there is a God?"
"No, there is God's computer and it was not ready for the turn of the century and is still not repaired."

02 )
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There was a comment about one of the former presidents where when he went on vacation, he went out on his property with a chainsaw to cut wood. A later one just goes golfing. My mind went into story idea mode.
The leader was extremely critical to the country. He always had guards, visible and hidden all around him. If he went anywhere, everybody was checked out, the areas secured well before he arrived. They were not going to let him get into danger.
Because of the protection, his life was rather boring, but he never had time to deal with that. His work took up all his time.
He finally got a chance to take a vacation and went to his estate. It was small compared to what most leaders had. It was his property before he became leader and stayed with it.
The guard did not like the property as it was impossible to make it completely protected. There were some things that they could not stop the leader from getting involved in.
After some parties and visiting friends and family, the leader decided to get some relaxation. The guard did their best to try to talk him out of it, but he insisted.
He grabbed a large ax donned a helmet and some protective clothing and headed out into the woods behind his house. The air shimmered as he followed the trail, the trees changed and so did the animals he saw. Suddenly a group of barbarians charged out of the trees at him. He spun the ax and lunged into an attack. More barbarians charged in at a full yell.
An hour later, he strolls back into the house, covered in blood, his ax showing chips and dings of battle. His armor had a few shallow dents in them where he partially blocked a strike.
As he was cleaning up, the guard master chewed him up and down about endangering himself like this. He just grins happily. He got his aggression and frustrations out on the barbarians and would be good until the next vacation.

03 )
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It started with a little bad luck. He then made a couple seemingly minor poor decisions. The bad luck and poor decisions accumulated to where he found himself on the wrong career path.
After several years, people started piling on him, taking advantage of his situation. Where most people would give a person a break or actually help them, his luck was that everybody went "for the throat" in dealing with him and his problems.
What little money he accumulated was soon gone. Then he had to sell his house and he got ripped off in that deal. The person that purchased it off him then sold it for what it was really worth.
His car was repossessed two months before it was to be paid off. Having to rent and not having a car caused him to lose what work he had and he lost his possessions when he could not pay his rent.
People continued to pile on him rather than help him. Shelters did not want to take him in and soup kitchens scooped him half the servings that others got.
He ended up actually selling his clothing to get some medicine. No one wanted to help him. Most people actually "picked on him."
He was starving, it was cold, he was not healthy. someone came to him and made him an offer. He had no choice in the matter.
He was taken to the courthouse and he sold his identity. He was made healthy and then shoved out onto the street with a reminder that he was never, ever, to use his name or his past ever again. There were penalties he did not want to suffer if he ever did.
From that moment on, he was so poor that he had no name.

04 )
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The great nation heard word that a small country had started rocket tests to get into orbit. The small country refused to talk about it, nothing would keep them from doing the tests.
The country finally launches a rocket. The second stage separates, then the rocket detonates. The violent explosion leaves nothing but small debris falling to the ground. The great nation relaxes a little.
The country sends up another rocket and it explodes a short distance from the launch pad. Just as soon as the debris was cleaned up another rocket goes up. The third and final stage separates and is about to go into orbit when it detonates. No one notices that the stages burn up completely so no debris hits the ground.
They do some more tests and One rocket gets almost out of the atmosphere to enter a full orbit but explodes just before it is over the horizon.
There are a number of nations with rocket programs and they are making fun of the little country for all the failures. The little country seems proud of their rocket program in spite all the failures.
Relations between several of the nations get sour. The great nation is the target of the aggressions. It finally gets so bad that several small nations launch their rockets at the great nation. The great nation retaliates. It happened that the small country was right below the pathway of all the rockets.
As they cross the "view of the little country, they start exploding violently, Not one rocket crosses far enough to get over the little country. Several volleys suffer the same fate.
All the combating nations realize that the little country is the cause. A new volley launch and they are aimed at the little nation. Some debris lands within the borders.
The little country then retaliates, erupts from everywhere. Every one of the nations are hit in key military sites. The great nation is rocked by the pin point strikes.
When it is all over, the little nation says the war is over, they will all surrender. they do.
It turns out that the little nation had a successful rocket program and already had them stationed where needed. What they were doing was launching their badly built rockets and testing an anti rocket system. It worked perfectly in the tests, and then in the defense.

05 )
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Inertia drives were a particle experiment discovery and looked like they might be the key to having unlimited power for transportation.
The inertia drive was such that it would continue to spin as long as power was applied to the magnetic lubricant. The lubricant could be increased or decreased to control the speed of the inertial drive.
Inertia drives were often tried with cars but they failed. the big problem they found was that the inertial drive housing did not like twisting and turning. Since they put them on each wheel, they could not get the cars to turn.
The inertial drives were fairly good with stationary power but transportation was the gold standard. If they could get them to travel, one would make shipping ultra cheap.
Blankel got his hands on a large inertial drive. It was used in a generator but the generator part of the unit failed. The inertial drive worked well though
It happened that his car's engine died. This was one of those past century monster cars. The repair was going to be very expensive. He had pulled the engine out of the compartment and was trying to figure out what he was going to have to do to repair it. It did not look cheap.
He removed the transmission from the engine and just happened to notice that the inertial drive had a similar connection. He had to build the connection housing but he was able to connect the two together. He put the new inertial drive engine into his car and buttoned it up. He had figured out how to attach a generator and air conditioner to power the car electrical. He put a small gas generator in the trunk and piped the air intake and exhaust out of the compartment. That went directly to the drive battery and then to the inertial drive.
Now he settled in place and started the drive. He carefully lifted the clutch and started driving. He found he could drive around the block fairly easily. The car turned easily and when he hit the highway, he found he had some real power.
The generator was charging the battery that was powering the inertial drive. He drove for about an hour and then stopped at a gas station to refill his generator tank.
He was crossing the undeveloped section of the area when he got behind the leader of a car train. The car train was where one driver knew the route and all others simply followed. The leader kept speeding up and slowing down for no reason.
It was making tough for Blankel to control his drive. It was designed to run at one setting, not changing speeds. He finally got tired of it. When they got up to speed again, he pulled close behind the leader. The leader lifted his peddle and slowed down. Blankel didn't. They bumped, the leader pushed on the break, expecting both of them to pull to the side of the road to look at the damage, and found they were not slowing down. The inertial drive turned out to be extremely powerful and good at holding the speed.
His car was taller and bigger than the leader's car so he could actually see over the other car easily. Because of that, he felt it was safe to push.
When they reached civilization again, he waited until the leader had stopped braking for the moment and then hit his brakes turned to the side and accelerated. He drove a bit and pulled into a service plaza. He refilled his generator tank and then parked on the side.
The train came into the service plaza, different cars gassing up. The leader looked at the rear of his car. there was no damage. He headed over to Blankel. a bunch of the members of the train joined him. The leader shouted about Blankel's bad driving and stupidity. Then train members joined in, but they were coming after the leader, demanding why he could not drive that evenly.
Blankel walked away from the arguing people and drove off. He gave his system a really good test before he got home. A month later he got with a mechanic and machinist and they started retrofitting cars with the inertia drive. They found most of the parts they needed in catalogs and they were making efficient cars quickly. It took a surprisingly long time for major auto manufacturers to figure out what he was doing and making their own.
Truck and railroad people saw what he was doing and started making the same design change to their systems.

06 )
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Atoms go in all directions, bouncing off each other. This happens in metals, air, vacuum of space, until one gets down to absolute zero where atoms stop moving. Theory says that if all the atoms in something all went in the same direction at the same time, that object could reach the speed of light.
Now I figure that if one had an object of good mass, and was able to control the motion of some of the atoms, one could at least in theory control the speed that the object would move. I presume that one could not get all the atoms to move in the same direction, maybe only a few percentage at best.
That few percentage, based on my understanding, could apply a good force in that one direction. Now if we could work out haw to do this efficiently with small support equipment around the mass, one could have a method to move space ships effectively.
In idea # 5, I had an inertial drive but had it designed wrong. If you read the description, I had it spinning, rather than a stationary block. Of course, a spinning inertial drive could be possible by turning off and on sections of the drive, just as we use stationary and electrical magnets for spinning an electric motor. Such a drive would be very useful if it were efficient. In Idea # 5, I assumed they were more efficient than electrical motors and even gas motors.
In actuality, I figure they would only work in a straight line. One bolts the drive to a frame, such as a space ship or truck would have, and turn it on. It would want to go in one direction. I would assume it would not really want to change direction either, though the movement might be like a rocket where other forces could change the direction easily. In that case, tires of a truck, or maneuvering jets would be able to redirect the direction easily.
I do not know if the direction of the inertial drive could be changed. It would be nice. Reversing would also be nice. I would assume that the equipment to go forward would have to be repeated going backwards. to change direction, one would have to have side to side set and for a space ship, up and down set to give directional controls. ?his is where small size is important. One would not want equipment the size of a house to power a mass just big enough to move a kiddy car. If it were the size of a computer monitor, one would have a lot of applications for the system, especially if it were powerful enough to move a car at highway speeds.
for other applications, one might have multiple units, a ship might have a couple dozen of them. A train might have four or five in each engine. A car might have one.
Now if the drive was really small, the size of a pencil cup, a car might have four or five and a lever-shifter- might start another one each time more speed and power is needed. Small would be especially nice for space ships.
For power, assuming they only need twelve volt batteries to operate, one would need some form of power generation for it. A twelve volt generator can be quite small and efficient. Nuclear batteries might also become available. We have the technology for a nuclear battery, but safety is a consideration. One does not nuclear wastes to be spread all over the city just because some idiot accidentally pulled out into the street too soon.
then of course, what would happen if one over-powered the inertia drive? race cars?

07 )
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I saw some birds playing tag with the cars at an intersection, picking something up off the pavement. I saw one bird run across the pavement to the median as a car passed. My mind wandered and came up with this concept.
The critters were a pest. They ate everything, even attacking some livestock. The critters were about the size of a kitten, they would congregate in one general area just outside the civilized area.
Vanderbuilt was the colony governor. He kept hearing about the problem with the critters. The council decided to eradicate the critters without checking with experts. They were going to use government workers to do the job.
Vanderbuilt got some camping gear together and set up near the critter nest and settled down in a camp chair and watched the animals.
They climbed trees, went into burrows, and acted like normal animals. While he was watching, the government workers showed up, making lots of noise and they started firing blasters at the critters. they were good shots, never missing, but they did not shoot fast so critters disappeared into holes or up trees or otherwise find hiding places.
The workers walked through the nest, went beyond the range, then turned around and blasted their way back getting a few more.
As the workers were leaving, they were bragging that they blasted the nest out of existence. there will be no problems with the critters ever again.
Half an hour after they left, the nest was back into action. the critters ate their dead and were satiated for the moment. About half the nest was killed in the attack. He was surprised that they got that many.
Vanderbuilt went back to civilization and back to work. He was at the meeting as the workers said the critters were now extinct on the planet.
Vanderbuilt asks questions about the way they destroyed the critters. What they were saying they did had little to do with what he saw them do. They exaggerated and misinterpreted what they did.
When they said there was absolutely no way any critter survived their attack, he asked if they were willing to bet half their paychecks for the next year if they are wrong. He would personally pay them that amount if no critter showed up in the next year. They would have to pay him half their pay checks for twelve months if any critters showed up. All the government workers got in on the bet.
Two weeks later, the critters showed up. The workers got docked their pay as their part of the bet. they had no idea how the critters could have possibly survived the attack. The government workers made extra money going to the farms and homes and killing critters that they could see.

08 )
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A group decided the police were being too militant on enforcing traffic laws. They felt they had the right to drive fast, ignore stop signs and cheat intersection lights. The police seemed to catch them each time and ticket them. That was too much.
To stop the police, they decided they would take them out. The group worked out a brilliant plan to trap the police. Scouts would find where the police were hiding. They would then set up a trap. A runner would race through the radar trap at speeds the officer would not be able to catch up to. That would get a second officer down the road to take chase. They would lead the cop on a side road into a trap the gang set.
Just in case a second cop took chase, they had another driver to run an intersection and cause an accident with the second cop. They would have their way with the first cop.
They picked out their marks and then set the trap. The speeder shot by, the second cop pulled out into the road and accelerated and the runner passed. The runner would slow down enough to lead the cop.
The cop followed as planned and they drove into the trap where the cop car was surrounded by the gang and they beat him literally senseless.
four cops later, the police started placing two officers in the cop car. To the gang, that did not matter. It was just another cop to beat up.
it had not dawned on the cops what was going on. Each beating seemed an unrelated incident.
Maynard was tired of getting tickets so he put a radar detector in his car. The actual detector was hidden and when it detected something, a light on the dash went on.
He was driving along a two lane highway and the detector went off. He glanced in his mirror and saw a car racing up at incredible speeds. Maynard decided to save the driver a ticket so he started wandering a little between the two lanes. The racing car came close to skidding to a stop. Maynard held him a long moment to make sure he was slowed down, then let him go. The guy floored it and raced off.
A police car leaped from hiding right behind the racer and followed him hard. Farther out, the car veered around a second cop. Since the road was empty, Maynard saw the car turn off on a road and the cop cars followed fairly close behind. A minute or two later, three cop cars appeared and headed down the road.
Maynard stayed to the speed limit and out of curiosity, turned onto the road they had headed down. He passed a car that had crossed an intersection and hit a light pole. He then found several dozen police cars surrounding a couple dozen civilian cars. One police car was badly damaged and there were a number of people with serious injuries. Maynard was waved in to join them.
They asked why he slowed the runner. He told him he knew about the speed trap, without telling how he knew.
They told him that because he slowed them down, that allowed the second police car to be involved and because they were so close together, the guy who's job was to stop the second cop car missed and crashed. The second cop car had slowed down to see the wreck, then accelerated to catch up. The first cop car was caught and the second cop plowed into a bunch of the thugs, taking the out of the fight, saving the partners.
Because Maynard tried to save a guy a ticket, he saved several cops from assault.

09 )
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The high lords had their punishments when they were displeased. The colony population had become their slaves and suffered the pleasures of the high lords.
Their greatest punishment for the colonists was to make them zombies. They really did not fit the true definition of a zombie. What happened was their mind was treated so no resistance existed in the person. A side effect was that their pain threshold was increased and they lost any care for impressing anybody else.
Their bodies would start to smell since they did not bother bathing or changing clothing. any wounds were ignored and tended to fester. They commonly forgot about eating or drinking, and would eat until they were sick since they could not tell they were full. The normal warnings of body functions was lost and they commonly went in their clothing. Few zombied people lasted five years after the treatment.
Wilson got in trouble. He was a good worker and worked hard, but he stood against a high lord, preventing him from doing something he wanted to do. High lords tend to shut off their higher brains when they get a strong urge to do something. The high lord had him dragged out of the way, and then walked to his death.
Wilson was lauded for this attempt to save the high lord but they were angry the high lord died. they took their revenge on Wilson, turning him into a zombie.
One little problem the zombies have is that they just don't care any more. Nothing more can be done to them so they stop trying. They take short cuts and many times skip steps in their work. If one is working with a zombie, one has to double check them carefully. The zombies still have their knowledge and skills and the high lords try to keep them working as any help is help.
Wilson went back to work. He felt his job was important and he worked hard to do his job well. He still wanted to please the high lords in spite of what they did to him. He forced himself to bathe, and had his co-workers check for wounds since he could not feel them well.
He had the not caring tendency, so he slowed down and made sure he did his work right. Because he tried hard in spite being a zombie, they worked hard to help him. A couple went so far as to clean him up several times a day. He had to learn that he must react to even the slightest body urge.
One day, a high lord was going to do something fatal. He stood in the way of the high lord, refusing to let him through. Others came to move him out of the way and he resisted. They used pain sticks on him to get him to move and he ignored them since he barely felt pain. He forced the high lord to leave.
The next day, the high lord returned and apologized, thanking Wilson for saving his life.
He was still working after ten years of being a zombie. He had saved two other high lords because he was able to take pain. The high lords took him in for some treatment. When he came out, he was pretty much back to normal. they had reversed the worst of the zombie treatment. There was still some.
They told him that he had worked so well and had saved several high lords from certain death made him worthy of having the treatment reversed.

10 )
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The explorers received data that a yacht had crashed on a planet. There were survivors. Calculating from the data, the ship had to be on the planet for at least a decade. they headed to the planet.
About a year later, entered orbit of the planet. There were no signals from the ship, batteries were likely dead. They hunted the planet for about a week before they found the colony. It was pretty big.
They dropped some probes into the atmosphere and examined the planet and colony close up. The planet seemed to be rather interesting, possibly a candidate for colonization. It had original life and ecology all over the planet. That was critical for a good colony.
The survivors had built a nice colony and appeared to have tripled the population that was reported on the ship. The planet seemed to be quite viable.
The explorers entered their launch and went to the colony. The colonists were shocked, surprised and excited that help came. The explorers were even surprised that those too young to know about being anyplace else was happy to see them.
After being shown around the colony, they were invited to have a dinner. The meal was interesting, everything was soaking in sauces of different kinds. They soon found that breakfast, lunch and dinner was much the same. Only the sauces changed.
They went out hunting and caught a local dog sized animal. They brought it home and the explorers watched how it was prepared.
The meat was marinated in a sauce for most of the day. Then it was boiled in the sauce until tender. They then roasted it over a fire. they shredded the meat and soaked it in the sauce, cooking it until the sauce was thick around the shreds. Finally it was served. It tasted like the sauce. Food plants were treated the same way, even the greens.
Believing it was not necessary, the explores caught one of the same animals and brought it in. It scanned safe so they tasted the raw meat. Every one of them spit the meat out.
Step by step, they treated the meat and tasted it, spitting it out. It was not until they had reduced the sauce around the shredded meat that they got something they could eat.
They soon found out that the small animal they caught tasted the best. Others still had a strong flavor.
Some scientific analysis showed that nearly all life had a chemical that had a bad reaction to the taste buds. It was simply the nature of the life that had developed on the planet. the sauces were from some seasoning plants that were on board the ship at the time of the crash. Otherwise, the colony would never have been able to eat to survive.
Finally, when the explorers asked who wanted to leave with them, not one person wanted to stay. They were not even interested in taking anything with them.
The explorers were worried that they did not have enough room for everybody, but decided to take everybody. The only thing the colonists brought were some plants and seeds of the seasonings they were growing. The explorers understood why.
It was suggested that the colonists should prepare their foods to take with them. Most said they would rather starve instead. The explorers forced them to prepare a couple months of food, helping them capture animals from all over to be killed and butchered when ready for them. The explorers had coolers for the food to freeze them up for storage.
It was miserable, cramped and stuffy on board the ship. the air system was pushed to the limits. It was decided that the ship food would be used as dessert. The explorers forced down the colony food just like everybody else.
It took nine months to reach the nearest base. Surprisingly, while they only fixed two months worth of colony food, they still had some left.
The first thing the colonists did once they were out of decontamination was to go out to dinner in every place the base provided.
Scientists were interested in the planet but were dismayed at the preparation of the food. Since there was native foods available, some not even process, They were given the food to taste and explore. The scientists lost all interest in the planet after exploring th foods.
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I saw a cooking show where they did multiple steps of cooking a type of meat and this idea came to mind.

11 )
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The kingdom was invaded by the monster. After taking heavy losses in battles with it, the kingdom essentially gave up, deciding the monster was un-defeat-able. After a while, the kingdom developed a method to keep the monster away from the people.
Laws were changed to where criminals would be fed to the monster. The capital crimes were made plenty enough to keep the monster happy, but not enough to anger the population. More crimes were added when people were being good, and crimes were removed when they were being bad. The kingdom announced regularly what laws were to feed the monster so people knew what the rules were.
There were three levels of capital crimes. Some crimes where the person was deemed dangerous to society, got high priority usually being sent ahead of all the others. The second batch was those who's crimes never were removed from the list. The third group were crimes that were sometimes capital and sometimes not. The last group were held as long as possible and if their crime stops being capital, they are given a non-capital punishment. That punishment won't change.
Each criminal would be given a weapon, armor and shield and be sent in alone against the monster. The idea was they had the slightest hope to survive the monster, possibly best it. Of course they never did.
Because the monster was in a place where it could be observed, the people regularly came to study the monster. Prisoners who were high on the execution list would be brought to watch the monster and even see someone put to death so when their time comes, they know what they are dealing with for when it is their turn. Who knows, they might pick out a weakness in the monster.
Because of the nature of punishment, it takes the whole kingdom to supply the monster as most people try to avoid those kinds of crimes.

12 )
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War had come down to the use of robots. The actual soldiers ran the controls in a "safer" place than where the robot was. In essence, they would get into position and point the robot where it needed to go to fight.
The robots were about thirty feet tall and were proportioned broad and squat compared to what a normal person would be. They were, in essence weapons platforms, and were completely covered in weaponry.
When robots went into serious battle, the prime result was utter devastation. A team of five could walk through a normal length valley and place a bullet or shell in every inch of the visible surfaces.
The robots did have the ability to operate on their own without guidance, and were usually used that way when there was no care to what got destroyed.
Of course they could be destroyed and seldom lasted a whole conflict, but like any super weapon, they did enough damage to cover their costs.
During peace time, the robots were sold to small countries for their defenses. Since most of the little countries were run by some level of despotic government, the robots were also used in offence.
The robot builders were derided about selling cutting edge top of the line robots to anybody who wanted them. The builders acted like they did not care. They wanted their sales.
A group of the little nations get very aggressive. They finally start joining together and taking over their neighbors who won't join them.
The builders are getting a lot of heat over their sales. They still say nothing.
Finally true allies is about to be attacked. Because of treaties, the nation sends forces to the allies. They are facing a larger number of their own robots than they can mobilize.
The robot builders have representatives there, as they always do during conflicts, mainly to assist in problems with the robots. The little countries move in, in an all out invasion. The robot builders ask for a signal to be sent out.
Just as the front lines reach the border, their robots stop moving, they refuse to move. They find this through the whole region of their control.
The nation then moves in, their robots laying waste the forces that came at them. As they get close, the enemy robots turn and join, becoming under full control of the nation.
Long before the robots reach the capitals of the aggressive nations, the robots they have are destroyed. Since they did not have working robots, the conquest was quick and simple.
After the war was over, the countries of the world were almost required to buy the robots. Everybody now knew that the robots would serve them as long as they stayed on the good side of the great nation. For anybody else, the robots would devastate the enemy.

13 )
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We already have printers that will print plastic objects in three dimensions. They can print so that the object will have internal moving parts that cannot be removed without breaking them. The big problem at this moment is that it takes hours to print even simple items.
This printing method is mainly for making a prototype, an original, to see how it is designed right. It saves a lot of time and money when compared to machining it out of the real material or to go into production and find an error in the design.
We are developing technology to see inside just about anything and deduce the composition of every part inside it. These "scanners" reduce the requirement of having to disassemble things to find out how they work.
In the later season Star Trek TV shows they had a replicator that could make just about anything. Someone mentioned that such a device would devastate the economies of thousands of worlds as no patent could survive and there would be no need for trade since anything you wanted could be made. The solution to this later problem depends on how long it took to replicate something. If it was nearly instantaneous, the fear could well be true. But, on the other hand, if the process took hours or days, then there would be no production capacity. It would be more of a one-of type of thing.
The way I would see a replicator working would be the object would be scanned in fine detail down to the atomic level. Because of the nature of biological compounds, it likely would not work for food stuff or life. The would be done in a different manner.
With life, they would take a generic cell and add sufficient genetics to it, then layer the different cells in the proper layers so they glue together until the life form is made. It would not be a true form of the life but would be something one could study or make use of.
For none life, the way I picture it is that the print head would lay down atoms one layer at a time. For an alloy, the atoms would be laid down in the general proportions of the material. The types of atoms would change. Compounds where the atoms cannot be laid down one atom at a time, would instead have molecules laid down. Charges might be adjusted so they stick together in the right orientation. Spaces that contain powders or liquids or even gasses, would be filled through a hole just before it was sealed.
I figure that because the atoms are laid down in layers, or possibly in groups depending on what part of the design it is going on, it will take a day to replicate a transistor radio and days to replicate a laptop computer.
While the process is really slow, one would be able to make something from scratch when you really don't have the technology to make it. One can then disassemble the copy and run whatever tests are needed to learn how it works. Anything can be replicated even though it won't be efficient or timely.

14 )
.
A friend told about how there are coyotes in her new neighborhood and does not want to bring her cats, which love to be outside, because the beasts would eat the cats. I remember her telling about the varmints that her cats loved to leave on her porch for her to find.
The high lords were great beings. A group of them settled on a planet filled with dinosaurs. to them, the dinosaurs were like dear, bears and wolves, and the other small animals. They were seldom something they really worried about.
A federation battle fleet was caught by the high lords. The battle fleet learned why they were high lords. They never had a chance. the crews were taken to various planets to be lap pets to the high lords.
A group of ten soldiers were taken into the home of a high lord on the dinosaur planet. The soldiers did little work like cleaning. the high lords gave them some food which would keep them alive, but it would not keep them healthy. The soldiers regularly went through the home and captured small animals that got inside and fixed them for meals. to the high lords, these were bugs and mice. to the soldiers, some were like wolves and coyotes.
They were not out to eliminate the vermin but to feed ten, it took quite a bit and soon they were running low. One by one, they were able to get the high lords to let them go outside. The soldiers found they preferred to go out at night. They had an advantage on the dinosaurs.
Half the team was slipping through the forest and surprised a small predator. it did not like being surprised. They harassed it as they tried to withdraw. It followed them. they got to a clearing and surrounded it. It put up a good fight, but the soldiers brought it down, cutting tendons on the back of the legs and then killing it when it was stuck on the ground.
Checking it out, they decided that the brain was the best part of the beast. They cut the head off and carried it as a group home.
The rest of the team showed up and they got a good share of brain and had a roast during the rest of the night.
The female high lord woke up and found the remains of the dinosaur on the door stop. She put it in the garbage.
The soldiers were bothered that their hard work was tossed away. That night, they went to the carcass and found it stripped completely. Nothing useful. Searching around, they found the biggest predator of the planet. It followed them, They harassed it, doing little bits of damage as they withdrew.
They got to the home and had nowhere to go so they attacked. Others who stayed at the house joined in. The beast fell dead under their attack.
They gathered what they could of the food, taking really big slabs, assuming that the surface would rot but the interior would still be good for a while. that morning, the male high lord found the carcass on the door step. It was like finding that your cat killed a bear. He got rid of it.
In order to have enough food, the soldiers kept killing the dinosaurs near the house and the masters kept throwing them out. Eventually, they worked out a way to refrigerate and even freeze their foods and they did not have to hunt quite as often.

15 )
.
The colony planet emanated magic everywhere. It was impossible to make something without magic being part of it. If one did not do spells, one never knew what the result of the magic would be, and the vast majority of it would "damage" the product so it would not work well.
It did not matter whether it was a cup, a plate, a sword. If the magic was not guided during the making of it, it would fail at whatever it was supposed to do. It would basically be useless.
Almost from the time they can speak, a person learned how to cast spells to direct the magic around them. cook a meal, cast a spell, sew, cast a spell, dig a ditch, cast a spell. This was a technological planet in spite all the magic. The magic augmented the technology.
It was common for store owners to get low grade products and cast a spell over them to make them higher quality products. they would change the spells to their store's styes. Sometimes the magic in the building caused some things to go bad quicker so they cast spells to protect the material from the building.
There was some interstellar trade. The magic in certain materials remained in it even when the magic was gone. There were some common products that were made better than anything else because they were made with magic. Trade was good.
A group of spacers did experiments and set up a small space station in orbit around the sun at a distance that magic would not reach. the group started manufacturing materials that could not be found on the planet that was much better without magic in it.
they had found some materials that changed when magic entered it and created a stamp to place on packages to show when the contents became contaminated by magic. A parchment used in cooking was one such product. Magic within paper caused it to react badly to heat. might shrivel up, or crawl out of the pan, or even devour the food it was against. The heat changed the nature of the magic within the paper.
The team made the parchment with no magic at all in it. the packages had the magic detecting stamp on it and they also applied the stamp to the parchment. it could not be seen until the magic impregnated the paper. The message on the stamp said something on the idea "this paper has expired, do not use."
Shipments of the expensive paper was sent down to the planet. It was sent to grocery stores and the crates said "use no magic" on them. In every case, the store owners opened the crates and cast a protection spell over them. they then watched in horror as the big expired message appeared on the packages. They opened them and found it all over the paper too. The stuff was unsaleable, turned into garbage.
Of course, the store owners demanded their money back, and then tried to refuse any more shipments. it took some talking by the representative to make them understand that when a crate said use no magic, it meant it.
People purchased the paper when the next shipment came in and they loved it. the paper released from the pan and did not react when the heat was applied to it. Because of the shelf life, the paper was sold in small quantities.
The spacers then started adding the stamp to other things where magic was a hindrance. Some devices needed the non magic parts to join magical parts. when the device was started, the non-magic part would take on a fresh spell based on the parts attached to it and meld the whole thing.
Some people worked out how to shut off the change of the stamp. It was a simple spell. They could shut off the spell even after the printing shown up. They sold the changed materials and run with their profits. the people that used the product would suffer the consequences.
Once the spacers learned about that, they did some tests and came up with a stamp that worked on the planet to see if there was magic in something. Basically three kinds of ink were in the stamp and when it was pressed against the surface, the three inks mixed and became vulnerable to magic on the surface.
Soon inspectors and even shop keepers had the stamps. Products would come in, specially from a different vendor and they would stamp the product and see if they were telling lies to them.

16 )
.
Melville was a psychic mechanic. He could place his hand on a machine and could sense exactly what was wrong with it. When he shook hands, he did sense if someone was seriously sick or not, but it was more a vague impression. He chose not to pursue that line, though he knew he could make it stronger. He would stick to machines.
He walked into a garage that he visited often. A customer had a truck in for the fifth time with the same problems. the mechanics could not figure out what the cause was.
While talking with the mechanic, he accidentally placed his hand on the fender. A rush of information flowed into his head. He looked at the truck for a moment. "Why is the governor so strange in this truck?"
The mechanic looked at him a moment then bent over the engine. the governor controls the speed and the truck was not supposed to be able to go faster than a certain speed. the mechanic straightened up. "The governor has been modified. He traced a wire and found a switch under the dash. He started the engine and tried to rev it fast and it only went to a certain point. He then flipped the switch and nearly had the engine at the "red line" where faster could do damage. When he let the power down, he started hearing an effect described by the driver.
The mechanic replaced the governor and removed the entire modification.
This happened with Melville often. He never intended to solve someone's problem but did.
Melville was doing his normal job at repairing air handling units at homes. His ability to touch a machine and diagnose the problem was well known around the city. There were some who hated him for that and would rather he not be in business. Some of those made their money by regular maintenance and repairs and they would make modifications to cause failures so they could make more money. Melville caught many of them.
Melville goes to a new customer. He meets the person who stays indoors. he goes to the air unit and notes the brand. He has seen it many times and knows how to handle it He reaches his hand out to touch it and something feels wrong. He tries three times and cannot bring himself to touch it. He takes out a power tester and finds it is fully charged.
he goes into the house to the electrical breaker panel and as he reaches up to turn off the power to the switch, he stops again. The wiring is strange and he decides it is also charged.
He looks for the main power shut off and even the meter is electrified.
he calls the power company and asks them to come and check the place out. Even with his warning that the boxes was electrified, the utility man is electrocuted. the power company finds they have to cut the power off from the main lines several doors down.
Checking everything over, they find modifications. those modifications are traced to the owner of the house.
Melville's senses saves his life. the owner of the house turns out to be an employee of a competitor and the competitor ends up being convicted with accessory to murder.
Melville has one less person who wants to take him out. He returns to his work, always wary of his urges and senses.

17 )
.
The compound was based on antiparticle atoms. In antiparticles, the heavier the atoms were, the more stable they were, opposite to normal particles. It took so much energy to create them that they did not exist in nature.
The compound was made into one pound block. A small charge was added and the block moved on its own. They applied a higher charge and it moved in a different direction and faster. They locked it in place and tried it again and the table moved!
Their experimentation took them to add the block to a home made hover craft. they found they could move in any direction as they changed the charges. It was not fast, but it moved.
Their experimentation ended up applying it to a full sized vehicle. A computer and location devices gave them the charges that would give them whatever speed and direction they wanted. In a regular car, they found that their speed was not even when turning corners. It was not even the same speeds when they hit the same corner again.
Slowly, they figured out that this was an inertial drive. They worked out that it felt the forces of motion around it. It reacted to the motion on the road, the motion of the planet spinning, the motion of the planet going around the star, the star around the galaxy, the galaxy in the local galactic group and the galactic group in the universe and the universe itself. they were not all going in the same direction.
The application of the electricity caused it to slow down base don those motions. Higher the power of the electricity, the more distant a motion it reacted to.
One student said that when the power was applied, it was trying to become the center of the universe.
Their computer slowly worked out the actual direction everything was moving so their car could travel quite well, the computer adjusting the energy levels to go the right direction at about the right speed.
The team started designing a space ship. They were planning on applying maximum power and see what direction the actual center of the universe was. They figured that with enough power, it would become in lock-step to the center of the universe and would leave in that exact direction.
They nearly had it designed on paper, not applying it to the computer design, when they realized that it would likely move faster than the speed of light and pass through one of the planets or even stars. Getting even close to that amount of energy in a space ship would be monumental. In the end, they realized that all they would be doing is to see how fast the object could go.
During maintenance of their car, they found that the mass was had pits and cracks in it. someone weighed it and found it was half the weight it was originally.
In their study of why the decay was showing up, they found it was particle decay. the housing they had it in had heavy radioactivity.
while their atoms were stable, they were not safe for the public. The radioactivity was not even of a useful nature or volume.
When the last of the material disappeared, they found the school was having budget problems because of a market down turn and could not get funding to make more of the anti-atoms. No one else were interested in funding such experimentation and the knowledge was lost very quickly.

18 )
.
I heard an advertizement for a car. They said the engine delivers 300 horses. That had to become a story idea.
I have to vamp a little as I have not worked this out yet and doing so while discussing it is sometimes the best way.
I will skip the joke of an American Indian (injun) that supplies horses.
The concept is that an engine, the power for a vehicle, actually takes horses from one place to another, to deliver the horses. the number of horses that can be transported shows the strength of power the engine provides.
I am thinking that magic has to be involved to avoid arcane scientific gobbledegook. Magic is so much more logical...
The magical power supplies pull animals inside and draws on their spirit to do their work. Place elk into an power supply and it will go on and on and on. Place cattle inside and it will pull really heavy loads. Fill the power supplies with rabbits and it will stop and go really fast (think dragster) A general, overall useful drive needs horses. they have speed and strength.
Another use of these drives is that they can be used to transport animals from one place to another. Want to have a cattle drive without the long ride, load the power supplies with cattle and one can get them to another place without all the dust and dirt and they will be in a better condition than if they had to walk the entire distance.
animals also are used as they are. Cattle pulling plows, horses to ride or pull carriages, sheep for their wool. Bringing them from one point to another in a compact form, which these power supplies do, has advantages.
An example using the seed of this story concept the army needs horses. There are several herds of them a couple hundred miles away. Rather than herding them from one place to another, or having the army bring them, One takes a car there. the engine draws in three hundred horses and then drives back the hundreds of miles to the army. the horses are released so the army can train them. the driver loads the engine with some cattle, far less than the horses, and loads up the car with other payments, and goes back to where the horses were. An exchange of the cattle and payment, they load up another couple herds of horses and heads back. The engine delivers 300 horses, which is why it is so valuable.
One real big advantage is that the car can travel at highway speeds, combining the power of the horses, to do the trip from the herd to the army in just a few hours rather than several days. the trip using cattle is slower, but still faster than riding a horse.

19 )
.
The gods and goddesses gathered together and created a world for entertainment. Each gave a little bit of their power in exchange of having access to it and being able to create their own peoples to worship them. they would get a little power back from that.
He was a good man who existed for his goddess. She was a very minor deity, the weakest one to have a working temple.
He was going into battle against an army with special armor. they also had demon like creatures. His army had just soldiers and normal weapons and armors. Since he was defending her temple lands, she decided to give him a blessing, something to give him an advantage against the enemy army.
She went to the several war gods and asked for advice. She explained that she did not have the power to do much. After much discussion, it was decided that since she did not have the power to bless the whole army, she could give a blessing on her favorite. More discussion came to placing the blessing to one elbow. He hit something and it will shatter anything. he would be vulnerable in everything else like a normal person. They gave suggestions and warnings on how to do the blessing. Each god's power was different so the exact nature involved some guesswork.
She let it be known that he was needed at the temple. He arrived having left the army as they neared the enemy. He was lead into the final inner chamber where only the highest priest could go to talk to her. She told what shew as going to do. she touched the tip of his elbow, explaining that he would be protected only at the moment of contact and it would shatter anything that was not a deity.
He left the temple. He got back to his army and before the general, he concentrated a moment and hit a tree with his elbow. It shattered into tiny pieces and fell in a rain of wood chips. He then hit a boulder and it shattered into gravel.
He told the commanders that he would need protection up to the moment he could strike an enemy, and then he could destroy it. They developed their battle plans.
The two forces met. He was lead to the lead monster. After some maneuvering, he got to the monster and hit it with his elbow. It shattered into dust. He got away from it. He went over to the next monster while the soldiers facing the first one hacked the confused enemy. After the third creature being shattered, they moved their monsters all together on the theory that one would save the other.
He found himself alone with enemy and monsters. He fought normally, but used his elbow against the soldiers until he got to the monsters and shattered them. He then fought his way back out to his men. The enemy was so disoriented that his side forced the other to surrender.
Over the years, he fought many battles for his goddess, and stayed out of several because of his goddess. He was their secret weapon. Whatever they sent at him, he could shatter it. Siege weapons failed when he was outside the walls, a hit on the end of a battering ram rendered it useless. he was careful on the use of his elbow as he could also shatter walls, doors, tables, chairs.
' When he got old and decrepit, he fell several times. He automatically blocked his fall with his elbow as it gave him a moment of protection on impact. His fall becoming a safe laying down. The rocks he landed on shattered, of course.
One day, he was walking back from a family member's house and was in the mountains. He tripped, not having good balance anyway. He fell.
He automatically twisted and drove his elbow down. It came in contact with rock. It happened that it was the only piece of exposed bedrock, the rock that the planet was made from, in a month's walk. the goddess's power entered the planet. He felt her power leave his elbow. The rock shattered and the shattering spread. The gravel beneath him slumped and he was swallowed up.
the shatter spread until the bedrock beneath the ground was all gravel. Without the proper support, the ground gave way, collapsed.
Soon, all that was left of the world was gravel. Nothing survived.
The gods were angry that she had destroyed their world. She should have known enough to put limits on his shattering power. It did not matter what she said, the other gods were angry she undid all their work.
They restarted the world. This time they punished her by forcing her to add a whole lot more than her share of power into the world. this world was a bit better since they had the experience of making the first one, and they were able to turn the shattered world into a solid core to build on top of.

20 )
.
Seeing a advertizement on line for singles, with pictures of different women, I decided after seeing it a couple hundred times to make use of it as a story idea. I did something vaguely like this years ago, but this is different.
Pirates arrived at the space station. It did not have any police or soldiers, but the men were competent, having some training in defense of the station. The women also had the same training, but it was decided that the men only would do the defense. The women were forced to go to the center of the station to defend the utility systems.
the pirates injected a gas into the air system. the men were given a disease. The pirates did not count on the fact that the crew on board their ship were replenishing their air at the time and got the gas inside the ship. The pirates withdrew to their ship and pulled away into space, waiting for the effect to take hold.
When the women had withdrawn to the protective area and set it to emergency, it automatically sealed itself from the outer sections of the space station. After the pirates left, the system would not let the women out. The men died quickly from the gas caused disease.
It was nearly a month before the space station air was cleared, the robots had dealt with the bodies and cleaned up, and the women were set free. Other than some male children, there were no men on the station.
The federation government arrived and saw the problem. the whole population was set into hibernation and transported off the station. The station was declared abandoned, not safe to be used. The gas could still be in the walls or elsewhere.
Before the women were placed in hibernation, each one were forced to make a dating video about themselves and all their records were placed in it.
A major mining planet needed women. The federation offered singles dating. They selected some women and offered them in advertisements. When someone showed interest in them, the women would be released from hibernation, dolled up while they recovered, and were sent to meet the men who were interested in them. The men were shocked that there were real women involved, not just come-on advertisements.
Women, married or not, were able to find new husbands and start a new life. They were what the mining planet needed to become really viable.

21 )
.
The police used computers, cameras, radios, weaponry, medical equipment in their police cars. They were really loaded down. They also sometimes had to chase "bad guys" their cars had powerful engines and special suspensions.
The high officials decided to reduce costs by getting officers out of their police cars and on foot. This would save on fuel and car wear and tear.
Well, almost immediately, some "beat" cops ran into problems. Without the computers, they could not check identities or keep track of what was going on. they also ran into problems of not having medical equipment or weaponry that the area required.
When a number of incidents happened where an officer was not able to help or got into trouble, the officials demanded that the equipment be carried.
One of the officials was loaded up with a pack with everything a police officer needed to carry and nearly collapsed. It was too heavy for him to carry.
The officials saw there was a problem so they picked up mechanical augmentation, against the officer's recommendation. This was a frame the police officers were in to carry some of the weight. It was not easy to carry and looked silly. Of course, there were a couple gun battles and officers were hurt. they needed some form of armor.
Rather than getting the officers bullet proof vests, they were given armored augmentation. These were often called striders. The officers got into them and the robotic case gave him the power to carry great weights, including a criminal or victim, and it protected him from attack. The problem was that it was too big to enter a building and the officer could not get out of it without help.
The officials decided that while they were good, they could not run, so they got them machines called walkers. These walkers were as big as a car but walked rather than rolled. They could move fast and over very rough ground. It afforded the officers an ability to climb out and chase a criminal. the officer could not just leap out as they were up high, but they could get out fairly quickly anyway.
The officials then looked at the budget and screamed about how much it cost to support the police department. They wanted to eliminate half the officers to reduce the costs.
The police chief said that he had a method to cut the costs down to a very small amount. He gave almost an exact figure. He even said he could recoup some of the cost over-runs of the department.
The officials were excited about the concept. The police purchased a whole bunch of new police cars and got other police cars back into service. They also sold all the walkers and striders that the officials demanded they purchase.
The police department was a bit more expensive than they were when the officials had decided to reduce costs, but a whole lot cheaper than when the officials were done with their cost cutting.

22 )
.
Medicine developed to where regeneration of cells became common place. Any body part can be regenerated. Some are regenerated in cloning tanks and then attached to heal with the body. Others are regenerated right on the body, where the patient can watch it grow back.
Injured people could be made whole so they could live out their lives in comfort and productivity. the life span could not be expanded too much longer, though. Factors in the genetics could not be removed so the body degenerated. Before regeneration technology, the oldest reliably recorded person was a hundred and twenty years old. After regeneration, the oldest was a hundred and fifty, though a large portion of the population lives to a hundred.
Accident is the main reason people die sooner. There are some diseases and conditions that could not be cured.
One group of scientists were experimenting with a new process of regenerating cells. They could make the cells better than normal. In their tests with animals, they increased their qualities, stronger, smarter, healthier.
the team asked permission to use their technique to turn someone into a super man. Their request worked their way up to the bureaucracy almost to the very top. There, they decided that it could not be used on a normal person.
It was decided that they would choose a youngster who's condition was guaranteed to cause their early death. If the treatment saved the child and made it whole, it would be considered for someone else.
A male child was selected. He had a serious condition that could not be cured. The child had gone through all sorts of mental evaluations to find the one with the most stable personality.
The boy was given the treatment. The scientists chose to give him the treatment over his entire body rather than just injecting it into his blood stream as they did with most of the animals. They had deduced one of the problems they had with the animals was that the treatment did not get absolutely everywhere and there was spotty performance. the boy also got it in the blood.
The boy got really sick for a while, but that was expected. When he started getting healthy and able to move around, he was showing a lack of his previous disease.
He quickly got healthy, stronger. He was soon playing with kids of his age. He seemed normal so they watched him. They held off on giving the treatment to anybody else as they wanted to see what effects it had on the boy.
As he grew up, he became a bit stronger than those around him, ran a bit faster, and seemed to be getting better grades. the super qualities had started showing.
When he became old enough, he was put into the army. Command knew what was done to him so he was directed toward where his greater ability would be most advantageous.
With conditioning and training, his super ability came to the fore. He did not know what was happening to him, but the military and the scientists did. He became the super man they had hoped he was. He did have some problems though. the condition he had gave him some allergies a normal person did not have, and he did have little bouts that disabled him for a short time a few times a year.

23 )
.
Little Johnny is well known for his wild stories. During show and tell, he starts telling about one of his pretend adventures. The teacher was going to stop it quickly, but he made it sound so believable, convincing, she decided to let him continue. He was telling about being chased by various creatures.
The students and teachers were engrossed at his story, unwilling to make him stop as he sounded so believable. To their shock, he faded out of view, but his voice continued to describe the scene. The teacher ran up and waved her hand through the area. he was gone, but his voice continued. The children were memorized by the story.
The boy was taken in by a magician and he learned to use magic. Sparks appeared here and there as he told about learning various spells. The teacher noted that the boy experienced a couple day's activity in about a minute, though it slowed down when he had to tell a lot.
He told about being in a battle of magic and he defeats the enemy and then tells about how he pleases a god through his use of magic.
A shimmer of air appears and then a man is shown standing. He arches his back, arms over his head, then shimmering wings sprout from his back. At this same time, the boy's voice becomes that of a man, still telling the story.
The shimmering wings spread out full, proportional for a bird his size. They fold up tightly against his back as the voice tells about how he used is flight to his advantage, passing on orders and information between different areas and being able to hit his enemy and fly away without them having a chance. The shimmering winged man fades out and the voice continues.
Then the story ends with him ruling the region. The boy reappears and slumps to the ground, exhausted. The teacher is at his side in an instant and lifts him up, holding him close.
.
This came from a quick image in a dream.

24 )
.
The forest was dangerous. The young dog did not like being outside without his master. Two of his brothers were taken by the dangerous things in the trees. Master put him outside so he had to hunt for danger.
The winged demon landed in front of the dog. "Please attack me. I am hungry." the monster said.
Dog instantly knew this was dangerous to himself and his master. Something inside told him not to bark, not to attack, not to retreat. "No, I will defend." the dog replied.
"You must attack for I am hungry. I can only eat something angry."
"I have a better idea. I lead to you something dangerous and you can eat that."
The dog went into the woods and a short time came running out with a bear on its tail. He ran past the monster and the bear did not stop. The monster leaped on the bear and enveloped it with the wings. When the wings opened, the bear was gone, only the tracks showed that it once was there.
The dog and demon came up with an agreement. The dog had a special call that the demon would respond to for food.
The dog started patrolling the edge of the forest. creatures would attack and the dog would give out the call and take off running. the demon now rested invisibly on top the barn.
the demon would swoop in and catch whatever was chasing the dog.
There were times that the demon was slow to respond, so Dog started getting a little bolder, causing the attacker to chase him in circles, and even teasing it, delaying it until the demon arrived. For the dog, it was a good deal as his master's animals were being protected
The time from the first call to the time the demon arrived got longer and longer. The dog actually chased off a couple of the lone smaller dangers on his own. The demon was angry, but the dog said if it wanted to eat, he had to respond sooner.
One night, Dog heard something outside and begged to be let out. The instant he was past the door, he realized it was a pack of wolves. a pack was the most dangerous thing to the master's animals. Dog let out his call and ran to protect the barn. The demon did not show but the dog knew he had to protect the animals.
He attacked one wolf and sent it running, but then other wolves moved in.
Dog was afraid. He lunged into them, getting them to chase him, to harass them. He kept calling for the demon. even though the demon was supposed to be on the barn, it did not show.
Dog got desperate. He got angry. He decided the demon was not going to get any of these wolves. He stopped running and attacked with everything he had. He did damage. He tasted blood. One wolf took off running. Then another. With less of them, he could concentrate more on the ones left.
He finally chased the last wolf off, "And don't come back," the dog called to the last one.
Dog started to relax. Demon finally landed. "where is my food?"
Where were you when I called?
"I am hungry."
"I have had enough of you. You do not come when you call and I had to deal with them on my own." The dog said as it sized up the demon. Being within the wings was not good, but outside, behind it seemed like he could do damage. "I have had enough of you. You leave now."
"I am hungry. If you do not give me food, attack me."
"So be it." dog said. He lunged forward and then leaped to the side as the demon grabbed for him. He bit down on the a ridge of the wing and then leaped back. The demon kept lunging forward and the dog would dodge and bit the back of the monster.
Both of them were surprised when the dog got a good hold on the back leg of the demon and came away with flesh. The demon tried to fly away and dog caught the tail and pulled. The extra weight and the pain brought ti back to the ground.
Finally the demon took off running with Dog right after him. The demon suddenly spun with wings open. In trying to stop, dog tripped and rolled beneath the wings as the monster grabbed for him. He sprang to his feet, turned and after a few dodges and feints, he ripped a bit of the demon's wing. The demon ran a distance and took flight.
"And don't come back. We don't need you. I am on guard now." dog called out.
It was only then that the area seemed to brighten up and become warm, something it did not notice before. The demon had covered the area with evil.
The dog now patrolled the edge of the forest with comfort in the knowledge that he was a match for anything in the forest. The creatures of the forest learned to leave his farm alone and his farm flourished with productivity.

25 )
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They had traffic towers at each intersection. People flipped switches controlling the lights to let people go through.
These tower positions were highly political in that the operators would commonly find out who of political power regularly used their intersection and would give them priority over other cars. If they disliked someone, they would make them wait.
Many people would give teats to the tower operator and otherwise ingratiate themselves to them to make their passage smoother. In general though, travel across the city was slow since the tower operators liked to show how much power they had within the city.
One traffic engineer said that he had a method that did not require an operator deciding when to change a light. He made the mistake of saying it was "robotic" rather than "automatic."
The officials went off on having robots sitting in the towers working the switches rather than people. What were the people going to do when they lose their jobs, how was a robot know when to change the lights and how would they be guaranteed to work every single day? People shaped robots were not well made as of yet.
It did not matter what the traffic engineer said after that. he got shouted down as offering an unworkable operation.
It happened that a new city was being built to service a big factory. the traffic engineer made a offer to do the traffic lights that were a fraction of the cost of what they normally did. He got the contract. The city masters were very bothered that he was not installing operation towers, but he said that the operations of this system would be a fraction of the cost.
When the city was made operational, the city masters drove around, shocked that the lights stopped them at major intersections but let them pass through minor intersections without regard to who they were. There was no human operator in view, no robotic operator in view, no towers, no cameras. They walked around various intersections and could not find any sign of who ran the lights. The lights cycled on their own, letting lower ranked people to go ahead of them sometimes.
After their tour of the city, they went to the traffic office. There was a big board that showed all the lights and what their colors were. They asked how he knew who was at the intersection to let them go through?. He told them that it is based on how much traffic is expected at that time a day and the timing is interlocked to make traffic travel as efficiently as possible in all directions based on the traffic.
They were confused, not understanding that a "decision" was not being made on when to let someone through.
The people moved into the factory and their new homes and they also were a bit confused, but followed the lights as they figure they had no say on when the lights cycled anyway. Many people quickly learned what speed to go to avoid stopping often. They liked this city lighting system.
In the operations center, the engineer watched the records of the detectors on the traffic flow and carefully adjusted the flow of traffic in many parts of the city.
The new city quickly grew as more factories were added. He put in new traffic lights as the intersections were created and the traffic continued to flow.
The main factory of the old city closed, the products superseded by something new and the company went out of business. The entire city was threatened to be abandoned as the people went to the surrounding cities for work. The city masters found themselves at the new city and drove around. they were shocked that there were no towers, no operators, no people involved at all. After messing up traffic a few times, they ended up at the traffic operations center. There, they found the engineer and his team working the board. They could not believe that no one was deciding who gets priority.
The engineer explained the system on how no one knows who individually is at an intersection. The traffic flow is worked out as the day goes on. the engineer explained about how little it cost to operate and how good traffic was. He also explained that he was going to put this system in their city but they would not hear about it.
The fact that the tower operators were not part of the system also bothered them. He pointed out that if the city was abandoned, which was what was being threatened in their city, they would not have to pay for tower operators to sit there with no traffic. the system operated on its own if no one was around.
Desperate, the city masters hired him to set up an operator-less traffic system for their city. He took down the towers after he put up the new lights and sensors. The operators were sent to jobs their skills were good for in other city departments. A few retired rather than work elsewhere.
In the first six months of the lights being set up, the city saw a dramatic reduction of costs. The traffic had gotten so good that several factories decided not to move. their products crossed the city in a fraction of the time.
Some cities remained with their tower operators but most cities made the change of automatic traffic lights. The engineer became wealthy with his design.