April 2010 Writing Ideas
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There is no way I can write 365+ publishable stories in a year, let alone one. I started on 12 stories last year and wrote "the end" on four of them. None are written to a publishable level.
Back on Prodigy Classic in December 1997, I posted some story ideas I could not use. I soon found the story ideas flowing fast. I've 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. This is why I don't worry about using the stories later myself. Since then, I've learned that many people simply enjoy just reading these posts, even if they do not write.
The way I work is, I come up with a basic concept that is seldom more than a paragraph. I then write these presentations to show what can be done with the concepts, Usual by spinning a story around it, or by explaining what is behind the concept so someone can base their story on that.
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). 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 usually post about Four books worth pure drivel each year in these idea posts. This is my Thirteenth 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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The creators of the government were rather sadistic. They decided that the more powerful a person was, the more vulnerable they should be. If one had the power of life or death should be completely exposed and unprotected. This was to keep them from developing absolute power.
The government itself could choose the kind of leader they had at any time period. The leader, though, had to follow the exposure rules. For the time being, a senate was about as powerful as anybody dared to be.
The government was set up where the local populations would choose representatives, the representatives chose a body of the house, which could not be members of the representatives. The house then selected the senate from people who were not either the representatives or the house. The senate could then choose the exact kind of government they wanted to run, from total dictatorship to a very weak form of government. This selection system made each higher power dependant on those who selected them. it also keeps those who do the selecting from stepping to direct power themselves.
Under the law, the standard senate had to expose themselves to the public three times a day, and they had to depend on the public for their meals. (I picture the Buddhist monks walking the street for their meals.) They wear robes with their names and ranking in the senate on their backs. The purpose of this is, if they did a vote that the public did not like, they were wide open to the public to hear their wrath. Having to beg for food was to be a form of humiliation, a dependance on the public, to keep them from making full use of any wealth they might have acquired while in office. The intent is to make the position of power very distasteful.
Those physically unable to walk the distances can be moved around on a cart to do their begging for food. An assistant can be used for power if the senator is unable to transport himself in the wheel chair or cart. the cart is made as cheaply as possible, not to look luxurious or desirable.
Those selected for each office really have few ways to refuse the first time they are selected to serve. they do have the right to refuse successive times of being called. Many will accept and refuse different sessions depending on what is going on in private life or public life. Serving twice tends to be typical. the power is desirable, but the life is miserable. Many selected are extremely wealthy people in their own right and they have to give up their wealth for their terms in office.
Of course, some do try to get revenge for being selected, but they are always reminded that they will not be in government for long and they will have to live under their rules very quickly.
I have no idea how this type of system would be forced to remain in place, since those in charge could just as well refuse to follow it. It could be a computer run society and it keeps track of the rules and those who adhere to the rules.
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My note said "They have absolute power. they must go out among the people and beg for alms and for their food."

02 )
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The colony was built cheaply and quick. They took every shortcut possible to get it built. Instead of using fasteners as the building codes required, the construction crew used a high level glue. A barrel of it cost less than a box of fasteners. it could be placed anywhere and hold things in place. They could remove the glue with a solvent.
The glue was extremely strong, and was able to keep sky scrapers and highway overpasses intact almost as good as welds that it was used to replace. In many places where physical fasteners were supposed to be used, they used just a few in visible places and the rest was with glue. They used a lot of the glue.
They finished the job in half the time and well under budget. since no one was checking them out, no one knew what they did. No one was going to try to disassemble their work to see if it was done right. The structures stood proudly.
The colonists arrived on the planet and moved in. They went about their lives as normal, and the structures held up well. People who were at many colones over their lives, said that these buildings had less problems than any other colony they moved into.
Decades passed and the colony grew. The new buildings were constructed according to design. One of the original buildings was disassembled. They cut the structural members and never even noticed that there were no welds. The pieces were simply run into the foundry and melted down. The glue joints held to the heat for along time, then broke down and essentially disappeared.
The new building had problems. It was a different construction, the bolts had give while the glue did not.
One day, a shipment of solvent was coming in from space. The solvent was used in space coatings but just happened to also be the solvent that loosens the glue.
As it came in high over the city, a smaller air craft slammed right into the side of the ship. The little ship went right into the storage tanks and then exploded. There was little fire because the solvent's high burn temperature, but the solvent was forced out of the ship with great force.
The solvent vaporized in the air, and then the cloud drifted to the ground. It got sucked into the air handling systems of the buildings, worked its way in through cracks, essentially coating everything.
The solvent worked slowly as it was thin, but effects started showing. A panel here, a window there, a piece of trim over there, started coming off the buildings. By the time the buildings were aired out, signs of age appeared inside the buildings. panels buckled, floors creaked. ceiling tiles fell off. one piece or another moved when touched.
The new buildings were not effected at all by the gas. warping panels, building moving a whole lot more in high winds, caught the attention of the government.
They abandoned the worst building and stated disassembling it to find out what went wrong. Parts and pieces were coming off, never fastened. An examination showed that nothing was welded, nothing was bolted or screwed. Also the crews never painted the structure which could have protected the glue.
The building is taken right down to the foundation. they then disassemble each of the older buildings. Where the bolts ir rivets were to give the building protective movements, the structural materials were stressed badly.
the old city, now completely down, is then rebuilt to proper codes.
The government searches out the company. It no longer exists. they search out the crews. they are dead and gone. they try to find the families to take their inheritance. they are either penniless or gone. Nothing of the company existed, and there is no way to get revenge.
Other colonies they may have worked on are examined. None of them were assembled with nothing but glue. they do find the glue everywhere, but the fasteners are there too. They are placed on watch.
The work would have lasted for centuries if the ship had not been punctured and the solvent had not been aired out over the city.

03 )
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Cell phone locations can be traced. The phones send and receive signals as to what cell it is in, what time it is, whether it is available or not. The only way to keep this from being passed on, is to take the battery out of the phone.
People must have their cell phones on them at all times. the cell phones have their location, their identity their bank accounts. The phones is their "papers" to allow them to have access to society.
Being caught without a cell phone is a serious crime. One also cannot make a purchase, or pass through certain check points without it.
Makeman was a small time pickpocket, stealing jewelry and other personal items. He picked the pocket of a high official and it was detected. Almost before he got out of sight, he got work on his phone that he was to give himself up. He turned his phone off, and bumped into someone. on a lark, he swapped phones and kept going.
He swapped eight phones that first hour, before he headed out of the city. He has been on the run ever since.
Nearly a decade has passed, He was still on the run, wandering around, never stopping for long. problems caused by the missing cell phones is about the only way he can be traced. He is not sure how far behind the officials are, but he knows that he cannot stay with the same phone for very long.
His favorite place to swap phones is at travel terminals. Those are people who are going across the country and less likely to be noticed.

04 )
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I have been taming a cat for years. it has become quite handleable. it even does "lip-service" to the bad attitude it once had. That cat is the basis of this story.
The beast was extremely expensive and hard to gain even without the expense. The couple had the bad luck that their pet got into some chemicals and has gone wild. It attacked everything that moved. Lots of bandages later, they now have it where they can walk around the yard without being attacked and can actually pet it while it was eating, but that was about it. They kind of liked the underlying personality of the beast in spite the attitude.
A space captain has the same kind of creature on board his ship. Being a gambler he wanted something that was wild, That he could put in a pit against other creatures. The creature he had was soft, sweet, cuddly, almost no temper. It was a waste of his money.
While on the planet, he saw the beast. He watched how it reacted to the people, including strangers. He noted that the markings are almost exactly like his.
One night, the crew slipped into the yard and use a gas to knock the beast out. They put their ship-pet in the yard, in the same place and leave with the beast.
The next morning the people go out to feed the beast. Because the new beast is not where it was expected to be, it is in a panic and does not know these people. it acts similar to what their beast did. They get it to come to food, and pet it. It is wary, but after a week, becomes used to them and the new home. it is a nice place for a beast like it.
They find that it is letting them pet it longer and longer. It rubs itself against them asking for more attention. After about a week, they find they are out petting it all day long.
A week of it melting to their touch, they let it come in for the night. It sleeps at their feet and inhales their attention to it.
While talking to their friends, the wife jokes that whoever got their beast, swapping them, had better be happy with what they got.
The captain finds he has problems with the beast in space, He forgot that he had to house the thing until they got to where the fights were. The beast does not like space at all, and does not like anybody on board the ship. They are not its friendly family.
It also does not like being surprised and there is no place for it to get away from people. Anybody coming into whatever room it is in, is a surprise. The crew demand that they swap the beast back, but the captain tells them that they are now too far away and don't have the fuel. They are going to have to live with it for now.

05 )
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I heard an older country song where a guy goes to a county auction and bids to take a girl's heart away. I have liked the song and even better the video as I saw it years ago. Hearing it one more time gave me this concept. I am inventing it based on my original concept, as I go.
Marcia knew the auction was coming up again. It happened every year and one had to be old enough to get into it. Everybody saved their money so that they could make a really good bid when the time came.
Marcia sold everything she had and withdrew all her saved money and headed with her friends to the auction. She did not tell her friends how much she sold for this. they were telling the belongings they hung onto in case they did not see anything they liked. They all knew they had the right to refuse the final offer if it did not work out.
Marcia had acted a little differently than most girls. She sold her stuff over a period of time, so that she got good money and was used to doing without. her friends sold their stuff the last week before the auction. since others were selling at he same time, they did not get good prices at all.
They entered the auction house and received their numbers and pinned it to their chests. their next stop gave them an electronic bidding booklet. The end pages were blank, but would automatically update as more people came in. A picture was next to each number, then official data and then a personal biography. One could sort them by any method one wanted, The only thing that was not in the booklet was their funds, but much of that can be deduced from the data. Wealthy parents, wealthy children.
Marcia and her friends explored different sorting methods, click on a piece of data and everybody is sorted by that data. One could add up certain data ratings as they went. One liked tall, another liked rich, a third wanted skilled, a forth wanted a well established close family. Marcia wanted someone she could get along with first, then family she could get along with, and finally someone who could work to afford a family. The data was there on each prospect. They also could add other ratings, such as what they felt like when they met the person.
The time came the ladies were lined up according to their numbers and they filed into a hallway. A rail ran down the center. Men were coming from the other direction on the other side of the hall. the hall was very long. Each woman met each man and they simply greeted each other and talked a moment, marked in their books before going on to the next person.
Marcia finally got to the first man. she found him shallow just in his hello. Of course that could be from having talked to a lot of women already. the last man and last woman had entered the hallway and were greeting each other. The first soon left the hallway to sit and rest.
Marcia found that her choices told a lot about each person she met She judged them on a scale of one to ten on some twenty items. She checked the numbers quickly.
Marcia finally left the last man and went out. The lounge was filled with exhausted women, women chatting, dreamy eyed girls, disappointed women.
She sat down with her friends and went through her booklet adding her judgements to her numbers. a couple men shifted hard on position, but most stayed about where they were.
The last women came in and sat. The ladies were given a half hour warning. Quickly they went to touch up their makeup, adjust their clothing, fix their hair.
They were then herded out of the lounge, out a different door into a large room. food, drink, couches, chairs, tables, a bar. men were coming in from the other side. Many women headed directly to the man they liked best, while others hung back to see who came for them.
Marcia drifted over to the food, picked out a couple interesting items, picked up a drink and sat down at a table. She was in a location to see who was really popular and who was totally ignored. There had been four men she knew personally. They were good men but not her type.
Several men came over to talk to her, three men at once, but they drifted off. One man, William, returned and asked if he could have a seat, now that chairs were filling up. They sat and talked. both were scanning the crowd, observing how others interacted. she got him to talk about his work. He admitted he had a long way to go in his craft, but really thought he could get good. he was making a living, but nothing and expected to do better as his skills and his business improved.
At the same time, both rose and headed out into the crowd to check out others. Several she had as really good prospects, went down quickly once they were seen in real interactions.
William and Marcia met again. "waiting until things got really going has showed a lot that was not obvious before." she said.
"You are so right. I have changed my book several times." They separated.
Marcia found five guys she really liked. two were men she would never have given the time of day to. She found herself with William again. they went over their lists together. she showed the five men she liked. He knew two of them. He never said anything wrong about them. what he did say, though, sounded true. She knew one of the girls on his list, and was able to tell what she heard about a couple of others. they separated again.
Finally, after about eight hours, they filed out of the room and back into their lounges. They had time to clean up, rest for about an hour, and then they filed out a different door. they came to a set of windows where they put in their money they would use for their bidding Once done there, They sat in bleachers Men and women facing each other. There were big screens above their heads that the other side could see.
Everybody in their seats, the auction began.
Number one man and woman went out onto the floor. their pictures went above their heads. bids were recorded, top thirty bids were displayed. Bidding was fast and furious, including bids by those on the floor. Number two came out, then three. When seven came out, one went to the seats.
One could bid on every person, one simply decided who got the highest bids.
Marcia came out and she got good numbers. Not great but good numbers. William came out and she placed her bid. Because she knew what she had bid, she was surprised that hers was the highest. she had put down all her money on him and less on the five others she liked.
finally the bids were complete as the last sat down.
the bids were tabulated. The highest bid on either side did not necessarily mean a win.
this was bidding for marriage. Each couple bid on each other and the best combination of bids won. If one bid high on her and she bid low or did not bid, then there was no win. They had to have the highest combination between the two people.
There were a number of ties on both sides. Their pictures went on screens and everybody could change their bids.
Finally, the bids were final. Numbers were called out in reverse order of their bid value. Many were disappointed, but they accepted it. No one was allowed to leave.
There would be those who would not be paired up. No one bid on them or the bids were too low to accept, one way or another.
There were not many left when Marcia's number was called. her face brightened when she saw she got William. She giggled and hugged him. She then found that they did not call any other numbers. they announced their bid was the highest combination.
they were lead out, signed papers and left together, the others leaving in order of their bids. they saw how they actually rated with others. her other five choices rated her well down on the funds they ended up bidding. William had to win. He had bid every bit of money he put into bidding, on her.
Outside the building, Marcia gave William a long, loving kiss. They got onto one of the busses that was waiting for them. Their bids now were their dowry to start their new life together. it showed how committed they were to their marriage.
She showed him her coin purse, it was empty. he showed his wallet. it was also empty. they had bid their whole existence in this auction. They would be starting over, but they would be starting right.

06 )
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Over the years, I have explored, in story idea mode, the effects if time had stopped. I will continue to post them as new situations come up in my mind. I have unconsciously followed certain rules in the process. People and life are directly unaffected and are there to observe the effects. With life going on, "time" passes, but there is no way to measure it mechanically or electronically. Most of my causes have been quick and dirty, and the results have been one explored effect.
Today, I got to thinking. Actually it was one of those "pop into the mind moments," that I have not really explored the effects of time stopping with the rules I have followed.
The cause can be anything, scientific experiments going wrong is my favorite. Most of the time, I have it passing around the world as the planet spins, each part of the planet surface passing through the place in space the experiment had happened. That works for a bit of suspense, where someone just before the place the accident happened, has twenty four hours to come up with a solution to measure time without the actual time keeping, before the time rip reaches them.
In reality, the rip would stay with the fabric of space, not with the planet. Because the planet is moving in the solar system, the solar system is moving in the galaxy, and the galaxy is moving in relation to the local galactic group, and the local galactic group is moving to some unseen regional gravitational center, plus the universe is expanding and we have no idea where the exact center is, and which direction we are between the center and the edges, the tear in space would be moving rapidly away from us in some direction.
Like when a balloon is plucked, if not popped, the ripple will expand out faster than the material of space actually moves. Because of this, I presume that time would be vibrating in all directions.
I do see a flaw in that last sentence. The fabric of space would be vibrating, but time itself is not actually tied to the fabric of space. I have the right to ignore that and will. I declare that with the rippling of the fabric of space, time also ripples. this could, of course, be explained by the fact that the "motion" of the fabric of space does effect time. When one approaches the horizon of a black hole, or go near the speed of light, time changes, stretches out. The ripples of the fabric of space would speed up and slow down time as the concentration of space and thinning of space changes time on a single point like a planet. That fits the concept I am working on here.
The tear in space would have wide ranging effects on the universe. for quite a while. Now if the fabric heals, one has one type of effect, which will even out eventually, possibly seen as a change in temperature of the background radiation of the universe. If it continues to expand, then the whole universe could "pop". Even if it takes some time to heal, consider the effect on stars and galaxies as it zips through space based on the movements I described above. That effect might be detected even if it never got any bigger. Astronomers could look at careful measurements of where planets and stars were, and see the effects on light as the tear passes between them and different stars, and later as it actually passes through stars. They might be able to deduce the rate of the galactic expansion and the direction of the center of the universe.
Ah, a cause. they think this will happen and really want to know these answers, so they cause the tear just to answer these questions the last paragraph suggests. This in and of itself would be a story idea, where the scientists are going to do their experiment and it leaks out and they have to get it done before they do their tests.
My thought, though, is on the local effects. What would people see. My guess is that the ripples would effect different points at different times and even different intensities. Since everything is moving in relation to each other, a ripple might hit "the left side first" at one moment, then hit the "right side first" the next. Since gravity effects the rate of time, one might be on the side of a gravitational well and time would be less, while if one has the gravitational well centered on you, time waves would have a big effect. With the planet spinning, people would get different intensification as the day goes on, and it would change according to the motion of the center of the tear.
Objects dependant on time would end up with different rates of advancement. Over a short period of time, a room full of clocks might end up on all different times. In a period of a day, there might be a whole half hour difference in all the clocks. Longer the effect happens, the farther off they go.
Centralized time would become really far off from any local time. A person with hundreds of clocks might never know what time it is. The planet itself, and the sun, and the planets, would be shifting in their routes and rates dramatically. One hour might be only 40 minutes, while the next is 80 minutes.
I do not know if gravity itself would be effected. for the story I would say no, as that is a complication not needed, but, it could have a big effect and could be expected. Planets would accelerate and decelerate because of the time differences, and their paths would change, spinning out and back in. The right combination could sed a planet right into the star or out into space. gravity on the surface could cause problems too. the surface would be pushed out and back in, the crust would crack, volcanos explode. If a really sharp ripple hit, it could devastate a spinning planet, cracking it wide open, sending chunks high into space. I don't expect the changes to be THAT drastic. The main thing is to make the measurement of time rather questionable at best.
One thing I have not considered that needs to be addressed, is the "local" effect of time. Computers run their processors at specific rates. since the space within a computer is small, changes from one side to another would be too small to cause a real effect. The whole computer would work based on the internal clock speeds. I doubt that computers would really be effected.
Mechanical clocks themselves, which are mechanical, are unlikely to be effected by the results described. Unless changes of time causes one gear to slow down while another speeds up, causing binding, then there would be no effect there. I doubt the effects of time would really be measurable over distances shorter than about a foot. Pendulums would, though, see an effect and might not work. Like on a rocking boat, the pendulum would not be able to swing properly.
Electrical power would be effected. Sixty hertz used here in the states, might appear to shift between forty and seventy five. Many of our equipment cannot handle such changes. For a computer, one might have the power go through a battery, but unless it is right next to the computer with little cord, it might effect the power supply of the computer. It could even send surges if the source is far enough away, such as central power. Lap top computers would likely not be effected directly with the time ripples, but recharging them might create all sorts of problems to the battery.
My original thought was that even chemical reactions would change, one chemical in the body would react faster than another, causing the body to slowly break down due to wrong timing of chemical reactions, but I have already deduced that time would not be effected on that small a scale. Something as big as a whale or elephant might not be able to survive as their hearts or lungs might not be able to handle the changes over their size. Sending a signal from the brain to the tail of a blue whale, might make them immobile as the signals don't transfer properly. the tail might get hit by a fast time wave before the head, and then the head gets hit by a slow time wave before the tail. The signal to the tail might not arrive properly, jumbled by a shift in time.
Of course, since all chemical actions would be local, this too might not have that really big a difference. a half second delay in a signal from one end to the other could cause some small problems, even if it is just a slight problem in careful maneuvering.
there are time dependant science and communications that would really be thrown off. G.P.S. would likely become useless. Because of the distances, your location might wander over several miles while you are standing there.
Trains might space out their trains more and use more light signaling while commuter busses might simply follow their schedules, resetting them by certain local clocks like at the bus terminal.
For the average person, they would likely set their watches to the most important clock, such as at work, and go by that however it wanders everywhere else.
Since this would not really be a stoppage of time, the actual effects would hurt civilization, but would not devastate it. People would adjust to the situation and carry on the best they can.

07 )
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He woke, totally disoriented. He let his body work on automatic, the morning prep, getting dressed. He was just too tired to really pay attention to what he was doing.
He left his room, went down the hall, and to the gym. An out of shape man, likely a fighter, talked briskly to them and got the into doing exercises to warm up.
All day long, they went through weight lifting, stretching, running in place, various exercises. It was hard work. they also were learning martial arts forms. He quickly deduced that they were training for fighting.
After a long, painful day, they finally went back to their room to sleep. He closed his eyes. he then woke. He instantly knew he was a girl. She let her body go on automatic to get ready. She went out to a gym and started training for fighting. he instantly recognized a big difference in their fighting styles from man to woman. His was the use of power, feet on the ground. hers was high kicks, up on her toes, spinning around, almost dancing.
She laid down to sleep. he woke as a man again.
Two days of this, he decided he had better concentrate on fighting, learning what he was learning, to the best he could. He worked along with the others, pushing his limits with each exercise. In his rest periods, He would practice her methods, stretching exercises, balance. When she woke, she did some of his strength training after she had pushed herself to the best of her ability in the regular exercises.
When each would learn something new, the other practiced some of it, Not to master it, but to know it. they would go to bed utterly exhausted.
An official watched him work out. the official was making small talk. "do you have dreams at night?
He instantly knew the answer was very important. "I don't remember any dreams at night" he said. He did not consider what he was experiencing as a dream. A few days later, She was asked the same question and she answered the same way. A week later, a woman was asked the question and she answered that she seams to be working out at night, as hard as she did during the day. a while later, a couple uniformed men came in and talked to her. she left with them and she was never seen again. She, and now he, knew that what was going on was something that they knew about and was not supposed to happen.
He/she was less obvious with doing the other's exercises and forms, They sometimes did them just before bed so they were not observed.
The time came. They were taken to a small arena and faced another school. They paired off and each fought. this was full contact fighting. He beat his opponent Not many others in his group won their fight.
They were chewed out fully the rest of the day, really pushed hard to become better. he hurt where he was hit, but came out quite well. He learned a lot of the act. When the others rested, he practiced, knowing how much of it now came together.
It was two days later, she had to fight. she had the knowledge of the real fight and was preparing herself for it. She won her fight handily. Her group did very good against the other school. She now knew some of her weaknesses and her strengths and pushed hard on her weaknesses. she went to bed sore and tired, but satisfied from a good hard workout.
During the two months before the next fight, they both pushed themselves really hard. they were waking, sore tired, but ignored the discomfort in an effort to get better. Both did too. Others in their classes could see it. They overheard the coaches discussing it. They were impressed.
The others started pushing themselves harder, seeing how such hard work helped them, especially since they got beat up in the next two fights. he/she mentioned that by the nature of the results, one hurts less if one wins a fight.
the time comes. They come to the fights they have trained for. The group has really improved. Instead of one match, they were going to be fighting several. they would not fight their own teammates, but they would fight other schools until there was a single winner. it would cover five days of fighting. Each would fight at least fight fights, even if they get beat each time. The winners would fight until they lost or won.
She got the day of the fight first. her fights were easy. She fought ten fights during the day. She got hit, but not badly.
He then fought his fights. he fought eleven. He struck harder and faster than his opponents. He barely got hit, but when he did, it really hurt.
he/she learned from each day's fight, from each other's fight. as the competition got better, so did they.
At the end of the fifth day, there were five fighters still standing. They would have a week to recover before they would have to prove themselves.
She ended her day with eight fighters standing, one was from her school.
He/she worked hard, practicing what they learned. Their private exercises were just as hard in the other forms.
they back off on their training the day before they are to be called, just stretching and resting. Other than warming up, they don't even practice.
they are called he is called first and goes to a new arena, this one is bigger, Big, strong men, professional fighters, face the five. they know they are out of their skill level. They are told that deaths have happened in these matches. Be aware of it and fight accordingly.
he is the last to be called to fight. two of the five were dead, piled near the wall. the other two were taken out. they would not fight again. Just by the way his opponent moved, this guy was the very best of the professionals.
they meet in the fight and it is tough, hard and painful. He holds his own against this professional.
the professional finally gets hold of him and is doing a submission hold. he is bent backwards, off balance, the arm around his neck, he head sticking out the back. He is in great pain. A move she did comes to mind. it is a really high kick up to his shoulder. He focuses, then snaps it up, again and again. the pro's face is right in the way each time. the pro relaxes his grip.
He spins out of the hold, kicks high and brings his heal down onto the man's shoulder, then comes in with his full training. The pro still takes him down to the ground, pounding on him. He uses another kind of kick that the stretching practice made possible. A few hard strikes and he is able to fight his way out. he does not stop, though, and follows the pro. The pro goes down, out cold. He turns and points to the second best fighter among the pros. He has no idea how he does it, but he beats this guy too. A good hit addled him and he was fighting more on instinct than anything.
The session is called and they are taken to their rooms. He works out, stretching, and then goes to sleep.
She is lead to her arena. they are also facing pro women fighters. She is aware of this and is ready.
Her first fight was tough, but she knows what to expect. She uses her male experience to not be surprised with what she was up against. She ignores painful hits to do serious damage. She ends up fighting a third time. She gets into serious trouble and ends up using a couple moves he learned to beat her opponent. It did not look like another style, but rather just badly or differently done move she already knew. At the end of the third fight, she stood, beaten and worn. but she had won. She was taken to her room.
Malblan woke slowly. As he got up, he realized this was not the two bodies he was in before. Looking down, he frowned. The doctors had modified his body. He was both male and female. As he moved around, he could tell his body was accentuated for fighting. he could fight any fighting form he wanted, if only he knew any.
He remembered the forms he learned in the other bodies. He just made some sweeps of his hands, and moved his legs, not really doing the forms, but just testing the feel. yes, this body knew them perfectly.
Malblan was lead out of the room. the obedience collar told him everything he needed to know. He had no desire to resist it.
He was fed, allowed to clean up and lead through some exercises. The trainers kept petting him all over, even where one should not. it felt good, He could not bring himself to resist, even if he wanted to. he did not understand a single word they said, but their touch and the collar told him everything he needed to know.
He was finally lead out to an arena. Before him was a creature, obviously modified, that could rip him apart. The collar told him that they must fight. As he approached, memories of his past lives came to him. a special forces soldier, the woman and man he was. His body recognized all the fighting skills he had gained.
The two of them meet. he instantly knows that it has fought many times before, but really does not know fighting styles. He uses his marine fighting at first but the creature's natural ability is a good defense.
he then shifts to the fighting style of the man, which is power and strength. He gains for a bit, then slowly gets into trouble.
he is taking a beating. he then shifts to what he learned as a woman. The creature's body takes the beatings with ease. the structure is designed for hard impacts.
The beast almost has him. He then in desperation, applies all three styles at once. Throws, high kicks, close power.
he staggers away from the beast and the beast falls down. he had won the fight.
As he is taken away, he gets the impression that his handlers have no idea how he could have learned to fight like that. He goes to sleep.
He wakes in the school, surprised to learn he had beaten all five of the professional fighters. His body was sore all over. After a light work out, she wakes at the school. She had beaten the pros also. One of those from the schools won her first fight, only to be beaten in her second. She hurts but is satisfied, even though she has no memory of the fights.
They wake him and lead him to his escape pod. It was rebuilt and there is a rocket body attached. He is a form that is too dangerous to have in these fights. He is stuck the way he looks.
They remove his collar and put him in his ship. the ship launches and he is on his way back home.
Each time he goes back to sleep, he finds himself back in the man and woman. He has no idea where they are. They make the journey easier.
He is finally picked up by one of his ship and is taken home. That area of space is now declared off limits. he continues to have the man and woman in his dreams. He stays in the military his body not as good for civilian life.
.
I did not really want to have the man and woman find out that it was someone dreaming, but I had to do it. I had to give the two lives a reason.

08 )
.
The male and female beasts met in a clearing and mated. As they turned to separate, the army appeared. The male turned and attacked the army while the female ran into the woods at as fast a speed the trees would allow. Horsemen followed her but could no move as fast over some rough ground. The army fought the male, each soldier did a little damage before they died. The damage added up until the soldiers were doing damage while surviving the counter attacks. At that point, the beast was not going to escape alive.
The beast breathed its last breath. the soldiers cut into the body and removed the internal organs to make sure it was dead.
The horsemen had to track the female because she got well ahead of them, but they did not lose her, even though she circled several times, even following her own tracks in an attempt to throw them off.
The army dealt with their dead, then headed out after the female beast. In following the beast as she was trying to throw them off her trail, The horsemen used their numbers to herd the beast. They got well ahead and cut off some routes to keep her heading to the mountains, to keep her from reaching paths to escape.
The army marched hard to catch up. Horsemen returned to report the location of the beast and gather supplies. The beast had to hunt while running and then sit and eat the kill.
Once in the foothills, the horsemen rode in shifts, some following at night, while others hunted in the day. Their main practice was to sweep back and forth across the lands, leaving lots of traces and improving the chances of seeing the beast if it tried to pass through them. The beast had to find places to sleep and the horsemen, yelling and banging on metal nearby, prevented her from feeling safe enough to sleep.
The army's forced march, and taking shortcuts from what the horsemen took, allowed the army to catch up to the beast in the hills.
The horseman and soldiers finally trapped the beast. An open green at the edge of the cliff. The beast was sleep deprived, exhausted, hungry. It realized it should have taken on the horsemen when they were still small in number, rather than running.
As a baby, she had wings that could float her across distances, but they were vestigial because she weighed so much. there was no place to go.
She attacked in hopes of escaping through them. She then fought, realizing there was no way she was going to escape alive.
The held her at the edge of the cliff. She was still killing soldiers.
The soldiers made the fatal blow. With the last bit of energy, she lifted her hind end up. Her ovipositor extended and she rammed it into the ground. The soldiers shoved a spear into her brain. An egg passed down the ovipositor and into the ground. There she died.
There was only a small number of soldiers or horsemen left. She had done serious damage to the army, killing both lords who generalled the army and all but one captain. They removed her entrails, leaving them there. they intended to bring soldiers back later and retrieve their trophies. Their dead taken care of, they left the mountains.
They were satisfied that they had killed the last of the beasts and there would be need to even remember them.
The two successors to the lords had no interest in retrieving trophies so they never returned to her body. Her body was attacked by scavengers and then rotted.
When the body rotted and dried, a little sprig poked through the body. In the light, it grew fast. A decade later, large strong tree stood, surrounded by bleaching bones. It was strong, holding up against storms and snow.
There was little left of the bones, many blown and washed over the cliff. The people in the valley had relegated the beasts to myth and legends.
The tree was nearly a century old. Little buds appeared on the branches of the tree in late winter. As spring came into full swing, the buds grew into large globes. some globes were blue and others were white. One of the white globes rocked, The wind waving the tree branches covered the motion had someone been there. a hole appeared on the bottom. Then the hole got bigger as a small muzzle poked its way through. The creature finally crawled out of the egg. It hung there, pumping blood into the wings, taking them from wrinkled blobs to delicate and leathery. Once it was dried off and fully ready, it started nibbling on the shell. It seamed awaken when it finished eating the last of the shell. it crawled up the branch to one of the blue globes and started munching on that. it ate three of the blue globes, ran to the edge of the tree branches overhanging the cliff, and leaped. The wings could not actually flap, but helped it glide across the sky as it lost altitude.
More eggs hatched and ate the blue globes. There were about as many blue globes formed as white globes. the blue globes were gone fairly quickly.
The hatchlings started eating poorly developed eggs, then eggs that were nearly ready to hatch.
when the last of the eggs had hatched, the only food left was each other. when each one was satisfied, they would leap off the tree, some into the open air of the cliff, some to the ground below and run.
The last offspring to hatch, never got any food at all. It wandered the tree, eating bits and pieces left, then crawled to the ground to hunt for food. Not having enough food to start with, it was too weak to fend off a very minor predator.
One by one, the offspring were caught and eaten by other creatures. some suffered from accidents. Only one or two lasted into the second month of life.
The tree gave fruit every year after that. the same thing happened to the offspring each year. each year a few survived for a while.
The tree was a stage of the beast's life cycle. Under good conditions, the female would have laid dozens of eggs from that mating, leaving these trees all across the landscape so there would be many offspring surviving to an age to mate. One survivor every few years from each tree would have allowed many offspring to survive to mate. She would have mated many times over her lifetime too.
Having just one tree, the survival of the offspring was less likely. The offspring became survivors once they reached the size of a wolf.
The beasts were generally loners, but the offspring congregated regularly before spreading out again. The oldest offspring taught the youngest. They sometimes hunted larger beasts like a pack, but generally hunted alone. they were also hunted, by wolves, lions, bears. Some old, some new died, but they continued to increase in number as offspring of the tree grew big enough to survive.
There was something different about these beasts compared to previous generations. Their tree was fertilized by the body of the female, the offspring were more gregarious than previous generations. Something in the nutrients of the female said that there was no others of their kind in existence. they lived together a bit more, protecting each other some, not trying to eat each other as often.
The people no longer believed the beasts ever existed. they were stories to frighten children. Their armies were not too strong, as the need for defenses was weak. Few beasts to really deal with and they had little reason to take over each other's land.
The oldest female reached breeding age. the next year, a male reached breeding age. The pair mated and she ran off on her own.
The tree was sprouting more female eggs than male eggs. Females laid the seeds so there needed to be more of them.
Soon there were hundreds of the little trees growing. It would be a long time before they would give fruit, but the species was on its way to recovery again.
The people started losing animals, something romped through their crops, crushing them down, breaking fences. people here and there disappeared with only footprints around.
The lords started to have their people hunt the country side for the cause. Once they found the first of the beasts, and lost a lot of soldiers, they started building an army to deal with them. they looked to the stories of the beasts to find clues on how to deal with them. It required a lot of soldiers.
It became a hunt and kill of the ever growing number of beasts that appear out of nowhere.
This time, because of growing in the mother's body, the offspring of the tree traveled far and wide to lay their eggs in the ground before returning to mate again. Until the soldiers learned the trees were the source of the beasts, if they ever do, it would be hard to end the species completely.

09 )
.
The city was walled and way out just beyond the forests, was a second wall to protect the farms and bit of harvest able forests. Outside was frightening to the people who would never stay outside the city at night.
Horses were the form of transportation when one had to move loads. The number of horses were limited by the space that could be farmed for their feed. One penalty for someone who committed a serious crime was to release the city's horses in their farm plot to feed. Since the family was required to grow the food for themselves, this was a penalty that no family wanted to happen. This kept serious crimes in check. Not only the criminal would suffer, so would the family.
It was a serious earthquake. The city walls, the buildings inside, collapsed. Since it was in the evening, the cooking fires and candles were burning. That lead to serious fires raging across the city rubble.
Kaleb lived near the gates and his wagons. When the ground stopped shaking, he and his family grabbed what they could, tossed them on the wagon, gathered a group of horses, only a couple were their own and lead them out a breech in the city walls.
The fire spread to the fields outside the walls. Other families rushed out of the city and joined them. they passed into the forest with the fires following them.
At the outer wall, it too was rubble. The gate laid flat on the ground, the debris from the walls fell away from the road. They headed through the wall and out into the wilderness, the fire following them.
the hundred people traveled all night and finally found a shallow place on a river where they could wade across. they crossed the river and made camp.
They stayed there a week living on a starvation diet of what they happen to grab and bring with them. Kaleb had grain on his cart that he did not have time to unload, and that was their main food.
The fire seamed to have died down before it reached them. they finally crossed the river and returned.
The outer gate was ashes. only metal bits were left in the ground. Kaleb gathered them up and put them on the wagon. The city was ashes surrounded by the a wall. they found charred bones of people and animals. There was no bit of farm land green.
Kaleb gathered bits of metal that he could find. Others wondered why he was doing it. they checked the other roads to the far wall. they found many remains at the gates people caught by the fire that could not escape. They were the only survivors.
Kaleb finally told the people there is nothing here for them. they might as well find a new home.
With what they could find from the ashes, they headed out, the wagon creaking under the load, all the horses pulling with what hardware that could be made or found.
They crossed the river and continued on. The forest was tough to go through, but there was a trail. They had no idea who made or used the trail but it made their journey easy enough.
At the camp sites, along with gathering fire wood, the men took the bits of metal Kaleb gathered and made tools. axes, knives, pots, buckets. Women found a few plants they knew, but most around them were just not food. The group continued on, searching for a place to make a new home.
they had run-ins with some animals. After a couple incidents, they learned to kill and eat what they found. Meat was not something they had often in the city.
They headed up a hill the hill suddenly broke from the trees on both sides. They reached the top of the hill the hill ended in a cliff. Looking across the space in front of them, they saw another hill that ended suddenly. They were shocked that they could see the underside of the hill, held up by columns.
Kaleb grabbed some rope and tied it to a tree, and then dropped the end of the rope over the edge. He shinnied down, then came up.
"The hill we are on is exactly like that one!" Pointing across the space.
they went to the base of the hill and went around. It was tough, having to hack their way through the forest. After crossing a river, they linked back to the trail on the other side. The ramps were two platforms rising up from the ground on stone pillars The space between them were a mat of roots, trees and vines.
The group continued to travel. They saw more of those ramps, After the first five, the rest were standing complete. They found them easier to cross over than through the rivers or whatever was beneath them.
At the top of one really high one that was covered with grass rather than trees, they looked over the area. Before and behind him was a dead straight line of raised trees and grass. below them, was another dead straight line of raised trees and grass.
These were roads they deduced. Who could have the ability to make such vast constructions.
One young man pointed to a mound that rose well above the surrounding area. It was on the other road. After some discussion, they went back down the hill, and crossed onto the other road.
A day later they arrived at the mound. Things stuck up above the trees. Those turned out to be made of metal. After passing half way through it, there was no question. this was once a city. dust, dirt, plant life worked hard to fully cover it and had not yet succeeded.
Kaleb found a channel, a chamber that dropped to the bottom. He tied his rope and climbed down. When he came up. he showed several things he found down there. bits of metal a few small items. they could see that the people who built this city was advanced beyond anything they ever heard of.
They thought they saw some light one night, so they followed another road during the day.
They finally reach some rough ground, the path continued between the hills. They come to a community. it was advanced compared to the way they lived. the other people were utterly stunned to see people not of them.
After some parrying where they were not too trustworthy of each other, they finally started learning about each other. Kaleb was taken to something called a library. There he and several women are shown books of the past. Kaleb's mother worked in the city library so he learned to read and write. One of the women with him was he town librarian.
they were shown the history of the world. A government decided that the great and powerful society should become perfected. Chosen people were gathered in special cities where technology was not allowed. they were trapped in the places by the guards, by destroying the roads, by forbidding knowledge.
the rest of the population was ravaged by diseases the leaders created. The armies attacked the cities to clear out the excess populations. the land was denuded of people in a great campaign.
This community had fought and held their land against the armies, but ended up trapped just like the communities the government created.
The abandoned lands were taken over by the escaped and native life.
The community thought it was the only people left in existence. The fear of the outside was created by the government teaching, not to protect the people from the land, but to protect the land from the people.
it appeared that the government forgot that it needed a good population to support it. the forested park the elites wanted, turned out not to be a place they could get to once their deeds were done.
.
My note said "Horse and buggy. people go out into the county and finds a super highway. they have no idea why society shut down and became concentrated.

10 )
.
To show how strange my mind is, especially when I first wake up, I followed a sequence of thoughts that ended up with a solution that is likely wrong, but is imaginative.
I remembered a small store I visited once, that had some India style ceramic elephants. In my just-left dream mind-set, I sort of imagined different size of them, then a whole line going from the two hand size, down to micro sized.
I was up a little bit and remembered a Nova show where they were going over he history of finding DNA, and they said that originally, the scientists thought that in each egg and sperm cell, they had a miniature form of every person that will ever be born.
Then, as the textile industry developed and were using punch cards to do designs, the thought was that it was a code, like the punch cards, and later computer code, to get the repeatability from one generation to the next.
I remembered something I read or heard in the wild, where if one chemical exists, one thing happens with some cells, but if it is not there, or not in not enough concentration, something else happens. I think that this had to do with a microbe that could split like a single cell, or join as if mating. If the concentration of the chemical they exude is strong enough, they would enter mating mode.
I have had minimal Quick-Basic programming classes so I have some understanding of the computer code. So a cell is germinated and it starts to divide. The code would be, divide unless one chemical was in a certain concentration, then go to next line in the code.
I then came up with a problem. You have cells dividing, all are equal, how would once cell know to express the head part while another cell would know to express the tail part. I am sure there is a chemical signal, where one cell will express one code and others would not have it.
The problem is how to differentiate one cell from all the rest. One cell must be the originating cell to dictate to the others what to do. If every cell is dividing exactly the same, this signal is not going to go to other cells. they will all be the same, essentially the same age, no cell more advanced than the other.
One thought was that they do not divide as exact same size, one slightly "older" than the other, but that does not fit my understanding of cell division. That was when my "brilliance" came into play.
The sperm penetrates the cell wall. The head is essentially stripped off, the contents made use of. The tail is essentially clipped off (I don't remember it being fully absorbed but could be. It was not a detail I concentrated on when I saw the shows).
The thought that came to me was that the sperm left a chemical in the contact point of the cell wall that remained, and did not get absorbed. that gave me an explanation of how a cell would actually differentiate once it reached the right point.
The cell would divide so that plug, I would call it, was in one of the cells. With each subsequent division, that plug would remain as part of one cell wall.
Once the chemical concentration reached a certain point, the programming for differentiation would kick in. In programming terms, it would be "If this chemical is below X concentration, divide. If chemical X = concentration, then go to next.
on next, it would say, if chemical B is present, go to next. If plug present, then release chemical B. Else divide and next.
If chemical B is present, express sub C. Sub C would check for other chemicals or chemical concentrations and cause the cell to express different parts of the code.
The cells next to the plug cell would start changing first, and then each subsequent cell would express with a slight difference after that. Once one change was made in the cells, they would continue not be the same.
After this point, the plug might get absorbed. It would have done the job of arranging the cells so they will follow their path based on chemical relationships to the final adult form. The plug might not be on the cell wall, but one bit within the cell that does no get expressed by other cells.
This might not be right, but it does answer, for me, one possible solution on how the tiny ball of exact same cells "decide" how to express as different parts of the final form. A bit of trigger tells one cell to release a chemical that the rest of the cells detect and express differently.
One thought while writing what is past this, is that the plug could limit the number of times that specific cell can replicate. when it reaches the right point, it is the first cell that dies. the cells around it get the contents and the chemicals diffuse through the form, causing changes as subsequent cells receive the chemical reaction.
For a story idea, one might have where a scientist finds the chemical plug. Remove the plug and the cells either stop expressing at some point, dying, or they continue to express as one, becoming like a cancer cell. They find that the cell that actually becomes one specific part of the body, comes from the cell that has that plug. Move the plug and the new cell becomes that part of the body.
The scientists follow the plug as it goes through the changes. Of course, a one point, the cell is lost, hidden in the rest of the developing body.
The scientists start dissecting the test microbes, searching for the plug at each stage. In this case, I would eventually have them find the plug would have migrated to what would become the reproduction part of the bit of life, rather than the brain which was my first thought.
Now if the plugged cell dies first, then one might trace the plug as it floats among the debris. This might become the DNA ends that limits the life of the cells when in an adult.

11 )
.
The cat I am taming has really become a nice cat. Recently, a neighbor cat it gets along with, showed up. Our cat seamed to become even nicer after the neighbor cat's arrival. That seeded this concept.
It arrived on the planet, drained of energy. It did not like where it was. It wanted to leave, but needed to recharge.
The energy it needed, was attitude, anger, fear. It needed negative emotions. It searched all over and found small amounts of emotions, but nothing concentrated.
The strongest emotions were in the dominant species, introduced to the planet, and their emotions were not of a wavelength it could draw off of. It thought it might be stuck, when it ran across a battered and worn introduced creature. It had a lot of emotion and it could draw it. It found it could interact with the beast, even simple communications.
Taking the emotion from it, that the dominant creatures referred to as a cat, made the cat feel empty, missing something.
The cat left for a while. when he returned, it had an attitude. The cat indicated that the fighting attitude came from another cat.
The being drew every bit of energy from the cat, and told it to find the meanest cat and draw out the energy from it. The being followed the cat as it traveled around. when it made contact with a wild cat, the wild cat became tamer. It took several contacts between the two cats, but the wild cat began to allow the dominant species to handle it.
The cat it was working with always was tame around the people as it learned the dominant species were called.
The being followed the cat around drawing out energy every time it gathered some. This was a slow process, but it was storing up power.
Milark had a wild cat she was feeding. She had worked on it, trying to tame it. She could pet it while it was eating but once it stopped, it was not above striking at her. This was better than when it would strike after a few pets.
One day, a different cat showed up. her cat usually had nothing to do with other cats, not above attacking them. The strange cat hung around and her cat did not seam to care.
Very quickly, her cat seamed to start calming down. Within a week, she was sitting there petting him while he was eating. He backed into the space between her feet and laid down, and stayed there while she petted it. it took her a while to realize how big a thing this was.
Later, she saw her cat and the strange cat touch noses, then part.
The being drew the energy from his cat. The cat found one that had so much energy, it felt good drawing the energy out. the being told the cat to stay with that cat.
Milark could not believe what her cat would allow her to do with it. it still would not let her hold it, but she was now petting it for as much as an hour. It did not like being touched on the sides when it was laying down, but really enjoyed being rubbed on the top of the head.
There was a while without seeing the other cat, her cat got a little testy, then the other cat arrived and her cat calmed down even more.
The being saw that the target was regaining some of the energy lost. it cold taste the changes in power, attitude, hatred as it was drained and as it regained some of the power. His cat could not hold too much energy at a time so had to visit often. It had to take breaks, check out other animals as the target cat was really hateful.
Several months go by. He finds a couple other cats who are willing to serve him.
The target cat has his attention, though. it won't let the being near it. it runs and hides. always escaping when the being appears. it does not like strangers.
The being moves the cats around the city, but always returns to the target cat.
the being finally gains enough energy to leave. Only the target cat has any useable energy. the being slips all its cats into the yard of the target cat. the main cat first to calm it down, then the other cats. the target cat looks drained, like it is a house cat. then it swats one of the other cats and they all leave.
There is something about the attitude of that cat that really interests the being.
Milark is with her cat. It has changed so dramatically. She notices she is not even paying attention to the cat, petting it while looking elsewhere. that is something it would never have allowed her to do. It will lazily nip at her hand to tell her it does not like what she is doing, but that is rare and it is not to actually harm. just say, stop.
The being is recharged enough to leave. It knows where it can become fully charged fast. That will be where it goes.
As one last act before leaving. It gets near the yard of the target cat. waits, then leaps right on the target cat. The target cat fights even as the energy is drained. There is no energy left to draw out, but the cat still struggles. It is actually trying to draw energy back. The being leaves the yard, and heads right into space.
Milark goes out to feed the cat. To her surprise, I climbs up onto her lap and curls up. She sits there for about two hours, petting it, before it finally gets down and eats.
That cat is never that tame ever again, regaining the attitude to where she can pet it all over, but have to watch it.
.
With this setup, I would have to explain why the cat has an attitude and why it keeps regaining the attitude. For a fun thought would be that it is another being, weaker, that got trapped inside the kitten and is fighting to get out.
My note says "personality swap, nicer for now reason.

12 )
.
The saying is that, "You are not drunk, if you can still hang onto the floor."
It was a moonlet with an atmosphere. The moon was dry and cool, but one could walk around outside without a space suit.
The moonlet was actually a space station, made three empires before. No one knew anything about the last empire that ran it, let alone the two that came before. They were species that rose to great power, then went extinct, just their artifacts were left behind. Each empire repaired, added to and expanded the space station. They made no attempt to hide what previous races did. They each had their own technological emphasis.
Nearly a hundred species visited and lived on the space station and not one had any clue how any of the advanced technology worked, even though many of them are so vastly advanced beyond the majority of the other races.
Mental control was a key to the previous technologies and none of the existing species had any mental powers even close to that level. One race, the Cyleers had the machinery part figured out, but not the energy part. They admitted that they were but a quarter of the way to what the previous races were able to do.
The Cyleers' big technological gain was in medicine. they had drugs and chemicals that caused really strange effect on lower life forms. They used them sparingly, and had extremely controlled situations where they were used. They could almost, but not quite, change your genetics, correct body problems that are not problems, make lower forms into supermen. That was why their science was carefully controlled. No telling what someone might do with their drugs.
Some of their drugs have escaped, though. They are usually some form of narcotic. They did do some strange things, though.
One has an effect that resembles alcohol, but when one is completely drunk, one actually starts to float up from the artificial gravity.
Another drug causes people to see colors that don't exist, wavelengths that their eyes normally cannot see, the voice becomes higher and higher as one gets drunker.
Another one causes one to become more and more intelligent, but one can use one's muscles less and less, One becomes a super genius, but one cannot move. AS one comes down from the drug, one starts forgetting the brilliance. By the time one can move to record the brilliance, most of them are gone.
These drugs are very illegal but in a trader society where nothing is really illegal, it is impossible to keep them under control.
The colony had severed its contact with the home world and expanded technologically and economically. the colonists advanced so far beyond the home planet that they have sent out their own colonies. They started an active trade between the stars, and found the moonlet by accident. They were well below the technology of any other species active at the moonlet, but they had technology to trade, equal to equal.
The colonists stole ideas every chance they could. They used "brute force" to do the exact same thing others did with advanced technology, and their work was in great demand (think of it as using clockwork to do what microchips would normally do, as an example as to technological differences).
It took a while. The colonists were very careful with testing the different foods and drinks available. They avoided medicines at all cost.
A century after the first contact, there was now a permanent colonist population on the moonlet. They were fully integrated inhabitants now. Like any other species on the station. the colonists knew what they could do and what to avoid. they had those that tested he limits, and those who stayed to what was fully established.
Many of the "escaped drugs" had adverse effects on the colonists. It took a lot of treatment to cut down the effects of the mind advancement drug. any time a colonist was found unable to move, they had to do a detox to bring the colonists down.
the colonists found the floating drug extremely popular. In many ways, it felt like alcohol, but without the hangover. The colonists were highly effected by the floating drug. They were floating long before they were impaired.
The floors of the moonlet had a mesh over it. Once a "year", the artificial gravity was shut off and the people had to operate at minimal gravity for a week. This was to make sure everybody knew how to handle a real failure. the grid allowed people to pull themselves along the floor, or they might wear boots with fittings on the bottom that allowed them to use the holes to move around.
There were laws for "persons" who are impaired by some drug. they were usually gathered up and placed in a jail cell until they sober up, and then have to pay a penalty to get out, usually paid by a friend.
There was a bit of a battle between the colonists and the authorities, but it became an agreement that when on the floating drug, one was not impaired if one could hang onto the ground. the authorities gathered the colonists floating on the ceiling.
A few colonists use the drug to their advantage. many times, they would be carrying large loads. they take the floating drug to give them a lift. It really amounts to about a dozen extra pounds one can lift, but in some situations, that is all that is needed. of course, one has to be careful as to how much one takes. It is hard to get that balance right. the amount of time one can work with the drug is limited, as they eventually get completely stoned.
Samson loves the floating drug. He is also a scientific kind of person. He makes a bet with an alien friend one day. His alien friend has a small shuttle. He bets that if he takes the floating drug, he can escape the space station. the friend would wait for him in orbit, and pick him up. He would pick up his friend if his friend started to sink back to the ground after gaining altitude.
As to their agreement, Samson gets into his space suit, and then takes his drug. If the officials ever suspected he had taken the drug, they would never let him get close to being outside.
It was actually quite common for people to wear space suits outside, just for the protection from falling objects of blasts of chemicals.
He was feeling he was starting to float as he entered the last air lock. He stepped out and walked quickly away from the door into the open.
He was well away from anybody and anything when he made contact with his friend. without saying anything about what they were doing, Samson asked if he should simply float, or leap when he is ready to leave the ground. His friend said he should keep going away from any body. a light kick at the last moment would be all that should be used.
He had walked half a mile and was pretty much an equal distance from anything. He knelt down, hanging on some grassy like plants someone had planted. Many wild species are introduced but only a few can survive, especially during the week of no gravity. this grass had a deep interlocked root and went dormant when with no gravity.
He was floating as he hung onto the grass. His feet were just barely held to the ground. He told his friend that he was going to take his leap, pushing off the planet and see if he can get into space. He was also feeling light headed.
He changed his grip, pulled himself to the ground, then shoved off as hard as he could. He even threw his hands ahead of him in a super hero like position to cut the wind ahead of him. the world fell away from him as he headed into space.
traffic control told him to come back, he had no authorization to enter space from there. They then realized he was on the floating drug. They had to re-route several ships to make sure he was well away from their effects.
His friend approached his path and the officials then realized this was something planned and chewed out the friend for this stunt.
Samson and his friend stayed in contact on their own wavelength, tracking his rise and their planned meeting.
Samson came to a stop above the planet, just floating there. His friend pulled up and opened the hatch. Samson climbed in, closed the hatch. His friend pulled him way out away from the planet. Samson had no floating against the artificial gravity of the ship. they tested it with acceleration caused gravity, and with the ship's artificial gravity. No floating. they finally came back to the moonlet and at the altitude he had stopped his rise, he started to float. he was already fading out before then. He passed out long before they arrived back home.
Because of the way they flew around, the traffic control lost contact with them so they were not in trouble when they came back. They stayed in the ship until Samson woke. the floating had stopped before then.
Together, anonymously, they wrote a scientific paper of their discoveries. the floating drug only worked in the strange artificial gravity of the moonlet, It did not work in regular space.
Their paper forced officials to do more extensive tests, even on other such moonlets around the galaxy. They found each floating drug was formulated for the special gravity settings of the moonlet. It could not be made to work where real gravity was in effect.
The authorities figured out a way to detect if someone was on the floating drugs through a scan. Samson's little experiment would never be allowed to be done again.

13 )
.
The empire expanded, ever so steadily, swallowing up space kingdoms one by one. There was no way to stop them. defenders fought alone, teamed up, a couple small empires folded under the relentless attacks.
Blueline was a small kingdom. They were strictly space based, made up of a chain of space stations. They saw the empire coming. They hated to do it, but they prepared themselves to give up their territory, to become nomads. Some wanted to stand and fight, others would rather stay and accept the conditions of the empire.
Those who wanted to stay, were forced to pack up. The space stations dismantled and turned into fleets of ships. They were large ships, tiny cities, but they would be mobile.
those who wanted to fight, took a couple of the space stations and turned them into battle ships and fighters, They were going to fight to the last man in hopes of stopping the empire.
The empire had changed leadership. Their leadership decided to concentrate their forces to take corridors and then work from them to areas to the side. The empire withdrew large portions of their forces from other areas.
The six kingdoms in the path of the empire's attack, never had a chance. they might have held if they killed a hundred imperial ships for each one they lost, but they were actually lucky to get two for one of their losses. A cloud of imperial ships flowed into region.
The Blueline saw this happening. The decision to abandon the space went out. The space stations, now a loose collection of ships, broke up and headed "to the right" of the empire.
The military changed tactics. they would not try to stop the empire, but instead would delay them, possibly misdirect them, and then follow the escaping population.
The empire arrived as a thick cloud of ships. The defenders were changing tactics fast. They were withdrawing to the side of the empire, keeping themselves between the now moving population and the imperial ships.
they made contact and the Blueline defenders were making rapid kills as they were running, picking off lead ships.
Soon, the empire's forces got past them and flowed into the territory unopposed.
The blue line kept withdrawing, always keeping their war ships between the empire and the population.
The imperial main force kept right on going. Just a few battle fleets followed the Blueline as they slipped away.
The battle ships caught up with the population, did repairs, then returned to the battle. The imperial fleets were set upon by races along the way.
About the time the last of the chasing ships was destroyed, the Blueline found the empire in front of them. the battle fleet moved to the front and now punched a pathway ahead of the population.
Now, the imperial fleets were everywhere. they were not as good as the ones that chased them out of their territory, but they put up a good fight anyway.
The Blueline kept on going. they had no idea where they were going. They hoped to get far enough away from the empire that they could settle down again in peace.
The empire seamed to be everywhere. They passed habitable star systems and blasted some of the imperial defenders before slipping away. They also raided military storage depot, traded with people who had little defenders around them. They simply could not get away from the imperial forces.
One day, they found themselves facing a emperial strong point. There was no going around. they were detected and their location known.
The Blueline were ready to fight even in the population ships. They came in blasting, right at the core of the defenses. The imperial forces did not seam prepared for an attack, even though they had plenty of warning.
A highly populated planet appeared at the edges of the sensors, so they decided to head to the planet. The Blueline were now highly experienced fighters and they knew how to break up defenses.
the Blueline population ships now surrounded the planet and the military bases knocked toothless. The planet surrendered. A large space station was in orbit around another star and some fighters surrounded it. the space station surrendered, no ships escaping.
it took a week to get the Blueline forces exactly where they needed to be to hold the area. After the initial battle, there was no fighting. It was a matter of having a physical presence nearby to some location in the star system.
The Blueline finally got a chance to relax for a moment. They repaired their damage, re-supplied, purchasing supplies from merchants, re-arming from the military.
it was while they were trading, that they learned they had captured the seat of power of the empire, the imperial capital. It took them about six months to fully realize that they owned the entire empire. they had no idea what to do with it. the Blueline government was not designed to run an empire. they wanted to stop the expansion, but did not know how to stop it without causing the empire to collapse entirely.
In their effort to escape the imperial expansion, they ended up in control of the capital.

14 )
.
The sun shivered from a star quake. They did not have the measuring tools, but those who had studied the sun, knew it had shrunk a little. The sun was brighter, a little less orange.
Science started to develop, with inventors becoming more imaginative, and scientists developing new discoveries.
There were some archeological sights where the sun was seen on the walls, with lines around it on certain days of the year. Examining these sights, assuming the sun was traced exactly, many researchers figured the sun had shrunk by a nearly a percent from the star quake.
Science and technology grew rapidly. the lives of people improved as inventors created new entertainments, labor saving devices, new ways to do things.
It seamed as if each new generation, physical records -- running, swimming, leaping, throwing -- were being broken. the newer generation of stars were better than the previous ones.
Another war started and in the midst of the biggest battle, a young man fought the enemy as if he was a super man. He seamed to dodge bullets. He climbed and leaped better than anybody was expected to. He fired with a keen eye. At one point, the enemy attack was held off by this man alone. He dove into a band of enemy soldiers and it seamed as if he killed them with the touch of his hands, then went onto the next band of soldiers. When the war was over, he was referred to as the first super man.
In the next war, there were many more super men. They fought each other and some died, but they were better than the people before. The outcomes of the battles became, who could position their super men best.
The super men were good men in their society, moral, intelligent, hard working. They did not like war, they did not like crime, they worked hard to change the minds of their leaders, to let people live their lives.
The next generation of super men became police officers, fire men, rescue workers. Their sense of justice had most of them hunting down criminals in their spare times. A few started wearing costumes to hide their true identity.
The super brilliant of the scientists and inventors were pushing the limit of what was thought to be mentally possible. the less brilliant were creating findings in archeology, biology, paleontology, sciences where more physical work was involved. The lesser minds continued to invent. Those not quite inventive became investigators for the police, insurance, banking, and such, . Criminals of all kinds were getting caught.
About the only thing that these super minds and super heros avoided was politics. they did not feel it was moral for them to get into.
Each generation started at a higher level than the one before, but it was soon noticed that the as the super heros aged, they gained more abilities.
About the time that entering space was realized, super men were leaping from the top of one building to another, a greater distance than the average person could travel.
With the first occupied space station, One super hero misjudged his path and leaped off a skyscraper. He expected to fall to his death. His leap kept going. He landed roughly on the ground nearly a mile away. He now knew he could fly, but landing is always a problem.
The average person knew they were not super men or super brains, but they did their best to achieve their dreams anyway. the super men and super brains gave them something to strive for, even if they would never be super. there were things that the supers would not be involved in, and that was where the normal persons excelled.
One thing that was seen, was that there was no way to predict who was super and who was not. All races, all peoples, all social economic status class. They just appeared as they came near adult age.
there are space stations in space, surrounding various planets, in free orbit around the sun. in deep space. One astronaut known to have super skills, was on a space walk. His tether broke and he was floating away from the station. there was no way to recover him. His air was gone. He thought he was going to be dead soon. In desperation. He did a "leap" into space, in the direction to the space station. To his surprise, he was heading to the space station.
He arrived nearly an hour later, climbed into the ship, alive. Later, all the super men were flying around space, going where they wanted to go.
Then, a space launch went wrong. A dozen super men leaped after the rocket. The rocket headed into space. Each stage dropped and a few super men grabbed it and brought them to the ground safely, rather than landing on the populations.
The last pair was almost to the space station as it left the atmosphere. They caught up to the rocket and pushing together, they shoved it into a different orbit, and brought it safely to a space station. it was only when they were on the space station that they realized they were flying around in space, without their space suits.
A rule went out that one was not to walk out into space without a suit. One can fly out of the atmosphere, or one can find oneself in a bad condition, but they were not to "experiment" by going into space. Not all super men will survive space.
The best of the super minds never bothered turning on computers. the technology of the computers were below their abilities. they could read the raw computer code and run the same operations in their minds, faster.
One day, one of the super minds ended up in the hospital. He said "The rubber band broke" inside his mind. he was shaking, sobbing, seamed to not have much of his intelligence.
A week after going to the hospital, he disappeared. Searches of the area failed to find him.
A couple other super brains also had the broken rubber band incident, and disappeared. when several super men also had a broken rubber band, and then disappeared, people started worrying. The top super brains and super men were studied. Nothing could be seen that was a worry.
Years later, crime started to grow. The crimes were imaginative, planned out to the letter. The crimes were such that they were not noticed until later. when one group of criminals were caught, they were no different than any other criminal, except they were good at following orders.
Then there were crimes that a normal person could not cause. It was a shock that some super man would commit a crime.
Unknown to the super men, the authorities, the general public, the supers who felt the break of the rubber band, lost their moral compass. they became "normal" in their morals and started to use their super abilities for personal gain. Since they had not had a life where the could work for personal gain, they became evil in their desires. it was theirs and they went after it.
Also behind the scenes, the evil super minds, tracked down the super men and got them to join them, creating a league of evil, as a normal person would call it. While super men wore costumes to hide their identities, the super evils, even the super minds, changed their appearances so they were even more different, even less identifiable, but recognizable as one of the evils on second meeting.
The evil super men, he evil super minds, continued to gain abilities and knowledge, but not at the rate they did before. Being older, age started to work their way into their bodies and minds.
Finally, the evil supers and the super men started meeting each other, fighting. the battles were fairly equal. The super evil had greater powers, greater experience, but their bodies were not as good as the younger men and women.
The minds also were fighting, trying to out-do each other. The evil had more experience, and more imaginative, but their minds were degrading, not having as good memory or concentration.
The super men cared greatly for the common folk and were easily misdirected into saving lives. The evil did not care anything about the common people and had no care about placing populations in danger. There were a whole lot more supers than evils, so this made for equalizing the battles. The evils would simply put some population in serious danger and most of the supers would go to save them. Those that remained had to deal with greater experience and a lack of fair play.
In space, the evil always left their space station. They usually went to some outpost space station where there was few people. They simply took over while they took the year or two to become fully evil. then they used that as a base for their activities.
The changed sun caused the solar system to become a super battle ground, super men and super evil fighting across the landscape.

15 )
.
Experiments in sub particle physics found that there was a way to travel faster than the speed of light. The technology was such that if one could take enough fuel, it would take ten years to cross the galaxy.
This method of travel avoided the time dilation involved in traveling at the speed of light. What is more they can watch stars and planets pass as if moving at an accelerated normal speeds.
The problem is there is no way to communicate faster than light. If they need to tell something to home, they have to fly back to pass the information on.
Because of the communications problem, none of the ships are really going far in their explorations.
They have found several solar systems that look like they might be worth detail exploration.
One ship finished their work, met with another ship to exchange data. Since the other ship had the data they had gathered, the crew decided they wanted to explore even farther. Getting some supplies from the other ship, they then headed to toward the galactic core.
They traveled for about three months. Passing from a dust band at the edge of another galactic arm, a lot closer to the galactic core, they were getting strange readings. they then saw that there looked like an expansion of energy from the galactic core. they were a little panicked. The galaxy was exploding.
They turned around and returned home. Of course, once they entered the band of dust, they lost view of the galactic core and when they could see it again, it looked normal.
They got home and showed what they found. Scientists said they had a thousand years to leave the home world.
The debate was great. There was question whether the planetary magnetic fields would protect the planet.
Immediately, it was decided to send more ships.
they loaded up several ships and sent them to the galactic core on different routes. panels were gathered to try to figure out how the evacuation would commence to leave no one, little native life, and as much resources possible.
the ships came back. They again reported seeing the same explosion of the core. One thing that was pointed out that it looked like it was at different rates of expansion.
That there was different rates of expansion of the explosion from the different places that viewed it, set several scientists to question what was being seen. They pointed out that while migrating to a new location can be very desirable, one had better decide if it is really necessary.
There was a big discussion on the subject. the various boards on the evacuation of the planet, showed that they only really needed two hundred years to do the evacuation.
It was decided to do some serious exploration. More ships were ordered built, bigger, longer range, the ships they had, had already gone to the limits of their range.
Several years later, several dozen ships launched with full crews and over loaded with fuel and supplies.
A decade later, the last of the ships arrived. The crews were happy to get back. These ships went partly around the galactic core, including over the top. they all had different views of the galactic core in explosion.
A little problem showed up. Every attempt to map the shape of the explosion, looked different. it was as if everybody was looking at different things.
During one of the public discussions of the galactic core, one student asked an innocent question. "How long do the ships sit and observe the explosion when they see the event.
It was commented that the ships do not stop. they get to the far end, get their data while at speed, and returned.
The student suggested that they actually stop, get some basic observations one would get using normal techniques. it might help researchers to get data that matches what has been already in record.
There was a long discussion of the subject. The scientists were positive that data received at speed was accurate and detailed. they did not want to spend that much time in space.
The ships launched again. They headed close to the core again. the question the student had asked, was in the records that the crews had to occupy themselves.
they had a group of ships with extra fuel and supplies and the ships went to a central location as a convoy. The other ships headed to the core while the rest of the ships stayed in location, prepared to give fuel and supplies to the ships when they returned.
The ships reached their farthest point. Half the ships made the decision to come to a complete stop and get some readings. Each ship sat for a whole year, taking readings of galaxies, stars, and the galactic core. The other ships arrived at the central point. loads and data was exchanged. some ships headed home, pretty much empty. Other ships stayed and a few headed back out again.
Finally the ships that had stopped, returned.
Every ship was finally accounted for. the fleet packed up their space and headed home.
Within a month of arrival, the scientific community was riled up. It was not noticed before, but now it was obvious that a lot of big money was involved in these projects and the news brought by the fleet, did not make those big money people happy.
All the science done so far with the faster than light ships, was where the ships never slowed down. they stayed at speed as they passed through solar systems.
The ships that went close to the galactic core and stopped, found that faster than light speed data was wrong. One ship stopped at a prime appearing solar system and sat in orbit over a prime planet. it was just as barren as the moon.
What was more, at orbital speed, the galaxy was not exploding. The observations made from different places around the galactic core, gave scientists a good image of the design galaxy. It was not exploding.
When accelerating, the ships traveled parallel to the galactic core. the effects detected slowly appeared above a certain speed and they had seen the changes in shape as they moved. Every one of the ships arrived at the meeting point, operating on fuel vapors. The last ships almost missed them, but detected them before it got too low in speed.
The ships were now set out into space again, but now they had come to a full stop at different stars to get real readings. The ships could not check out as many stars, but they found the information retrieved were more interesting.
Certain radiations interfered with the sensory equipment when moving faster than the speed of light. Not one reading at faster than light travel, other than the locations of stars and planets, was trustworthy.

16 )
.
Crime had gotten so bad, and criminals were so dangerous, that the police had to resort to special equipment and systems to bring them in. the laws became very strong to deal with the criminals. Civilians could, by necessity, be killed in an attempt to apprehend the criminals.
The criminal gangs were finally broken. The laws and systems were still in place. The police still were on guard for the big criminal they fought so hard against. Small crimes and petty infractions became serious in their minds, to be punished with the full powers valuable to the law.
Of course, the population, now safe from the criminals, looked at the police with anger and fear. Systems were in place by the general population to report crimes, were now turned to report the police.
One very important tool to the police were their transforming cars. Cars could be trapped by other cars. These transformers shifted to become walking machines and could step over all sorts of obstacles.
There were hundreds of times where the police cars transformed, walked past a blockade and catch the bad guy before they could escape. Because these were not graceful machines, it was common that dozens of people would be crushed beneath the feet as they went for the criminals. This was the reason that the laws allowed innocent bystanders could be killed in pursuit of the criminal. The police officials frowned on the deaths of bystanders, but it was not illegal.
An officer was in traffic. A car ran through a red light and slammed into another car. The officer was on alert, he was already writing down what he observed. suddenly, the car that ran the right, backed up and was leaving the scene of the crime.
The officer lost his temper. He flipped several switches. The generators kick in. When the lights showed all green, he moved three levers. The fenders of the car slid out, then turned down. The car transformed into a four legged machine. People in the way ran from their cars, screaming. Several people ran to the car directly in front of him and pulled out several children. From this height, he could see the car was a couple blocks down. It was not going to go anywhere fast, but it was escaping.
The officer hit the throttle. Three cars in front of him were crushed. Systems compensated for the shifted surface it stepped on. The forth, at the light, slid forward and to the side to escape his steps.
He was nearly to the criminal car when he finally called in. "Hit and run vehicle. Officer witness."
Headquarters said "don't shift, Police cars in area."
"to late. About to apprehend."
He caught up to the fleeing far. It tried to dodge him. then ram him. To protect his transformer, he stepped down on the car, crushing it and the driver inside. There would be no questioning of why the man ran the red light or tried to escape. The transformer was protected, though.
Two police cars showed up almost immediately. When asked why he killed the driver, he said it was trying to damage his transformer. With that he turned and headed to he police station.
suddenly, a "cloud" of cars followed, Many were on side streets, pausing at intersections to see him pass. Others followed and some were ahead, waiting, moving forward to keep a safe distance.
"You idiot!" now they will know which car you are." There will be no hiding." the dispatcher said angrily.
The transformers walked fairly slow, and could not drive. the wheels, laid horizontally were the bottom of the feet. They would be replaced once the car got to the station.
The public now studied the transformers, following them until they became cars again. As cars, they could be identified and watched for. The moment that a transformer was identified, people would be on the watch for any car that fit that description. They would turn off the road and wait until it was past. Over time, every one of the identified transformers were involved in serious accidents, taking them off the roads.
The transformer reached the police station. there was now hundreds of cars parked around the area. The officer complained that they should have made the parking garage entrance big enough for the transformers. The officer, with no other choice, transformed back to a police car. Half an hour later, the car type and its markings, the licence plate, were known all over the city.
The officer was chewed out for his stupidity and he tried to defend himself with the law. they could do nothing with him. A week later, he was run off a road by some unknown assailant and died when a tree cut right through the center of his transforming car.
Miguel drove a transformer. Like all transformers, his looked no different than any other car of that make. He seldom even used his lights as an undercover cop.
At the light, a car zipped into the intersection and plowed into another car. It immediately backed up and started to drive off.
Miguel got on the radio and reported a hit and run, describing the make, model and apparent damage to the cars involved. He said he was behind many cars and was not going to go anywhere.
Looking past the cars in front of him, he saw two police cars appear from side roads. The escaping car was forced to a stop. The driver sprang out of the car and was caught by an officer on foot.
Later, a police official asked why he did not transform. Miguel asked in an innocent tone, "I am in a transformer? why didn't anybody tell me?"
Everybody laughed. He then told them that he is not part of the traffic crime's unit. It is up to the traffic cops to deal with such petty crimes.
There were several other transformer drivers there. He could see they were trying to come up with a counter to what he said, and he defense was not there.
Several months later, one of the transformer officers told him that his term, petty crimes, kept him from transforming half a dozen times.
A crime wave develops, tending to happen in front of the transformer officers who, instead of pursuing and apprehending, simply report where the criminals are, since they tend to happen around the officers. The criminals are taken down by regular cops, and by regular methods. Time after time, the transformer cops see the crimes committed and don't visibly react.
During a meeting, the crime wave is discussed. Miguel suggests that the criminals already know what the transformer cars look like and they are trying to draw them out, to make them transform. The transformers would by nature, be eliminated once they react.
Soon the other officers realize that once the transformers are gone, the criminals could return to the types of crimes the transformers were created to stop.
There had been no attempt to hide which cars were transformers within the police station. they were transformed and repaired in front of hundreds of police.
The transformers were "recalled" and the officers were given regular cars. They were not regular cars, but simply repainted, fully serviced, and cleaned up transformers.
The transformer officers received a week's training on transformer duties. The rules of transforming had changed drastically. There was only one class of crime that they could be used. Their job otherwise was to observe and report, and not react.
There were a dozen new transformer cars added to the fleet. Trained cops from elsewhere were given the old, rebuilt transformers.
Nothing looked the same, so they would now see if it was the car that was the key to whether a car was a transformer, or the driver.
More police cars were brought in, replacing some of the oldest ones. The police garage could not handle all the work, so many of the cars went to other garages for service and repairs. It happened that all the transformers went to a special garage where they could be serviced properly out of sight.
It appeared as if there were no transformers on the road. The criminals heard no reports of the transformers returning from repairs. Like the other transformer drivers, Miguel simply reported what he saw, directing other officers to the capture. Beyond radio activities, he was just some poor civilian in a car.
The criminals finally decided they had beaten the police, eliminated the transformers. They restarted the crime sprees that had caused the creation of the transformers in the first place. They were bold and arrogant, knowing they could get away freely.
The police had developed new methods to deal with the criminals that did not require transformers. Having the transformer teams on the road actually helped as the marked police cars did not have to patrol where the transformers were. The effective numbers of police cars was increased. They simply avoided each other, knowing where the other was.
The police avoiding the area because of a transformer in the area, the criminals decided they were free to act. they do the very crime that the transformer was needed. Miguel was there at the time, gassing up.
Instead of running to his car, transforming and running after the criminals. he simply called in that the crime was in progress. He finished his business and then got into his car and entered the road.
The people, already trained by the transformer avoidance, stayed away from the area. Miguel drove up almost to the scene of the crime, talking on the radio the entire time about what he was seeing.
The place was surrounded by officers very quickly. several transformers were there, observing. A helicopter came in and launched a single shoulder-fired missile. The transformers were not needed.
The criminals were shocked that the police would use "mundane methods to deal with them. the criminals continued their crime spree, trying to come up with ways to deal with the police.
After several dozen failed attempts. the criminals had finally stopped the police. Miguel was there. Now was the time. He drove in, shifted his car to transformer, and took out the bad guys, then shifted back to a car on the other side, and drove off to the repair shop to have his wheels replaced. The criminals were taken out by the rest of the police, and the police did not have any body in position to get his markings. There were no public around to watch the action and follow Miguel home.
The criminal organization was caught so off guard, they backed off on their crime spree. By the time they remounted their spree, the police had come up with methods to where the transformers were not needed. the one appearance served its purpose.
The crime spree was broken and this time, the heads of the crime syndicate were located and caught. the transformers were no longer needed, but were never dropped because the observation duties were useful and they had their uses in emergencies.

17 )
.
They called themselves a colony of the nation of Cryllic. The problem was that Cryllic had long ago, ceased to exist. Cryllic was overrun by a dozen different nations since then, and there is nothing left of the original country.
A dozen nations now face the colony, demanding it to bow to them. The colony says it will only bow to the king of the Cryllic. One of the nation has Cryllic as part of its nation.
The Nation’s leader demands loyalty. The colony says no. That is not Cryllic. Cryllic had ceased to exist.
They demand the colony to surrender since the home country had ceased to exist. it refuses, not until they receive orders from their home nation.
The other nations are not sure how to handle this. A colony who's loyalty to a nation that had long ago ceased to exist.
That is really all the idea I had.
They finally decide to finish the Cryllic nation once and for all. They attack the colony. They are stopped in the attack. then the colony counter attacks. Colony forces spread out and attack the lands of each nation. There is an intensity of soldier, brilliance of officer, a fighting style that the armies were unprepared to deal with.
The lands of the Cryllic is captured, along with the rest of the nation that holds it. the other nations are simply "punished" and then left to their own devices.
The colony levels the capitol of the nation that held their land, and turn the capitol in the largest city of Cryllic. The colony government transfers to their home land. Now the colony declares itself subservient to the nation of Cryllic. Their birth right now re-established.
The Cryllic government then declares the colony to be an independent nation, then the army and the government returns to the colony. the nation of their home land is left in disarray, no government standing. The colony now declares itself the nation of Cryllic and remains independent from then on.

18 )
.
It was a computer game designed for computer programmers. The game would play like a normal shoot-um-up, fast action, fast response good tactics, good knowledge of the weapons and controls.
The game had one traveling through dozens of worlds, each with their weapons, armor, tactics. some were space ships, others were sword fighting, some with rifles, some with magic.
It was a tough game to play, and very popular. if simply played, the games could be extremely easy, or very tough, and no one knew which at any stage in the game. The order of the stages, their difficulty, changed with each play. also, sometimes one was fighting on one side, then sometimes on the other. The game even takes your previous tactics in a battle you recently played, and use them against you. If you play a session long enough, it will play you the latest tactic against you.
What the game does, is remember your commands, and play them against you, modifying for what you are doing and the situation it is playing now. The situation is always where those commands will work.
Those features alone would make the game extremely popular. It would be a game that would not get tiring over time.
The game, though, is written for programmers. Before each "cell, as the different worlds are called, one can write programs to assist you in your battles. the "randomization code" appears and one can modify it, rewriting it to change the odds and the conditions. The object of the programming is to make the game as easy as possible, to go farther along. The code is different for each level, and really badly written. One has a limited amount of time to change the code before it moves on.
The code is checked, tested, and anything mis-written, is replaced by what was already there. One can get some really strange effects when one does a code wrong. solid iron soldiers using phasers against your sword and no shield or a peaceful opponents with no weapons who want to give you everything you need to advance. The latter is what every programmer is really after.
In the games, one gets ammo, weapons, treasure, supplies. That converts during the programming part into health and equipment for the next cell.
The people running the game says that there is exactly 1000 levels. No one has gotten past three hundred levels. the game learns from your tendencies and uses them against you. it is a tough game to play and even tougher to win. Knowing there is a thousand levels makes people want to play. Everybody thinks they can eventually beat the game.
For a story, I would have a hacker get into the server that runs the game. Instead of doing damage, they copy everything on the server.
The game is then sent to someone else to reverse engineer the game, and the code is then sent to someone who tries to figure the game out. each removes the information from their computers to hide the evidence.
The program is extremely complicated and is written to hide commands everywhere. The programmers planned on someone trying to trace the codes. It is almost as tough to trace the program as it is to play. One would say it was badly written, but it actually was not. It was a mark of genius.
The de-programmers have the advantage that they have programs designed to trace the code. the big thing they are searching for is the code that dictates what the game players work with.
It took some doing, but they finally find the sections, nearly six hundred of them, that is why the game is so tough to program. each section has different effects, and the game patches together several of them for each cell.
That was not the right tactic to use. Instead, they search for the conditions that will make the game as easy as possible. they find there are six codes that seam to have that effect. One of them has to be the one that works best, but they are not sure which. It is a difference that is very slight. they do see that it needs to be entered at one area of the screen for the code to work perfectly. They have someone else pass on the six codes to various masters of the game.
The players use their code and they reach personal bests, sometimes just "walking through" several boards, even transported from one entry to another by the inhabitants. They each run into a board where it makes the challenge fatal.
The six codes now become well known. players use all six and they are now up to level five hundred. They still cannot figure out the game. using the cheats, the game gets progressively tougher as they go.
One guy is looking at the known cheat codes that have had some idea of working. He sees something that just cannot work. He has to give it a try.
He gets into the game and breezes through ten levels before he has to stop. he was transported through all ten levels. the cheats require the players to do some moving through the world to get through. He, on the other hand, stepped into the world, and had to sit on some transportation and was almost instantly where he needed to go.
He gives thought on the codes he tried. He knows that one can step into the cell and step right out again. He has to figure out that one key. If he has that, he should be able to walk all the way through the game in just the time to add the code. He has to wait a week before he can get to figuring out what to change.
He finally gets to programming again. He finally sees what needs to be done. He suddenly gets an idea. It is so dumb that it has to work.
He then had to wait a week before he had his chance to play. He scheduled for a booth, which will allow him to spend days playing the game.
He gets into the booth, fires up the game, goes through the pre-game control check, and then gets into it.
He uses his dumb code. He knows that if that does not work, he can change over to his other set of codes.
the cheat comes up. He puts in his code, then enters the cell. His character takes a dozen steps down a hall and he is back at the cheat codes. He puts in the code again.
In a half hour, he has gone through eighty cells, just walking through. The booth shows what level one is up to. the fact that he has gotten so high, so soon, has the attention of others.
He keeps going.
The games do get harder. He has to walk farther with each level before he gets to the exit.
Twenty four hours later of continuous playing, he reaches the end of the game. He has beat the game.
He gets out of the booth, refreshes himself, sits back and passes out, falling a sleep.
He does not tell anybody what he had done. It was really simple. He added a code that brought in a universal variable, and sent out a universal variable. that was it. It was fast to write so he continued on quickly.

19 )
.
I saw a fitness commercial for a tread mill that you can program maps of real places and it will take you on routes, hills and flats, of the real place. I had to make use of the concept.
It was rare to see anybody on the streets exercising. Nearly very home had an exercise booth where one can choose the location and experience it, with wind, road conditions, slopes. They are very accurate to the place as long as you keep moving. People will increase the accuracy of their exercise booths for their areas. they might change the belts to be more similar to the pavements one is likely to be running on. They will even match them to the present weather.
They would rather not go out of their buildings to do anything. The upper class booths will have communications interlinks where one can meet another person in a booth at an agreed upon location and do business.
It is rare for anybody of any worth to actually meet someone not in their homes or offices. It was more elite to meet in an exercise booth. the really wealthy would have food prepared for the restaurant they were pretending to meet at sit at chairs, talk, exchange data by scan.
Rowland was extremely wealthy. He decided on a personal project. he was going to fly around the world, and actually run the streets in every city he was doing business in. He knew this was actually going to be tough. He knew that most hosts will try to get him to use their exercise booths rather than suffer the dangers of the streets. He had things well planned. the first thing was to not let anybody know what he had planned. He had to be careful though. Some of the super wealthy had setups in their booths that allowed them to get into a car and go for a drive.
He had multiple tracking systems, he had set up visits that prevented anybody tricking him. He even had lawyers talk to the hosts, letting them know that any prevention from leaving a site was kidnaping.
He packed up and flew across the country. he met with several customers and visited several sites in the city While driving across town to go back to his hotel for a rest day, he had the driver change to a different street. he then had the driver stop. He got out, and after removing his coat, he started jogging quickly. The car could only follow. at several places along the way, he stopped and picked up a few little souvenirs from the road and put them in his pocket.
When he finally stopped, he walked back to the car with a very smug look. As he was driven back home he said he just ran a marathon along the route of the really big one they have every year.
He took the next day off, relaxing around the hotel, taking advantages of he amenities of his wealth.
He then finished his business in the city and flew on to his next destination.
There, they had two marathon paths. directly from the airport, he directed the driver to a different route. the driver did not like it, but did so. At the start of the marathon route, he got out and ran. the car followed. again, he picked up a couple bits along the way. He finished the route and then let the driver take him to his hotel.
The driver told his bosses. Rowland was watched with care as he went about his business. He did his business at one place. He walked around the limo that was there for him, and got into a cab. The car followed. he got to the start of another marathon route He paid the cabby well, and then handed over his artifacts to the limo driver, and started running.
He had gone about ten miles into the route when he saw security surrounded the route. A police car pulled up next to him and tried to tell him to get back into the limo. He told the officer that he can be arrested or not. He is going to continue running until he was physically stopped.
The officer complained about the security and how it was messing up traffic all over the city. Rowland told the officer that one should complain to whoever set up the security. The officer followed for the whole route. Rowland picked up several items along the road. the officer would find himself way ahead of Rowland and have to stop and wait for him to catch up. At the end, Rowland thanked the officer and got into the car and was taken to his hotel.
Rowland's main host was extremely irritated about Rowland's "antics". He explained about all the dangers, the filth and mess, the horrible situations out there. Rowland simply said that they each had their activities. It is best to stick to their own.
Word got out about his marathon activities. None of his contacts wanted him out in the real world. It was not something to be done.
He had to be imaginative on how to avoid the exercise booths. Once he got in one, and he could see he was not moving by his locator watch, so he took out an extremely bright light and turned it on. He saw the mechanisms of the booth and leaped several times to get to the door and out into the office. He cancelled a contract he was signing with them and left. They could not understand why he would not be happy with their exercise booth. He visited a competitor and one of their officers took him to the course he was after and ran with him.
He signed the contract with them instead. Word of that went out ahead of him too. That he was willing to use a run in the real world as a reason to sign or not sign a contract made him look crazy to the super wealthy he dealt with.
He finally finishes his world tour. He actually got to run in a very well known marathon. He was not very fast, but he completed the route with a good time for him.
He returns home having completed his business. He has a lot of people angry at him. He actually lost some business and the use of competitors like he did, he lowered the standing of his company in several markets. he did not care. he knew his people would train them to be better.
He places his collection of found objects in a display case, each listed for the route he took. rocks, sticks, bits of metal, a few coins. It was a display of his hard work.
.
I considered having him doing things like, when he thought he was in a booth, he would suddenly run into a power pole or dash up some stairs, or even try to deck a passerby, but decided that he would have to get it wrong once, and that would not be a good idea for someone of his wealth or status. I do figure he would have trouble avoiding the booths that one can run in any direction you want and he "road" would adjust for him.
I also considered having him take a knife out and start to cut the road and the lights come on, the door open and the hosts are angry that he is trying to damage their machine. I cannot have him punch anybody out even if it would be a natural reaction for being cheated out of a real run through the city.

20 )
I saw a celebrity news picture of someone I thought was dead that seeded this concept.
There is always a desire to ask questions of important people after they had died, ask for their help to get things in order, to get affairs straightened out.
A new treatment has been created that will re-animate someone once they die. Of course, it is only useful if their minds were in good condition when they died and they are otherwise physically passable condition.
Once someone is re-animated, there is some degradation of the mind, and there are slight personality changes. One can gain from bringing them to life.
When reanimated, the deceased know they had died and they have only a short time. they become unquestionably honest and forthright and kind. They will pass on information to help those left behind.
Generally, they have a short time before they die for good. their bodies degrade. They cease to live long before their bodies fall into the zombie classification.
The big thing the treatment is used for, is for someone who dies suddenly without preparation, a surprise death. They will disburse their possessions, sign papers, arrange for dependants. close out their business or teach those who are taking over.
I cannot quite decide on how long the time alive can be. Six months feels way too long. Three months possible, but one month might be long enough. The idea is that they have just enough time to get something serious done, to teach someone a few secrets of the business. make arrangements before they cease to exist. A criminal might pass on evidence about where they hid the loot or who was also involved.
Of course, the time from when they die and the time they get the treatment also has an effect. Someone who dies in a hospital will have a better chance than someone who was found a day later. The brain might have died, but the memory links might still exist and that is what is activated when they are resurrected.
There will be all sorts of laws involved in the treatment too. What will stand in court, such as changes in wills or other documents made after the person is animated might have a different weight than something done before animation. What is not allowed to be done with the animated person, who can be animated and why.
The treatment to cause people to become reanimated will depend on where you place the society. My first image was a chemical bath kind of thing.
One thought though, is with magic or advanced science, to use energy, forcing or drawing the soul back into the body. Having tasted death and knowing it will return, the soul will try to be a perfect person despite the body and personality it was once. That is why it would be helpful to the living.
Think of a society where all the deceased are given the treatment. Sort of like a way for the dead to make amends for their lives.

21 )
.
The news reports of the airline shut down due to the Iceland volcanos gave me this idea.
The colony planet had one major continent that was about the size of Europe and half the territories held by the soviet union. The colony had eight small major land masses, the largest was like Australia, and the smallest of them was about like Greenland. There were several the size of England and Ireland. There was one land mass that was below the water's surface. It was nearly the size of Africa, but was between ten feet and a hundred feet below the ocean surface.
All the land masses had populations. In the underwater land mass, the people built their homes on stilts, or dug up soils to make land above the surface. Some cities were floating cities, built entirely on boats
The continents were named after the moons of home, Titan, Ganymede, Europa, Charon, Callisto, Nereid, Hyperion, and Demos.
The largest continent was Europa and was the original home of the colony. The colony had lost much of their technology, originally due to a serious disease that passed through the population, and then from a series of wars over generations. They finally reached a level of civilization where they could expand to other continents, and have now advanced to where they are flying everywhere around the planet. think of it as being at a 1990s level of technology.
There is some ship travel, but they are mostly cruse ships. Not much are used for real transportation around the world.
In the past, before the population left Europa, there had been volcanic eruptions on one of the large islands west of the continent. In the last eruption, the sea fairers were exploring and they found it was a series of volcanos. The ash in the air was a bother, but since there was limited technology, nothing that really can be damaged by the ash, the only real problem was with the crops. There were other eruptions, but they were only small spurts that lasted a couple days.
It was leaving winter and air travel was going at full schedule. The first of the island volcanos starts erupting. it decides to really send ash high into the air. The prevailing winds blow the ash over Europa. the ash is so thick that the entire continent has to shut down their air travel. Some propeller planes can fly for short distances, but the jets are grounded.
A few weeks after of the initial eruption a second volcano erupts. the first volcano continues to erupt, but at lower levels. the As the second one starts to fade, a third one starts to erupt. Soon there are five volcanos filling the air with ash. No flights can take off. airports are closed.
cars have to have their filters changed often. building air filters also have to be changed often.
The people stay by the airports in hopes to get a flight during a lull in the ash, but soon everybody knows there is no chance of leaving.
The people start finding other ways to travel. They take trains and cars, and some river boats to the ocean.
Cruise ships, after some work, start crossing the ocean to carry passengers home. There are some flights from the continent on the southern shore and on the south east shores, but those countries hate the countries that the people are coming from, or nations the people are from.
At first, it was thought that the use of ground transportation and sea transportation was a temporary solution. the volcanos were not stopping. each volcano took a break, but at least one of the other five was erupting.
Train systems were extended to serve more people, roads were expanded, improved. The air ports slowly started to decay, as they were no longer needed.
The rest of the world continued air travel and did business quickly, but Europa stayed the same, strictly ground level travel Some floating air ports were located out at sea, well away from the ash plumes. passengers took a sea voyage to the super aircraft carriers, and then took passenger planes from there to elsewhere in the world. Even the air forces of the military had their floating airports, four to twelve times the size of a standard aircraft carriers, just so they can continue to have an air force.

22 )
.
The deadliest field weapon in the army was the sonic rifles. The sonic Rifles used tones and sounds to fire.
One of their weaknesses is that if another sonic rifle is on the same tone, they will cancel each other out. The normal practice was to detect the tone and set the tone to the enemy weapon, cancelling it out. One would change the dial to a different setting. Of course, the opponent is firing too when they cancel you out, so that when you change your setting, your soldiers get hit too.
The sonic rifles were energy weapons similar to laser weapons, but they took sound, tones, to excite the generator of the energy. changing tones caused different wavelengths of energy.
The original weapons had tone generators that the gunner would change a dial for different tones. They started adding tone detectors, since the weapons sent out audible tones, and would adjust the tone to cancel the opponent. One changed the tones if the opponent stopped firing or other weapons came on line to do some cancelling. the battles came to who could get the most sonics at the firing line.
During one big battle, a soldier charged to a defensive point with his sonic. He fired several times. then a projectile shot hit nearby and knocked the sound generator out.
was still holding the trigger in when he called back to those behind him. His rifle fired. he yelled a couple more times and it fired again. He then started singing a popular fighting song and the rifle was firing to his singing. He shifted to an operatic where he held his tones for long times.
Officials figured out that the human voice is not a pure sound, cannot be simply cancelled like the sound generators. Soon, anybody who could sing, holding notes, was made into a sonic rifleman. the enemy soon picked up on it.
The two forces come together. The sonic riflemen are on the front, other weaponry is flanking, to protect them.
The first side takes aim, and start singing, some low, some high, their voices interweaving in an aria.
The enemy starts singing in counterpoint their song. The weapons firing, are on a completely different set of tones, slightly delayed. Every once in a while, the shots don't come since the tones accidentally interact. Because of the songs that are sung, that is seldom.
Both sides would rather keep firing rather than cancel each other out. Instead of being who had more sonics on the battle field, it is now who can fire the most, most accurately.
Charley is firing an air powered rifle. he found a good spot and takes careful aim and fires. He is getting a kill per shot. Since his rifle is using air instead of explosive gas as some riflemen are using, he is harder to detect.
The battle field is in song all over the place. If people and equipment were not dying, it would be quite pleasant.
He sees a sonic. The sonic is standing there in plain sight, mouth open, sweeping his weapon back and fourth.
Charley takes careful aim, He accounts for wind drift and distance. There is also an elevation difference. He increases the pressure of the chamber to maximum. any more and it will burst. he waits until his natural movement brings the barrel onto the target. He squeezes.
There is a flash of light, the rocks are splattered red. there are two stumps of legs standing there. he hit the rifle when it was at full power. Talk about a lucky shot.
Charley's rocks ceased to exist a moment later. At the pressure he fired, there was condensation in the air from his muzzle. several sonics saw the puff and then saw the result, so they made sure that sharp shooter would not get off another shot.
There was a reason that sonics were the preferred weapon in battle. The regular riflemen did do their damage, but they were more for target practice than anything. the armies were not wealthy enough to supply the whole army with sonics. They had even less people who could actually carry a tune well enough for a sonic to fire effectively.
Because of the sonics, though, this was a singing war. The army that could sing the best, tended to win.

23 )
.
There is a commercial for a rental office where you pay to use the office only when you need it. the main concept is that you can work anywhere you want, and when you need to see a customer, you go to the office to meet them. In the commercial, the woman says "they wonder who gets to work out in the sun, rather than in an office."
The weather is generally good year around. Only a few days are poor. There is more people working than there is office space. Most buildings are high towers with a rabbit warren of cubicles, each person being their own company or each section of the floor is a company.
The spaces are so tight, that people have created parks, and have set up desks outside. People are renting a desk outside, in the sun and wind. They generally like it because the weather is nice. They get to tan, breathe fresh air.
People with their offices outside tend to be a lot healthier, since one person can make an entire floor of a building sick. There are meeting rooms inside for those who have to meet clients.
Of course, people work hard to appear like they are always inside, so the secretaries get to know all the people who they might do work with. The people visit them every day and talk to them so at least they are recognized as someone who works there.
The people working outdoors generally have only their small area to work in, just like those in the buildings. If their spot is not good, they have to pay to move. Better the spot, the more one has to pay.
Kylee sees a storm clouds on the horizon between some buildings. She packs up her office, placing them in the bags she uses to take it home. All drawers are empty, even the trash can is emptied.
She then makes a call. She arranges a meeting with a big client. She walks across town to the big office building and goes in. She has to wait as she is too early.
Outside, the rain starts. People sitting at their desks scramble to get their stuff under cover. A few pulled out tarps and tied them down over their desks. A couple got beneath the tarp so they could continue to work.
Two hours later, the storm continued. Kylee was called to meet her customer. she took her time, was thorough with him, helped him in a few things, he helped her in doing business with him better.
The meeting was finally over. She walked out to the door, looked out. the road was wet and the people sitting outside looked horrible. One could not go under cover without invitation.
Kylee went outside and strolled over to a sit down restaurant, and had dinner. It was more money than she really wanted to spend, but when she left, the rain had stopped completely. She reached her desk when the sun started coming out. A good number of people were complaining that they were ruined, or set back several weeks from water damage.
She wiped down her desk, set a plastic sheet over her chair, set up her stuff and went back to work.
"They wonder who gets to work outside in the sun. they also wonder who has to work out in the rain and wind....." Working outside does have problems.

22 )
.
Different plants and trees flower at different times. The English had perfected the flowering of their gardens by having garden entry ways where flowers bloomed at different hours of the day, giving them a natural clock. they would also plant flowers that bloomed in different months, and different days of the month so they had calenders made by flowers. The following concept has a tiny bit of this in it.
The tower was inhabited by very important people. All their apartments had a view of a great garden filled with trees and shrubs. The plants were placed randomly in the field for years.
A bit fire hit the area and the garden was burned up. Dead trees everywhere. There was a small house in the far corner of the property. Next to it was a green house where plants were started. Albert saved his home and the green house from the fire. Nothing else was saved.
Albert decided to have some fun. He was a graphic designer and He knew quite a bit about plants and had all the data on each plant. He started planting the green house plants in the garden. he made use of the dead trees to support vines he planted.
The vines had started, but none had flowered. the next spring, he was out there planting again. this time the vines flowered.
The people in the towers looked down and saw the tower name in red. The audience was pleased. As the red flowers were fading out, Yellow flowers opened up and they were now looking at a picture of a smiling sun. That was then followed by a blue ocean with a green ship. This continued all year long. the tower people were very happy.
The leaves of the vines changed color in the fall and was just pretty splashes of color, then the ground became bare and there was a sun dial laid out in mulch and rocks.
On the third year, Albert was busy all winter long. He tore down vines, he added supports for trees. He was digging and planting all winter.
Spring came and the vines grew fast, and then went to flower. the first two vines were the same as the previous year, but the rest had changed in color and design.
The following year the early bloomers had their wonderful design coming out. Every third year, there were new displays. He now started a lot of vines the previous year, and cut them once they had done their growth, and plant new vines he just had to remove old vines when the time came.
The tower paid him for his images and it was now his living. gardeners of other towers came to take classes from him. He got paid well for teaching. Since he was a graphic designer, and they weren’t Albert's was always much better designed.
One year a tower hired a team of thirty and they came up with a set of designs better than Albert's. the people in his tower was very angry. They said he should never have taught anybody how to do this. They refused to pay him. he continued to work the entire year while suing for payment. They refused. He worked all through the winter almost like a maniac.
The tower then decided they were going to hire a team to design their garden. The new team they picked out would start work in the fall.
Spring came and everything became green below. The tower people were satisfied with the images of last year. they were not going to be winners, but they were good.
The first flowers appeared. within a few days, the word cheater, appeared. About mid month, those flowers were fading and orange flowers appeared with shame-on-you. Then two flowers started blooming, with the green, had an insulting image of the tower. The entire year, the tower was humiliated, embarrassed, insulted. these images were public knowledge everywhere. What made it worse was that the team that would come in, was going to have to start with nothing, start over. Other towers tended to have a year of just green before the vines were ready to flower. They had to strip everything out before the next set of vines could be planted.
The tower begged Albert to stop the insults, to come back and do pretty gardens. He refused. he said he was too old. It actually took three years for the gardening team to come in and take over. They were a lot more expensive than Albert was and were not as skilled as he was.

23 )
.
The machine shop had a lot of projects that needed to be attached momentarily for sanding or cleaning. In machining, one commonly does an hour of set-up for a ten minute project. The reason is that machining works in thousandths of an inch. To get that much accuracy, one has to be very careful of the setup.
The projects they needed to temporarily attach, were not involved in accuracy. It was that they had nothing that would serve their purpose.
Any work with metal causes heat. I saw a blacksmith pound on a piece of rod until it was white hot, just from the energy added by the hammer to the metal. It is common for metal being machined to be hot enough to burn you.
Metal working involves oil. the machinery is covered in oil to prevent rusting. The cutting fluids, which keep the temperatures down a little and improves the cutting abilities of the bits, is also oil.
During a dig into the storeroom, one man found some putty. it was kind of sticky, even when covered in oil. He tried it on some metal and it held well enough.
He did one of the slop projects and it worked perfectly. when he removed the putty, it came off clean and he could rework it into a ball.
He did notice an irritation, a redness, from the material on his fingers. Everybody started wearing gloves when working with it.
The company soon had dug out the whole case of the putty and put it to use in many places. At times, they would use it to hold two pieces in alignment, clamp them in place, then remove the putty. One guy secretly used the putty through the entire process. he was not doing fine work so he was able to get away with some movement.
The material was carefully stored, handled, and always put back. there was no more of it and it was too valuable to lose even a little. they could not find out where it was made or why. It just served heir purpose perfectly.
They had been using the material for about a year. One day, a guy was doing a machining project. his bit was dull and he was trying to get it done. The project had putty between two pieces being machined.
the piece got so hot he decided to cool it down in water. He pulled the project from the machine and dropped it into a bin of water. The water steamed for a moment.
he finally took the piece out of the bucket and tried to pry it apart. First, he found that the gap was now really thin. he then found he could not get the blade between the pieces. After about ten minutes of working with it, he called for help.
He is interrogated as to what he did. they end up cutting the piece in half, then cutting along the gap.
The two pieces of metal are fused together, welded, with barely a line between the two pieces.
he was interrogated again as to what he did. It did not sound like it was likely. they decided to do a quick experiment. they take two pieces of metal, add some putty between them and drop it into the water. When they take them out, they are welded tight, just like the first piece.
It is like a glue. They have never seen something like this. Machining tests show it is almost as good as a real weld. it is a lot easier.
Knowing it as a glue, they do another search for companies that might provide it. They find it. it is a small company off where no one would think to look.
the company is out of business, but they were able to track down one of the chemists. The chemist is shocked at how it was used. It was too dangerous to be used by people's hands. the fluids in their hands could weld their hands together. The oil and the gloves was all that kept anybody from getting into trouble.