May 2011 Writing Ideas
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There is no way I can write 365+ publishable stories in a year, let alone one publishable story. Last year, I started on 6 stories last year and wrote "the end" on four of them. I submitted one to a magazine and another is being edited to finished quality.
Back on Prodigy Classic, in December 1997, I posted some story ideas I could not use. I soon found the story ideas flowed fast. I posted nearly all the ideas I could come up with, including those I hoped to eventually use.
I follow the belief that if 20 people wrote from the same story idea, we would have 20 different stories. This is why I don't worry about using these stories later, myself. Since then, I've learned that many people enjoy reading these posts, even if they do not write.
The way I work is, I come up with a basic concept which is seldom more than a paragraph long. I then spin a story around the concept, or explain what is behind the concept, so someone can see how to develop the basic concept.
I don't want these ideas to go to waste and hope that others might convert them into published pieces. I hold these ideas to be Public Domain (free to use in any way). They can be used in any form you choose. I hope you can use them profitably, but if not, at least enjoy reading these posts. Let me know if you make use of any of them. That is like a pat on the back and gives me an added incentive to keep this up (Like I really need it....).
I usually post about Four books worth pure drivel each year in these idea posts. This is my Fourteenth year of posting these story ideas. What they say is true. Ideas are a dime a dozen. Developed ideas are like gold. These are not fully developed...
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01 )
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The planet was to be abandoned because a disaster was coming. they decided to collect breeding populations of endangered species. they needed to learn how to raise them in captivity.
they set up stations in their habitat and captured examples for study. Once they learned how to keep them in captivity, they gathered a good population and delivered them to the space port to be taken away.
Randall was studying the local version of frogs in the tundra wilderness. They took longer than normal to study. the food was easy. lots of insects in motion. it was the exact breeding conditions they needed was the tough part. he did find they like high places and commonly found them crawling up him while he sat and watched.
He finally had everything in place to keep them alive in captivity. He headed back to the base. As he drove his transport ran into trouble. He talked to command and they could not come to pick him up. He had to walk about a hundred miles to get to where they could retrieve him. He had the time, but it would be close.
He gathered up the stuff he needed to survive, and the stuff to keep his frogs alive. He then set out, leaving his transport there. He happened to be in the predicted bulls-eye of the disaster. His transport would not need to be recovered. nothing about it would exist.
He traveled for several days and found he was running out of food for the frogs. their pen was getting very difficult to move in the rough conditions.
He then noticed the biting bugs were getting bad and he was out of his bug stuff. Their bites were getting really bad as they were hatching out and looking for food.
Randall took out several of his frogs and stuck them on his shoulders and walked. He noticed their tongues snapping out in rapid succession. He also noticed that the bugs coming close to him were their favorite. He then had an idea.
He unloaded the frog pen and stuck them all over him. He took a container he had recently emptied and poked some air holes in it. That was now the frog pen. He left his big frog pen behind.
With less weight and bulk, he was able to move faster. The frogs were eating bugs all over him. He kept checking to make sure he did not lose any frogs, but they tended to stay where he put them.
Several days later, he got to the pickup site. The frogs were getting fat with all the bugs they were eating and he hd very few bug bites. Without the big pen, he made excellent time.
He was carried to the space port and he created a new pen for the frogs. He forwarded his data and then got on board the ship with the minimum conditions the frogs needed to mate.
By the time the ship had reached a safe space station, there was a new brood of frogs hatching.
The disaster was as bad as expected. also as predicted, none of the endangered species survived and most of the common species survived. Their losses was sad, but a decision had to be made. the endangered species might be returned to the planet at some other time, but for now, they were kept in captivity.
The frogs were named for Randall and became popular in other places to keep flying biting bugs under control.

02 )
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I saw a program about code cracking where one credit card security company combines two prime numbers to provide the security. They offer a money challenge for anybody who can crack their combined prime number code. The amount of time it takes to crack the number tells them a lot about their security. it was an old film where it showed in 1998 that 2040 digits was the security they were using. that had not been cracked yet.
There are a lot of methods to crack a number. I thought of something that would be good for a story.
Banilla had spent his time with other societies. He was studying math, but also studied language. He had to study the language to study the math.
He found one high society where their language was really made up of "ungodly" large numbers. He found that their language could translate into mathematical formula and solutions and back again.
One take a theorem one wishes to prove. Convert it into a very big number. then take that number and convert it into the high language. Then correct the sentence structure to be correct. Finally convert it back to the numbers and one can find the answers.
Since he was the only one who even knew that society existed, and he had found it accidentally, he knew no one else would learn the language. He knew they would rather be left alone. He had seen what had happened to other societies when they were found, especially high societies.
While back at home, he was talking to a friend in security. his friend was bragging about a number system they were using that could not be broken. Banilla asked for an example of the code number. Working in his head, Banilla did the translation of the number into the language, corrected the string which became two numbers and then wrote the two sentences into two numbers. His friend was stunned. He had it correctly.
Soon he was working with the company for security. they were trying to come up with a stronger security and the normal computer were becoming bogged down by the size of their numbers.
Banilla looked at the formula and converted it into the language, He then corrected the sentence structure. He found it worked best if he broke it into five sentences, one very short. when he converted the sentences back to numbers, he found that he had five prime numbers. He gave them a formula that took four quite small primes using a fifth prime to adjust the number. The digits of the fifth prime number was stuck on the front of one number and the back of the other and then they were processed. He verified it by running the conversion several times. The fifth prime worked best if it was really small.
The experts had no idea how it worked, but they decided to test that system in a place where their security suffered the worst. Within a week of using that system, they stopped having breaks of their security.
Banilla helped them in several other systems they used. Within five years, he was the president of the company. He came up with systems that were utterly unbreakable.
Checking through the works of scientists, he found the "answer" to the universe and used that in a number of places. He later found that he mistranslated the answer by a little, but that error actually added to the permanency of his security. The security systems he devised had cute little errors in them that made them near impossible to crack. Most of those little errors were caused by his not quite perfect understanding of the language.
Much as he would love to go back and learn the language better, he realized he could not find the place again. His misunderstanding of the language prevented him from working that solution out by the translation method.

03 )
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This is from a Country Music song, where a woman in an old folks home thinks the guy is her son. Her son died in a war years ago but she does not remember it. He does not mind being her son.
They were the founders of the colony. To make the colony build quickly, the people in the star ship were given what amounted to eternal life. When they arrived at the planet, they still had all the knowledge. training and technology they left home with. They guided their children, who had successively shorter life spans, to build the colony until the population settled in their normal life span and the colony was more than self sufficient. Over the centuries, the minds of the founders became feeble. Most died by accident or illness, but the few that survived were now living in an old folks home, unable to care for themselves.
Carlyle was brought in as an attendant at the home. He already had a masters in the colony's history and a minor in the home planet's history. He wondered why he was paid so well to take this job.
Within a few hours he learned why. He got into a conversation with an old woman. He quickly learned who she was one of the founders, and discussed history with her. She talked about it as if it was today, and then he realized that she had no idea this was not today. Her mind was stuck in the past. Typical of aging people, the present disappears and the past comes to mind.
He visited with each of the inmates and talked to them. Most were modern, but he picked out the founders quickly. Over the next month, he did intensive research on each one, learning about their past before the trip.
The founder woman decided he was her long lost son. He knew as much about the history of him as one could find. Her last son, he died middle aged for a normal person in a fire accident.
With other founders, he talked about the old time, asking questions, and taking notes. He would ask about details not well covered in the history. He would then search for things that might verify what he learned and then came up with more questions to ask. He would also compare memories of others against each other. He never acted like he was there, but could carry on an intelligent about the times.
With the woman, though, he became her son. He found he looked much like him and talked much like him.
He put together the memories that were not well covered by the history books and when he had a book worth, he published them.
He also found himself having to talk to experts in different fields to get details about things that were beyond his knowledge. He soon started becoming an expert in those fields, helping rediscover sciences that were lost early in the colony or before.
Just before his retirement, the founder woman finally took ill and died. She received a state funeral. Other researchers were now working in the home. Having to change diapers and spoon feed people was worth the knowledge they gained, not as much as Carlyle added to the colony's knowledge.
Within two generations, all the founders would be gone. The colony though, learned what was needed to achieve the stars again, and found ways to nearly double a person's life span, but only used it to help those who were not going to live long.
When Carlyle died, he also got a state funeral for what he gave to the colony.

04 )
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it was a small war. While both sides had interstellar travel and exotic weapons, the war was fought with fairly primitive conventional weapons. There was no air power involved at all.
The battle field was just in one valley and was fought over something that neither side really felt mattered too much. Both nations, research bases for their respective interstellar governments, had borders in contact all around the planet. This was the only place they fought. They worked as friends everywhere else. This was really like a war between the mayors of two cities.
The Yarns were in serious problem. The Twines had gained territory and were about to trap one of their advance positions. Their defensive wall was crumbling for the third time.
The Yarn army got a shipment of a waste material from an exotic particle project. They were blocks of an ultra dense impervious material. they decided they would move that material to the advanced material and build their defensive wall with that.
They knew it was going to be a target the entire trip, so they cobbled together a transport for it. The whole mechanism and driver would be encased by the material it was carried. A rubbery adhesive would be used to hold them together in a protective shape. The adhesive was used for just about anything the military used to temporarily glue things together.
A field lift generator had outlet probes glued in the joints between the blocks on the bottom mostly and a few less around the side for thrust.
They put the driver inside and slide a block over the entrance. He waited the required amount of time, then started driving. He was told that if the antenna was destroyed, a common occurrence, he would receive some taps to tell him when he reached the outpost.
As soon as he got into the open, the Twine opened fire on him. The antenna lasted about a minute. He was soon out of communications. He then noticed that his navigation equipment was not working right. The material was blocking the signals. He only had a motion detection unit to navigate with. He knew he had several hills to go over so he knew he would need to apply heavy power several times.
The Twine opened fire with all their explosives. The only thing they did was to cause the thing spin wildly. There was nothing they could do to touch the thing.
His motion detector went wild. It not only had him spinning around, it also had him doing flips and twists. When it settled down, he rotated to where the motion detector showed his route. Since he figured he was stopped, he applied full power to get moving again. His map showed he as near the base of one of the hills so he kept the power on.
He stopped feeling the rise and fall of the land or any other motions. His motion detector stayed where it was as he drove. He kept the power on figuring he was stuck going up one of the hills. Something would eventually happen to where he would feel a change.
The Twine was shocked when the thing stopped spinning and headed at them. It rose up several feet and then accelerated going down hill, right at them. A cloud of dust built up beneath it, a smooth path showed behind it where the dust dissipated enough to see the ground behind it.
They kept firing but nothing stopped it. they noticed that an energy field built around it to muffle their impacts.
Going up and down hills, it stayed level. A giant boulder laid in the path. The object plowed into it. The boulder, a solid rock lifted up out of the ground and bounced ahead of it, pieces flying everywhere. A second impact shattered the boulder, smaller pieces crumbling beneath it.
They realized this thing was extremely deadly. it would pulverize everything it passed over. They tried firing just underneath it and also to the sides to redirect it. It kept going.
He knew he was going longer than he should, but kept the power on full. He would hear the taps for when he reached his destination.
The thing came barreling into the walls of their defensive position. The Twine abandoned the path, taking everything they could grab in the short time they had.
the thing hit the walls of their defenses. the wall folded in with ease, the buildings inside offered less resistance. The outer wall fell over in one piece. The thing left their defensive position as if it were not there, a pulverized path of dust raising behind it.
He kept going until he ran into the wall of the high hills on the other side of the valley. Debris rained down on him. He heard his taps so he backed up several feet as he was instructed to do and stopped. He broke the seal on the block above his hatch and looked out.
He had no idea where he was at first. he then picked out landmarks. he wondered how he ever got this far. A white flag rose above the Twine's base. they surrendered.
Texts and experiments showed that the material with the right kind of energies, blocks out any signals at all. It also amplified many types of energy.
The Twine were going to complain about the use of exotic weapons until they learned what was intended to be done. They could not help but see the humor of the situation.
The war was over, and they were friends again, though they joked about starting a new war for the fun of it.

06 )
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The plant came in from another planet and it took over. It would spread by seed and by the roots, and if something fell off, would also sprout. Any part of the plant would grow into a new plant.
It was introduced on an island and within a decade, there wasn't a surface on the island that was not covered with the plant. it was a thick mat of arm diameter trunks that went about twelve feet tall. The roots dug into anything, right into rocks, dirt, mud. It did not like salt water and was located on a planet where there was one small continent and several chains of islands around the rest of the planet. The winds were such that the seeds could never float to another piece of land.
Crews came in and started hacking out the plants. They left, leaving some roots and some clippings. A decade later, the island was covered again. They cleared the island again, and this time there was no plant material exposed, They even torched the surface to remove any sign of life. A decade later, the island was covered again. Now they knew that roots could well be a problem. Some roots went deep.
In a laboratory, Xavier studied the plants, trying to find a specific poison to kill them. A number of the poisons he found, would make the land uninhabitable for centuries to come or would leach into the environment and spread toxins through all other kinds of life. One did not want to poison the sea.
He found safer poisons that killed the root but not the upper plant. Ones that would kill the upper plant but not the roots. Mixing them seemed to counteract what the other did. Either case would still allow the spread of the plants.
He has found one thing that will stop the plant, but it "pollutes" the land, making the soil appear to be filled with a sludge.
They decided his polluting the island was the best choice to knock out the plants. It does biologically degrade fairly well. they went to the island and injected the material deep into the ground, and then covered the land in the stuff.
In a couple decades, they would be able to plant the island with somewhat natural plants again.
One of the clean up crew brought home a small piece of the plant and stuck it into a planter in front of his house. Nothing ever seemed to survive in the planter. The plant survived but did so fairly poorly.
A biologist saw the plant and recognized what it was. Immediately officials showed up and arrested him. Xavier met with the officials in charge of removing the plant. He explained in detail what they were up against and what they had to do. The official seemed to understand the gravity of the problem.
A bit later Xavier got word that some men arrived to remove the plant and had hand shovels. Xavier had the police stop them. He had seen how men with shovels had removed other plants. Shovels were not going to do the job.
Xavier ordered a giant crane to show up. The police were still talking to the men when Xavier arrived with the machine and an extremely large dump truck. The official he talked to also arrived at the same time.
Xavier chewed out the official. He then had the crane dig fifty feet into the ground, taking up some road and drive way. On the last bite, they could see the tail end of the root dangling below the bucket.
with the evidence of how far the plant will go into the ground, he had the official arrested. He dumped a couple barrels of his pollution into the pit, then another truck pulled up and dumped dirt back into the hole.
Just before the police car pulled away, the official asked if it was really was worth all that expense to remove the plant. Xavier reminded him about the island.
The soil removed was fully processed, melted into an ingot, along with the truck and crane to make sure the plant did not survive ir spread.
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I helped dig out the roots of a palm tree and I got this idea. My note said "They must not leave even one bit of the plant or it will return to take over. They are using shovels to dig it up."

05 )
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There is the joke where old joke where the ***** decide to build a space ship. As he is about finished, he is asked what he is going to do with it. He tells them that he is going to land on the sun. They ask him if he is going to burn up because it is so hot. He tells them no, he is going at night. I just had to write something on this.
A particle physics test released magic onto the world. Normal stuff remained normal, science still worked, but other things were happening that defied science explanation -- Magic.
Some countries figured out magic far faster than others. Those with the strongest traditions of science had the biggest problem. Magic did not give well to the scientific method.
Poland was scientifically advanced enough to work out the rules of magic, and scientifically knocked back enough to not be hindered by science. They determined that the magic faded out completely just past the orbit of Pluto on the side that Earth was on. It did not reach as far on the sun side of the solar system. The magic was centered on the planet.
They found one interesting effect of the magic and decided to take advantage of it. They also saw that the magic was fading. They had to rush to do their experiment.
Through legal and illegal methods, through out right purchases and back room dealings, along with buying on the black market, The scientists of Poland built a space ship and readied it to launch.
It was then that they realized they had a problem. If they told the real reason they were doing this mission, the old time Polish jokes would suddenly become popular again. They still did not have an answer when their launch was known about and reporters were there.
"Where are you going with that space ship." a reporter asked. With a long moment thought. The representative smiled, leaned over as if he was telling a secret. "We are going to walk on the sun."
The reporter was caught off guard. "You cannot do that, You will burn up!" the reporter exclaimed.
"No we won't. We are going at night." The official said believably before he walked away so there could be no follow up questions.
Of course the polish jokes started up, but a lot of the technological community were going wild about the real reason for the project.
The ship launched just after dark. It launched in the direction opposite the spin of the planet, which was counter intuitive as they were not getting the push of the rotation of the planet. As it went up, the orbit was quite strange. Rather than going into orbit like most flights did, they continued what amounted to almost straight up.
At about midnight local time, the ship swung around the planet and headed on a solar orbit that would take it closer to the sun.
They continued to the sun. Some bright scientists calculated that their route kept them in line with where the planet was at night. The jokes increased.
The ship passed Mercury's orbit and kept going closer. The data showed that it was still cool on board. Scientists were going crazy.
The whole ship landed on the surface of the sun. The polish astronomers walked around for a few hours. They had scientific data, measurements and then launched from the sun's surface and headed back.
Once they were a safe distance from the sun, they changed their orbit and returned to earth. The polish ship landed at the space port perfectly.
Other more advanced societies started discussing about such a flight. The polish reports were heavy in the magic rules involved in the trip, not so much the science. They launched at night and stayed in that path of night for their time so it was night when they landed on the sun. Because it was night, the gravity was weaker. They landed at the very edge of night and left before dawn and returned into the path of night until they were a safe distance away. In their reports they said that the level of available magic was weaker when they returned than when they left. It was fully measurable.
Somehow the scientists believed the polish science and magic community and did not try the trip again. As the polish experts reported, the magic faded away and only science existed. Some vestiges of magic remained, such as buildings held together totally by magic, but other scientific reasons were discovered, such as where magic bound the material together, their materials fused together, glued, so they were together by scientific reasons.
The data the polish scientists got while next to and on the sun, helped science understand the sun and stars so much better.

07 )
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Charles had a serious accident and was out for a long time. When he finally woke, he was confined to a wheel chair. Being unable to work, he settled down to playing on the internet.
Late at night, he searched the internet for news bits he thought were interesting. In the morning, before he went to sleep, he would write a message on his blog about what he found. It was about a year that he noticed that he was adding information about murders around the country, things he somehow picked up from the evidence that as available to him.
Someone at a police station saw his post right after he posted it, so they followed the information. They found evidence that only the criminal could have known.
It was not long that the policed around the country was watching his blog. they were finding evidence based on his posts that there was no way he should know.
Someone points out that the timing of the murders would fit a single person, a serial killer.
Since he is a prime suspect, the police finally arrive to investigate him. They are surprised at what he found. He tells them what he has been doing. He somehow gets an officer to stay with him the night. Charles searches the web as he normally does. He finally starts writing his blog. As he is writing, the officer watches as the words appear on screen. The officer knows about a murder that just happened the day before.
There was no way he could have done the murder. The officer is on the phone telling what is appearing on screen. Once the piece is written, the note is posted and Charles goes to bed.
A police checked the information and nothing was there, but as the police car was about to turn a corner, the officer sees a vehicle pulling up to that space. The police converge on the car and find evidence of the murder, about to be placed. The guy turns out to be a serial killer who has done all the crimes mentioned in the blog.
Charles does not get any inkling about any evidence about a murder except that he notes in his blog several years later, that a criminal met his due punishment. He later learns that the serial killer was tortured to death in prison by fellow inmates.

08 )
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It was a universe created for testing a concept. Many of the gods found it to be a relaxing place to get away from everything. The world was fairly high tech with personal computers and games, the people did have their aggressions, and the gods did take advantage of that at times for their pleasures. There were times that one god or another would change a setting of the universe to see what caused it. The god that actually created the world would have to go and reset the conditions back to before the tests. Other gods learned that they could have their wars, go out and change a setting and when it was reset, they could try their war again.
There was a couple gods that loved to play pranks. they were totally out of control, as if something happened to their minds when they were created. They had to do harm, they had no other choice.
Mandilyn sat playing a card game on the computer at work. She had studied the rules of many worlds and found that the really good universes had an effective randomization. She taught this god to include that in the system. He liked it.
Mandilyn preferred to live in the universe as one of The people. Few gods even knew she was there even when she met them face to face. She was just a executive secretary for a science project. her boss was the god that created the world. He would try to deduce, scientifically, the rules of the universe, and see where changes might be made to improve it.
All she did all day was play on the computer. She made as much money as anybody in the organization. She freely admitted that she had blackmail on many political officials and on her boss so she deserved to make whatever she asked. Whenever a politician showed up in a committee in the national council that effected her project, she would meet them personally, one on one with a file. Being a god, she could find or even invent any information on someone that was needed. there were several who she chose not to get anything on, leaving them with a pure record, but she would have something on those that had influence and got the funding she needed.
Sitting at the computer, playing a simple game of solitaire, she saw that one entire suit never showed up when the stacks were dealt in three hands. "Hey boss, Leopold has entered the universe." She dealt three more hands and none of the face cards showed. "Hey boss, Velderdom also just showed up.
The cards returned to normal. She knew when any gods appeared by how the cards were dealt. The entry or exit of a god effected the randomization of the universe, a rule she got her boss to add by making the randomization a part of the fabric. It could mess up with the tests. bit it was knowledge well worth the redoing a test.
About three hours later. she saw that the whole hands of the cards were exactly the same three hands in a row. "Hey boss, Velderdom just messed with the rules of the universe again!
The boss walks into her office. He has an elephant trunk and one ear is hanging down to his shoulder. "Yes, I know."
The boss disappeared instantly. He would reset the universe again. Having this much warning, his reset was easy to find and did not effect the universe or any tests at all.

09 )
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Rond Bond drove a car off the cliff following a plane had taxied off the cliff. He kicked the door open and leaped out of the car. Using the air to guide him, he drifted over to the plane and grabbed the wing. He got inside the cab and pulled up just in time to avoid the ground below. The car hits the ground and explodes. He flies off having completed another mission.
Rond arrives as this headquarters and his bosses are angry at his flippant style.
He is given his new assignment, and is then shown all the new gadgets and devices he will need on his mission. these items test the technology and imagination of the times.
He then goes on his mission, having to fit into high society to get even close to his target, or even to really find his target.
He uses his strange devices to get evidence as to where his target is. He finally reaches his target after using every bit of his skills and equipment.
His target is in a prison about to be executed. "Who are you?"
"Rond, Rond Bond, Insurance agent."
Rond slips out of the cell with signed papers on life insurance. once he is outside the building, he sends a signal with the electronically copied documents. The prison detects the signal.
Rond Bond dodges bullets, tanks, steals a bicycle and uses it to get onto a truck where he fights throws the bad guys out of the truck and takes over driving. While this is going on, there is a prison break and guard towers are exploding and fires are everywhere.
Rond Bond reaches a smooth section of straight rode, and climbs out of the cab and onto the top of the trailer as a helicopter appears over head. A ladder drops down and with effort he gets hold of the ladder and pulls himself up while the truck careens through some corner barriers and over a small cliff to explode He just barely misses a tree and then is pulled up to safety.
Because of his getting the prisoner to sign the insurance papers, the captures have no reason to kill them. All his assets are protected, taken out of the bad guy's grasp.

10 )
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It is a major corporation office and there is people coming and going all the time. There are a number of people who do no work at all. They show up spend time in the office and might disappear again. Others make major blunders every now and then, but will do some acceptable work in between.
There are a few who are considered real screw-ups who don't accomplish anything other than making mistakes. There is one guy, They think his name is Zack, is someone everyone thinks is the son of a boss, is a prankster, going around and making dozens to hundreds of copies of key documents, all the copies have some error hidden in them. The people who owns the file has to sort through them one at a time to figure out which is the real files.
Daimon was the computer technician of the office. His job was to undo damage everybody else did. Zack is a serious problem. He is costing the company more time and money than all the other mess-up people combined. It is sort of a harmless prank but all those similar files become destructive.
One day headquarters told Daimon to find some way to stop Zack's damage or at least reduce the damage. Since Zack was the son of a boss, one could not physically stop him. One did not want to get in that kind of trouble.
Daimon started a search of programs and files. He searched for ways to track changed files or stop rapid multiple copies of files. He found about hidden date in files. When he checked for that in copied files, all the dates were changed. He found about digital signatures in the files. He found that when the files were copied, even the original was changed.
Daimon began to wonder about what Zack was doing. How could he do all that just by copying files? Something was beginning to look wrong.
Point by point, he found something to trace a file and each one wrong after the copies. He was scratching his head.
He ran across a comment about an old "antimicrobe" program. He had not heard of that. About a week later, he found the documentation. In the previous platform system, people were writing microbe programs that made the computers sick. The new platform was created to eliminate just about any chance that microbes could be created.
He then found a comment about a microbe program that was created, but never developed beyond a few updates as it was not needed. He located the documentation of the program and studied the code a little bit, and saw that it had a system to stop rapid copying of files. He ran the program in a virtual computer to see what it could do. It seemed quite safe with all he could do. He tried copying dozens of files as fast as he could and after five, it stopped him, asking if he really wanted to make those copies. He decided the program was safe.
He sent for and received permission from several high offices to run the program. He checked with other techs and had them check out the program. They gave approval.
Ready, he went through the program installation process. the button to activate it appeared on screen. He moved his puck over to click on it. Just then, Zack walked into the office and bent over a keyboard. Zack started typing. Daimon hit the button.
Zack was giggling as he usually did while he was playing. suddenly his face twisted as if he tasted something wrong, then dropped into the deepest frown that Daimon had ever seen on a person.
Zack kept typing for a long moment, then jerked back from the computer. He made a soundless scream. Daimon realized that other than the giggle, he had never heard Zack's voice.
Zack twisted, then deresolutioned (derezed), becoming energy flowing everywhere. Daimon's jaw dropped. When zack disappeared, Daimon leaped out of his chair to tell others in the main office. One by one, the office workers derezed out of existence.
The building speaker sounded "What is going on, what is happening to all the workers?" Daimon recognized it as the voice of one major big wig.
"I ran an antimicrobe program and people started blinking out. I don't know why."
Other people came on line and reported that nearly eighty percent of their respective offices were disappearing.
Daimon got on the computer and searched for anything that might be a cause. He then noticed a security file that reported that more people had left the energy to mass creation buildings than had gone in. He reported that fact to the speakers before he returned to his work.
About half an hour later, a technician called in that they had suspected that some program was creating people, but they could not prove it.
Six months later, the company was recovering from the loss of personal. The antimicrobal actually spread to other systems and they suffered the same loss of personal. They all then found that the mistakes and errors dropped to close to nothing. Since all sites had the machines that could create people, a quarter of the whole colony planet's population had disappeared.
Investigations found that the program placed. All the microbial programs it found, into storage. An examination of the programs proved that they were microbial programs. Over time, they identified the people each microbial program created. Zack was the worst, it had bypassed all the system's protections.
Daimon then found a document written by the creators of the antimicrobal program. The document said that they knew the system would have problems, especially with the kinds of equipment involved, so they placed their program to be found by someone desperate to solve this one problem with the system. It would shut down completely after two years and not re-install for a whole decade.
It would be a century before the microbes would get bad enough for someone to locate the Antimicrobal program again.

11 )
.
The colony ship got lost. All systems shut down for several months and they stayed alive through emergency measures, basically becoming primitive for a while. When they got their ship back to operation, they had lost all their data. They could not figure out where they were or where their destination was. They figured out that the cause of their ship's failure was still in existence and it was going to happen again. Using their best analysis of the systems around them, they chose a solar system that seemed to have a planet with life signatures.
The colonists landed on a planet ruled by giant entities. The high lords as they were called, were made the colonists look about mouse size. Very quickly, the colonists figured out that they should not be seen by the high lords. A number of their members got stomped.
Because there were several different political groups on the colony ship, which during the flight were separated by different floors, the colonists developed different clans.
The ship's crew developed into a clan. They were quite organized and tried to get the colonists to work on re-building the ship. Other clans wanted to spread into the high lord territory where there was all the food they could want.
Since the ship had landed in marginal territory, the ship's crew had to scratch a living while they hunted for materials for the ship. The crew were quickly ostracized from the other clans who would have nothing to do with them. To leave this paradise was uncalled for.
The crew was smart. They would usually harvest weed seed that was on the ground and would store it in underground storage rooms they dug. They would work only on one leaf or one fruit until it was gone, before going to the next. There was a bounty out there, but they took only what they needed, plus some for storage for what they assumed would be a thin time.
In their work, they moved the ship to a high place in case there were floods. They explored several of the high lord's homes and only took some lost "nails" and other bits from between the walls, doing as little damage as they could. They did enlarge the holes to get in so they could get their treasures out, but they plugged the holes when they left, usually with building materials in the walls, so nothing else could get in.
The other clans wanted the best of whatever was available so they would cut into one piece of food one day, and then another on the next, without regard to the damage to the overall crops. they would dig in for a specific layer of the food and leave the rest to rot. They entered the homes of the high lords and would hack holes just about anywhere to see what is there. and would not even bother using an existing hole even if it was a few paces away.
The high lords took notice of the damage. After capturing a few of the colonists and testing on them. The high lords at one home scattered some food around where the colonists were seen. the food had something that was quite effective in killing the captive colonists.
two clans of colonists found the food and gathered some up. they did not take much. they did not eat too much as there was a lot of other food available. A good number of them died or was extremely ill for a long time.
At another home, a chemical was sprayed around the building. both inside and out. the colonists had to get down onto their hands and knees to get in, and got the chemical on their skin. While bathing in the communal pond, many also got the chemical. Within a week, a number of the clan was extremely sick and many died.
The high lords found that the bait worked best. Different kinds of bait was spread around different homes. They also learned to spread safe bait out for a while and then add the poison here and there, sometimes just a few grains among good food.
Word would spread about a bounty of food left out. Just about all the clans heard about the new foods, but only a few would consider it worth sending people "that far" to get food. Even so, many clans would send people to collect some. Over time, they would get sick and many would die. Most of the time, they had no clue as to why. Just some strange diseases running around.
The crew never heard about the bait left out. A couple times they did see food laying around, but they had more important things to do than to gather free food. They wanted the ship ready to launch soon. they did not know how long they would have before the ship might be found. The sooner they could launch, the better.
The ship is finally ready to launch. The holds are filled with foods the crews harvested from the weed field. They had found a corrupted backup file and was able to restore much of the missing data. What they don't have is not missed as they had more than they thought they needed. By studying the night sky, they now have an idea as to where their destination is.
They send out word to the colonists that it is time to go. The clans, one and all are against leaving. they have it good. They are living in the garden of Eden.
A day before the scheduled launch, the high lords pass over the area and spray. It causes the plans to form toxins. the toxins are safe for the high lords, but not to the colonists.
The crew send some people out to see if they can convince some colonists to return to the ship. They end up searching the whole area the clans had expanded to and retrieved about one percent of the population. Those that survived are sick. The crew did take samples of the plant tissue so they might find a cure.
The survivors are piled on board the ship and the ship launches just as some high lords are converging on the ship's location. The ship barely escapes the high lord's attempts to capture it.
Up in space, the cure is located and the population is cured. Since the crew nearly matches the population of the survivors, the crew takes over in training and guiding the colonists. The big thing they work on is morals. It is immoral to take what is not yours. It is immoral to take the very best, just because you can.
By the time the colony ship reaches their destination, the population is back up to where it is supposed to be, but is now filled with competant moral industrious people. The whole population is now crew. Their new colony starts from the beginning to be quite successful.

12 )
I remember seeing that in Washington State, that the Lady Bugs fly up to the mountain in the fall and hide in the snow. As the snow melts, they then fly back to the low lands to feed, and lay eggs.
I also remember reading that we had a serious cold spell in the prior to 1000, then a warm spell that ended in 1400, then a cold spell that ended around 1800 and we are in a warm spell. It is basically a 1000 year cycle, 500 years warm, 500 cold.
There was an article I read where they found an ancient map of Antarctica that showed rivers along the coasts. I also remember that the people of the old times believed in many monsters. I put the memories together.
Our enlightened age, where we started using the scientific method of basing opinions on evidence only, began during the last cool period. Of course, they never saw any monsters, so they concluded that the historic monsters never existed.
The several of the glaciers in Antarctica withdrew from the ocean quite rapidly. Geologists were studying the underlying rocks with all abandon to learn more about the geology.
One research groups was near one of the exposed mountain ranges, They had stopped to check their bearings and take measurements. A crack resounded through the ice, coming from the mountain range. Another crack rang out. The ice started boiling. They were on communications with their camps and with the rest of the world, sending images, sound and calling out reports. One scientist called out that there were six dozen points where the ice was boiling up. There was no smoke one would expect from a volcano. It was being pushed up in as if from a series of sharp impacts.
Something broke from the ice and stretched out. It was a long neck. then there was a second, third, forth. Soon seven long necks with dragon like heads stuck out. They could hear the roars from the different heads. "That is a hydra!" a student called out.
Creatures crawled from the second boil of ice. Lion bodies with eagle heads, claws and wings. they flapped their wings, exercising them, but did not lift off. Dragons came out of another one, one sent flames into the air. Giant men climbed out.
Looking through the telescopes, they could see all sorts of other creatures which they deduced based on the myths--vampires, giant poisonous sheep, leprechauns, elves which were tall and thin, orcs, kabolds, Several figures that had to be the old gods.
The scientific team decided they had more than enough data, and mounted up on their snow machines and floored it to put distance between them and the assorted monsters. The lead driver had the wisdom of heading away from any camp and drove for a whole day before changing direction to get to a camp.
Ships converged on the sea as the monsters approached the shore. The large ones carried many smaller ones. Observers could not deduce if this was by agreement or by opportunity.
The monsters reached the ocean. Looking at the water, it became glass before them and they marched onto the ocean as if it was a road of glass.
Researchers later returned to where the monsters came out of the ice and explored. the mountains were filled with tunnels and caverns, a great hiding place of giant monsters.
Reports later came from similar reports on the Greenland ice sheet, where monsters appeared and were crossing the sea.
One navy decided to bombard the monsters while they were at sea. they found the monsters were under a protective bubble. the navy lost a number of their crew when they looked at something and turned to stone. Others became a conflagration of fire when they met the eyes of something else. A submarine launched a missile directly beneath the monsters. something under the water misdirected the missile with a bump. A ship sank in a mighty explosion. Another small ship was over turned by something large beneath the water.
Scientists studying the caves and the monsters at sea and later on land, figured out that when the planet got cold, they went deep into the cold country to hibernate. When the world got warm enough to effect their hiding place, they came out again to live among the land.
The monsters were not immortal, but they were hard to kill even with high technology weapons. The monsters had off spring and spread through the lands. It would not be until the next cold period that they would be gone.

13 )
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In an effort to have only true professional electricians work on the wiring on the colony, a special circuit device was created and all plugs, switches, lights and such was required to plug directly into the device. One had to go through special schools to do the electrical work.
The device (shock plates as they were commonly known) was really designed to shock anybody who touched it, and one had to touch it to remove or replace an outlet, but officially it had a safe sounding name no one could remember. The unit was all electronics, and stored up several kilo-hours of power. One could cut the power to the building, leave it off for years and still get shocked.
The big part of the school was drilling into the students the adherence to regulations. Only those who were essentially brainwashed to work with the regulatory system were finally taught how to change out a plug without getting shocked. The actual teaching took a month, but the course was four years with a vast majority of the students failing. Of course, the electrician's work was very expensive. The permits and following regulations was more than any work that could be done.
Builders hated the new device. Many times, they had to have a professional electrician there, with resulting paperwork, through the whole job. The electricians automatically stuck the part into place even though it was not ready for it in any way. Circuit testing and tracing was dangerous to say the least.
Cromwell had gone to electrical engineering degree, architectural degree and many minor degrees. He also worked in the building trades. One day at a job site they were at, they had a major theft of supplies. Figuring it would not be missed, he palmed several of the shock plates.
At home, he decided to figure out what made the plates work, reverse-engineering. It took him some time, but he had the actual design for the plate. He then came up with a system to draw the power away from the plate. Since he could not simply add his system to a regular house, he created a house construction system that would require his system.
Of course the bureaucrats did not like any change, but he got the system approved. He got his permits to build his first house using his system.
Each wire had twelve strands, not the normal three or four. The shock plate plugged into a special fitting, and then the special outlets plugged into the shock plate. His plug system was quite expensive, but still half the cost of an electrician. The builders could install the plate, run and test circuits long before the shock plate was added. The shock plates and outlets could be the last thing to be done. There were special, very expensive sockets that could be plugged into the fitting to provide temporary power during construction.
The electrical students learned that certain tabs would allow the outlets and the shock plates to come off safely. It was said to be a carefully guarded secret. Of course, right in the instructions for installation of the system was a listing of the power ratings going to the various tabs on the system. Most people used tabs of low power to handle the parts.
Soon, every architect and contractor followed Cromwell's design of building so they could use his system. It cost them a quarter the price to build a structure.
In each building was the power box. All circuits went to the box. A computer inside the box was the key to his system.
In the computer was an interesting feature. It was a emergency system in case of a power out. One keyed in Emergency power out. The system would have the person answer a long list of questions. The answers, which were compared to each other, would tell whether the system could go into emergency power. The computer read the continuity of the building structure to see if there was an electrical hazard.
If all systems showed that it was safe and there was a real reason to provide emergency power, the system would draw power to selected circuits so the people can live. The refrigerator, stove, one light in each room, a couple outlets, all drawn from the shock plates.
After the first disaster, no building was built with any system other than Cromwell's

14 )
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We had a political debate last night which seeded this concept.
There were no parties, just the government. There were usually a couple hundred candidates running to be the Excellence. The Excellence was like a very strong president that served just one term of seven years. The grand council ran all the rules for the run for the Excellence. Anybody could run so it looked wide open, but they had a way of picking their own leader.
The candidates would have a series of debates, sort of an elimination system. Since there were so many candidates, they would be separated in groups and answer questions given to them. After three debates, the ones that were doing really poor were asked to drop out.
Candidates would get donations and would advertize, and people would make a lot of their decisions on how the candidates presented themselves.
The debates were part of the primary system they used. All the candidates would debate in a region, and then there would be a straw poll on who the people preferred. They removed the worst candidates from competition and then there would be a new debate series. The candidates would line up ahead of the podium and the debate organizers would tell the candidates that they are eliminated, all before the public, and they would then have to leave. It was sort of a public humiliation. Then the new debate would start. After each of the three rounds of debates, they always eliminated one whole debate group and combine them. Each round had a complete re-mix of candidates so that one would go through several debates before facing someone you debated before.
One could still get donations, advertize, and run a campaign, but once out of the debates, one never got public mention beyond local areas.
Since the grand council knew how most candidates stood for, the questions to them were intended to make them look bad, or to look good, depending on how the council looked on them as their leader.
One special rule, because there were so many candidates, was that during the debates, no candidate can speak up unless specifically asked. To speak out of turn could have one dragged out of the debate. This was part of the test to see if one could follow orders and listen.
Sybilina was running for office. There had been other female Excellence before. She was a firebrand and created waves in several lower offices she held. The grand council did not like her even when she was one of their members.
The first debate starts. Candidate Number one, what is your opinion on the military financing? Number two, What is your opinion on the environment, No. three, what is your opinion on transportation, No. four, what is your opinion on solving the problems of the poor. Each candidate got to answer their questions. Then it was Sybilina's turn. "Candidate number sixteen, what is your favorite color? Of course she was only allowed to answer that question.
All through the debate, she got non-political questions of no importance. She was very frustrated as she could easily show these guys as idiots.
Another rule of the debates is one is not allowed to comment on them during the campaign while one was a viable candidate.
She quickly learned that in each debate, she was not going to get a serious question. shoe size, favorite type of dress, dishes she loves to cook, favorite drink, nothing serious.
She turned her campaign funds to organizing fund-raisers and seducing donors to help her. She then took that money to advertize her opinions everywhere. She dared not answer debate questions directly so she chose to reword them to give the same answer. She did fund-raisers and advertisements well outside areas of the debates. Money came in.
It came down to where there were three groups of candidates, about two dozen, in the running. thirty two candidates came out and the names were called as to the candidates who were forced to drop out, and the reasons they had to leave.
It finally came to Sybilina, the last one. The big reason she was being eliminated as she never talked about anything of substance, was simply an empty dress.
Sybilina waited until her name card was ripped in half, the final sign a candidate is out of the running, "Am I permanently out of this debate?" The organizers said yes. "I am free of being unable to talk about the debates?" The organizers said yes.
she gets a sly grin. She then tells them that she followed the rules and answered only the questions they asked. if she talked about something, it was because that was what they asked. She lays into them about how the organizers guaranteed that she was not to have a chance. She was not dropping out of the race and will not drop off any ballots. They will see how useless their debate system is on getting to know the candidates. She then walked out.
She was already advertizing and most of the people knew her name and what she believed. She did speeches and let local news outlets cover her being interrogated by their reporters, which she got copies of and sold to interested news outlets.
The actual election was not close at all. The grand council was stunned. she had bypassed them completely. She became the Excellence. the entire debate council was replaced. They figured out that their mistake was that they made it obvious they were eliminating a candidate. They also ignored the fund raising, advertizing and speech activities of the candidates.
Sybilina made a historical name for herself, shaking a lot of things up. The grand council worked to make sure there were ways to short circuit Sybilina's methods of gaining power without looking like they were involved in stopping someone.

15 )
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A country song tells about a lament about how far heaven is so far away and wishing they could visit with their loved ones. This is the second story idea I've gotten from this song which was #30 of May.
When the people died, their spirts remain nearby. when the survivors got into the right mind set, they could hear the voices of the deceased and talk to them. They learned things from their loved ones and kept in touch with them. There were slight changes in them and their council, but it was assumed to be because of losing the body or something like that.
Vincent was quite adept at talking to the spirits. He would act as a go-between for those who could not talk to the spirits. Little problems slowly started cropping up.
Several people who had gone well outside the area, were not available to talk to. A couple had even promised they would come back. the spirits were well known to travel, visit places they were once at in their lives.
Another thing he started to notice was that how the information was given did not sound right. The answers did not fit the memory of someone who experienced something. He could not get his finger on the problem.
Vincent's parents died suddenly. Everybody knew how they died but not why. It looked like it was not an accident, but there was a chance it could be.
He worked to contact them. He asked questions, almost interrogating them. The information was just not there.
After a time, he deduces that the sprits the people are talking to, are not really their spirits. He figures out that some entity is watching their every move action and word. It knows a lot more about people who talk about their feelings and thoughts, usually women, than the quiet types.
Vincent then realizes that comments by the loved ones that a person should talk to themselves a lot more about their thoughts and feelings, is the something, the entity's attempt to learn more about the people for the future generations. It can only go by what it learns.
Vincent realizes that anything he keeps to himself will be lost, and he also knows what he learned about the entity will also be lost since it is not going to expose itself to others.

16 )
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The planet had dinosaurs. They were barely like the ones that were well known from home, but close enough to fit the definition and names once used.
A group of children of very wealthy families decided to go dinosaur hunting. They also decided to film their hunt. One of them had some film school so he was going to be the camera man and director. He also was of the most powerful of the families so he was also the boss.
The film at the beginning was of the different people telling about themselves, showing the equipment they were bringing. they always hammed it up to the camera looking really important in whatever they did. They also had a lot of handlers and equipment people in their entourage.
They arrive on the planet and pretend they are on a safari with their people carrying the equipment on their head for the show. At this point, they have not even left the protection of the space ship.
They get out into the forest and search. they don't see anything other than tiny crawling things smaller than their feet. Some are wondering whether all this walking is worth it.
They get to a spot and the director tells one of them, "Dinosaur hunter, strike a pose." Garrot starts posing, looking strong, wise, a winner, looking like he has conquered something, hamming it up for the cameras.
He then feels like there is something behind him. He glances up and sees a monster jaw filled with teeth. he leaps to the side and the jaws snap down where he was. He rolls and dodges into some brush. The dinosaur then sees the camera people. they look and find they are trapped in the rocks.
The last thing Garrot sees of any of the film team is a pair of wiggling legs in the jaws of the monster as it points the muzzle high to help slide the victim down the gullet.
Others later gather the cameras and film, some damaged, and bring them back. The images were horrific.
When asked, Garrot says that they were out to get pictures of him being eaten so them suffering the fate they wanted of him was fair play.
He later goes out and bags that same dinosaur. That is the only one the whole group returns with.

17 )
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A politician said in an interview that automation is killing our jobs. ATMs for example, are ruining our job market. A commentator then joked about space aliens coming down as ATMs and giving us all our money. I could not let that go.
The colony had collapsed right after it was established and is now recovering lost technologies. Computer communications over the telephone had just developed to a useful level.
There was a light show from an expected meteor shower, but it was more vivid than anybody ever expected. A large number of the meteors lasted longer in the sky than normal. While it was noted, it was basically forgotten.
A few months later, the very first ATM machines arrived at one bank. No one at the bank really knew details about it, but it allowed people to access their money outside of business hours. The people, once they learned how to use it, loved it. ATM machines started spreading to other banks and banking companies. Each department thought another department was in charge so they never investigated in detail. The bank was making money off the fees.
The ATM machines were said to be serviced by a armored car company, but was done at night. Records of what money was withdrawn from the accounts were very accurate. People could also deposit money and checks and they were promptly provided the next day while immediate records were given to the computers. The money to the banks were delivered by official means through the banking system.
The government had more money than they knew what to do with. People were paying taxes as if it were going out of style. The officials looked at what "good" could be done and individuals were already doing it. The government was running into problems of how to make use of the money. They tried increasing taxes to stem the flow of money and that did not work. They were at nearly ninety percent tax on the highest levels and the money kept flowing. They reduced taxes a number of times to near the theoretical limits a government can survive on and the money flowed even faster.
The federal reserve noticed a slight discrepancy. They kept records of money that was destroyed due to age, and money they printed. There is usually money in circulation and storage, or lost due to many means so the amount they printed never came back as the same amount.
The discrepancy was that the money being destroyed was actually slightly more than they were printing at the time. The money supply would be reducing at this rate, but banking activities showed that money volume seemed like it was increasing. It was recorded and forgotten.
As the population increased, and the economy grew, the federal reserve continued to print money at the same rate as always. Computers imaging and calculating the money as it came in saw a slight flaw in the money. It was suggested that a lot of counterfeit money was in circulation. The federal reserve decided to change the money.
After the banks were trained in how to detect real money, the new money was released into the market. The law stated that all money had to be exchanged in the banks. Banks could only give out the new money no matter how bad the shortage was. The fed went into full power printing of the money. They were expecting shortages of the new money but it never happened. Everybody was happy with the exchange of the new money.
When the new money came back to be destroyed, they saw something that might indicate a counterfeit. A careful comparison of the money coming off the printers and the money coming back showed what the flaw was. Half the new money was counterfeit, from the same printer no matter where it was found. The vast majority of the old money also had the same flaw.
A Research team studying the percentage of fake money and real, found that the flaw appeared in the money about some time the ATMs appeared. It increased in proportion to the ATMs.
They sparked an investigation, tracking the money movement of the ATM system. It was not easy to follow. they never seemed to see the money move, even watching the machine all night. Hidden cameras ran into problems at certain times. the computer systems would malfunction during the night.
Eventually the investigators track the money to a place beneath the city and find alien machines operating. ATM machines walking around, disgorging some stuff and feeding on others, which turns out to be money.
It is learned that the aliens were trying to destroy the economy by flooding it with money. Experts realized it well would have worked except that there was not another nation to be doing trade with which would refuse to take the money. It was one government planet, small continent, so the alien system failed.
The federal reserve slow down their printing of money, just sending out enough to keep the aliens on track of what the money is supposed to look like each year. The economy continues to grow because there is a lot of money in it. The aliens eventually figure out why their system is failing, but by then, they are stuck on the planet and have to continue with their system.

18 )
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I read a story decades ago where they had flash mobs. Whatever was on the news, crowds of people would blink in, using their personal teleporters to the news sites to see what was happening personally. The police was always worried about the crowd becoming part of the news. I don't remember what the actual story was about. This came to mind and then shifted to story idea mode.
The public distrusted the press. The press had their story and left out anything in an news item that did not fit their story. The blogosphere had a different story and left out anything that did not fit their story. There were three other news sources and they all had their own story and left out what did not fit. Looking at all the news sources, one still had a big hole of information.
There was one news source that could not have a story. it was the rumor lines. People passed on their information by word of mouth. when there were dozens of versions of the same event reported, the truth by nature came out.
Personal teleport systems was perfected to the point that one wore a permanent bracelet and could blink in and out of places easily. The population was quite ordered and followed the rules. One did not blink into someone's home announced. There had to be a guide point to get somewhere. A commendation link was needed unless it was a programmed point such as home work or stores. Many places had a scrambler set up to block the blinking in. If the teleporter could not get a firm lock, it would not go there. The scrambler prevented blinking in. one could program the bracelet with the scrambler code and that allowed the owners to come in. One could also guide someone in through a communications. everybody else had to blink in outside and knock on the door.
The teleport system was key to feed the rumor lines. when a news item appeared somewhere, crowds of people would flash in and observe what was going on. They would then tell their friends. Hundreds to thousands of people at an incident, the rumor lines will get accurate information out.
When criminals are involved, the appearance of thousands of people outside is enough to cause them to give up. There is no escape. The police don't like the flash mobs, but when they do appear, the police make them link their arms so they form an impenetrable ring around the site. anybody walking around inside the ring is likely a criminal or police.
A criminal organization was barely surviving. They either don't make the news until after they are gone, or they lose their members. One member was going on vacation with his family and at one big park, there was a giant cook out. That member contacted the gang and within minutes the whole gang appeared for the feast. The leader got an idea.
Checking the system, someone could record locations and then others could go to those locations directly without the person being there. Suddenly, the whole gang was going on vacations around the world. they went to locations and recorded where they were, and then continued on.
When they were all back home, they put the leader's plan to work. On cue, they blinked as a flash mob to a location, robbed it, and then flashed back home without leaving a trace. Police would go to the site, then flash mobs would appear. anything that could possibly be a trace was gone.
The gang would then flash to their Fences and unload what they stole. This was all done in a way where they had an alibi on where they were and what they were doing.
Their crime spree was going good. they got word a detective was on their trail, tracking teleport records. The gang blinked into the offices of the detective. The worst of his records were taken and he was unable to talk when they left. The officials knew the man was working on something important but did not know what.

19 )
.
The planet was wild, with monsters and armies all over the place. A ship had crashed on the planet and the rescue ship was forced to land quite a distance away and air deliver materials.
When the ship was about to launch, they found a thruster shield plate that was corrupted and swapped it with a new one they had as a spare. It was decided to send a local to deliver the corrupted plate back to the repair ship for study and testing.
To make transporting the plate easier, they glued a couple handles onto it. The rescue ship would easily remove the handles but little the courier could do to remove it.
Their local went out with a group of forty soldiers to act as an escort, and the six wagons of a local merchant caravan.
The group had money from the repair ship to help their passage through the different jurisdictions.
As they traveled, Bulwark carried the plate, not wanting it out of his grip. He felt it was really important as the messengers of the gods had given it to him. He preferred to walk rather than ride a horse or wagon.
They are set upon by bandits. Bulwark is an excellent fighter and he at first protects the plate, trying to keep it from being struck. In the battle it gets hit with a war hammer before he dispatches the bandit.
After the battle he looks at the plate, worried it was badly damaged. Not a mark, not even a smudge. He was impressed.
AS they travel, they run into problems. Their soldiers are whittled down. The merchant then leaves on a different path, not what he promised.
They are attacked by monsters and the plate is the only thing that saves them, then they are hit by magic weapons, they bounce off. he faces the local version of a dragon and the plate gets them close enough to kill it, since running would not work. The hard part was keeping the plate between the men and the fire.
He finally gets to the repair ship. They examine the material and told him about how it was so bad it could not protect against anything and not worth taking with them for reprocessing.
Bulwark hears that and begs that he can keep it. He then recounts all that happened on the trip here and the things it protected against. they test the metal again and realize that it reflected magic was stronger than any metal in existence and dissipated heat easily.
They make him a set of armor and weapons out of their trash. he goes back out into the world on his way home, knowing he has the perfect weapons and armor against the world.

20 )
.
Balwark was a super hero. He had the strength of a dozen men and was invulnerable to most weapons. He had a knack of knowing where criminals were operating their crimes. He also had good timing of arriving as they were committing the crimes.
There were criminals that were his near equals in power, but like super heros like himself, there were few of them.
He arrived at the city and came to an agreement with the legal system to try to stem the crime in the city. He was allowed to use his special motorcycle to go anywhere he wanted to go and at any speed he wished to drive. He was deputized to arrest and apprehend any criminals. he just had to send a signal that criminals were captured and leave them on the main streets for the police to find. He would then have to send in a detailed report of the crime they were involved in.
He left the legal building to clean up the city. That night, he broke up twelve crimes. The paperwork and evidence appeared near the end of the day. The police loved him.
Over the next month, he made a big dent on crimes. He would even call police to go to other sites to catch criminals in the act since he could not make it there.
All his early catches were small criminals doing small crimes. Everybody knew the name of Balwark but just as the ghost of the night.
One day, he sensed something big. He let the police know it was coming down and to have cruisers close on call.
He caught the criminals leaving the building. For some reason, he called the police in and then attacked.
He got knocked around, he knocked them around. They were super heros just like him. they slammed each other into cars, crushing them, into buildings cracking walls. Pockmarking the pavement. In spite the police surrounding them, they escaped, but with only a little bit of the booty.
Over the next month, he came upon the criminals time and again. The results were the same, not much of the stolen materials left the site, but the site was badly damaged.
When the police started complaining about the cruisers getting damaged, Balwark chose not to call the police. He challenged the criminals in every crime. He got so busy trying to figure out how to defeat them that he stopped passing on crimes happening elsewhere, especially after the super criminals had split up to hit several sites.
In one battle, a dozen cars, a dozen feet of fence and a small storage unit was crushed to the ground because of one of their fights. Afterwards, the police called him in. The legals gave him word. They would rather take the losses from the break-ins than the losses from the damage he was doing to their city.
He packed up his stuff and left, looking for another city that might use his abilities to fight crime.
.
Balwark did not realize that since they could not hurt each other in a fight, he should avoid fighting, and avoid slamming them into things. He was not that smart. It never dawned on him that the criminals saw nothing wrong with causing a lot of serious damage to the area.

21 )
.
The community was independent of the rest of the colony government. There were stories about things the government was doing but since the community was independent, they were not under the thumb of the government. They were also warriors of the rights of the whole colony, challenging the government on every step of the way on fighting corruption. The government had their own plans and methods for dealing with them.
The government told the people that they should change to the new fuel as it was cheaper, more efficient and better for their health. As usual, there were hold outs. To speed the transition, they made the competing fuels harder and harder to get, very slowly.
The normal car life was about twenty years in all sales through used cars. At about ten years, the old fuel was gone and the new fuel was abundant. The people changed over to the new fuel exclusively.
The people were complaining about the fuel not meeting promises, being expensive, there were serious hazards involved. The cars were not well made and parts were not readily available. People were going to the government seat and complaining.
The government put the second step of their plans into practice. the fuel suddenly dried up. Those who were complaining to the government went home. As the last one was leaving, he heard an official say, if you choose return, we will change our ways completely.
When the last person arrived at home, he found he could not refuel his vehicle. He nearly ran out of fuel on the way there as the fuel stations were running dry.
The community could no longer go to the seat of government to complain. The government, not having people watching and reporting, put the third step of their plans. The people were fairly isolated, trapped in their lands.
A couple fueled their old time cars with a replacement fuel, but found that there was no way to refuel them anywhere along the way would have gotten stuck a long way from home, but they realized that by half full, they had not seen any place they could refuel. They pushed their car the last few miles back home.
The government finally arrived to "rescue" them. they were using a different fuel entirely. The population had no way to resist the power of the government that arrived. The government now fully owned the colony.

22 )
.
The population, like all populations, woke up, went to work, came home, some were involved in evening activities, and then go to bed to start it over. They worked an eight day week and had two days, but not consecutively for their own time where they usually worked on family activities.
They were an effective community and while they were not an advancing society, they were efficient enough to remain at their level of technology and remain viable. Everything was reasonably maintained with new and end of life structures and equipment.
Weelie arrived in the community. He had detected a major asteroid shower approaching the planet and wanted to warn the officials. There were museums and libraries but he had not found any government houses.
His ship was about like a small bus and did have wheels where he could ride on the roads with. he kept searching for the government building. All the impressive buildings were something else.
During the night, warning lights went off in his dash. He quickly got ready to deal with the world outside and then sat in the driver seat, waiting. He saw the steaks of light zip behind a building. Then he heard the crackling of the passage followed by a boom.
More came down in rapid succession. He watched the screen and moved his ship several times to make sure he was not near an impact site.
As daylight arrived, the worst of the meteors were hitting the ocean that made up most of the planet's surface.
The people walked out of their homes, looked at the damage and simply started cleaning up the damage. There was no emotion involved. It was just a different type of job.
The next night, meteors filled the sky and there was more damage everywhere. It was not a great amount of damage, but it was damage. the people did not come out of their homes to investigate the event as would be expected.
In the morning, he watched a father walk out of the house, stop and look at the car, then try to get in, look a little confused and tried again, finally turned away and went back into his home.
He watched a family where the wall was broke open. They operated as they would any other day, but the home was wide open. It was really only when they had no way to avoid the mess and opened wall that they changed their habits.
He watched the population operate almost on automatic. It was then it dawned on him that they were almost robotic.
He activated the sensors and examined the population, He never used his sensors other than to track objects.
He was stunned at the readings. The populations were androids, biological robots. He picked up signals of communications, a central computer telling the people what needs to be done, and them communicating back.
As he drove around, public buildings were not actually used, just there to look impressive. The communications site was a thick walled building to one side of the city.
He finally launched and headed back into space. there was nothing he could do to save this society. it was not in their programming to do anything different until it has to.

23 )
.
I saw a travel show and the antics of the host gave me this idea.
Vernon was traveling with several friends. They were all taking video and hamming it up to each other. they also got good images also.
They were at an arena and one by one, they got images of each other pretending to swing swords at the camera. They were having all sorts of fun doing this.
Vernon got before their cameras and started dancing around swinging his hand as if he was fighting. There was a swirl in the air, the scenery shifted and suddenly he was a big, muscular man in armor. He had a shield and sword in his hands. He had no idea what to do with them.
While this is happening to Vernon, his friends see him blink out, but they can see him in their viewfinders. they find they cannot move their cameras, they themselves are stuck in their shooting position.
Vernon turns around and sees a lizard like man who was bigger, stronger and heavier armored than he was. A voice spoke from above, partly in his mind. "You dared me during the ages, saying you could beat my champion any day any time. I choose this day and time. Let us see you beat him."
The monster approached. Vernon closed his eyes for along moment, then resigns himself to die. He is not going to run. He swings the blade and it feels comfortable. He then does a few test swings and it is not the sloppy swings he was doing for the cameras. He starts circling his opponent, spiraling in on it.
The beast strikes. Vernon's body reacts. he decides to let his body do the work. As their weapons bounce off each other, memories come to him. They are mostly just feeling each other out, seeing what the other one can do.
A kick to his shield sends Vernon flying. He rolls and gets up, wobbling. His head is ringing. Memories flood into him and now he knows what who he was and what he has to do.
They batter each other using great skills and luck. Vernon gets a number of bruises and cuts on his body. He finally draws his opponent into a mistake and slices the head off cleanly.
The voice above screams out in agony and anger, "No! no, no." Vernon is battered by energies that resembles someone banging on a desk. then the voice spoke through clenched teeth. "I thought sure you had weakened beyond being able to fight. I will get you next time."
The air swirled around him, then hew was in front of his friends. They barked out that they could move again. Vernon ran to them. "Pull those memory cards, and pocket them. We want to try to save them."
They did and popped in new ones in an instant as they were running from the place, some filming their destination and others holding the camera over their shoulder to film what was behind them.
At the hotel, they talked about the weird common dream. Vernon knew it was not a dream. The one who made the challenge had children who had children. Every generation, if one reached some ancient arena, they were challenged like he was. He new understood why his mother acted the way she did. She was the one who was challenged last time. What the god did not realize was that the ancestor always entered the offspring so they became like him.
They would not view those memory chips until they got home. The images were strange, but it showed it had happened.

24 )
.
Ming the Merciless was being defeated by the rebels in spite his vast army and great powers. the rebels never did anything expected. Ming found his forces always in the wrong locations since he expected a different kind of enemy.
Their weaponry was not what he was prepared for either. They used a lot of industrial tools and cobbled devices against his forces, each one designed just to make use of the weaknesses of his equipment or tactics.
He stood on a hill, watching the rebel turn his battle lines into ground meat. One weapon they were using was a Borg Cube. The Borgs were helping the rebels. He glanced behind him to make sure he had an escape, when he saw a movement in the corner of his eye. A Borg Cube flew at him, the energies boiling away from it. Entering the energy field of a Borg Cube was not the problem, it was when one passed out of it that it destroyed you.
Ming the Merciless invoked a spell of power. He then realized he used the wrong one, the one of glue rather than repel. The Borg Cube hit him square. the ground was gone from his feet and he gasped from the impact. The only thing that kept him from being splattered was the protective robe he wore and the glue magic. It softened the impact, then kept him against it.
The Borg Cube continued into space as it never hit anything solid. Ming's head cleared and found the Borg Cube was trying to grow around him, but his glue magic was holding it together near him. It was growing from the back side. He saw the blackness of space and the planet behind them, and he wondered how he was alive. He then realized that the energy field around him was holding in and purifying the air
Ming the Merciless battled the Borg Cube, slowly bringing parts of it under control. Those parts allowed him access to other parts. After a period of time, he got the Borg Cube to the point where he could trust it implicitly and removed the glue magic as it was draining him bad.
He searched for a suitable planet to rule and found one along his path. He had to wait several centuries, but it finally got near.
The Borg Cube entered the atmosphere and the energy field protected him from the heat. He slipped to the rear of the Borg Cube and into a protective cubby hole as objects approached. He was buffeted around badly and he felt some heat, but he knew the objects were destroyed.
On the forth trip around the lower atmosphere, Ming the Merciless picked out which government that he could take over and best rule the world from. He sat down on top the Borg Cube and let the energy field fade out as he rode the cube to the capital. as he stepped off, the cube rose up to protect him as he had trained it to do.

25 )
.
The service people were androids. They were not bright, but were effective in their jobs. There were times where they could be confused and then ripped off. Their human owners watched carefully for most of those tactics.
Baxter was an escaped convict. He was in hiding for a while, then came out and started a new crime spree. It was brilliant. He got a sales slip from somewhere, likely stolen. He went into a restaurant and ate. The android waitress set a sales slip on his table. When he got up, he gave the cashier the sales slip he had from elsewhere. The cashier got completely confused and he acted like he paid, asked for change and got it, and he left with the restaurant sales slip. He went to a hardware store and swapped sales slips between the automatic check in and the cashier. He got change and left the confused android trying to work out what was wrong.
Baxter traveled all over the city, ripping places off everywhere. There were places that this system did not work and he paid his stolen change for those products. It was two months before he was recognized by a human police and he was arrested. he had a sales slip in on him.
The police really had nothing on him and needed to get some evidence. Officer Rhyley took the sales slip to the establishment listed on it. The manager looked at his records and showed the sales slip Baxter gave him and explained how the theft happened. Rhyley paid the bill, including the change, and swapped sales slips, and then went to the next place.
Store by store, Rhyley visited, talked to human managers, and paid the bill, taking the sales slip with him to find the next place.
His superiors told him that they needed to figure out where Baxter had hidden out and the very first sales slip might be a solution. While these were really thefts, they were at the very edge of the law and could not send Baxter to prison again. They needed one theft. the theft of the first sales slip would do it.
He followed the trail around the city. He learned some places were robbed a dozen times. He noted where the sales slips were from, but followed the exact trail to make sure he could prove a pattern.
He is working a lot faster than Baxter did, but he is on a time limit. he is running back and forth across the city. His funding is starting to run out. He has used his own money a few times, keeping record, just to make sure the trail can be followed as many establishments will dispose of the sales slips after a certain amount of time.
He gets to the very first place. They were supposed to dispose of the old sales slips but the person who was to do that called in sick. Rhyley pays for the tab with the last money in his pocket, then learns that the ticket was a stolen one from a different customer. Rhyley now has his evidence. he then gets a bit of information that tells him where to look for where Baxter had been hiding out.
There they find the stolen materials and a lot of illegal products. That is enough evidence to put Baxter away for life in a prison that he cannot escape from.