June 2010 Writing Ideas
.
There is no way I can write 365+ publishable stories in a year, let alone one publishable story. I started on 12 stories last year and wrote "the end" on four of them. None were at a publishable level.
Back on Prodigy Classic, in December 1997, I posted some story ideas I could not use. I soon found the story ideas 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 Thirteenth year of posting these story ideas. What they say is true. Ideas are a dime a dozen. Developed ideas are like gold. These are not fully developed...
.
01 )
I have a folding chair that scissors open and closed and has a fabric body that you sit in. The one I am thinking of also has arm rests of fabric.
The weapon was a set of tubes that scissored opened and closed. the tubes caused the energy to flow, mix and concentrate. when opened, a film of energy formed between the ends of the tubes. that film would "pluck" at the center, sending out a blast of plasma that could go through any armor. Besides the tube, all one needed was a power pack, which nearly every piece of equipment used. the gunner carried the power connector in his pocket when the weapon was not in use. he would just plug it into the weapon, and plug the power pack into the connector, and he was ready to fire.
The war was not going great for the federation forces. the weapon worked well, but the enemy seamed to be more mobile and they could not get their forces in position to fight before the enemy either out of range or had captured their position. They had sort of a ghost technology that allowed them to move with less detection and some materials like trees, did little to effect their movements.
Gizmo, as he was known, was a weaponeer. He used the weapon as his primary job. Being a normal lazy soldier, he got a great idea. He fitted caps on the ends of the weapon tubes, and found they did not effect how the weapon operated. That saved him some care that one had to take with it. He then got some fabric made and stretched it between the back parts of the weapon. He now had something useable as a folding chair.
No official would ever recommend that this be done with a weapon, but what they did not know, was not going to concern him.
the enemy moved in on their position. Their commander had people up ahead so he knew the enemy was coming. the force settled into defensive positions and opened fire on the enemy as they came in.
Gizmo and his platoon opened fired rapidly, taking out the enemy as they came in. When the enemy got too close for them to fire without being hurt from their own weaponry, the platoon put their weapons away.
Gizmo had fired his weapon without removing the fabric like he normally did. He simply set his weapon down, nose first, grabbed a couple drinks and sat down. He plugged the power supply into an entertainment unit and a couple more into a cooler and relaxed.
The enemy came among them and took their weapons. Gizmo handed over his side arm and shrugged when they demanded his main weapon. everybody else was disarmed. Gizmo remained sitting.
The power supplies he had were not taken as they were not being used for battle.
When the enemy demanded he get up and move to the others, he waved them off and took another drink. They did their version of a shrug and finished their work of disarming the emplacement.
Gizmo sat there, enjoying the entertainment for about an hour when the main transport arrived. Everybody knew the enemy held no respect for them and they would not survive. they just could not do anything about it.
Gizmo waited for the right time, He then reached into his pocket and removed the power connector. He plugged one end into a power supply, and then stuck the other end into the socket of his weapon. He waited a bit longer, then stood up, swung the weapon around and fired as it aimed at the main transport. He fired the four rounds that killed the power supply, He then plugged in the other power supplies as he took out the lead battle wagons. His team mates were unplugging his devices, plugging in the power supplies to his weapon then when they were empty, plugging them back into the devices. He quickly sat down on the weapon and picked up his drink.
The enemy knew the rounds came from this general area, but not sure where. No one seamed to have moved from where they were, Gizmo was laughing at some comedy on the entertainment.
the transports were abandoned as the materials were a plasma that fed on itself. In an hour, all their transports were glowing hulks. Their shielding would contain the worst of the energies until they died out.
The Federation forces counter attacked and the enemy could not escape fast. They were killed to the last creature.
Those who knew what happened, was not talking, and the rest had no idea what happened. all that was known was that a weapon had been hidden and used against the enemy.
The officer who got the weapons into the forces saw Gizmo, it took him a moment before he realized what Gizmo was actually sitting in.
He made Gizmo stand up. and examined the chair. He returned it and said nothing more.
when the forces were pulled back and given more training on new tactics, The whole force was trained in the use of the weapon, and then all were given chairs, which turned out to be the weapons. they were not told they were the weapons, but the weapons experts knew it. The soldiers were simply happy that they had chairs to sit in, even if they were heavy. they would later be happy they had weapons that the enemy could not find. the enemy stealth was reduced in effectiveness.

02 )
.
Brandon had talent in making objects out of wood, and decorating them. His specialty was to copy items of nature. He would make a bowl that looked like real leaves in the shape of a bowl. It was only when one touched it that one found it was of wood. He would make wooden flowers that were a delight to see. People commonly smelled and touched them to see if they were real. Brandon's real specialty was to make insects, worms, and small animals out of wood.
Brandon first made realistic items that schools all around would buy so their students could learn from them. His work was all over the place as he was prolific. He was somehow able to make all that people demanded.
He then changed his work. He started improving on nature, making creatures and flowers that were better than nature. People searched far and wide to find what he used for his patterns. They did not exist. He was making what people considered perfection.
The extremely wealthy and kings begged to buy his work, but he would not sell them. People had to pay to come to see his work, he had his own museum.
One day, one of the gods saw his work. the god was jealous about how good his work was. Other gods had created their own creatures and this god had created nothing.
The god visited the museum a dozen times in different mortal forms, examining the work, wishing he had creatures as perfect as these.
The god returned to the place of the gods and thought about the creations for a long time.
Brandon was warned that something powerful was interested in his work, but he did not care.
The god appeared in mortal form with gold, jewels, precious essences, and made repeated attempts to purchase the works. Brandon said they were not for sale. the value the god offered for the least of the pieces was enough to purchase all the lands of the kingdom. Brandon told him no, they are not for sale.
The god left, very irritated. The god continued to visit in different mortal forms to see the preciousness of the works.
The god finally decided that since other gods had given life to peoples and things, it could do so too.
the god snuck into the museum one night, and breathed life into each and every item. Wings flapped and flew around, legs scampered, they were alive, pretty, the place was such a pleasure. then one dragon fly fell to the ground and stopped moving. a mouse fell onto its side. one by one, the creatures fell to a surface and breathed their last breath.
The god was in shock, could not understand why they were dying. A butterfly laid on the ground, the wings slowly moving. He picked it up and examined it. there was a hole in the neck that ran into the chest. It had been created hollow. The god checked all the other creatures. holes, into different parts of the body. a mouse had no nostrils and a rat had no mouth. A lizard had no eyes. flowers could not take up water, trees were made too weak to hold themselves up.
the god examined every creation that Brandon made. In every case, the man had designed a flaw into each one so none cold survive for long.
The god was angry and wanted revenge, to punish Brandon for his trick to keep them from coming alive. then the god remembered that Brandon refused to sell them for all the wealth of the kingdom. Brandon must have known this would happen and tried to protect the people from the injury. The god left.
Brandon entered the museum in the morning and saw his dead creations all over the floor. Fear came over him. Whatever gave life to his creations was likely to get revenge.
He set his creations up on their displays and left the museum. He gathered his most personal belongings and left the shop and the museum. He dared not try to make something that good again. Whatever god gave life to his work had to be angry. to have something of even better quality would anger it more than it was.
He was taken in by a stone cutter family at the edge of civilization and spent the rest of his life cutting stone for walls and making simple statues. He did not know stone as well as he knew wood, so his quality never got above the quality of the master he worked for.
The god withheld his revenge on Brandon out of a sense of guilt for destroying such perfect work.

03 )
.
I keep hearing about top attorneys, top doctors, top scientists. My story idea mind clicked into gear. What did they mean when they are using the word top? I know they mean those among the best, but top has another definition, and I had to make use of it.
Many professions are now run by robots. The robots are good at their job. To keep the costs down, they are not supposed to be running all the time. they need only to be activated by their clients when needed.
Energy systems have been perfected to where a flashlight battery can now power a car up hill. Just about anything else will be powered by almost nothing. That brings me to the professionals.
the other definition for TOP, is a toy that one spins and it stands up on a pin, the spin of the toy is what keeps it standing. when it slows down to a certain point, it starts to wobble, then it finally falls down when all the energy is used up.
My first thought for top attorney was he himself was a top that you got spinning. I decided that was not a plausible use for the concept. I compromised.
the professionals are robots. they have a spinning devise within them, a top, that when spinning, powers up the systems. It might have magnets around it. the client chooses a professional and essentially pulls string. the spinning device inside wakes it up and it does the job that is needed for the moment. Thinking about it, I would rather use clockwork for this concept, but I already committed myself to using a top. Now they could operate with clockwork, but the spinning top powers the computer. They will run quite a while after the top runs down as the system is powered up.
the system is set up that the person who starts the top spinning, has accepted responsibility for the fees. Sort of like the price for hour. They spin the top and get an hour's worth of work.
Top doctors work on the professionals when they run into mechanical problems.
Sasha found she needed legal help. She checked with a living lawyer. the clerk asked a few questions and suggested that she use a top lawyer for her problem, and then come to the living lawyer only after the top lawyer had done what they could.
Sasha went to the legal building and selected a top attorney that seamed to be for the kind of work she needed. She paid the fee to plug in the memory stick where the case could be recorded. Whatever the lawyer came up with, she could plug that memory stick into another and all information would be there.
She wound the top up, and pulled as hard and fast as she could. The lawyer woke up and she presented her case. It took a while to go through the details. It was running out of energy.
She wound up the lawyer and got the top spinning again, and then the lawyer searched the information and then presented some options and information she would need.
Over the next week, she kept coming to the same top lawyer, going over the data and getting suggestions and requirements. She finally had her case built.
She filed her case and got her court date. her top lawyer was stationary so she needed one to carry her case in court. She had spent a lot of money already so she decided to go with a top lawyer in court.
She walks into the court and when it was time, she inserted her memory chip into the lawyer, and started it up by spinning the top. It declared it had examined the case and was ready.
the opposing lawyer came in. It was the human lawyer who's office she went to first. She knew she was in trouble. The two lawyers went to work, presenting the case. she wound her lawyer early each time to keep it at full power. She could see it was going to cost her just as much as the human lawyer would have cost her.
She saw that the human was working to run out her money, doing delays and extending the cases. She mentioned that to her lawyer and he said he understood. He changed his tactic slightly.
As the end of the case approached, the lawyer seamed to be having a problem. She interrupted him and told the judge there seamed to be a problem with her lawyer. A man dressed like a doctor, came in and checked the lawyer. The lawyer was examined and the man started working on the area the top was located. The judge said this man was a top doctor. On a lark, She asked if the doctor could start the top for her since she was losing power she had paid to use. The judge authorized it.
The doctor finished, started the top, and the lawyer went back to work.
She won the case against the human.
The human then tried to get the verdict dismissed because she got a free spin on the top lawyer and he had been messed with during the case. She realized that if the lawyer won the request, she would have to pay for the trail all over again and her opponent knew all the tricks she had.
She paid the last bit of money into the top lawyer and let him fight for the verdict. She was broke.
The top lawyer ran out of energy before he gave his final summation. She had nothing left. She was really ticked. The lawyer was about to win just because he outlasted her funds. Her anger and desperation got the better of herself, so she stood up and defended herself, herself. She was unorthodox in her presentation compared to what the court was used to, but she was passionate. When she stopped talking, the human lawyer said that she had not canceled her lawyer and had not asked permission to speak to the court. She had to speak through her lawyer.
She held up the string and asked, "what is it worth to you?"
Their judge said that there were rules and precedence for what she did so that complaint failed.
the judge retired to his chambers. later, the judge returned. The chip was still in her lawyer, she had not removed it. he said that her lawyer was still active because the chip was still in him.
She won her case. The human was beaten by the top lawyer.

04 )
.
This morning, I saw an advertisement. It said "Do you want an affordable Design?" I now don't remember exactly what it was an advertizement for, but it caught my story idea mind. At that time, I had started the page loading, and had leaned back in my chair. When the page came up, I leaned forward. It was while I was moving forward that I misread the add and, for a fraction of a second, thought it said "Do you want an affordable dragon." I instantly clicked for the next page I was after and never gave the add a clear look.
Now my story idea mind clicked into over drive. The thought is that SOMETHING wants the guy to "purchase" it, to bring it home. Now the dragon idea was interesting, but I am following other rules with dragons so I chose to make a change.
I decided the thing is an Imp. They are not used much so I can do a lot with them, making them fit the story.
The imp is trapped sort of in a parallel plane. It is there, in the room, but cannot interact with anybody. It has to be invited into the room for it to become solid, a real creature. Some magician must have spelled it into this situation. We all know how much troubles an imp can cause.
Baxter is working on his computer. He was not paying much attention as he was going through his work, visiting a number of sites on line. He sees an advertizement that says "Do you want an affordable imp." He was in the middle of a sequence of pages required to check his E-mail and really only thought he saw the add.
A bit later he is clicking along and sees an advertizement that says "protect your imp with 'fast block' anti-virus."
Again he was clicking through. now he wonders if he had seen such an add. It is in the evening he is clicking through some sites and sees "Imp your weight fast." Baxter stops and looks. There is a little man waving at him. The rest of the advertizement looks like a weight loss add.
Wondering if he had picked up a virus or Trojans, he runs his anti-virus program when he logs off. In the morning, he clears his cookies and checks for other problems.
Baxter logs on and sees an advertizement "the president signed a bill to reduce the cost on your imps. He sat there and looked at the add for a long time then decided to take a chance. He put the cursor over the add and clicked. A screen came up and there was a little man on screen. It says "get your very own imp, free of charge. You just have to entertain it and feed it and it is yours. Click here and he will arrive soon."
Baxter clicked on the 'click here. button. Text appeared on screen. "read this aloud." it said. Then it had the text, "Maxwell imp, I welcome you into my presence, to be my friend and forever companion."
Baxter looked at the screen for a long moment, wondering what this was, He finally said the words loudly.
The screen then said, “read it again, as if you mean it!” The text appeared again. Baxter read it again, properly.
"I'm here!" a small voice said behind him. Baxter turned and there was the little man. It stood half way to his knee. he looked back at the screen and he was at the screen where the original add was but now it was advertizing home loans.
Baxter now realized he had made a mistake. He should never have clicked on the advertisement. Bad things always followed. Ne knew now, from the request he had read, that this little creature was not going to be going anywhere soon....

05 )
.
He was the only one with real money. Because of his wealth, when he needed to travel the area, he had to arrange for transportation, security, make sure people his appointment with would be there when he arrived. He had to verify his route and check to see traffic on those routes. It hindered him to do his work when he was away from the office or home. Of course, since his office was not at home, he had to travel between them twice each day.
Everywhere he went, he passed through at least two toll plazas. the tolls were not cheep either. He paid for his vehicle and all his security. In the few times he had time to give it a thought, he wondered how the rest of the population could afford the cost of the tolls. they were very expensive even for him.
His company manufactured magic powered steam engines for factories, ships, or trains. Their smallest barely fit in the biggest of the highway trucks. He himself did not do the magic for the engines. He created and now managed the company, selling some of the installations.
His company was the only one who could make these power plants so he became extremely wealthy. Others made smaller power plants, such as what is in his cars, but it took really powerful magic to bind the entities powerful enough to run the big engines.
One day, he caught ill and it took a while to recover On a lark right after he recovered, he decided to go out on his own. He borrowed his gardener's car and went for a drive. He traveled all around the area. He was shocked to find there were no toll plazas anywhere. He kept driving, on different routes, searching for them since he never saw them. He was coming home and saw one of the toll plazas off in a field. there was no road there.
the next day, he had to go to work. His convoy lined up and hit the road. right on a route he drove the day before, was a toll plaza. He paid the fee and continued on. He met the second one just before he got to work.
he contacted a power company and made arrangements to see the steam engine running the plant. His convoy hit toll plazas right where there was none . He hit the second one just before arriving. He made arrangements from there to go to a new site. Again he passed through a toll plaza fairly quickly, and then through a second one just before they arrived. This time, he made arrangements for a site opposite the first toll plaza. He went through both of them. He then went through both of them on the way back to the office, and then on the way home. His take home pay was good, but he just paid one day's take home pay in tolls for his caravan that day. Of course, the company paid for it.
He got an idea. He arranged for the caravan to drive. He got a friend to play the part of him. he borrowed a worker's car and followed the caravan on a different road. the caravan had gone through the toll plaza and he arrived. the toll plaza folded up and started following the caravan. As soon as they passed the second one, both followed the cars.
When the caravan started in a new direction after reaching its destination, One of the toll plazas went a distance ahead and parked, unfolding just before the caravan got there. the second one kept going down the road. the first one delayed the caravan while the second one got a good enough head start.
He now knew there were only two toll plazas. they always were in his path wherever he went.

06 )
.
Kalore was the perfect super hero. He had absolutely no known weakness. He was raised with a strong moral foundation and that stayed with him, but when he started visiting hundreds of other peoples in the galaxy, his morals drifted to fit within the morals of those peoples. That turned out to be a bit of a problem for the people he started with. To them, he stopped being a good man and started creating problems for them. He was making himself boss of this part of the galaxy.
None of the peoples he visited liked his moral stance and several did what they could to try to get rid of him. there were other super heros but they were no match for him as he could find their weak spot but he had none for them to use.
These attacks hardened him against those people, applying a hard hand in ruling them, trying to force the anger out of them. that always failed.
Eventually Kalore would flit from inhabited planet to another planet, checking to see if they were following his rules and punishing them if he caught them acting wrong. It was hard work. He was afraid of spreading himself too thin. He was unwilling to trust control to someone else with power. their morals were not his.
there was one place he loved. It was a pastoral area on a civilized planet. It had once been a space colony of an older race and lost contact. they had no wars and were industrious. He was able to go there and shut down for a while, not watching over his back for some lower mortal being to attack him. because he was not actively enforcing his morals, the population left him alone.
They were irritated that he would eat their foods dig through their stuff, invite himself to meals in their homes, but otherwise he was not a problem for them.
One day, a planet met him in full battle. He had not been there for some time. they nearly drove him off, but his irritation at their attack on him, and that he was not harmed by anything they did, made him defeat them and put them in their place. He rounded up and executed their leadership as punishment for their attack on him.
He then told them that they were going to worship him as their god. Maybe they would learn to love him above all else.
he then returned to his pastoral planet to think. It really shook him that they put all that effort to drive him away.
While musing about why they would do that, a voice appeared out of the sky and in his head. "I had given you such power and you abused it." He looked around, then up. he saw a face in the clouds.
"Now you have taken my worshipers away, and wasted their powers."
"Are, are, are you?" Kalore could not get the god word out.
"As punishment, since you like this place, you shall stay."
Kalore felt a touch to his shoulder, He collapsed to the ground, gasping. It felt as if his his bones were ripped out of his body. He nearly blacked out.
When he rolled over and sat up, he looked. The cloud was still there. "Try and fly." Kalore got up to his feet and threw his hands up. Nothing. He leaped, fell flat on his face. That hurt bad. He got up and his hand was bleeding. he gasped.
"I have taken all your powers. You are now as mortal as the others here. Your real punishment is that the people will soon stop fearing you and you will have to please them to survive."
The cloud was suddenly gone. So was the voice and the presence that was around him.
He thought of where he could go. He chose a nearby farm. He started running. He was going really slow and stumbled a few times on rocks in the road. he was halfway to the farm when he had to stop, winded. He knew of the records of the mortals He knew he was in as good a shape as the best of them.
He arrived at the farm, walking up. The farmer faced him down, as he had done every time Kalore showed up. The man had always backed down. Kalore was covered in sweat and was puffing. the man did not back down, He started spinning the shovel.
" I want food."
"No, go away."
Kalore had seen what a shovel had done to a normal man. He looked at his hand, then at the shovel. He realized he never learned to fight, He just powered his way through any situation, depending on his power to do the job. Now he was as helpless in a fight as a child.
His eyes teared up. He turned away. The farmer kicked him in the bottom, sending him sprawling. Kalore picked himself up and wandered away. crying for the first time in is life.
He found he could not climb many barriers he simply flew over or otherwise ignored. he nearly drowned when he tried to cross a river to get into an orchard. His splashing caused him to move, swim, back to the bank he left.
He finally found a family that would tolerate him. the farmer put him to work and he worked hard. he had more strength and more endurance than a normal human, He slowly learned how to measure out his abilities to last the whole day and not wear himself out. He had no skills, no training. He had to learn from the very beginning. He got blisters, he found a lot of sensations, sell feel, taste, were horrible. his farmer forced him through it, saying it would make him a man.
Other farmers slowly accepted him as one of their community as he proved himself able to work. It was difficult, but he became much like the normal people surrounding him.
One day, he felt a presence and then saw visions of himself, unable to handle normal things, getting hurt, being humiliated. The voice he heard before said, "this is not one who needs to be worshiped Return to the old ways, old gods."
then the voice spoke to him. "You are no longer their god." The presence was gone.
Kalore was stuck, powerless, having to live like a mortal. He later learned he did not age. He did not know how immortal he was, it was longer than he ever wanted it to be. that was his real punishment.
.
My paper says " A perfect super hero with absolutely no weaknesses. god shuts him down in a place he thought was paradise.

07 )
.
My brother gave me this idea based on my mentioning of a previous idea on folding chairs, and about dogs he had known.
The chairs are bio-robots. They were designed to follow the person, closed up, and then get behind the person and open up so they can sit down without ever giving it a thought.
They were mostly mechanical, powered by tendons and muscles. They had a modified dog's brain in them as the computer. The obedience and ability to learn was kept, while the dog specific behavior was removed.
The body of the chair is mainly a scissor design where the chair scrunched up in a narrow unit. The legs that it moved on, which was four legs, came out when it needed to move and folded up with it became a chair. The legs were designed something like a dog's leg so training was quicker because of the dog's brain.
The chairs were trained from the very beginning as a dog did, first learning how to move, then how to walk, then run, then were trained how to be chairs and follow a person around. When they finished their training, they were put up on sale for adoption. they quickly learned who their master was and followed them slavishly. Being sit upon was the physical equivalent of being petted. That was their greatest pleasure. They knew they were loved when someone sat down on them.
They had mechanical sensors all over the surfaces of the chair and the fabric that the people sat into. they know every contact with anything.
if hey sat down in soft soil, they would use their legs to hold themselves up, and steady. They were designed so they could carry a very heavy person around on their "backs" acting like a wheel chair. So if they settled in on soft surfaces, the could lift themselves up and move a little to get better surfaces if needed.
In practice, a person would walk around with the chair just behind their bottom, racing around as the person turned around. The person would simply start to sit down and the chair would sidle up to them, open up and adjust position so they came confidently into the seat. The master always knew the chair would be there for him so sitting down required no checking that it would be there. A trained chair never messed up, ever.
BR3t was a brand new chair. It had done normal in training and the owner tested it well before taking it home. The chair was shown that its job was not to follow anybody in particular around, but to be available when anybody wants to sit down. It would be called to them and they would sit down. this was common among many owners.
The problem started when the teenage boy would actually leap into the air and come down on the chair really hard. He did this dozens of times. The chairs do feel pain and can be damaged. The last time the boy leaped into the air, the chair closed up and ran into a corner between the wall and a dresser. the boy came down hard on the floor, nothing stopping him from breaking his tail bone.
The chair was checked and damage was corrected. The chair remembered it and BR3t refused to stay put for anybody to sit in it. When someone started to sit down, it would stay up to the very last moment and then move away.
The teenager recovered from his injuries. The chair would not answer to him and would move away, and even hide, when the boy was around.
Jamberry was from the forests. His people commonly sat on the ground and on stump and logs or rocks. Mostly, though, they sat on the ground. he came to visit the city. He saw the chairs and saw how they worked. He was impressed. His people were not really primitive, they were selective as to the technology and comforts they used. They had to carry everything on their backs when they moved and chairs were not important enough to have, even ones that can walk. The walking chairs would never have a person in it, instead be piled with equipment and supplies. they used more efficient, more inexpensive robots to transport things.
Jamberry was brought in by the family to stay for a while. He was shown how things were done, what the luxuries did and how to work them. by the end of the day, he was quite comfortable
He watched how the chair avoided being sat on and commented on that. They said that since the boy hurt it, it won't let anybody sit on it.
The evening entertainment came on and Jamberry sat down on the floor while everybody else sat in chairs. they had just enough chairs for everybody except Jamberry. They offered him their chair and they would stand. Jamberry told them that he always sat on the floor. It was where he was most comfortable.
As he sat there, BR3t came up to him. It settle down close. He ignored the chair and enjoyed the entertainment. He got up several times and the chair followed him.
At one point, he was sitting down and the chair got sort of behind him He brushed it to the side and sat down on the floor.
A bit later the chair opened up and got partly between him and the floor, but he brushed it to the side anyway.
He was there for a week when he started to sit down on the floor and was stopped part way there. He was seated in the chair. He got up, and moved it to the side and sat on the floor.
He got up about an hour later, and when he sat down, the chair was there. He found it would not let him sit on the floor. It followed him wherever he went, right behind his bottom. He just needed to bend over slightly and it opened up and was against his legs so he could sit down. he finally accepted it and sat in it, petting the arm rests as he sat.
He was there for another week. By then, the chair was letting anybody, except the teenager, to sit on it.
They asked what happened with the chair. Jamberry simply said that he has had real dogs. there are times when, if you ignore them, they will come to you for attention, rather than you chasing them all over the place.

08 )
.
The colonists were on the wrong plane. Their navigation got turned around during a serious power out. The navigation teacher, the only person who knew real navigation, had no real idea of what he was teaching. He was making it up, going through the motions of real navigation. he and others on the bridge had died in the event that caused the power out, and the students came up with the route to set the computers and it was nearly ninety degrees off. They used what they had learned, properly. It was only when they were near the planet that they figured out how to navigate properly and figure out their mistake.
The planet had life in the seas and on land, but it was a primative planet, land life was not fully developed for land existance. The planet they were supposed to go to, was terriformed with known life to create a comfortable place to set up a colony. Nothing that was useless existed there.
The colonists were going to have to learn their way from scratch. The ships would never survive a trip to anywhere else.
After sending requisit communications to home, loaded the shuttles with everything they could carry and landed on a planet in six locations the computer suggested would be good colony sights Only one was by the ocean. The subsiquent trips stripped the ship down to the frame, then the frame was packed up and taken to the planet, leaving a glowing ball of glass and debris (nuts, bolts, dust, bits) orbiting the planet.
The colonies did what they were taught to do, they first established their homes and businesses, and farms, then went about building roads to the other colonies. they had communications so they were able to meet up. Transportation across the continent started in all directions. It was rough, slow travel, but the colonies were connected. As products were created, they started shipping. With travel and shipping available, the colony locations proved to be good. each had something that the others did not have.
Native foods proved to be pretty good. there had not been a whole lot of predation so the native plants had little poisons. of course, they also had little in the way of flavor, since flavors are a by-product of attempts by plants to fight off preditors. There were land animals, including some preditors, but they stayed only to the lush lands, near water.
The herbs and spices the colonists brought were a big crop. Of course they learned how to get maximum harvest from the various native plants.
The rivers were teaming with life. Fishing became a main supply of food. The colonies immediately worked on farming the fish for better production.
Ocean fishing was where the big crops were. Ocean fish were big, lots of whale sized creatures swimming around. The largest fish were not worth the effort to catch. They tended to avoid the shores, and avoid the boats.
The colonists ran into a problem though. There was a "shark" that ran about sixteen feet long, that would go right up on shore catch the fishermen. they went almost to pure fresh water in their hunting. dozens of men were taken by the sharks.
It made fishing very dangerous as the sharks would actually leap out of the water to grab a person. They saw the sharks take land animals all the time when they were near the water, in the same way.
The colonists made their ships large and when they needed to wor in water, they set down barriers.
One day, a was walking along the docks, tripped and fell into the water. there were a half dozen of the sharks there. The woman swam to a ladder and was about to climb out, when a shark leaped up over her and brought down a man, dragging him down in a bloody trail. She got out of the water and to safety.
A bit later, a woman was in the water and found herself surrounded by sharks. they bumped her and brushed against her, but did not take a bite.
Another woman was on the docks a shark leaped up and pulled her into the water. It immediately released her. Cut up bad, she climbed out of the water.
A pattern was noticed. Women were avoided. A woman scientist went into the water with sensory equipment and studied the sharks. they were curious about her, but did not attack. The sharks would eat a man, but not a woman.
they started some tests with some captive sharks and found that a chemical that women have in their bodies, that men do not, cause the sharks to shut their mouths.
Researchers started testing every kind of sea life they could find. It took them time, but they found the fish. it contained some organs that were deadly poison. that was good to know.
The men started bathing in the chemical that the fish had and that women had, so they could now swim without being attacked by sharks.
It was good to know that the man eating sharks did not eat women. Now that the men could "smell" like a woman, they were now safe too. The chemical became a standard component in soaps. anybody who went to the ocean, had a fighting chance of surviving a shark attack.
.
My note said Man eating sharks - Won't eat women.

09 )
.
Melee was a first-in scout. His job was to locate planets that have the slightest chance of being made habitable. Finding a planet with advanced life was a bonus.
He had a team with him. He was in a separate ship, docked to the mother ship. He never interacted with them, just went for the ride. He would hear the others in a knock down, drag out fights, verbal and physical, because of "cabin fever." he made sure he never even communicated with them when they were in that mood. It would do him no good to answer a seemingly harmless question and get pulled into a vicious argument that was going on.
When they saw something of interest, he would detach and go close to examine the planet in detail, logging everything, then returning. When he docked, he sent his data to their computers, one way. He never brought data from their computer because writing viruses was easy and it was a great way go get revenge on someone.
It was common for crews of such ships to write a virus to get some device, the one they were arguing with had, infected with something to cause them a lot of heartache. Viruses tend not to stay to a single device.
Cruising a long, they detected a solar system with planets near the right area. Melee launched and flew close. he sent back pictures and sensory data to the ship. The ship changed course immediately to come by. They found a planet with large towns, farming and roads.
Melee did his second job as a first in scout. After careful examination of the planet, he landed a comfortable distance from one of the habitations to do serious examinations of the life on the planet. When the ship caught up, it landed nearby. they would never leave their ship. One never knew what pathogens they might have. some planets are almost as bad as the ship's computers when ti comes to viruses.
Melee brought samples to the ship and stuck them in a special examination drawer. the ship could examine the life better than he could. it also gave them something productive to do. Bugs, leaves, flowers, small animals all were examined in detail.
He got day and night scans of large animals. It took him a month before he got to where he could study the people. They were bipedal, a pair of arms. both the legs and arms had an extra joint, and they had a thumb and four fingers on their feet and hands.
The strangest thing was that they were big. they looked like they were six or seven hundred pounds, even though they were no taller than he was. he studied them from as far a distance as he could. He had changed his space suit to the color of the surroundings so he blended in better.
He found that when he finally got close, they purposely avoided him if he was detected. they would abandon what they were doing that moment, leaving. They were observant.
One day, he saw a couple of them heading out into the forest He kept his distance away and observed. he saw predators, even very big and powerful ones, back away when they came. He figured out that they were too big for the predators to tackle.
Then he saw the local version of a lion in a tree and they walked beneath it, not knowing it was there. When the last one got in the right position, the lion leaped off the branches. It came in, claws first. the bulbous body of the man popped. the lion did not let go, or could not let go. The man spun and came out of his skin, screaming in pain. they ran as fast as they could away while the lion was left with a bunch of skin.
The victim was about the same proportions as Melee His body was now red, covered in blood vessels. Melee scanned them in detail, and could not figure out why he missed the signals. The people were surrounded by a big inflated bubble of skin. He now saw how it saved them.
Melee returned and showed the data to those on the ship. He then got a great idea. He found out they had an environmental suit in an outside compartment. He took it out to their protestation, and donned it. He then inflated it and deflated it. Adding some cords in about the right places, before re-inflating it. He made a few more adjustments. Those in the ship said he looked just like the natives.
He went to the village and entered carefully, watching for any problems. They knew he was a stranger and were wary of him, but he was able to get close.
He found the one who had lost his skin. His skin was now dried and changing back to skin color.
Melee was soon moving among them, observing how they lived and worked. He sometimes helped or learned.
After a couple months, when it was time to leave, the man who lost his skin already was looking puffy. he had formed a new layer of skin and it was inflating again. Based on the rate of inflation, it would take him a couple years to get back to normal.
Melee put the environmental suit back in the chamber and decontamination started. he cleaned out the examination chambers so they could be decontaminated too. He finally re-entered his ship and slipped out of his suit in a way where he never was exposed to the surface. The suit would be decontaminated too.
The two ships launched at the same time and met up in orbit. The planet would be marked as a taboo planet because of the people there. it would also be recorded as another planet with life.
Melee settled into his private routine and the others settled into the things that would have them at each other's throats in a short time.

10 )
.
The Kords were accidentally brought in with a shipment of exotic plants. The young are like a small lizard, but they grow into creatures that can eat people very easily. Several young were in some trees and brought to the colony planet. they escaped detection and entered the environment.
Once the Kord took over the landscape, the population moved out. it was too dangerous to be there. The Kords form of attack would be to use cover to get close, and attack from the brush. They tended not to attack when there was a group of people. Not everybody can travel in a large group.
Sitsue had built an ornamental garden. He had many species that had gone extinct in their home lands, and others that was not found too many other places. He had set up his gardens to display, propagate, and promote the plants. It was also a reserve.
As the Kord took over some areas, the people would denude their ands, clearing out all trees and shrubs, not giving them any place to hide.
The Kord were finally seen in Sitsue property. Immediately, the heavy construction equipment people were gathering around his house to clear the land.
Sitsue knew the value of his plants and was not about to lose them. He told them he had a way to eliminate the Kord hiding places while saving his plants.
He made the construction people use absolute care on his property, something they just could not understand. they were for stripping land to the raw dirt.
Sitsue moved to the edge of his "forest" and potted up plants one at a time. Once a valuable tree was cleared of plants, he had a giant root ball dug and the tree moved to a large field he also owned.
He kept doing this to the great frustration of the people around them. it took him several months instead of the day stripping they wanted to do. set up shade awnings in various places around the property to keep shade loving plants shaded. Some plants were planted around the bases of the large trees where the shade would last. there was always a big space between the growths.
He planted several types of ground cover between them too. Nothing that would hide the Kords that were at a dangerous size.
when he was done, One could see cords moving through the landscape easily, but the valuable plants were well protected and thriving.
Several other people started doing the same thing, relocating trees and large shrubs so there was spaces between them. Some of the areas, the trees were big enough to where they would shade entire areas, yet leave them wide open.
There was one entire section of the colony what was stripped clean of all life, while another section that was designed with big spaces between trees and shrubs. Then there was an area that had not been touched yet. the untouched areas soon became surrounded by designed landscapes. The Kord would not cross the open lands to get to them.
The people who had denuded their lands, realized they had over-reacted. They started replanting. Sitsue just happened to have some plants available to put in the ground, for a price. he figured that if they paid good money for them, they would take care of them. Others brought in native plants much like Sitsue did with his property.
One thing was that they were worried about even the babies of the Kord. Sitsue knew that he only needed to worry about the adult Kord so anything smaller was not going to be a problem.
With the harvesting of plants from the native areas, and planting of the denuded lands with spaces around plants, the territory inhabited by the Kord shrunk and was farther and farther away from the colony.
Some people caught the Kord and explored possible uses for them. They tasted horrible and had thin skins that were poor for leather. They were essentially useless for commercialization.
A lightning storm started forest fire burned through the remains of the natural forest that the Kord inhabited. they were driven to the sea where some water based predators (some spent time on land) feasted on them. The kord could not grow big enough to be dangerous and the kord eventually went extinct.
Sitsue expanded his exotic garden, keeping to the open design the kord created. No hiding places, wide spaces between, ended up eliminating other pest that would have loved the plants he had in his garden.

11 )
.
There was a commercial last year that showed a woman wiping down the surfaces of her kitchen with raw chicken. the advertizement said that using your household sponge was just as bad. While taking care of some pieces of poultry, the commercial came to mind and I got an idea of how to use it. I will ramble a little to develop it.
Like a lot of my story ideas, the trick is to take something that is silly, such as wiping down the surfaces of the kitchen with raw meat, and come up with a reason that would be a great thing to do.
Immediately, I came up with the idea that the meat coating brings something out that will sterilize it better than one could do with any cleaner.
My first though was a big animal, the size of a Great Dane or water buffalo, coming in and licking the surfaces, the saliva has enzymes that makes the surfaces sparkling clean. that was an interesting concept, but I decided that something smaller would be better. It could get into tight places.
The concept here is that the whole kitchen becomes completely clean and sanitary when the creature or creatures are done. I am bouncing between an insect sized creatures, and a mouse sized creature.
Insect size creatures seams to be better, on the idea of an ant's nest. Hundreds or thousands of creatures come out of hiding and "lick" the surfaces clean of the meat juices, taking away any microbes that would be on there. Being small, they would get into every crack and crevice, even if there was no meat juice to make sure those places would be clean.
The larger creatures, by nature, would not be as thorough in getting into tight places where the juice would collect. Being larger, their cleaning might take less time. there would be a nest of a couple hundred of them. Gecko sized creatures might be pretty good, they could walk up the surfaces to clean the surfaces.
A different case I just thought of, is that there is a microbe on the surfaces that need food, the meat juices, to replicate rapidly, to cover the surfaces and drive out microbes that would be dangerous to the people.
I just now thought of something. There is a microbe on the surface. One rubs the meat on the surface to get the microbes on the meat. the meat is put back into the fridge and allowed to sit over night. when it is taken out, the microbes have colonized the meat and imparts extra tenderness and some flavor the meat is then cooked, or the meat might not even need to be cooked, which would be better. The juices on the surface soak up the juices, changing them and building up a safe coating on the surface.
I would use this last concept with some creatures that come out to clean the surfaces, if it was the one to use. It could be that the "seasoning" is added to some meat by rubbing it on the surface, then the creatures come out and clean it. the seasoned meat is placed with another piece of meat to pass on seasoning and this is done for a few weeks or month. The microbes would have been wiped out and take time to build up again. The creatures would have been fed and return to their nest to hibernate. After the period of time, one does no put the meat with another piece but cook it. One then takes out a new piece of meat and starts fresh. and revives the critters and have the place cleaned.
This concept might have the best story possibilities. The people have been doing this for decades or centuries. Something happens, a new pollutant in the environment, changes what microbe develops on the surface. it takes time for the change to happen. After one cleaning, though, the different microbe takes over fully, grows faster. The people do their surface wipe. The critters come out. the critters are not enthusiastic on their cleaning. they can sense the change. they clean the surface anyway.
The microbes grow on the meat as before and is transferred to the next bit of meat. The meat has a different flavor but is not noticed. The toxins in the microbes and the strength of the microbes takes time to develop. People start getting sick for some reason.
The time for the cleaning comes again and the surfaces are wiped. the critters don't show up. No one knows why. the surface has the filth all over it. more people are getting sick. the homemakers clean the surfaces with chemicals, scrubbing into every nook and cranny.
Someone who is working on one house opens up the wall where the critters in his house is located. the nest is dead. quickly other nests are located and examined. There are some critters alive, but large portions are dead. It is only then that the scientists examine the microbes on the surfaces and on the meats, finding that they had changed.
The people are ordered to stop the practice. The best cleaners are found for the surfaces. the original microbes are cultured and a spread is created, or they put together a chemical treatment that resembles the effect the microbes had.
Over time, the original microbe returns to strength and the critters return to a healthy population, but now they are no longer needed or even really desired. they never become as big a population as they once did because the cleaning methods had changed.
It just dawned on me that the practice could have started because of a disease that spreads through the community. There is no way to prevent the disease. one can only treat it.
The botulin toxin is found to be a cure, but it has to be taken in orally. Since the microbe is prevalent in raw meats, they know they can spread it on the surfaces and get the microbes into their bodies. It would also spread back into their meats that they consume.
The people spread the microbes over all the surfaces that people touch. Because their environment has been sterilized of most any other microbes, this makes it the main microbe in the environment. People touch all sorts of surfaces all the time, touch their mouths and faces, get the microbe into their system. the toxins from the microbe fights the disease, keeping them relatively healthy. It happens that the disease prevents the toxins from doing them serious damage either.
You end up with a woman wiping down all the surfaces of the kitchen with the carcass of a fowl to protect the family.

12 )
.
They were the chosen ones. They were prophesied that when they had their own nation when certain events happened, the world would come to an end. There was a warning in the prophecy that said what would happen if they were to cease to exist. It was a good warning. During the last time of reckoning, their nation was overran by a powerful empire and their people were scattered.
Over the centuries they suffered bad luck. Any place they seamed to be doing well, was taken over by another nation and the people scattered.
Technology developed and the entire world became involved in a world war. As a penalty for losing, the lands were split up. The chosen ones found themselves with a piece of their homeland as a nation. They got the lands because their population was decimated by the losing empire.
Within days of being declared a nation, they were attacked by surrounding neighbors who were different races. The chosen ones won. there were several more wars and the chosen ones won.
Then political will to defend the chosen ones started to wane. the rest of the world started looking at the chosen ones as oppressors, they were getting pressure to give up their lands, return it to the previous owners. It did not matter that the records showed they held the lands. A large part of the world wanted them out of the lands. No one knew why.
A historian starts examining the historical records of the chosen people. He slowly learned how they became chosen. he then saw how they always developed a nation to impress those around them.
The empire that took over their lands, had spent several centuries expanding in a different direction. It had no interest in the area that the chosen people had. It suddenly pulled the entire might of the empire and swept through the lands of the chosen people. the empire withdrew within a generation, returning to the past borders, but the nation of the chosen people had ceased to exist, to be habited by "lesser" populations.
In his studies, he runs across the prophecy and he saw that the people were disbursed just before the event that would end the world.
He then studied the people as they passed through history. they were always decimated and scattered whenever they seamed to have a large population somewhere.
He sees a pattern happening now. Something causes him to look back at the prophecy and he wonders if it would happen again.
He follows the process he had used when he worked out the prophecy before. when he is done, he sees that it is going to happen within a generation, though he does not have the information to pin point the event.
Looking around the world, he sees that there are no nations that were an empire that was in the position to sweep over them or their location. He then sees that they have the requisite population in actually three locations.
this is when he realizes that there are many in the world that do not want the world to end. He sits down to figure out how all three populations would have to be decimated, scattered, if the world was to be saved.
The home nation itself will require the surrounding populations, with the help of other nearby populations. It would be a bloody battle, but could happen.
Another population would be easily wiped out. simple political disagreements could be created to start the war.
There was one population that was apparently safe. It was in a powerful, peaceful nation. He was now watching modern news, more than studying history. After about a year, he sees the politics changing in the powerful nation. A whole series of things are happening that is not good for the chosen people. secret little rules get passed that will allow the government to send anybody out of the country, to take property, to arrest anybody. those changes, if a few others are passed, could allow the nation to arrest and scatter the chosen ones rapidly.
he then returns to the original texts. He needs to know exactly what happens when the world comes to an end. is this something to worry about.
An old temple has been found. he signs up to be there when it is opened. he watches the excavation. Everybody gets excited that it is from a very early period of the chosen people.
There was indication in the records that the chosen people had moved to the lands after they were chosen.
They get down to where there are carvings, text on the stones. he sits down and translates the text the best he can. He is no expert
Pieces missing makes it frustrating.
The temple is finally fully excavated and the stones are laid out. he sits and reads it. A few pieces were damaged. Much of the text has to do with the prophecy. He gets to the part where it starts to mention about the end of the world. some of the text is missing, but it looks like something good will happen, rather than something bad. he sends images of the text to some expert translators.
he has to go do some business. He learns that the truck that was transporting the text, had crashed, shattering every stone. The place he sent the pictures, died in a bad fire, all data, including the pictures, was lost. Someone breaks into his home and his originals of the images are lost.
it dawns on him that no one wants the truth to be out about the prophecy. They want the chosen ones not to be a nation when the prophecy comes due, no matter what.
He suddenly realizes that he is in danger. They think he knows what the text says in full, so they are going to remove him before he can tell anybody. A large group of the chosen ones are arrested due to actions against the nation they were in. A gaff by one leader has caused tensions to gain between the nations where the chosen people are in the way if there is a war. A small incident involving intercession of a ship in chosen people's water, has caused half a dozen nations to align with the chosen one's enemies.
He is sitting there in his hotel, then something dawns on him. It would be very easy for the chosen people to be completely eliminated during this event. those that would be arrested and scattered, would likely go to nations that don't like them and would remove them, simply to make sure they were not a big enough population. the other two big populations would easily be overrun.
he sends out a message to a place that will report what he has to say. He writes that he had seen a section of the text at the temple. he then reports the section that says what will happen to the world if the chosen people are destroyed. he uses the wording of the actual text, translated.
The next day, his report is in the news. He resigns himself to his death. he had done what he could to save the world. If a small population of the chosen ones remain alive, then the world will be safe in whatever else happens. the hope is that someone sets to the side a segment of the population.
there is a knock on his door and he knows no one was to be visiting. Resigned to his fate, he opens the door.

13 )
.
It was a very old Military school. No one knew how old it was, but most said it existed near the beginning of the federation. Anybody who went through the school, ended up to be an excellent commander, some of them developed big names of historical battles.
Greezer felt he needed to save his colony, which was near the edge of an expanding empire. He went to the school to learn to be a good commander, to lead his people in the defense of his colony.
While others took breaks, he was studying, trying to understand the lessons of the assignments. he never felt he was a great student. He tried to make up for it. Most students went home during a break period. Greezer found there were "summer" classes so he took them, working hard on the basics, trying to pick up on stuff he missed.
There were times where they would work as teams, guiding soldiers in battles. They worked from their headquarters, not on the battle field. Greezer felt he had no idea what exactly was going on. The field commanders did not know his methods so he had difficulty explaining what he wanted done. He had not trained him in his methods. Also, his commands passed through two other people, his commands interpreted, not directly passed on.
Others complained quite a bit about not having trained the soldiers, not having direct communications with the field commanders. There was nothing anybody could do about it.
After the second battle, he went to the library and searched for situations where such command system might work. Well past bad time, he found a situation where the commander was passing on commands through a chain of multiple interpreters. He sat for a good ten minutes, his mouth open, finally understanding what they were being taught. Knowing what to look for, he searched for similar situations and studied how they handled the situations.
The third battle was the next day, early morning. He had not slept at all, having studied what kinds of commands would survive translations. He assumed that there were few if any military people between him and the commanders in the field.
Knowing the limitations of his communications, he gave the most basic information, and depended on the commanders in the field to figure out how to make it work. The enemy overran other commands, but his not only held, his command counter attacked and took the enemy command.
That night he slept well and nearly missed the wake up call.
Many of the other students were miliary geniuses, but he seamed to do better than they did.
For most of the courses, he was operating on half the sleep he needed, and somehow proving his skills anyway. Twice, he went three days without sleep and still showed up the other students in the battles.
IN classes and direct command simulations, he was falling farther and farther behind. Geniuses of the classes were shining brightly.
In the last year, the old master took over. He looked old, rickety, but he had a sharp mind and sharp tongue. He had a way of sucking one's brain out, shaking it in public to show what a person was hiding, and then shoving it back in, all scrambled.
Everybody knew the old man was right and never questioned what they were told. There were several times when Greezer knew he was right and stood up to the old master. The master usually won, but Greezer came out with an understanding he would never have before. Once, several students came to him later thanking him for getting that information explained in detail. After such incidents, Greezer would go back and study his information again to see where he was wrong and why. He soon learned how to read the historical data to correct those errors.
Graduation day finally came. Greezer knew he just barely passed. He figured he might be able to help his people survive, but there was little he could do.
Many of the students were sent here on military financing. they would receive their assignments in private and be sent out.
All the students went to their rooms for the night, in the morning, they would receive their graduation and their assignments. Greezer knew he would be sent home.
Wake up sounded. Greezer felt hung over, struggled to move. He took extra time in the shower as he felt so filthy. He got dressed, got his belongings together. He made sure nothing was left behind and headed out to the assembly area. It was only when he arrived at assembly that he realized that he was supposed to wait in his room. A full class of students, dressed as commanders, lined up with their duffel bags and data trunks at their feet. He did not recognize any of them but he figured this was a new class.
The old man showed up and he ordered them to grab their belongings and follow him. Greezer really needed something to eat. He had never been this hungry before.
They are shown a command center, nothing like they had ever seen before. There were stations set up for every single one of them. The battle fields on each screen was nothing like they had seen before.
The old man told them the date they were at. They were put in storage until they were needed. This is the ultimate battle of the universe and over the thousands of centuries, the very brightest commanders were selected, and they were it.
Greezer was shocked. "What about my colony? I was supposed to go back there and help them fight the empire!"
"Your going there would not have helped. After they swept over your colony and three others, they swept over Grandmand (a military base) before they were stopped at Titamand."
"We gave you a more important assignment, one that will make a difference"
"Wait a moment," one of the other students said. "If this is this century, and you were back then, how old are you?"
"We saw this war coming, there was nothing we could do about it. We had nothing to work from. Six of us went back in time, to before the start of the empire and created the military school. At this time, we have technology to make a person live forever. It is expensive, and difficult, and not something I would want to go through again, but it was worth it.
they were taken to a cafeteria and fed, then they went back to the control room. "Your commands will pass through several translators before they get to the field commanders, who have no idea what your words are. run your commands accordingly.
Greezer grinned. That was what he found the training was for. He would be in his own elements.
They sat at their stations. Greezer started communicating with his commanders, giving basic commands as to what they meant and how they would be used.
Others would leave when the shift was done, and he would stay to communicate instructions to his commanders. they were sending commands back, training him on what they wanted to communicate. He learned there was a long delay between communications and he stopped giving instruction for moment by moment battle. He mentioned it to one of the other commanders and he was shocked. He asked how he know and Greezer told him that his commanders were communicating back to him, giving him instructions on what their messages meant.
Others started the same thing, rather than just dictating commands.
Six months later, the actual war started. Greezer and his commanders were ready. if this was the war of the universe, they were not going to lose because of him.

14 )
.
They were the high lords of the galaxy. They achieved a higher level of existence than all other life. While they were extremely intelligent, they came up with the belief that a dumb, but perfectly designed creature would be the ultimate fighting being. they decided to prove it.
Using their best scientists, gathering "killing machines" from around the world, they genetically combined features to make a killing machine. They then started from scratch, from the basic compounds and created a creature that was even more perfect than the one they assembled.
They bred a whole pack of them, a healthy breeding population. While one group trained them for their fighting, another group gathered intelligent creatures from around the galaxy to fight their creation.
Some of their creatures did better than others, some making quick kills, other taking a little longer they worked to improve the training, then, when that did not do as much as they hoped, they let only the very best breed, perfecting the breed even more.
Their measurement of improvement was based on speed and ease of the kills.
Robert was a military engineer for the special forces. His squad was in a battle and were picked up by the high lords.
They were stripped of all they had, then given clothing and weapons the high lords felt were fair and were trained to use the weapons.
One of his men was badly injured in the battle and the high lords fixed him, but not quite right. There was little communications between the prisoners and the captors.
The injured man was taken from the group, and a bit later, the group were herded into a room. Images appeared on screen of a great arena.
The creatures appeared on screen. Robert told his team what was going to happen, a bunch of prisoners given to the wolves. They then discussed the weakness of the creatures as they studied them.
A dozen different creatures were put into the arena. One by one they fought against the beast and died as fast as the animals were released. His team changed their opinions of the weaknesses of the beasts. The weapons they were given would not be too effective.
Their wounded soldier entered the battle field. He walked in boldly. He knelt, prayed, then stood at ease,
One of the creatures was released. The soldier moved with all his training. He did not look like he had ever been injured.
He survived several attacks and actually cut the beast pretty bad before it chopped him up.
The team discusses how to handle the beast now that they had seen one of them against them. They needed better weapons.
As they were leaving the room, Robert gave orders to move. they dropped their guards with a quick move, stripping them of equipment, and made their escape. There was no way they could really escape. they also knew that there would be a search for them.
They got to what seamed like a garage. One of the soldiers was going to drive off in one of the machines. Robert got a different idea. His engineering mind came into place. They immediately tackled three of the smallest machines. Two were stripped down for parts. They found tubes, tanks, devices, electronics.
They saw that their location was known but the guards were ordered to stay out. They were being studied.
When they were finally finished. an unarmored tank, with a turret bristling with machine guns. They had a bunch of carry guns and other weapons.
Robert's computer expert did a search for the map to the arena. Apparently the handlers understood what he was after, and showed him the route. They got into the tank and drove right through the doors. The hallway was empty. they quickly found that there was only one route open to them, to the arena.
They drove into the arena and the door closed right behind them. The creatures were already running at them. The soldiers opened fire, blasting. the guns had little power and the bullets, being steel rather than lead, had limited penetration. It took three rounds to kill the beasts. they were also firing out the windows along with the mounted weapons.
More of the beast came charging. it appeared as if the whole pack was released.
it did not take long to run out of ammo for the tank. then the squad slipped out and were standing on board, firing down on the beasts which ran with the body level to the ground.
They were finally driven off the tank when they ran out of ammo and were fighting on the ground with their hand weapons. They fought as a team.
The battle ended when some of the creatures were called back. Robert's team still stood together. they were injured, but still alive.
They slowly worked their way back to the tank.
A voice spoke in their minds and they could tell it was also heard by all who saw it. "You cheated. This was to prove that these creatures are superior than intelligent creatures."
Robert shook his head. "This," he pointed to the equipment around him. "Is what separates intelligent creatures from the animals. By making our claws and teeth, rather than depending on what we were born with, is what sets us above the animals. When we have the opportunity, we change the rules to our advantage, and then use that advantage to rule the world or universe."

15 )
.
This is such a dumb story idea, that I am surprised I had not written it before. The hardest part is coming up with a way to make it work. A statute, is a law, a decree or edict, An enactment made by a legislature and expressed in a formal document. It mentioned that it can be mistaken for Statue, Stature and Status. I had seen a document mentioning the FLORIDA STATUTES and I instantly got the idea about FLORIDA STATUES. now this will be stretching it.
The Starlings were not human. They communicated by changing colors of their skins, and could do so rapidly. As their skin changed colors, they would change their body position to show off different "panels" of their body for better visibility to their audience.
They did have a vocal language for distances, but it was not very robust.
They really did not have a written language, but could leave messages to others that could last for centuries. Once one could read them, they were effective.
One thing with The Starlings was that they were master stone workers. They could make lifelike figurines with ease.
The invention of concrete was like the creation of the printing press for us. They were able to make copies of their creations real quick.
Their carvings became a language. body positions, creatures added, items added, meant different things. It was not like communicating with body colors. They took different body positions when conveying certain types of information. It became natural for the stone works they created to have a specific body position for a whole text of words.
It became a practice for the leaders to pass a law, a STATUTE, and then a figurine, a STATUE to be made to show a permanent version of the law as it was passed. These statues were three times their size and set out in a field in front of the house of law. Some included several figurines on one base. Each figurine might have objects on them, such as a building, a hammer, a bucket, animals, which indicated more about what the law was about. A figure in position with a bird on his shoulder might be a law involving hunting birds, for example.
Once the statue of the law was made, life sized figurines would be made and sent to the lower houses of law, such as state, county, large city. then smaller figurines would be made half size, quarter sized and small enough to be carried personally. Some people had shelving with copies of every law passed.
If a law was overridden or canceled, the statue would be removed and the new statue would have a little figurine attached that showed the law it surpassed.
Many places had display shelves for all the laws that were superceded so one could see how the laws changed over time.
the federation exploration team found The Starlings. They studied The Starlings before they figured out the language. They would see the colors and body position, and then see how they reacted.
The color changes happened so rapidly that it could not really be followed, but the explores noted the body positions, drawing stick figures of the positions. they finally learn how to do the body positions themselves, while they cannot do the skin changes. Their computer cannot even make sense of them.
They finally come before the national lawmakers and did their best to communicate with their bodies. Since The Starlings were not quadropeds, the exact physical communications was not really possible.
Charley, out of desperation, takes out a piece of paper, signals one of the communicators over. He then draws on paper the positions he is trying to tell. The law maker signals to the others and soon charley is swamped with them trying to see his communications.
One of his engineers cobbles together an overhead projector and charley demonstrates through drawins what he wants to say. He also draws pictures of things like a quick map of their lands, a drawing of the solar system, a drawing of the stars as seen at night. He also draws items they saw, all with the figures involved. The place was in a flurry. Paper showed up with every law maker and they were scribbling, copying what was on the screen.
The explorers finally had to leave. they were going to be back in about fifteen years, after they check out another planet life was found.
They finally return, five years for them. They are stunned by the society. Instead of statues and figurines everywhere, there is painted signs, newspapers. one of them trades a bauble for a paper. They recognize the figurines. It takes them a while to translate their pages, but it is quite readable.
As they travel around, they soon notice that statues are less found, figurines are getting even more rare. At the house of law, they still have the statues in the field, but by examining them, they are only the really permanent rules, not the laws made each year. When they override a law, they remove the statue and never replace it.
it takes them a long time to figure out that the art of writing, like what they accidentally demonstrated, had replaced the statues as a means of communications.
The explorer team leave, letting the officials now that they ruined a society. They are told that they can continue to work. their mistake will only come up if they get into some other kind of trouble.

16 )
The space station was known as a bedroom community. It had no manufacturing at all, it had a limited shipping port, mainly for supplies to stores. The only businesses were to service the community. Many of the people shipped to other space stations, work for a few weeks and return for a few weeks.
An old soldier named Brannon finally retires and arrives at the community. He finds a home in an empty warehouse.
The way the space station was designed, is that there are wide hallways. Each person can decorate the walls of their homes and there is a space where people can put plants or other kinds of decorative elements so their homes are customized. they usually, but not always, have fences to delineate what is theirs.
There is a garage for their cars, which are sort of like golf carts with a bit more style. Most park their cars or their second cars in the drive way or along the street.
Brannon had a lot of money to retire with since he was in the military all his adult life. He got himself a truck, a car with a bed in back, and drove around the entire space station, all twelve levels, exploring.
He found on weekends, the people would put their belongings out for sale. He started driving around, searching for items of interest. Over the period of a month, he had a well decorated bed room. he soon found really good deals that he could not get around, he had to have them, even though he really had no reason for them. He found expensive collections that were sold cheep. He found items he could never afford, just for some pocket change.
As the year went on, he purchased two more warehouses just for his accumulated wealth.
AS the end of the year approached, the offerings dried up, He had to search far and wide to find such sales. He was running out of room anyway.
He sat among his belongings, the very best on display in the house portion of his first warehouse. He still had money left, and with what he had accumulated, he considered himself ultra wealthy
Traveling around, he stopped seeing people on the streets. He began to hear what sounded like chanting, wherever he went. At first, there was no pattern to it since each house had something different. then, as days passed, the chants became more in unison, as their saying the words began to mesh together.
One night, He was waken by the chant. it was coming from everywhere, in perfect unison, as if one voice. He got up and went outside. The entire place was glowing. AS one, every voice rose to a trill squeal, then went silent. A form appeared before him. He knew instantly that this was a god.
"Why have you come here to corrupt my pure people?"
"What are you talking about? I corrupt nobody."
"My people are pure. they have nothing of the world to distract themselves from worship of me. You have buildings filed with corruption!"
Brannon and the god argued back and forth, but slowly, Brannon got the got to realize that he got all these things from the pure people the god loved. The god did not want to believe it, but Brannon mentioned several things he saw in various homes that they still had. the god flickered dozens of times when Brannon was done recounting where he saw what. The god had not thought to look in the locations those items were found. the god blinked out for about two minutes and understood that his people had been cheating.
The god touched Brannon on his forehead. Brannon now knew he could never sell any item he had to the people. the god made sure it could not happen.
"I see, you are not of here, not of mine. You knew nothing of me and my laws." The god said.
The god lead Brannon into his house, then into the storage section. "These freezers and refrigerators will guarantee you will have all the food and other supplies you will need to live, no matter what happens."
Brannon asked if he could get a ship to take his belongings with . him. The god said no. He must be here to be the punishment of his people. He was to remain show the people how badly they had strayed from the laws."
At that moment, the god was gone. There was a long trill from the people, which then faded as people had to stop and breathe.
After about a week, the people returned to work. a week later, people dropped by, asking if he had this item or that item for sale. He had to say no, they are not for sale.
The people started becoming incessant on getting their belongings back. Several accused him of stealing. He found he could not buy anything at any store. his account was always overdrawn or they simply did not want to do business with him. he then found that food appeared in the fridge and freezer as he needed them. It was not food he ate normally, but it was good food. He soon deduced that it was approved food according to the religious diet
Quite a few times, he had to figure out how to fix a meal with what was found in there, as he had lost access to data accounts.
He was soon completely isolated, other than people demanding their belongings back.
A month later, there were several break in attempts to one or more of the warehouses. They never got in and he saw no signs of the vandals.
The people made his life miserable. he was punched, kicked, spat on, he had no access to his money or any form of communications. He called the police a few times and got no response
The people had gotten really ugly. Brannon was unable to tell them why he would not sell nor give any indication that he had even known about their god.
Finally, the people amassed on nearby streets and marched to his house. they had weapons in their hands to do him damage with.
Suddenly, the streets and walls were filled with lights and the people were frozen in place. The god had arrived.
the people robotically turned and marched away in perfect step. Brannon could tell they were in pain as they were not marching in a natural mode.
when the last person was gone, the god appeared. "You have shown me that my people are not following my edicts."
Brannon found himself standing before a big transport ship. "all your accumulated belongings are now inside the ship. All your funds are returned to you." the god said. you will now leave and I will deal with my people."
Brannon bowed with respect turned and entered the ship. the ship launched before he got to the cabin. There was no crew. "I found a place for you to live where you can live in comfort. I have blessed you and you will prosper where you are going." the god said inside his head.
He found himself at a space station with some industry and a small population. he stepped off the ship. When he glanced back, the ship was gone. He knew exactly where he was going, he was able to pull out all the proper paperwork from the satchel he carried to be let into the space station. He arrived at a block of homes. This was his home. all his belongings were there. the entire block of homes was his mansion.
After about a week, he heard that the space station he was at, had been placed on temporary quarantine and no one was leaving until the incident was over. the god was likely purifying his people.
Each night, he prayed to the god, thanking him for being rescued. the god repaid him by giving him a comfortable standard of living, not a need for any want, for his considerable remainder of his life.

17 )
.
There is a commercial that ran, I think it was an insurance or financial product company, where they were listing things about businesses. One was "what if your business plan changed every hour." they showed the store window of manikins rising up and a display of something else come down. I did a story idea based on this last year, where shipments of all sorts of stuff arrived and the company sold the new products when they came in. this is sort of based on that.
The space port had a contract that they would fill every last space on a ship with something that was not ordered. the company the space port had the contract with, would sell whatever it was immediately, and nothing else.
the company found they were selling trucks, insurance, survival gear, telephones, computers, cars, whatever the shippers had room for. It was tough on the company. they had to figure out what it was they got how to use it, and how to sell it. They had some people who were really good. They always had lines of people to buy, and they sent product out as fast as possible.
One problem was that they ended up with some excess product they could not sell in time. they started building up a stockpile of stuff they had not sold.
One of them got an idea. this was not according to the contract with the space port, but they decided it was worth the try. they opened up a secondary store to sell stuff they had left over. People would flock to the main store when a new shipment came in, and then go to the other store to see what was left they might want or need.
Quickly, they saw that having insurance, furniture, household products along with trucks and cars, all in one store was not going to work. They opened a new store for the transportation. then another with the "paper" products.
the stores were selling stuff well, running out of product as people who had missed the introduction of a product, were able to get them.
There was word that the space port could send bigger ships, but did not know how much extra space could be filled. it would not be worth their while to send bigger ships if they could not fill the extra spaces.
The company looked at their business model. They decided they could handle the extra load. they had lined up a local shipping company and set up a deal where they would open a similar set of shops in another continent. That shop would get the shipment the next day.
The space port accepted the deal and started sending the larger ships. The people of the company was shocked at what larger ships were being sent. these were super freighters, not simply a step or two larger than what they were using before.
it did not take long for the company to expand to more stores as soon as they had people to handle it.
They soon had complexes of twelve to fifteen stores in every city of any size to handle what was coming in.

18 )
.
The was a discussion about fire flies and this came to mind.
The area was a dump site for plants from thousands of worlds. plants that survived were ones that were the most aggressive.
The plant grew in a situation where competition with other plants was fierce. It was common for some plants envelop another plant, starving it of light and nutrients. The environment became masses of vines and trees, and dead shrubs. Seeds that could lay dormant for long periods of times or seeds that floated into the air and landed some new place, Weeds as we usually describe them, were most common.
Biologists found one plant they called the blue cactus, as that is all it looked like, seamed to do well in spite the fact that it was not aggressive. It grew tall, then slowly get enveloped until it did not see any light. Based on that, the biologists wondered how the plant could ever get established. There is no way for it to grow big enough to set seed. There was no way it could survive, yet it is alive and thrives.
They traveled around the planet and they found the plant everywhere. How did it propagate and survive?
They noticed small patches of burned areas in various areas of the terrain. the fires were never really large. there were no signs of large forest fire areas. The thick foliage prevented the fires to spread.
They never landed on the planet. they would be on hovering platforms and examine the world from the air, dropping probes through the foliage to see what was below. Even in the darkest areas, there was life that choked the ground and above. They worked hard to get samples from the ground below. they went as deep as two hundred feet before they got past the solid mat of roots. This was true everywhere they checked. Chemical and biological analysis turned out to be too complicated for the systems on board the ships. They were flash frozen and stored away. they would be examined properly.
They kept up their studies. Winter came and different plants started blooming or becoming viable. Vines and trees that had looked dead sprouted leaves and became active, even when snows and freezing weather came.
As spring came, there was a point of dormancy of all plants. The researchers explored the under story and over story, trying to track the changes.
One day, a researcher saw a flicker of light. He got near and the glints seamed to surround a blue cactus. he got close and saw there were flies. there no animal life on the planet. pollination and seed disbursal had to be by other methods.
To see flies in the area was a big thing. he swept a net and caught several of the flies, and then was shocked to find them escape, melting the mesh of the net. He used a suction tube and froze the flies instantly. A quick scan had the main ship excited.
He watched as a fly landed on an exposed branch. There was smoke. there was a flash of flame from the fly. the branch caught fire. Other flies started little fires. a few went to the ground and caused fires.
Pretty soon there was a circle of plant material on fire. The fire burned for a few days before rain came and knocked it down. it was a large oblong area burned right to the ground. Over the next month, blue cactus shoots grew fast, racing other plants. The burn areas disappeared fast. They now knew how the blue cactus was able to compete against other plants.
They later saw that the blue cactus sent spires that went well above everything else, It popped, sending something in the air. Collecting from then found they were a tiny fly like creature.
the researchers were in space suits so they did not notice the smell. computers told them of the scent. the blue cactus emitted a scent that could be smelled for miles. The tiny files would go to a mother plant giving off the scent and enter a chamber in the "flower." The tiny flies were the pollen.
the seeds were released, ejected by a burst of compressed air, then the "fire flies" would be released to burn the surrounding area to give the seeds a chance to propagate.
An examination of the flies showed they were plant, not animal and flew by rapid fluid expansion of cells on top and below the wings.
The fire was caused by a complex chemical reaction which caught the fly on fire.
The researchers finally left, the blue cactus was something they would talk about the rest of their lives.

19 )
.
It is known that a birthday suit was what you were wearing when you were born, which essentially is nothing. There is a joke where a respectable elderly woman at a retirement home decides to re-live her youth by streaking, running with nothing on. She carefully removes her clothing so she is only in her birthday suit and takes off running the best she can. She passes a couple of old men sitting on a park bench. what was she wearing?"
"I have no idea, but it sure needed ironing."
Ironing one's birthday suit is something a lot of people would love to do. It would be great to devise a way to remove light wrinkles in the skin. It would not work with deep wrinkles, but light ones would be evened out.
Technically, I see this as passing energy into the skin a given depth. There might be pressing of the skin involved too. character wrinkles would not be effected by the process, though they might not be as sharp. wrinkles on the level of CROWS FEET around the eyes would be what it would work on. The skin, fat and connective tissue would be spread out evenly under the skin.
I figure this might be a painful treatment so it would be done under an anesthetic, or rendered unconscious for the treatment.
For real serious treatments, collagen or other "fillers" might be injected under the skin after the spider wrinkles were flattened out.
I picture the process of passing the energy wand over a section of skin, then the doctor running a curved metal paddle, a flattener, over the area to work the wrinkles out. Doing this over the entire body, hands, feet legs, arms, neck and face, would be a long drawn out process and might either be done by different doctors in succession or at the same time, or might be spread over a period of months the way normal cosmetic surgery is already done.
Of course, for a story, there has to be something that goes bad, a flaw in the treatment. It happens to old people, who are not going to live for too many more decades. It would be difficult to trace to the treatment, unless the reaction happens after just a few years or a decade.
Now if there was a method to extend one's life, live to be a couple centuries old, then the flaw in the treatment would become quite visible. I picture it causing the skin to break down, develop into sores. the under skin fat has changed to become hard, or cancerous. By the time these conditions are found, those involved in the original process are long gone and cannot be punished.

20 )
.
Shadow had moved away from home after college. Her parents gave her a motor home to use until she got a place of her own.
She started working as a waitress at a small restaurant. she knew the owners owned several other places. The tips were pretty good.
One day after she was established, she was told she needed to show up at another place for a couple days. It was a bit longer drive. She worked there for several months, then was told she needed to work at another place. It turned out to be a couple hour drive from her home. Since she had a motor home, she located a site not far from her job and moved her motor home there. she now had only a ten minute drive. She was then told to work at a different place, It was a half hour away.
Over time, they kept moving her to new places in the chain, and she was not given the option of saying no. Other waitresses who were moved around, had to rent a place nearby after each move, many owned homes where they started and had to pay that rent too.
Shadow found herself several thousand miles from home. she still had her motor home and the car she would tow behind her when she moved. The locations she got to park her motor home was a lot cheaper than a hotel room. At one place, she parked the motor home right in the parking lot, only having to walk several hundred feet to get home.
She got her instructions to the new job location. She found herself at a space port. She made some calls to headquarters and they were serious about sending her into space. Most of the waitresses were going to have to give up everything they owned to make this move.
Shadow did some checking and found that the space station she was going to was big enough to have cars and trucks. She got her motor home and car onto the space ship. the company was going to pay for this, but she did not tell them.
At the space station, she got her motor home, hooked up the car and drove across the space station to the job site. She then found a place nearby to park her home and got to work. Other waitresses were having to rent and it was costing them almost as much as they made.
Even in space the company would not let them settle down. They were loaded onto ships to more space stations.
Shadow checked up on her new destination. It was too small to have her car or motor home in the halls. She worked a deal and had her vehicles put into a shipping bin and at her new work area, had it docked at an unuseable docking module so it was out of the way.
She had money. None of the other waitresses had money. they had to live together to afford their apartment and had to work extra hours for the whole group to break even. The only food they ate was at the work area.
Shadow was talking to one. the girl had tried to send a message home and the fee was going to be more than she could ever make. the girl said this arrangement had to be slave trade. the idea was to run them out of money so they have to sell themselves to get out of their debt.
Shadow gave it some thought and realize that the girl was right. Shadow took the girl's message, talked to others about it and then sent a message to the authorities about their suspicions.
it was time to move again. the location that Shadow saw, said it was not a savory location. there was suspicions of slave trade operating from there.
Shadow decided to take a chance. When a ship came that was listed to go back, she rounded up the waitresses and her motor home and they went to a city space station. Once there, she got them jobs at different companies. she had the money to hire the job finders for them.
she then parked her motor home and started working at a company restaurant there. she had also told the authorities where she and the girls were, and what their next destination was supposed to be.
She worked there for about six months when authorities came and shut down the restaurant. She was out of a job, but she went to a locally owned competitor.
She and the other girls were finally contacted by the authorities. the company was being liquidated, officials were going to jail. they were to be shipped back home, they were going to be paid back wages, home allowances they did not get, and back pay.
Shadow drove her motor home, car in tow, to the space port. The officials did not want to ship it, She showed that the company had paid to ship them, and they were to go back. They did not belong to her, was on loan. They got onto the ship.
Shadow finally returned home to her parents. they gave her title to the motor home, and then asked her to park it in their yard.
She then got a job at a small restaurant and soon learned they had other places.
After several months, they asked her to go work at a different, nearby place. She told them she was not going. she was staying. When they told her they needed to replace the people who were sent some place else, she told them to hire locally and don't move waitresses unless they ask. She is threatened with losing her job. she told them that she can find a job anywhere she wants so if they want her to leave, she will go to the place across the street. The other waitresses were surprised she was willing to go some place else, and not protect the job she had. Shadow could see in their faces when the idea of working anywhere, became a possibility in their minds.
Shadow was there for a couple years when she learned they had ended the shifting program. They brought the girls back and hired locally everywhere. She later told her boss about what her previous job did and he was stunned. He thanked her for what she did for the company.

21 )
.
William got to work early in the morning. He reached for the door to open it up. a pair of cars drove by on the other side of the road. As they passed, there was a flash of light.
William did not notice that they became quite. he swiped the keycard for the door and it opened. He looked at the alarm key pad. there was not the normal beep. He looked at it and he found he had difficulty focusing on the screen or the numbers. he decided that something was wrong and the alarm was never set.
He went about, turning on lights and unlocking doors in the building. He was on the second floor so he never noticed the flashing light of the alarm nor did he hear anything.
He was walking down he hall when the security company called to see if anybody was there, accidentally turning off the alarm.
the lights had stopped flashing when he got back to the ground floor and headed to the back of the building. He started a couple pots of coffee. the coffee machines were not making any sound. he looked at them closely, then headed on farther back.
He came outside and saw several police cars around the property. their lights flashing. He assumed it was for one of the neighboring buildings. He unlocked the gate. He saw he police officer's mouth move but heard nothing. He completely ignored the police until he saw the flash from the gun and the concussion of the blast on his face.
he then tapped his ears, then clapped his hands. he could hear nothing. the officer handcuffed him and when a company official arrived, they took him in.
While in the police station they did some tests and he seamed totally deaf. Instead of thinking he was faking it, they brought in doctors and examined him.
With written notes, he found out he was deaf. He wrote back about the two cars and flash of light. He was taken to the hospital.
He came out months later and he could hear again. He lost some hearing, but he could hear again.
On the news, two crime rings were busted up, most of the members arrested. they had found hundreds of those highly illegal deafening bombs in possession of both gangs. William's deafness after seeing the cars and the flash of light, was what was needed to bring them to justice.

`22 )
.
Bolvitch had lived for centuries. He had selected a mountain with optimal conditions and built a defensive wall around it. the wall was imposing, built right against a stone cliff.
As civilization caught up with him, he would go and learn a skill from them, then wait a while, then learn something new. He now understood physics, chemistry, computer science, communications, engineering, architecture among the things he had learned. One benefit of his long life, also a penalty, was the ability to remember everything. He had learned these areas of knowledge and he knew them well.
He farmed a quarter acre of land, out from the base of the wall and that established his property and provided some income. He selectively harvested the trees and brush in his mountain to keep the possibility of fires low.
At this time, most of his money was from investments and he was spending most of his time searching out surplus materials and building modern technology, seeing if he could push the limit of what was possible for the materials at hand.
One thing he did was to create drones, little flying cameras about the size of a flattened foot ball. they were robotic, reporting what they saw, coming back for refueling without any input from him. He had them exploring his territory and telling him if anybody invaded his property.
he had trained two packs of wolves and six bears for hunting for him. he could direct them to take on a target, and could order them to hold back. He had worked with the packs for as long as he was there.
He had been in all the city and county meeting rooms and left "bugs" so he can gain knowledge of what was going on.
One day, his computer told him that one of the cities showed interest in his land. When he checked the records, he found that they were going to take over his land by imminent domain. the way they were doing it, was bypassing the worst of the protections of the law. He then picked up from another place that a couple hunters would go into the area and see what the could find.
His drones showed a team of hunters approaching along one of the many paths up the wall. he slipped to the area using a portable screen to watch and listen to them. He heard them say that if they ran into someone in there, no one could say anything if they disappeared.
Bolvitch directed his wolves in on the hunters. He was in position, could see them and see the wolves. the men could hear the pack's calls. One of the pack appeared in a distant clearing. A man raised his rifle and fired. He missed. Bolvitch took aim and fired. the man's rifle went flying. He then gave the signal for the wolves to hold back.
He then called out. "you are trespassing. turn around and leave, and never return."
One of the men said to one of the others, not knowing that a drone was on top a branch above their heads. "I see him. I think I can take him out."
The man raised his rifle. Bolvitch fired first, breaking the rifle and dropping the man.
"If I see you again, I will kill you." Bolvitch called out. "If you send anybody else, they will suffer the same result. I will even take out an army division if necessary. get off my land. Now!" Bolvitch fired, taking another rifle out of the hands of one of the men.
They took off running, carrying their wounded (he did not kill any of them)_. One man stopped a distance, turned, only to lose his rifle. they left his land. he gathered the weapons. He saw a fawn and sent the wolves after it, heading on home.
At home, he put the video of the incident, from different points of view onto the internet. it was well known before the men got home to tell their side of the story.
A group of twenty law officers passed through the wall in a different location. Bolvitch made ready for them easily. He used a larger drone that was loaded with a weapon. when they got to the right point, he had the done fire from behind them, aiming for the trees in front of them. Trees seamed to explode. the air was suddenly filled with a fine dust. the men were soon choking and gagging, their throats, noses and eyes watered. they had been hit with the dust from pepper balls. The balls were broken against the trees and the fine pepper dust spread everywhere. he had an extra potent variety.
Through a smaller drone, he told them to turn around and head back. he told each one which way to turn and then they headed out. One man looked like turned and took a step to slip away. on his next step, he got hit square in the face with one of the pepper balls he was then directed which way to go. Except for that one man, they all were able to see by the time they were well past the wall.
Images were on line long before they got home and were already being seen by the press.
Resisting the police and battery against the police was too much. The miliary was called in. A tank unit was sent in. The tanks entered his fields at the bottom of the wall. He shook his head. they could have come up the road. Instead they were faced with a high solid wall with a cliff behind it. Five of the six tanks fired at the wall. Stone was no match to cannons. that section of the wall collapsed. the unpolished cliff face was now exposed.
Bolvitch, using his drones and other locating systems, launched the missiles. His missiles were sent into the air with escaping gasses, like they were fired by an air rifle. Once in the air, they leveled out and the rockets took over. It separated him from the rocket trails.
The rockets went up, then came down. hit the tanks square on the turret, and went right on in. the tanks were debris in an instant.
Bolvitch did not like to kill, but this had to be done. The advancing forces stopped. they gathered their wounded, hurt by the shrapnel and withdrew.
They made a base camp about two miles away. The drones told him when there was no one near the supply truck. A missile hit the truck square. They went home.
Again, before they were finished cleaning up the mess, images were on line.
What really ticked people off was that the views were as if someone was standing nearby with a camera, and no one was there. There was no way to fake the images in that short of time.
Bolvitch got to work on rebuilding the wall. Each stone was set into place with tongue and groove so they could not be pulled down. It took a bit of effort to fit the stones, but he was good at this.
He did let the tanks be picked up and towed away. the military was not interested in messing with him. the insides of the tanks were not simply blown up, they were melted.
A year later, the stone wall was rebuilt. the people who wanted the mountain, had lost interest in getting it.
He got a new shipment of parts. He knew how he could improve his missiles and his drones. the wolves were having new pups and the bears had cubs. He had to go about training them to hunt for him.

23 )
.
His palace was built at the very top of the mountain peak. It extended out greatly from the sides, almost like a mushroom.
The peak was usually encased in some way, in clouds so the top was seldom visible from below. It had been seen a few times, but no one could get near it.
His magical powers allows him to cause things he needed, to appear. They were like lost shipments, mis placed items, items that no one would ever notice missing. Shipwrecks and entire sunken ships appeared in his storeroom to supply him with things he wanted or needed. The magic tended to know what he would need and get it while it was available. People or their remains never showed up.
He spent a lot of his time examining objects that appeared and then tried to figure out how they were made, sometimes making something similar of his own. He was not really good, but he had a lot of practice over the centuries.
One day a framework appeared. it was mostly covered in some form of fabric. As he studied it, names of each item came into his mind. wings motor, propeller, struts, wheels, skid, tail. This was an air plane.
He put together a small model he made a modification so a piece of elastic would turn the propeller as the motor. he wound it up and the model rolled down the floor. He then rewound it, held it up, and released the propeller and the plane at the same time. It glided to the floor. He now knew he had a flying machine. His machine was primitive, but he knew they would improve. everything did. He decided he needed to develop a defensive method against the flying machines.
One clear day, he scanned the area with his telescope. He caught some movement and watched it. it was an air plane. it was low, and slow. He studied the way it flew. if it got high enough, it could see into his palace. That was unacceptable.
Soon, he was wheeling cannons to along his walls. he had cannons of all kinds. barrels of gun powder, chain, ropes, bits of metal. appeared in his store house. He put a ball into a cannon and fired. His power gave him an advantage. The cannon ball flew out and before it reached the ground, reappeared in his store room. As long as he could get some explosive material, he would have an unlimited supply of ammo. all he had to do was to get it to where it belonged. His magic did not help there.
A single cannon ball was not great help. He tried chains, bits of metal. they did not have the range or would obviously miss too easily.
While looking at his flying machine model, it dawned on him. When dealing with a flying machine, maybe a flying machine would help. He had no way to control them. an idea came to him.
He used a tube that he plugged both ends. he added wooden wings, and then attached long strands of chain. With a big wadding, he shoved the chain into the cannon, then the body of his weapon. He fired.
His creation whipped around wildly, and the chain dragged it down.
he decided the chain had to be pulled along, not pushed with the weapon. he made a mount on both sides of the cannon for the chains.
He fired again. he changed he design of the weapon so it had more wing surface. he fired again. it was better.
A couple hundred rounds and he finally perfected his weapon.
He had added some powder to the rear of the tube and that would burn, pushing the weapon along
What it did was to be fired at a plane, and fly, higher than the plane, dragging the chains behind, and below. They were to catch the plane in the air.
he made a couple dozen of the weapons for each cannon, small cannons got ones with a short length of chain at the top where the fire was, and then rope, ending with chain again. large cannons got ones with dozens of chains, each with wings on the end to cause them to stay away from each other. He also made the weapons so they could be caused to turn left or right based on what the target was doing.
One clear day he saw what had to be a large military force approaching his mountain from below they could not reach him from down there, but they had several planes with them. He realized that they had explored the area before and knew exactly where they were going.
they reached a spot on a nearby, much lower mountain and built a ramp. they set a plane on the base of the ramp and started the motors. A weight dropped and pulled the plane forward. It flew past the end of the ramp and continued to gain altitude. they pulled the weight up and launched another.
Six planes were in the air, gaining altitude. they were doing what birds commonly did, which was to catch onto rising air and fly in it, letting the air lift them. They soared close to the mountain, then swing well away. Each time they were higher, closer.
One of the planes was just below him. He was on the edge watching it. It tipped the nose up and there was sparks coming from a thing mounted above the wing. Suddenly bits of led hit the wall around him. He dove into cover. they were being violent. He went to one of his cannons, aimed it down as the plane circled away, and fired.
The chains ripped through the wood and cloth of the plane the force flipped the plane and it broke apart. Chains, plane and all spiraled down thousand of feet. the remains of his weapon appeared in his storehouse.
The other planes stayed away until they were higher. he went to a level that was right for their altitude and took aim. it was a matter of timing.
He then fired, shifted to the next cannon aimed and fired, shifted to a new location, aimed and fired.
He downed four of he six planes. the other two got well out of range.
An idea came to him. It took some calculations, but he found that if he stuck a small log into his biggest cannon, He fired. the log followed a long arc into the air, and came down right on the ramp. The flying debris was really something. The surrounding camp was a mess. The planes that were still in the air circled a long time, then flew away. Neither one made it out of the mountains, they ran out of fuel. he had removed their landing space.
He decided they would leave him alone until they perfected something that could reach him easier.
His use of the powder to power the weapons he made, gave him a new idea. He had to experiment to see if he could get it to work. He had to go to the store room to see if his magic found something that would help him with this idea.

24 )
.
I saw an article about making a code device where you have to line up letters and symbols to create the right word. then one can open it. It is made with pins that fit a slot and when the letters line up correctly, the pins have the whole slot to slide along to open the unit. This lead me to this concept.
People were just now able to grow enough foods to be able to have people exploring the world. They were mining some ores that allowed them to make some valuable objects easier.
all around them were signs that the world was better. They did not know if it were the gods that made them, or a higher civilization, but there were entire cities, fantastical objects, personal items that seamed to have some power. Nothing made before, could be made now.
There had been wars between kingdoms but now a lose form of truce had developed. They were combining their best people into expeditions to learn what they could of the world. They shared in the wealth that was found, and the wealth made the unions between the kingdoms worth the efforts.
In their searches, they had learned to read the old writings and work some of the machinery they found. Each expedition brought back a great amount of knowledge that improved the living standards of even the common people.
The travel on these expeditions were dangerous. whatever caused the collapse of the great worlds, apparently also caused creatures to change, become dangerous. They had found a whole listing of creatures in the world of the great times, and now there were similar creatures, but they had changed drastically. Only their domestic creatures really went unchanged. these new creatures caused a lot of problems with the expeditions, forcing them to have powerful armies and they still lost a lot of their people to the creatures.
One object of great interest, and was really difficult to get to, was a place called the key. It was similar to small items they had found. They were little puzzle pieces where you turn the letters until they lined up properly and then you could open them. Some appeared to be toys, but a few had jewelry or documents in them. some that were as tall as a man were used as safes.
One key, though, was taller than a tree and took twenty men to wrap their arms around it. the rings did move, but they took a lot of effort. On the nearby wall said that this was the key to the world. unlock it and the world would cease to exist. the letters and symbols were small, so there were a lot of combinations for one to use to pick the lock.
The symbols on the rings were copied and every nation had a life sized copy of the key in their palaces. the letters and symbols were placed randomly around the rings so nothing naturally lined up. Each kingdom had people lining up all symbols and then looking to see what showed all around.
One of the expeditions was sent out to the key. they recognized the danger of cracking the code, but the just had to know what was inside it.
The many expeditions had decimated the dangerous creatures and they figured a few dozen more times there, the route would be safe. the expedition figured they would test a few quick codes on the key, then go on to a new area to explore.
They reach the key and each expert prayed before the key, then moved the rings to their setting. it took a couple hours to get every ring in place. they noted the ring positions as the changes were made as those were codes that did not work.
The last one was tested and nothing happened. an assistant was looking at the arrangement of the rings. He pointed to some letters lined up. The upper ring did not move. he asked if they could move the ring so that word arrangement would line up.
It was some work, but they decided it was worth the try. they moved the rings one by one, marking the letters that were tested. the last ring was one spot away from being in place. The ring got tight.
One of the leaders looks at it. "what are you spelling?
One of the experts glance back. "Good bye." At that moment, the last letter slid into place. there was an audible click. A few moments later, another click, the clicks got louder and deeper. It seamed to go in one direction.
They ran out of the building the key was in and looked out.
It was in the direction the expedition was to go next. The ground shook now. then there was a loud groan, then a magnificent spire in the distance, disappeared. just dropping into the ground out of sight.
One of their experts came out. "it was a series of weighted levers. We dropped the weight onto one and that tipped another. It set off a chain reaction." He pointed to into the building. "It said it would cause the end of the world. We caused that spire to fall into the earth. It will crack open hell and release all the evil souls!"
This was really an artificial world. They had a reactor in the core. it gave the world the mass needed for gravity. There had been many wars with peoples from space. the creators had developed a system so the enemy would never get to rule the planet. the enemy lost the war, but the survivors were knocked into near cave man existence for a couple centuries. they had just now fought themselves back to something that might resemble an advanced civilization.
the expedition found the way the creators had set up to make sure the world did not fall into enemy hands.
the spire hit the reactor in the center of the word. It did exactly the damage needed. The reactor went critical. The world shook, great structures collapsed. the planet became a ball of expanding light.
A civilization a couple hundred light years away might have seen the event, but the planet was on the back side of the star. They did see a change in the energies coming from the star, but it was not a priority to watch so the observation went by unnoted. they would have to study the star for a century to see changes in the orbits of the planet.

25 )
.
The planet was filled with island nations. their navies were always fighting. Once in a while, a nation would be shut off from the rest of the world as their navies were destroyed, but a while later, they would be freed by another nation at war. No national island really had the upper hand. No nation was overrun by another.
Samson arrived to the planet and visited the different nations. He found that every nation had an emblem on everything. the worshiped their emblem.
he sailed around many of the smaller nations and his mapping showed the island to have the same shape as on the emblem. that was not possible as they were not random shapes.
Being a stranger, he went from nation to nation, examining their archives, searching for a possible reason for this. he was getting little clues, but nothing to put it together.
The shape of the land, and the shape of the emblem was the work of the gods, according to many of the people.
Samson ran out of time and had to go back into space. While in space, he got access to the sensory array and studied the planet from space. He saw the underwater forms were a whole lot different than the surrounding lands. that might be expected. What really surprised him was that except around the islands, the sea floor was fairly close to the surface of the water, all around the planet. It was only in the general region of the islands that the depth went down. That did not fit most geologic patterns.
He went to the archives at the regional federation headquarters. He was investigating some industrial history for his employers. he was going through some industry listings and he saw the logo for a company and he stopped the scroll. He flipped through his personal records and one of the islands on the planet was exactly like the logo. That was impossible.
He went through the list and found another corporation logo exactly like one of the islands.
It took him four more days before he found every one of the logos that matched the islands. He had almost forgotten what his employers were wanting him to find. He did run across parts of the information and forwarded that.
He then changed his search, He looked for the first records of the planet. when he found the first-explorer's report, he found that there were no islands. there were some high points and low points, but it was pretty much even beneath the water. he overlaid the final map on what the first explorers had found. the biggest islands were on the high points on the sea bottom, but they had nothing to do with the natural shape. smaller islands were located on places that were slight rises. All those points were below water.
He searched for the next record of the island and found that a number of corporations were involved in trying to purchase the planet. bids changed each time.
He then found a big batch of information his employers needed, just before he found the contract.
The companies decided to make the planet their headquarters. they purchased rights to sections of the planet, and a mining company made a contract to build the land for each company. they drew lots and the first company got first choice of location. they each decided to build the land in the shape of their logo. The mining company would move a specific amount of fill for their lands. the lands on the highest points could be made bigger, or higher. those in deeper water had to be made smaller as most of the fill was used to get the land above water.
The companies built their islands, gave them comfortable habitats and brought in their populations. the headquarters became established and were worthy of bragging about their headquarters.
A collapse of the market caused the companies to go out of business. the populations were stuck while the bosses had left. There was a partial collapse of their civilization as their main funding was gone. they forgot their history, and simply knew they were company people, who lived on lands the same shape as their logos.
This lead Samson to find the rest of the information his bosses needed.
He wrote a report on the history of the planet. He had been asked by an archivist on the planet as to how the lands could look like the logos. Samson sent him the report, along with other information he found on the planet. the mining company built up the lands, then took twice as much ore as the fill as payment for building the islands.