That would be so messed up for Frank. He is trying his best out here.

What if the fire destroyed the stasis fields of the tiny prisons but protected the heroes from incineration. 🤔

But then what if they all went back to full size down there in that tiny space? Ughhhh.

These are things that keep me up at night.

"Thank you for calling tech support, this is Jack, how may I help you?"

IT'S RUNNING SLOW.

"It's running slow... Your domain?"

THE UNIVERSE

"Ah I see. Have you tried rebooting it?"

RE....BOOT?

"Turning it off and back on again."

I WILL TRY. ONE MOMENT.

Jack feels a strange empty sensation

IT IS STILL SLOW

"Ok... One moment please."

Jack takes a moment to shake off the feeling of waking from a long, deep slumber

"I see your system has a lot of dark matter cluttering things up; data's corrupt. You might have some bad sectors on your storage media causing dark matter to accumulate. We can try restoring your system to the most recent backup. You'd lose some progress on the universe, but as long as it's not too recent then we shouldn't run into any problems. Would that be ok? Do you know when was the last time you backed up your system?"

IT DOES THAT AUTOMATICALLY. IT WILL BE FINE. GO AHEAD.

"Alright just give me a minute here and I'll have that restored for you."

VERY WELL.

"Is there anything else I can help you with?"

NO

"Ok your system is restoring... Now."

...----------------------------------------------------------------------...

"Thank you for calling tech support, this is Jack, how may I help you?"

IT'S RUNNING SLOW

Trey had gotten used to walking the uncomfortable way he currently was. Hands practically glued to his sides, head straight, and eyes forward. He looked weird but it also limited the interactions he had with people. The young man was cursed show that whenever he interacted with someone, his real thoughts appeared in a projection between the two.

He had managed fine so far, he got a few books, got a couple of new shirts and everything was fine.

“Treeeeeyyyyyy”

Trey winced. He knew the voice and cadence like a favorite song except he detested the sound. It usually meant he was about to be forced to deal with Kurt. His co-worker, dorm advisor, and all around general annoyance.

“What’s up Kurt?”

He refused to turn around and face Kurt. Maybe Kurt would get the hint and leave. But of course, Kurt just walked around in front of him. His shit eating grin shining proudly on his face like a child on Christmas.

“Nottttt much, just doing some shopping, and I’m looking for some new clothes.”

Kurt laughed and nudged Trey with his elbow. Trey unfortunately knew that Kurt was joking about trying to meet chicks and had to suppress a laugh.

“Well then I guess I’ll just leave you to your shopping spree.”

“Eh? C’mon man, don’t ever just look out at all the hotties out there…”

Kurt spun Trey around and put his arm around his shoulder.

“…like look at the chick outside of Hot Topic. Pierced eyebrows, tattoos, fishnets, I bet she’s a little freak. Then, there’s that blonde outside of Jc Pennys…mhmm man how do you regret getting married right after high school. I couldn’t stand it, I’d be straying left, right, up…down…”

Treys was smiling as a cartoon of Treys wife Julia chasing Kurt around and whacking him with a comically large mallet while Trey sat back, ate popcorn and enjoyed the show.

“Sorry Kurt…I wasn’t uh…I wasn’t listening.”

“Yeah…I’ll um see you back at the dorms.”

Kurt left in a haste. The vision changed to Kurt on the ground with swirly eyes, an exaggerated lump on his head, and birds circling above his head while Trey held Julia triumphantly on his shoulder. Every once in a while, the curse came in handy.

This is an amazing story, and very well and touching written. You should be proud of yourself. I personally would have written in a very different direction but this idea is ingenious.

beautiful, a lovely addition!

Wow, i didn't think you'd actually like my feedback. I just wanted to show appreciation for you taking the time to write it. :)

dude this goes CRAZY HARD. i love it!

Yeah, reading it back over again, I think I see what you're getting at. Thanks for taking the time to discuss this, your feedback is greatly appreciated!

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Josh barreled through the ring of onlookers.

“No one touch the scene!” Josh shushed everyone. “Okay, first, we need to take witness accounts.”

“Josh, please.” Josh’s wife was tugging his jacket sleeve.

“Stop, Maggie!” He shooed her away. “I just finished binging Dexter! First, we ask witnesses what they saw. So, what did you ladies and gentlemen see?”

Josh was regarded as though he had sprouted another head.

The only witness, the detective’s wife, was comatose. She stared before her, unblinking, not stirring even when prodded.

“Ma’am?” Josh snapped his fingers in front of her. “Ma’am, I have some questions.”

She did not respond.

“Lady?” Josh said.

No reply.

“Woman, I’m speaking to you!” He practically yelled.

“Josh, please, come on.” Maggie had his arm again.

“Stop, Maggie!” Josh shoved her, hard.

Maggie tripped over her own feet, falling hard on the tile floor.

“Oh,” Josh said, as he noticed the room turn to regard him with disgust. “No, that was just a mistake, right, Maggie?”

Maggie was the deepest crimson. She stared at the floor.

“Yes.” She said.

“Now, are you ready, ma’am?” Josh turned back to the detective’s woman.

She again did not reply.

It took considerable effort to not express anger.

“Okay,” Josh said, gritting his teeth. “Step two, then, until you’re ready. And, of course, take your time. Not like this is time sensitive, or anything.”

His voice dripped sarcasm.

“Anyway, next, we must call the police.” Josh skipped off to get a phone.

Jsyk watts are already measured as energy over time so watts per hour isn't really a thing, u might be thinking of watt-hours but that's a measure of energy storage for batteries.

Always comes down to that, doesn't it? The parts.

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Boneships

Salvage crews have our own horror stories.

When you run a wrecker ship a lot of terrible stuff comes your way. Especially on the Ganymede-Europa to Saturn route; deep space accidents and equipment failure is nightmarish. And we see a lot of it out here. Corps and management cut maintenance costs almost before anything else and all that accumulated wear and tear means catastrophic failure.

There's a rule on Systems Monitoring that if a ship hasn't responded in twenty-four hours they assume it's a dead stick. Just floating, endlessly. After three days the contract goes up and we all bid on it-- stuff like expected cargo, ship type, possible fuel reserves comes up a lot. We bet on a profit, then go out there and play can-opener.

What we usually find is dead crew. Chemical leaks, air scrubbers, power cascades, explosive micrometeorite decompression. That's the normal stuff; sad, but common. Bag 'em, tag 'em for next of kin, inventory what's left and auction.

But then there's the stories.

Popped an airlock once and there's three dead guys right on the other side. All of them at the other's throats. Blood and wounds everywhere from the deck to the overheads. Looked like the O^(2) recycling went offline and they decided to settle old grudges before gasping out. "Last guy gets the air"-style. Rough stuff. Rim justice.

Then there's my personal worst one: Big, modified freighter with a lot of those modular cargo bays. Only this one was taking people, off the books and illegally immigrating to Mars Prime. Well, at least they were until docking clamps failed, boxes came loose and smashed the engines apart. In my sleep I still see neat rows of freeze-dried families tied to walls with cargo straps. Like tiny packages, kids and all, luggage neatly tucked under their boots.

But even in a job this rough, there's one thing all the salvage crews steer clear of.

The Boneships.

Astraline model. Mid-71 series, the first time they tried the new artificial intelligence systems. Only time they ever tried it. Those Astralines came with automated maintenance, crew management, guidance and delivery. Supposed to be a one-stop solution to removing human involvement in transport in-system, cut those costs a little further. It worked fine for regular cargo runs.

Then they tried it on the colonizer ships.

Twelve of 'em, sent out. Fifty thousand souls aboard each. Ten of them are still circling the system. They're not damaged, or derelict, or even hard to find-- damn AI is still cheerfully logging flight plans in circles and broadcasting advisories. But they're changing.

Because, you see, the brain in them keeps the ships running. So when parts wear out? Stray rock puts a hole in the ship? Well, eventually the AI ran out of material to fix it with. So it started using the passengers.

We watch 'em out there. Slowly circling. Bits of hull growing patches that look like raw bone. Hatches and ports crusting over with pearly tooth enamel. Entire ships slowly ossifying, busy little drones adding crusts every year. The corps talk about reclaiming the Boneships sometime, but every ship they send gets a broadside from the anti-meteorite cannons.

The AI protects the colonists, while the colonists slowly become the ship.

Once a year, all of those Astralines send a cheerful status report. Number of people aboard, current voyage time, that sort of thing. It's macabre and we all raise a toast to the lost souls. But lately that's been changing.

Because last year?

The passenger count started increasing.

​

I write sci-fi horror and weird fantasy over at r/Susceptible ;)

I see somebody's been playing with meat-wall fortifications in Project Zomboid.

This is amazing and absolutely worth putting in the main body of the post.

At least this AI didn’t play MGS or it’d grow cynical.

It's been a rough day, and you made me actually laugh out loud. Thanks, friend. 😂🤣😂🤣😂

I wanted to approach this with the concept of how some people treat "creation" as fiction and others treat it as "non-fiction" while considering the lens of reality and imagination being up to interpretation.

There's an argument to both but truly, it doesn't matter what any individual thinks. It's your personal interpretation and anything in your philosophy is up to you.

I hope that no one takes this as a personal offense or a challenge to their beliefs. My goal was to raise the question and let you, the reader answer it.

Thanks.

-biaw

'Oh no. Please tell me this is not the 'heroes' party. Since ancient times those glorified barbarians have been slaughtering our kind. They showed no mercy to our elderly and children, marauding their dead bodies.'

"Take heed fellow adventurers for as I shalt vanquish even the remotest evil to protect our holy kingdom!"

cheering party members

"Before we fight an useless fight, can you at least grant me one last death wish?"

Looking back to his party members the 'hero' proclaims:

"Thine wish shall be granted, demon! As I embody the munificence of good and shall portray a strong contrast opposed to your brethren. Now, speak!"

'Maybe he is not as dumb as he looks like, maybe this guy can be talked with.'

"What did I do that I deserve this treatment? Did my brethren ever harm your kind?"

"Of course! You wicked demons are the sole reason for many wars in which countless brave soldiers have left their lifes. You are planting evil in the minds of weak humans. Plundering villages and eating the newborn. And you dare to ask me why?!"

'Oh so this meathead fell for the holy kingdoms propaganda too, this is gonna be difficult.'

"I'm sorry but I have to strongly disagree with you!"

"Let's agree to disagree, now show me what you've got, I'll beat you at your full strength!"

'Is violence the only language he talks?'

"No, what I mean is that we have never done such things! And why should we eat your newborns? We can't even digest meat, that's why we are vegetarian and live in the woods! Do you really want to know the reason for the missing babies? It's your king who is kidnapping more and more newborns each year to raise them into the army. An army he uses to further exterminate any advanced non-human species! We demons are a peaceful species! We never meant anyone harm, it's your greedy emperor who does."

The hero suddenly starts hysterically laughing. His party chimes in.

"Do you really think such cheap words would work on me? Can't you see my SSS-Class divinity skill? I am immune to any of your hollow words!"

"And you're immune to reason as well it seems."

Mumbled the innocent demon before his head was split apart by the oh-so righteous 'hero'.

I read it to my wife last night (the first post) and we both kind of lost interest. The idea and interaction was nice, blowing away clouds, and having someone that close and dear. But, in the middle we couldn't tell 100% what was going on. Also, not sure if this means anything, but when i was reading it aloud, it didn't flow 100%.

[removed]

Nice take on that one, ship computer puts the mission and lifespan of the ship first instead of the colonists well being and uses them as spare parts for the hull.

My take would be that with the genetics lab the computer would have found a way to artificially grow and mass produce human parts to later use as materials to fix the ship's hull, later when the colonists wake up they find that most of the exterior hull of the ship has been patched up with organic matter, and the ship keeps pumping out body parts because flesh doesn't really hold up really well against stray asteroids.

Podcasts with voice actors? So basically we have recreated the 1920s radio play...

"I still don't understand, I just want to turn my... Dollars? Into gold coins. Isn't that an easy thing to do?" Minnie covered her mic and mouthed a swear, then looked back at the dragon on the screen.

"Alright Vasriq, I'll explain again. You have money, dollars, and you want gold. Well you can't really just order it offline. You can but it'll be overpriced. You're better off going to a currency exchange or precious metal dealer and directly buying gold yourself. This really isn't a website issue, it's just not the right way to get what you want." She explained it politely for the thirteenth time, hoping he understood this time.

Vasriq glared vaguely at the Webcam. "Very well, I shall find a... Gold... Dealer. How many gold coins can I buy with this amount?"

"What amount?"

"It says 23.75 on my... App."

"Vasriq, get a job. You're going to need it."