Earth Fanfic (Post-Contact Hilarity II)

General Fanfic
302

Lemme try to communicate the actual point a different way.

I have said it before and I will say it again as often as necessary. To the Associated Worlds as a whole, and the Empire as a whole, and even the eldrae as a whole, the sole aspect of Earth worth any interest at all is as the homeworld of Elieran greenlife.

That’s it. That’s the only point worth any attention at all. Every other aspect of Earth’s existence, geology, biology, culture, technology, philosophy, etc. are either

(A) so common as to be banal and boring beyond even immortals’ ennui to parse, or

(B) interesting, but no more (and no less) so than any other randomly chosen garden world ten kilolights’ distance from the Conclave Drift.

Example: both total and annular solar eclipses can be seen from Earth’s surface with regularity. This is sufficiently rare as to be worth rousing momentary attention from the random sophont, about at the level of a question on “Carefully Calculated Risk!”. But unless you’re already obsessed with chasing the black sun, that’s about it. Eldrae being a prominent species across the Worlds, and thus having spread greenlife-compatible ecosystems scattered here and there throughout the worlds, notches us one small mark above the noospheric background.

Other than that, nobody cares. It’s all been seen and done before.

(Doylistically, because most of the Worlds outside the Empire are based on extrapolations of actual Earth civilizations, the way the only novelty in The Handmaid’s Tale is the arrangement of the deck chairs. But anything past that is for @avatar to say.)

303

Okay, that really wasn’t it, and so: anyone else?

304

Darn. One tries.

And I always thought it was “Humanity Finds Out”, a species-wide FAFO. Which again is too depressing a tale to tell, and also not actually what I believe in.

But again. One tries.

305

I think it would take a lot of work, and soul-searching, and be our culture’s main task for a while, but we could for sure get out of the space elves’ shadow, galactically speaking.

306

I’ll give it a go: the vibe the Empire is going for is earnest parenting of an unruly child, not abusive parenting of an unruly child.

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307

Okay, but seriously: ennui?

The galaxy is bright and full of wonders enough for myriad myriad lifetimes, and ennui is your go-to? Ennui, that well known trait of constitutional hyperthymics/hypomanics?

(You’ll find it listed in the Manual of Mental Diagnostics as a disorder generally seen as a side-effect of depression, aboulia, and “just being an uncommonly dull and uninterest[ing|ed] person”.)

((Addition: My lovely editor points out that this is a common trope in human depictions of immortality, because humans are used to the idea of their brains ossifying as they age.

Me, I call this an epic case of sour-grape projection, and point out that no-one designing immortality would forget for a moment that, gee, maybe they should fix that. In any case, as said, it is not in play.))

308

Thank you!

You win the 2026 Most Observant Reader Award. (This isn’t actually good for much, but if you ever find yourself passing through Wichita, you can trade it in for lunch and a drink of choice.)

They’re in the early stages of architecting and constructing a galactic civilization, here. This requires a certain degree of delicacy and care and subtlety in your guidance of the younger species if you want the end-state of the process to be, well, an enlightened civilization worthy of the name.

You don’t cultivate a garden with a bulldozer.

On a side note, here is today’s unquestionably worthy Terran cultural product:

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309

Thank you! ^.^ I do recall you saying a very similar line about the children of the galaxy in the past.

310

I should point out that this isn’t always nice, but they do always have their eye on the ball of improvements.

Example:

A newsletter I’m reading this morning points out that the arrest rate in Chicago for muggings by groups of fit young men is something far under 1%, at least if they don’t actually kill the victim. (As the writer points out, if you’re a cynic, you might say that it’s basically legal.)

Now throw a visitor from the Imperial parts of the galaxy into the equation, and this same scenario ends up with a bunch of corpses of fit young men and an extraordinarily pissed-off visitor.

And should the city of Chicago and state of Illinois fail to do the obviously correct thing in this clear-cut case of self-defense, this scenario starts involving diplomats and gunboats explaining at great length exactly why they should do the obviously correct thing, lest they become victims of the impersonal malice of directed acyclic causal graphs.

And if you are the State Department, trying to find ways of pacifying the force majeure and extraordinarily valuable trade partner in the sky, you are going to call your friends in other bits of DC and find ways to make said city and state back all the way down when this sort of thing happens.

And that’s going to be a political mess, in the longer term, as local humans start wondering why exactly offworld visitors get so much more latitude and consideration than, say, they do in circumstances just like this one.

Which in turn encourages politicians, committed as always to winning elections above all, to finally have a motivation to lean on said city and state to, where law enforcement is concerned, sympathize less with criminals and do their fucking jobs the way that non-polits expect them to so that this whole thing will go away. Or else.

…oh, look, they accidentally improved things.

Just as planned.

311

Peace through superior bargaining power

312

Although sometimes you do just have fun pushing dirt around with a bulldozer.

Story time: there’s an annual vintage machinery day that some members of my extended family are involved in running, held on a farm. Last year’s had at least 200 machines turn up, more if you include the modern trucks carrying some of it and the clydesdale horses operating the old horse-powered grain threshers and carts.

It was a rather wet and boggy week, and somehow this resulted in a few dozen people with old bulldozers, tractors and digging machines (and a few modern ones too) going to an unused paddock[1] and just… playing. Making holes, filling holes, pushing big piles of dirt around, building a small hill to triumphantly park on and honk…

It was pretty delightful to watch, actually. Mostly grown men in the adult version of a sandpit. Which seems like the sort of childlike enjoyment that eldrae culture would approve of.

  1. Yes, they had the property owner’s permission. Actually, I think he may have been the instigator. :grin: ↩︎

2 Likes
313

That would be so much fun.

314

Boys and their toys
Boys and their toys1211×802 369 KB

Couldn’t really get a better photo, due to their impromptu berm-building. Someone needs to figure out teleporters so I can invite you to this year’s :winking_face_with_tongue:

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315

Is Diggerland (Wikipedia) known ?

316

Sorry, was busy.

…

While individual Imperials might be passingly interested in some of the things that have been listed… couldn’t they, if they were to put their minds to it, do far, far better than most if not any of the listed items? Basically, “huh, that’s neat/cute… but I can do better.” Once they supersede/surpass those (and I don’t doubt that they could and would), I don’t see why they- or most any others- would still have much of any interest in the originals, save if there is someone who is interested in researching the original inspiration for said piece.

(Lost a good chunk more that I had to say, and I’m too tired to try to rewrite it from scratch now.)

Of course, the fact that I have to do that rather than remembering it entirely probably wouldn’t be a good look for me, now would it? In terms of mental fitness and capacity, if nothing else. After all, if one is to seek perfection in any and all chosen pursuits, one must first attain mediocrity. Something which I, for one, cannot claim to have reached. Not by Imperial standards, nor by my own.

317

The economic concept you are looking for is called comparative advantage.

And did I mention the MODHAMMER? I am myself guilty of sending mixed signals, so the hammer is not descending this time. However, the very next time I see variations of this topic appear, it absolutely will, because whether or not this is an extended troll to see just how long I can be baited into arguing with a fanon position that sure as shit did not come out of any reasonable extrapolation of what I have written that I am aware of[1], it is definitely extremely irritating and contra the advertised purpose of this thread.

We’re done here. I have spoken.

  1. And if you think it is, go back and reread literally everything. ↩︎

318

So, if you’re like me, you’re waiting on your primary to get you medical tank time. You don’t want to pay Bodies4You for the mods you want, and you really need to lose some weight and get into shape.

Biggest issue for a lot of us? Going to the gym eats up so much time in general and in specific. And what you really need is long, low, sustained loads. Good news, there’s something that can help.

The ExerSuit is what you’re looking for. Comes in two specifications-light and heavy. Light is almost completely translucent and undetectable, heavy is a bit more latex-fetish-ish but both can be worn under clothing and has sensory bypass so you feel things normally.

(And yes, the gloves are detachable.)

The suit is a high-tech innovation on a classic early space technology-what they called a penguin suit in the Russian space program. It works by generating resistance when you move, in small and controlled quantities. Biggest thing is that it’s continuous-you’re always working under a little bit of extra labor whenever your doing things.

It also has auto-cleaning, auto-hygiene, full thermal control, and anti-sweat functions, and it opens easily if you need to hit the bathroom.

Only problem is that you can only get the total muscle load up so high-fifteen pounds in the light suit, thirty in the heavy-and if you’re a steady wearer you can hit the maintenance limit in two, three months.

But in less than three months, I was doing a lot better at the gym and had lost a good twenty pounds along with diet and other exercises.

Worth picking up, and you don’t even need a doctor’s note to get it for a reasonable cost.

319

Ah, the option for people with micromechaphobia.

320

You missed the best optional feature: wireless and USB-compatible charging ports powered by the extra muscle motion. Sure, looked at purely in thermodynamic terms, it’s an inefficient and roundabout way of turning biomass into electricity. But it’s like getting a umbilectric implant without breaching skin or injecting nanos, and can add another kg/month in weight trim if your lipo/myo needs rebalancing.

321

Talk of the gross details aside, though, is body modification even approaching Imperial standards going to be affordable for your average 5 years Post Contact Earther?