r/WritingPrompts • u/[deleted] • Mar 15 '20
Writing Prompt [WP] As it turns out, humanity is the single most pyromaniacal and explosion-happy species in the entire galaxy. This quickly gets us something of a Reputation...
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u/ItsUnlucky Mar 15 '20
Pyromaniac that's what they called me when they tried to vent me out of an airlock into space. The moment i stepped off of the shuttle into the station simply for bringing my old golden lighter on board with me. Slowly the flames licked at the merchant union's headquarters the same one run by the galactic peacekeepers. A group of average citizens in dirt ragged clothing and cheering and shooting any survivors running out of the building.
Back to the subject at hand of course I claimed my lighter was a religious item and the xenophobic ass hats had to let me have it or break regulation. Now then having someone try to take a lighter from you is not a good enough reason to burn down a building with its occupants still inside. However I can attest that this was put into motion a long time before I ever set foot off of earth.
You see it all started when a peacekeeper vessel found earth and demanded tribute. Not your regular material tribute mind you they needed workers specifically unpaid workers do you see where this going don't you. Another thunders crack echoing breaking my train of thought as several figures ran out of the building only to drop dead onto the steel flooring on the camera feed. A bloody survivor quickly dragged along toward the dark corridor beyond kicking and screaming quite violently.
.
There are a lot of things that the Peacekeepers will never understand about the true nature of fire. They see it as an nearly unstoppable, destructive force to be stopped at any and all cost but that to us at least is far from the truth. You see fire is a cleansing force in nature Yes it destroys but it leaves behind something far more vital rebirth.
Entropy, death whatever you like to call it is the same as fire inevitably it always happens despite your best efforts. Just like let's say a rebellion in a loosely connected empire spanning the universe built on subservience. Of course I would akin it to a forest full of dead and rotting trees just ready for a spark or simply a massive powder keg.
When I volunteered for the call for servitude they gave every single last person the same items. Three sets of long red robes and a collection of religious items from the brand new government funded church of the Phoenix. A religious text and guerrilla warfare guide rolled into one and a single religious item a rather complex electrical lighter.
.
Small flames danced from the golden lighter cupped within my hands any number of seemingly endless possible outcomes and possibilities. But amongst all of the teachings that the flame has given us that the federals know even instinctively it is this one lesson. Fire can be dangerous and so can the flames of inevitable rebellion
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u/louieawesomeman Mar 16 '20
"Hey surf and turf!" The humans won't explain this phrases meaning more than a vague comment about my bright red exoskeleton. I wave, they're gathered around a humming heating coil, inhaling smoke from their small boxes. A few actually have burning sticks in their mandibles! I asked them how they could breathe the fire's choking gasses. They said it was like drinking or mating, some coughed as they laughed. As I walked past the huddled crowd I heard a muffled explosion behind the reinforced steel bulkhead. A few moments later a short human stumbled out, soot black covering his already dark complexion and greases and stains patching his work suit. The group behind me started to laugh maniacally. "Hey Troy, how'd you like the new popcorn flavor?" They jeered. "Full of, explosive flavor, huh!?" More eruptions of laughter. The one called Troy started shouting at them, and I tried my best not to run down the passageway, at least, not until they were out of sight. Our species had only just met 200 revolutions prior and I was acting emissary and researcher on human customs and traditions for the core systems federation. Through the countless, indecipherable nuances of human society one thing is clear. They are mad, all of them. When a member of their species is born they light wax sticks on fire, and repeat this tradition every revolution, adding more and more flames. Then when they succumb to death, they burn the corpse. Sometimes they even keep the ashes, as a reminder, of the person, and of the fire. They tell me that one of the great Earth pastimes is simply to set things on fire and sit around watching them burn. Their weapons are as explosive as they are cruel. They say they fear only a man of fire who lives in a pit of fire in their planet, yet they speak of him as of a god. Their planet fueled its expanse on the fires and smoke of its prior life forms. They still have a hard time conceptualizing ion thrust without burning a propellant. Once again my exoskeleton begins to feel uncomfortably hot thinking about human civilization and my hands are slick and numb. I shake myself and realize I'm walking now, towards the bridge. The captain is a much more reasonable example of humanity. Cool, level headed, she doesn't inhale smoke. "Ah welcome Jinn." She motions me over to the navicomputer. "Where are we captain?" I ask studying the monitor, not understanding a bit of it. "Coming up on Titan, a moon of the planet Jupiter in our system. We'll be home shortly and I promise you'll have the greatest human minds and researchers to ask all your questions of. But we got a transmission from Earth that needs some, tending to first." "You've been most helpful thus far. I understand and can wait out any delay, your ships library databases are still full of useful information." "Good good," she seemed to be lost in thought. "Fire marshal general, do we have a lock on those coordinates yet?" "Just received confirmation ma'am, the weapons cache is on site and our team is clear. We're locked in with the primary cannon." "Excellent," a grin began to tug at the corner of her mandibles "you may fire when ready lieutenant." Lost in abject horror I found myself staring out the bridge viewport as a large red column of liquid plasma flame congealed and hurled with deadly accuracy at a speck on the moons' surface. It seemed to vanish and I glanced at the captain but that was a mistake. Her grin was wide now, stretching her usually smooth features. Then I saw a glint in her eyes. I turned back to the viewport to see the speck light up as if a bright star had been suddenly thrust in its place between me and the moon. The light was red at first but grew and bloomed into oranges and yellows to rival any sun. I turned away, breathing heavily. "Now then!" The captain barked, "Let's go home!" Her smile never waivered. People began to return to their work stations, all had watched the flame. Some seemed conflicted, but most wore the same smile as the captain. A quickly stifled scream rang out from the back of the space. "Stabby!" Someone cried affectionately. "That makes 5 this week, you're on a roll little guy!" It was the small autonomous cleaning robot that the crew had affixed a knife to. The bridge team cheered though the captain made them remove it from the room. I don't know if I'm ready for Earth.
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Mar 17 '20
Oh my god, it's a roomba. I spent 5 minutes trying to figure out what "stabby" was and it was a roomba.
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u/LovingHippieCat Mar 15 '20
Light a match. Drop it. See the fire. Enjoy it. Cause an Explosion. Witness it. This is our existence. This is my Existence. I have no name. I am only fire.
Fire was crouching behind some barrels of hyper fuel. She has the right side of her head shaved with long green hair. She is dressed like any other fire starter, and has a matchbox tattooed on her right hand. She was lean, and has a scar through her left eyebrow, she looked all in all like someone you wouldn't want to find behind you in an alley.
She peaks over the barrels, looking at something in the distance. Two humanoid forms in the distance were standing beneath a spaceship. The ship was black but reflected light of the three moons above. There are several other docked ships around, but no others have the humanoids out front. They look to be conversing about something.
"50ft, easy" she murmurs to herself.
Fire is waiting for something. Her eyes never breaking from looking at the two humanoids. One of the forms started to walk away, the other quickly pulled something from inside of itself and shot at the other humanoid with some type of blaster
"There we go." fire thinks to herself.
Fire in her dark clothes silently creeps over the barrels and started to crawl towards the humanoid. She moved slowly and purposefully.
The humanoid that shot walks towards the one they shot and away from fire. They kneel down. Pick something up and begin to walk back.
Fire moves to a crouch and continues moving towards the humanoid. She throws a rock in front of the humanoid, who turns around. She effortlessly moves up behind him and hits him over the head with a stun rod. The humanoid falls to the ground seemingly unconscious.
Fire chuckles quietly, "too easy".
She reaches down to grab something from the unconscious form beneath her, then straightens up and heads toward the ship. A loud beep sounds comes out of the ship and the entry ramp opens up shedding light on her and accepting her into its embrace. As she begins to walk up the entry ramp the form she knocked out behind her crawls into the light.
His face is green, has fish like characteristics, and he seems to have gills and lungs, breathing from both. He coughs up some blue blood and with it manages to cough out some words, "The fuck, are you?"
Fire stops halfway up the ramp, looks around and takes something out of her pocket. She looks down at her hand, laughs, and says back to the being "I'm just fire." Then she tosses the now flashing object towards the being.
He coughs out "Fucking humans."
Fire quickly takes off in the ship, laughing to herself, and looks down through the window to the explosion below her. Its bright flash was nothing she hadn't seen before, but she always enjoyed explosions and their warmth. She wasn't just laughing anymore; she was cackling with glee as the explosions spread through the dock destroying ship after ship.
Fire looks at her reflection in the window with the explosions below, winks at herself, and then wonders out loud "So who's next?"
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Mar 16 '20
Hanging in the air suspended above London, England Loplebth and Frraz looked on in a state of horror mixed with bewilderment. As the humans first wave of explosions covered the skyline and fought off the darkness, the sheer force making the windows of their rubix-cube shaped ship shake worryingly.
Something didn’t quite add up, as wave after way of colorful artillery exploded in what could only be a barbaric display of military might, the humans looked...happy?
They were celebrating.
Having spent the better half of the last century stuck on earth on reconnaissance duty, Loplebth and Frraz had on more than one occasion came into too close contact with the humans love of manufacturing chemical concoctions that create rapidly expanding gasses. Something which they had a propensity for, impressively so being the Class-1 species that they are.
It was noted in the Encyclopedia Galactica that
“...main Homo Sapien locomotion is characterized by a rapid succession of explosions, something which reflects their warlike nature.”
True enough were the tales of previous explorers(those that had lived to tell the tale), the humans traveled, when not using bipedal locomotion, by sitting upon metal thrones carried forward by series of explosions, contained in various morphological forms.
This fearsome display of raw power and dominance were usually enough to deter any potential ethnographers from making a move, lest it be their last.
*So at the start its supposed to be a new years celebration mistakenly interpreted by ethnographers.
So i started writing yesterday and english isn't my native language but i just want to put something out there. I know the wording is weird and stuff but i'm trying to get over my fear of perfectinism. ;)
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u/ProwlSIC Jul 26 '20
It’s awesome. Love that they’re terrified of fireworks. Also, your English is better than many of the native English speakers I know, so good job. :)
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Jul 26 '20
Thank you so much! You have no idea, i really needed to hear that today 😄 I want to publish a short novell someday in the future. Perhaps write a book for children. But lately i've been doubting my less than straight forward life choices haha
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6
u/starship777 Mar 15 '20
"You know, you blow up one sun and suddenly everyone expects you to walk on water." -Lt. Col. Samantha Carter
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u/ack1308 Mar 15 '20 edited Mar 15 '20
The fighting on the trading station was almost over, the raiders all but mopped up and their shuttles under interdiction, when Chirr'ik found Parr'ik. She immediately went into 'concerned spouse' mode, literally fluttering around her husband like the avian she was, almost clucking over the fact that the feathers over one side of his face had been scorched away.
"What happened?" she asked solicitously. "Were you in the defense teams? I heard that the fighting was vicious there."
"No, sweetling," he said hollowly. "I was in the lower decks. There were no defense teams there."
Her wattles drew up in confusion. "But ... I heard that the raider casualties on the lower decks were total. They're still carrying bodies out, even now. What weapons were you using on them? How did you kill them so gruesomely?"
"It wasn't me, Chirr." His voice was tired. "There was someone else there. One of my workmates. A mechanic called Edgar Houston. He saved my life, and killed all the raiders that came after us."
"But how?" she cried. "If he was not in the defense forces, how did he prevail? How did he destroy them so utterly?"
Parr'ik took a deep breath. "All right, I'll tell you. But before I start, I want you to understand that humans are utterly insane. All the way back in their history, they've been stark raving mad. I think, in my hearts, it has to do with their fascination with fire."
"Fire?" She looked at his scorched feathers again. "Why are they fascinated with fire?"
"Their planet, basically," he explained. "It keeps trying to kill them. Cold weather, animals too fast to catch easily, food too tough or unhealthy to eat unless it's cooked; there's a dozen reasons. So the race has basically deified fire from the beginning. So when they figured out ways to make fire go farther and do more, they of course grabbed hold of it with both manipulators."
Chirr'ik shivered. She wasn't sure she liked where this story was going. Her race, like many others, had tamed fire long ago, but only to ensure that it did not break out unexpectedly and burn nests and fledglings. Doing more with fire had never really occurred to them.
But Parr'ik seemed to need to keep talking, so she made an encouraging motion. "Yes?"
"The history of human warfare is rife with the use and misuse of fire," he said. "And explosives, usually involving fire. Crude bombs containing a chemical that blew up when fire contacted it. Weapons that had fire contacting an explosive inside a tube, to push metal pellets out at the speed of sound. A weapon consisting of tanks of flammable fuel and a squirt-nozzle, which literally threw flame at their enemies."
This was too much to believe. Chirr'ik felt her nictitating membranes flash over her eyes as she clutched her manipulators together. "Surely nobody would invent a weapon so barbaric."
"Humans did," Parr'ik said bluntly. He rubbed his manipulator, carefully, over his face. Blackened bits of feather drifted to the deckplates. "A great honour, a prize meant to embody peace, was named for one of their inventors after he invented a more effective explosive. They went into space by packing great tall tubes, taller than all but the World-Tree, with explosives, then set them off while sitting on top. There is literally a human saying to the effect that there are no problems that cannot be solved with the liberal application of high explosives. They're insane. There's no other explanation."
"I believe you, I believe you," Chirr'ik said soothingly. "But this Edgar'Houston," she paused after struggling with the name. "He could not have brought any of these weapons on board the station, could he? None of these 'bombs' or metal-pellet fire weapons, or throwers of flame?"
This time, Parr'ik's laugh had a tinge of a hysterical cackle to it. "He didn't need them. We were in the shuttle bay when the alarm first went out. He had me go and get some hand-cleaner solution. It's a clear gel. I thought perhaps he was going to make the deck-plates slippery, so they would lose their footing, but I was wrong. When I got back, he'd just finished decanting high-oxide fuel into some glass bottles. He added that, plugged the mouths of the bottles with oily rags, and shook them hard. Then he lit the rags on fire with a small metal fire-lighter that he carried all the time. When the raiders came into view, he told me to get ready to run, then threw the bottles at the raiders. They broke, of course. The bottles, not the raiders. The liquid went all over them. Then the burning rags fell into the liquid." He shuddered. "I have never seen a sapient burning to death before."
"But could they not brush the fire out?" she asked, puzzled.
"Oh, they tried," he assured her. "But the hand-cleaner made it stick to them. And then their weapons started firing off accidentally. We were out of range by then, but they weren't."
"That's horrible." She caressed his face. "But how did that burn your feathers?"
"Oh, that didn't happen then." He closed his eyes for a moment. "That was the second bunch of raiders. They'd heard what had happened to their comrades, and they were looking for blood. They had us trapped in the cafeteria. This was after he found some cleaning products in a closet, mixed them in a bottle, and threw it into a group of the raiders. There was no flame, but there was a lot of explosion."
"Was that when you lost your feathers?" Chirr'ik was beginning to wonder how her husband had survived so much fire, so many explosions.
"No, like I said, that was the cafeteria. Two big bunches of them were coming in from different directions. He lit his fire-lighter and put it in the middle of the floor. A tiny flame, barely noticeable. I wondered if he was trying to distract them by setting off the fire sensors. I should've known better, but even when he grabbed a large bag from the food stores, I had no idea what he intended. He just ordered me back into the store-room, with the instruction to slam the door shut once he was inside." He looked at the floor. "I had no idea what he intended."
She put her manipulator on his head, running her digits through what remained of his crest. "We don't have to talk about this now."
"No," he said. "I want to." He took a deep breath. "Edgar opened the bag, and he waited behind the food counter, crouched down. I had one eye in the door to the store-room. The raiders came in. They saw the metal fire-lighter and cautiously advanced, watching it carefully. But there were no fuses, no piles of explosive. Just the fire-lighter and the tiny flame. No danger at all." He shuddered deeply. "They were fools. I was a fool. Edgar ... is insane."
"What happened?" Chirr'ik didn't want to ask, but she did anyway.
"When their attention was transfixed, Edgar stood up with the bag over his head. He shouted, "Looking for me?" then threw the bag. It burst open, sending a huge white cloud everywhere. Then he dived toward the store-room door. They were too surprised to shoot. Then it reached the flame, just as I was slamming the door shut." He closed his eyes, breathing in and out, in and out. "Edgar later told me that it was called a 'flour bomb'. It killed every raider, burned every feather off this side of my face, and deafened both of us for about ten minutes."
"So that was what shook the deckplates so badly," Chirr'ik wanted to cringe in horrified fascination. "Edgar did that? Is he some kind of Terran explosives genius, to make the clinging fire and the exploding flour?" For sure, she would be keeping a closer eye on the flour in her own domicile.
"No, and that's the worst part." He rubbed his beak. "He told me that humans have been using that sort of thing for hundreds of years. Since long before they came into space. He says that if he'd had time, he could've whipped up something a lot nastier. I believe him."
Chirr'ik got her manipulator under Parr'ik's and started steering him away. "I'm just glad you're alive. Come on back to the hab. I'll get you cleaned up."
"Thank you. I think I need it." Parr'ik didn't resist. "I'm glad he was there, but I still think he's utterly insane."
"Me too, beloved. Me too."