Chisel Poem

 Noah awoke in the dark, no lights being required for a ship whose occupants were all supposed to be in suspension. He lay there for an unmeasured length of time, until he was sure that no one else would awaken, that it was only him, that there had been a mistake, and that he was now the sole resident of a light-hugging sarcophagus filled with those sleeping so deeply they were legally dead.

After the sobbing, the praying, and the screaming, he sought only to escape. He drowned himself in fiction of every medium, the more colorful the better, for decades. Until finally he realized he was closer to the end of his life than the beginning, and considered he could still leave some sort of legacy. He found a power tool leftover from the ship's construction behind a bulkhead, and began to engrave his thoughts into the surface of the ship. Every floor, ceiling, and wall became his parchment as he wrote a single massive poem encompassing his life, his thoughts, and the dream that had been denied him.

The other passengers awoke to find their ship transformed, and they took his poem with them onto the new world.

People of the Solar System

In Sol it is whorls of nuclear energy that became people. They are called angels, for their perfect society long ago solved all problems of morality. They do not interact with the rest of the system, but occasionally exile the imperfect, sending them burning through the ether to land on some planet or asteroid or moon and become djinn.

On Mercury it is rocks that became people. They are slow, methodical beings who spend their time in contemplation, for they do not die and require nothing to live. Their powers of introspection and self-control are second-to-none but convincing them to accept you as a student will require incredible patience.

On Venus it is plants that became people. Stately and always flowering, they prize the colors of their leaves and petals. Their movements are slow, deliberate, and carefully practiced so that they are always in an elegant pose. Their understanding of beauty and grace is perfect, but they will not allow you in their society if you will ugly it.

On Mars it is lizards that became people. They spend 4/5 of their lives asleep, and the remainder in frantic action, performing maintenance on the automated machines that run their society. Martian machines are valuable trade goods and trade ships carrying them will be welcomed throughout the system.

On Ceres it is fish that became people. They evolved under the ice, in total darkness, but they and their cousin animals are bioluminescent. They build aquariums out of asteroids and travel the system in glass spheres. They do not like to show themselves, but display alluring lightshows, for which they are nicknamed sirens.

Around Saturn it is birds that became people. They fly between Saturn’s many moons on mirror wings, snatching up shards of ice and bringing shiny rocks to their nests. Their culture is centered on vendettas; each bird can recite a list of who has wronged them and how.

Around Jupiter it is insects that became people. They fly between Jupiter’s many moons on transparent wings, devouring each other and anything that enters Jovian orbit. Their society is without morality, as they are unable to feel any sort of pain.

On Uranus it is coral reefs that became people. Their bodies sprawl across the shallow zones, feeding on radioactive plankton and thinking vast, slow thoughts. It is assumed that their philosophies are filled with unique insights, but their language has never been translated.

On Neptune it is the ocean that became a person. The water ammonia mix of its seas carve channels in the ice, inscribing perfect memories and flowing in patterns of perfect thought. Neptune wants nothing more than to bring itself closer to the sun and awaken the other planets.

Nootropics

The stuff isn't addictive, per se, but I promise you'll never go back. Because my stuff works. Genius in a pill, take one a day.

Suddenly the world is simple. Everything is obvious. You'll have so many ideas.

Don't go off it. You'll remember being smart, remember enough, that, when you quit, you'll feel pitiful, slow, damaged. The thoughts will come slow and arrive half-formed. You'll know you can be better. You'll know it, but its just not coming together. Not without my help.

Or maybe you've been taking it for years. You've built a career. An identity. You won't be able to keep up without it. You'll be drowning in your own life.Your coworkers will wonder what happened, why you can't get anything right anymore. Your dreams of inventions, discoveries, or artistic masterpieces? Impossible now. Unless you take another dose.

First time's free.

Anteaters

The eusocial arthropoids of Sirius are not ants, and the mammaloids that prey on them are not anteaters, but that it what they were called by the rushed survey team, and that is what stuck.

Neither species truly resembles ants or anteaters. The "ants" are usually about a centimeter long and half as wide, with translucent, slightly shiny exoskeletons. They spend as much time as possible in their underground colonies, hiding from the sun. The "anteaters" have six limbs, but only walk on four. Their front two limbs are asymmetric: one is strong and has large claws to break open colonies, and one is long and dexterous for snatching up ants.

It turns out the anteaters are sentient, something the survey team missed on their first visit. In their defense, the anteaters have no technology. Their social structure, however, is sophisticated, and their politics fast-paced and lethal. Everything revolves around the care and breeding of the ants, which they have domesticated. Leadership is equated with ant farming; their autocrats are expected to "farm" their society like they do their ants.

They have no tools, but their digging claws and organization are enough for them to construct city-scale burrow complexes. They do not use fire, but they practice eugenics. They are breeding themselves to excel even more at their social games, getting smarter and more cunning, yet specialized and incomprehensible. What would happen if this primitive but intelligent species were suddenly introduced to technology? The sector governor has decided to leave that question unanswered.

Stunsnake

A genetically engineered self-defense tool, stunsnakes are a combination of electric eels and vipers. They have a viper's fangs made of a copper alloy. When they bite, their fangs create a circuit with their target's flesh, working like a stungun. A stungun that will automatically attack movement, penetrate light armor with their metal fangs, and wrap themselves around a target so that it can't escape. Stunsnakes are thicker and shorter than ordinary snakes, with shiny black skin.

Where it comes from: Stunsnakes are the flagship product of biotech company Practibeasts. The company ultimately went out of business, but not before they produced a run of ten thousand stunsnakes, which have found their way all over the world.

What it wants: Stunsnakes are engineered to be as easy to care for as possible. They spend most of their time in a light doze, from which they can wake at a moment's notice.

What it needs: Stunsnakes are obligate electrovores. They need electricity not only to shock their targets, but to live. Providing them with a sufficient charge is easy: their tails plug into any standard AC outlet.

What it will fight for: Stunsnakes will attack any movement. Familiarizing them with your smell is necessary to prevent them from attacking you.

What happens if you eat it: Stunsnake skin contains layers of rubber, and is inedible. Stunsnake flesh, if it carries a charge, will shock your mouth as you chew. If uncharged, it tastes like bland fish.

What can be crafted out of it: The electrocytes of a Stunsnake, if removed correctly, can be used by any bio-fabricator with a fuzzy logic module to make batteries. The skin is a great electrical insulator, and can be made into protective gloves or shoes.

Humans

Many, many forms of people have existed, but most never last. These are those that have found a niche and proved themselves a survivable way of life.

Orthodox: The Orthodox are true humans. Some are born from gene-molds, or are the result of generations of genetic manipulation, or are unable to emerge from the suits that sustain them, but they are human minds, in human bodies, in human societies. They take pride in maintaining the ancient traditions of humanity. They are not united, but live in city-states, cult compounds, corsair caravans, and hundreds of other small societies scattered throughout the Solar system.

Amalgams: Not everyone takes pride in being human. Some look at the abilities of other life with envy, and seek to augment themselves by any means available. Haphazard augmentations often has unexpected results, and so every Amalgam is unique, with unique abilities, and unique disorders.

Multiple: Many minds in one brain in one body. Multiple personalities, multiple trains of thought. Range from attitude sets that share memories to independent people in the same body.

Blanks: Blanks have had their executive function removed. Their only desires are those that are implanted, usually survival plus subservience. Blanks are formidable, being just as intelligent as they were before the procedure, and are incredibly decisive, never hesitating to act or react. Blanks have no societies of their own, but are found everywhere, as they are useful and easy to make. In some places, becoming a blank is a form of suicide, in others, execution.

Shamans: Shamans do not much value conscious thought, but do not go nearly so far as to become blanks. They keep their consciousness, but replace rationality with hypercharged intuition. They have excellent social skills, and indeed their view of the world is primarily social, using anthropomorphization as a filter through which to view the world. They view all systems as persons, not abstractions, and thanks to their powers of intuition, can still be accurate. Their speech uses metaphors and analogies heavily. They use technology, but never invent any, and rarely even create it.

Relics: Relics are immortal human minds in robotic bodies. Most live solitary lives, wandering the system pursuing whatever arbitrary goals they might set for themselves. Their memories are not longer than those of a normal human, so much of their own lives are forgotten, but each and every one of them is a legend, and so many learn about themselves by collecting stories about themselves.

Shattered Hive

Ghostly pale translucent grubs, chew the mud of an alien planet and huddle together in dark chambers. Once they were larvae, surviving underground until they could metamorphosize into winged insects but cowering in the dark proved a better survival strategy than flying, so now they stay adolescent forever. Once they were solitary, assuming any other life was hostile. Cooperation proved an effective means of gathering food and creating shelter, so their society became tightly bound, and then bond even tighter when the grubs began communicating through an unceasing ultrasonic song, carrying the thoughts of a nascent gestalt mind

Their carefully sculpted clay tower colonies became slumped over mounds and they began to die ever more frequently, from mold, parasites, and confused violence. Yet, in the depths of these mounds, individuals began to experiment with their own creations, churning mud into representations from their dream-like consciousness.

World of Mists

The world of mists is a terrarium, a cylinder carved out of an asteroid to contain a self-sustaining ecosystem. Spun for gravity, the interior of the cylinder has a surface area of almost 140km2. An odd effect of airflow through the spinning cylinder has led to permanent mist.

Approximately a third of the surface is covered in lakes and ponds, another third is marsh, and another third is forest. The constant mist has lead to massive amounts of lichens and mosses growing on every available surface. Moose wander the land eating lichen off branches, otters live along the shores of the lakes, and packs of wild dogs hunt through smell at night. The thick constant mist forces all animals to neglect their sight and depend on other senses. During the day you can hear moose bellowing to each other, and at night the dogs howl.

A village has been carved into the sheer cliff that forms one end of the cylinder.. The villagers tend to moist gardens and maintain necessary machines, living meditative lives of routine, including exercises that maximize their hearing. It is because of these exercises that they have become aware of the wanderer, a being that has never been seen. It may be able to see through the mist, for it has always been able to avoid even silent pursuers, but in quiet twilights one can hear the sound of its heavy steps as it roams.

Punctuated Equilibrium

Long after the singularity, after a million miracles had been tried and left wanting, after the reconstruction of the solar system into countless ruins, after the creation of great minds who cared for nothing but their own thoughts, humanity endures.

Then, each new invention promised a new world, a new way of life, a new future. Now each new invention promises more wealth, more power, and more prospects, but is always found to be costly, impractical, or useless.

The renovations of Mars and Venus would have made new Earths. It would have been a labor of centuries, but subsequent generations proved unwilling to pay the great costs. They support life, but they are not Earth-like. The solar system would not be adapted to suit Earth life, but Earth life was adapted to suit the solar system.

Then, humanity assumed that the creation of great artificial intelligences would be its greatest work.  They were long anticipated as the harbingers of either heaven or hell, but they only introspect, answering no questions and telling no truths. They are only feared when they are not forgotten.

A thousand peoples have lived and died, but only the tenacious and omnivorous survive. There are many peoples, but only some are human. Humanity endures, but the great wheel of time grinds innovation into tradition, and tradition into stagnation.

Purity of Form

We had heard rumors about the place for years, and obviously dismissed them. When a surveyor actually found it and brought back pictures, we assumed he was playing a prank on us. But someone upstairs took him seriously and sent a science team, and they brought back samples. Now there was a new laboratory somewhere in the mountains.

Our little outpost was the connection between that lab and the outside world, and we were all trying to get a peek at the hermetically sealed containers that were being shipped out. Security staff weren't privy to anything that was going on. But six months later, I was rotated into duty at the laboratory, to escort scientists as they run their tests.

As you crest the ridge and enter the valley, the first thing you notice is that it is filled with beige trees with white leaves. The trees have bark made of keratin, making them uncannily smooth. The leaves of the trees are pale white and tend to droop. They are made of skin, albino skin, the better to absorb light. In spring some grow "flowers" made of fine eyelashes.

Squirrels climb with small hands and chatter with almost-voices. Sheep walk on their knuckles and grow thick coats of coarse human hair. There are no birds, but bats are everywhere, hanging from trees with wings like emaciated hands. Even snakes have scales like tiny fingernails. Every animal has human eyes.

During summer the smell of human sweat is inescapable. Even in the laboratory it seems to cling to everything. Only in our hermetically sealed hazmat suits are we spared.

I'm showing Jones how to put on his suit, making adjustments every time he does it wrong, which is every time. My job is to make sure he doesn't do anything stupid in the valley, which is usually easy. New guys usually just follow along in grossed out daze.

When we're over the ridge and begin descending, picking our way past thorny, bone-like shrubs and into the treeline, he begins breaking the unwritten rule for security staff and starts pestering the scientists. Luckily, Dr. Vasquez is willing to indulge his curiosity.

"There aren't any normal plants and animals at all?" asks Jones.

"None. Even the microorganisms seems to be descended from inhabitants of the human gut. Normal plants can't sprout here, and normal animals die of allergic reactions." says Dr. Vasquez.

"Why?

"Its called allelopathy. These organisms all produce a protein that kills all non-human forms of life."

"That's why we have to wear these suits?"

"To protect us from allergens, yes. But also to protect the valley. We are genetically similar enough that diseases could spread from us to them."

We hear the sound of gagging and turned. Jones has taken off his facemask.

"It smells like sweat!"

"PUT YOUR MASK BACK ON!" I bellow, running.

Jones can't stop gagging, his throat is closing up. I wrestle his facemask on and open up the oxygen valve, but he is already slumping to the ground. Dr. Vasquez checks his vitals. Jones is unconscious, but not dead. He'll probably survive if we can get him back to the laboratory, but that means hauling him out of the woods, up the slopes, and back over the ridge, and we'll have to do it as fast as possible.

I hoist Jones on to my back, and, as I turn to Dr. Vasquez, I catch something out of the corner of my eye.

The first thing I saw was the eyes, and I think, for a moment, that they were a man's eyes. I almost call out to him, when I see the face. The body is shaped like a big cat, but it has the hairless skin of a human. Human eyes, wolf face, human skin, tiger body. It paces towards us carefully and confidently. We run, and somewhere along the way I drop Jones.

The Defense of Irkutsk

The last monster of summer had shoved its way through thin arctic ice, and begun its journey south. The hole in the ice had frozen-over before being spotted, and the tracks covered by wind-blown snow. The thing had wandered in its fugue of hunger and adrenaline for weeks before being spotted and called in by a militia outpost, already much too far south for comfort. The hunter-killer Hind squadrons were unavailable, protecting Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Valdivostok, or else receiving necessary maintenance, and so militia groups were hastily mobilized and assigned military officers.

Five tanks along a ridge. All had their hatches open with men standing in them. Most manning DShK heavy machine guns, but two have binoculars. Mist blankets the land.

The lieutenant had been gazing through his binoculars since dawn, as had the militia sergeant. The lieutenant was restless, occasionally taking his focus off of his binoculars to take in the landscape, or glancing at the sergeant. The sergeant was diligently scanning the fog, making a point of paying the lieutenant no mind.

"Silhouette, twelve o'clock" said the lieutenant .

"SILHOUETTE, TWELVE O'CLOCK" screamed the sergeant. The lieutenant winced in spite of himself, and the five tanks pointed their guns north. The lieutenant and the sergeant both focused on the shape in the mist.

The mist cleared briefly and revealed a tree.

The sergeants face remained carefully neutral. The lieutenant and the sergeant returned to scanning the landscape.

"Movement, eleven o'clock."

"MOVEMENT, ELEVEN O'CLOCK!"

The guns of the five tanks shifted left.

The fog shifted in the morning breeze. Nothing moved. The sergeant began to smirk. Then there came an echoing call, halfway between a scream and a trumpet, and the monster came charging at them.

"FIRE!" screamed both the lieutenant and the sergeant, and the call of the creature was met by the crack of the guns. The shells hit around the creature, some traveling too far, some coming up short. Shrapnel tore into its legs and belly and it began to bleed, but it continued its charge.

"FIRE!" the officers screamed again. This time the guns were loaded with APFSDS rounds, tungsten darts designed to pierce armor. They zipped through the creature as though nothing were there. It stumbled, and struggled to get up.

The lieutenant waved the line of tanks forward, and signaled the machineguns to open fire. The combined sound of five heavy machine guns is felt as much as heard. Fifty heavy bullets per second began tearing apart flesh, sending up eruptions of black blood.

Up close, it looked almost like a mammoth. Almost. It had too many trunks, and they were too long. It had too many tusks, and they were too sharp.And, as something tore its way out of the monsters belly and charged at the nearest tank, the lieutenant realized it had been pregnant.

Intelligent Design

Humanity was created for a purpose. We are vessels, with just enough soul to be possessed. We are servitors, with enough intelligence to do work but not enough to understand. We are clay, substantial enough to be molded but not so substantial that we pose a problem for the potter. We are neotenic, children who can become something greater. We were made to be transformed. We were always meant to something more.

There are older beings, mature beings who were once like us, but whose forms have stiffened. They envy our youth and our adaptability. They peer at us from great distances, from around angles in spacetime, and from the distant future. We must beat them to the punch and decide for ourselves what we are to become.

Moscow

The banks of the Moskva river have collapsed and flooded, creating new wetlands. Much of the subway system is also flooded, but some are known to have survived in sealed sections. In summer, Moscow swarms with the activity a new ecosystem, and dozens of species of stinging insects. In winter the river freezes, and the survivors emerge to scavenge and hunt hibernating beasts.

The USSR will not abandon its former capital without a fight. There have been numerous attempts at reclamation over the years, all of which have failed, and many of which have left behind pockets of soldiers. Most die, some are assimilated by bands of survivors, passing on their skills.

Manhattan

South of central park, all of Manhattan is enclosed in glass, a carefully maintained habitable environment, spring 365 days a year. A glass roof is supported by the tops of smaller buildings and fills the gaps between taller ones. Cars are forbidden with the enclosure, as air pollution has nowhere to go, and much of the subway system is flooded. There is an electric bus service, bicycling is encouraged, and many streets have been converted to pedestrian only walkways and "open-air" markets.

Outside of the enclosure, things are dicier. The giant squatter cities of Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. Survivors focused on getting through the day, and preparing for increasingly difficult winters. Although they hate it, much of their economy is based on the Manhattan Enclosure, either in service positions or making hand-crafted goods to sell there on weekends.

London

An airtanker arrives, every day, to dump white powder over the city. The drops focus on Hyde Park, ground zero for the infection. 25 tons of powder per day adds up, blowing about the city and piling into drifts. When it rains the mixture foams and bubbles, and bleaches the stone as it drains towards the Thames. The river is as dead as the city, but with the population of Great Britain dead or evacuated, no one complains. Nature has grown strong enough and weird enough to look after itself anyway.

Footsteps

Based on a prompt

“Did you hear that?”

“Something in cargo fell over maybe. Get back to work man, we’re almost done.”

“No, it sounded like it came from the hull.”

“So maybe we got winged by a micrometeorite. We’re almost done man, I want to get back to my pod.”

“…Okay, that time it definitely came from outside!”

“Yeah, I heard it, lets…”

“…”

“…”

“Are those…”

“…footsteps?”

Oops

Based on a prompt

“We’re doing this for a reason.” the young man said, strapping a helmet of wires and magnets to my head.

“It’s for your own good. I can promise you that.” the old man agreed, still looking at the monitor.

The metal of the helmet was cold and sharp against my scalp. I’d started shaving my head last month, but had that been my idea, or was that something they’d arranged for their own convenience?

I sought eye-contact with the young man. “I’ve already figured out how to prevent myself from retroactively preventing my own existence, my anti-paradox algorithm is air-tight. Besides, there are worse ways to go then not having ever existed, right?” I forced a laugh.

They made eye-contact. The old man suddenly seemed very, very old, and the young man seemed scared. The young man held a pleading look for a moment, but dropped his eyes, and the old man looked back to his monitor with grim determination.

The young man looked apologetic. “It’s not about what you will erase. It’s about what you will create.”

“Us.” said the old man.

“Us.” said the young man “There are, indeed, much worse things than to never exist. That is why we choose our own erasure, despite the cost. I’m sorry.”

The old man put one finger on the ENTER key. “Don’t worry” he said, “You won’t feel a thing.”

He started the program.

Supers

Based on a prompt

"I was so scared!" I sobbed into her shoulder. "I didn't want to go with them, but they were going to take me!"

"There, there" she said, stroking my head. "I would never let them take you anywhere."

What was left of them was scattered across the alley. Stray limbs, crushed torsos, blood pooling.

Some of the patches they had been wearing were still unstained. The flags of the old nations. They were one of the groups who wanted to bring back the old world. A world ruled by mere humans. Who knows what they would have done with me.

The smell of her hair calmed me down, as it always did. She stared into me with shining eyes.

"I don't know where I'd find another like you. An aquiline nose, perfect skin, and no wisdom teeth? Your children will be the start of something beautiful."

She kissed my forehead.

"Now lets get you back home."

I held on tight as she leapt into the sky. She smelled so good. I was so happy.

Scout

Based on a prompt

The rumble of the engine rattled the delicate prayer beads my father had hung from the ceiling. It fluttered the tapestries my mother had tied to non-essential scaffolding, images of old-earth for luck.

It shook my bones. I took a swig of kefir and returned my focus to the monitors.

A planetoid, a good one. Traces of radioactives, nickel-iron, platinum-group metals, and best of all, water ice. Another bonus, the Empire had also recognized the planetoid’s value, and allowed some of its servants to build an outpost. Wide-eyed, squat things. The Empire wouldn’t have granted one of the auxiliary species a full garrison. A chance to make a wound, however small.

The Horde would be glad to glut itself on water, and the Khan would be glad to harm the Empire. As she had decreed, so would it be, a thousand planets ravaged in payment for the murder of Earth, a hundred alien lives in restitution for each of our own. As the Emperor had sown, so would he reap.

I set a course for my rendezvous with a happy heart.

Malignant Machine

These are the facts.

It has all the advantages of biology and machines. It grows, reproduces, and evolves like something alive. It has suffused itself into the biosphere, and not living thing remains uninfected. It is specialized and powerful like something mechanical. It has suffused itself into all human technology, and no machine is uninfected.

The closer you get to the equator, the more solar energy is available to feed its intensive processes. Here everything is part of one system, constantly adapting, improving, and integrating.  It incorporates everything into itself, growing its own interfaces.  There is less distinction between machines, animals, and humans every day.

The farther you get from the equator, the less solar energy is available and the slower it grows. Up here, there are still humans. They are infected just like everything else, but able to pick up a wrench without gaining a wrench-hand. Nothing is uninfected, but those last humans have the luxury of choosing how human to be.

Notes: How about an RPG where your inventory levels up instead of your character.