Bored humans in space would be a very dangerous thing! injuries-in-dust wrote this wonderful little sci-fi story about aliens discussing how “Boredom is a dangerous thing to a human”. After all, us space orcs don’t like to be bored! This is why all spaceships need “act of human insurance”, lol:
Source: injuries-in-dust
What are the odds the thing would have all the needed components to make a functioning coffee maker?
I mean, a coffee maker just needs hot water and something to strain the water through the grains.
They’re not complex machines and there’s numerous different types, so it’s quite likely that it would have enough random parts to build a coffee maker out of.
My thought:
What Chull and Minxx were unaware of is that there has been a sudden spike of odd maintenance requests the past 25 rotations. Like the request to replace the missing spring from the latch on cargo bin XJ*678, the disappearance of all the Rugarian snezle fish forks from the aft commissary, and the ticket to replace a missing 1 meter section of hydraulic tubing from the old model deck cleaner bot on deck 7.
OMZ (Oh, My Zeus, which I use in place of the more common acronym, to avoid offending those following other Gods), this sounds so familiar.
I married an engineer. Two of our kids, and multiple grandchildren, have that gene. I can’t entirely blame him, as my brother and I used to regularly take my father’s alarm clock and other gadgets apart to ‘see how they worked’.
I (former mechanic/medic, now IT goon) was never so proud when my kid (15 at time) took apart and reassembled their sewing machine, with just a few pieces left over. Been working fine for 8 years now…
“Acts of Human” insurance…😂😂😂
Seized and redistributed from elsewhere. A continuation:
“Shiny Orb technical support, my name is Xzzrit, how may I help you?”
“Hello. My human has fixed his Shiny Orb.”
“What? That’s impossible. The Shiny Orb doesn’t do any thing. It never did anything. There’s nothing to fix.”
“And yet, here it is. Fixed. You should have seen him. He was so…I believe the human word is ‘proud.'”
“What does it do?”
“According to him it makes ‘coffee.'”
“What in the name of Zythor’s Scales is ‘coffee?'”
“I do not know. It is some kind of brown fluid. It could be a beverage, a lubricant, or a murder weapon. Knowing humans it’s probably all three.”
“Can you send the Orb to us? We need to figure out how he did it and how to keep it frm happening again.”
“You know I cannot. The laws against sending human-modified equipment on regular transportation are quite clear. Nobody wants another Sakish Incident.”
“No, of course. I can send a special courier, but it will take some time to get there.”
“That is not a concern. 90% of my crew just quit. Mark and I aren’t going anywhere.”
Honestly I’m sure that if they let humans on the ship and work well enough together to speak casually with them, they would, at the very least know, what the contents of coffee is. They might not know the purpose of it but know what it is.
Continuing from quoted part
“According to him it makes ‘coffee.’”
“Wait, are you telling me that the human made the shiny orb, that previously has done nothing, into a device that makes a liquid that contains the very poisonous chemical caffeine?”
“Yes that is correct. I’m not sure if I’m worried or scared but the human so far has not shown any violence towards the crew and never intentionally showed any malice towards them. Should we be worried?”
“No, No, as far as I’m aware of. The humans regularly drink this substance to….”
*sounds of background typing*
“Gain energy or to stay awake throughout the day.”
“Wait, they consume this toxin? Does this not harm them?”
“From the human cultural research team documents.. It doesn’t appear to cause them adverse affect with regular consumption but if the human is not used to it, it can make them jittery or hyperactive. However, in the case of consumption beyond “safe” amounts, it can cause heart palpitations, high blood pressure, and can cause death.”
“I’m afraid to ask but what is considered the limit of “safe” amount?”
“Four cups”
“Humans are truly terrifying.”
Well – at least he didn’t fix it to become something really interesting…like a matter transporter, a room cleaning robot with AI, or (shudder) and holograph projector of entertainment videos…of questionable nature.
(end of story)
Who said Mark was an engineer?
I see you aggrosquirrel!
the comments are just as amazing as the story
Anything can be a coffee maker if you’re bored enough…
Being both an avid coffee drinker and the only non-engineer in my family of 4, this is my favorite “humans in space” story so far.
Reminds me of Good Omens, where Newt tries to assemble a joke electrical thing that’s supposed to do nothing when turned on, and ends up picking up Radio Moscow with it 😛