Splintered Reality - part six
The Osprey class cruiser perched like an awkward bird in the dim light of docking bay number 37. A squat figure stood silhouetted against the side of the ship, which was illuminated in a pool of glaring light from the tungsten inert gas welder. To eye any who might be peering over the subjects shoulder, which of course there weren’t any as the person was alone in the darkness of the docking bay – but had there been anyone the could have easily mistaken the work being done on the side of the ship for that of a poorly repaired ’57 Chevy from old earth. This pristine white paint had been ground down to bare metal, leaving deep gouges that were readily apparent. The metal itself was no covered with a grey primer normally meant for land craft, rather than a ship meant to travel the vast void which lay between solar systems. If you were to look rather carefully toward the bottom of the side of the ship – if you squinted you could see two bumper stickers. Bumper stickers in name only, of course, as the time had long passed, eons ago in fact, when any vehicle of any sort had anything even remotely resembling the shape or holding the purpose of bumpers.
There was no longer anything resembling the shape of bumpers for there had long ago stopped being a reasons for bumpers at all. This was due in a large part to the proliferation of lawyers, and the pursuant lawsuits, that filled the later have of the first century following man kind’s, or person kind’s as it is more properly known, first great leap into space – interstellar space travel. In fact it was not so much as a leap as a limp. For the entire affair was hampered by such an astoundingly large body of lawsuits that the legal “body” became too bloated to function at all. This of course resulted in near total anarchy in most of the newest colonies that mankind, or person kind, had since established.
As person kind reached into the vastness of space, it usually found it’s hand slapped like an unruly child, for most of the races didn’t want “their” kind (their kind being humans) if they brought their lawyers with them. To prevent the fall of humanity, into what it became an increasingly likely fall into the black hole that had become the lawyer spawned, black hole that was bureaucracy, lawyers were banned from public practice. Those that had not already been chained to the oars of tour ships, plying the seas of the many new colonies (that were now delighted to accept humanity sans attorneys) were allowed to live in large asylums on barren planets, far from anything even remotely resembling intelligent life, behind 300 foot high walls baring large signs in 50 high letters that read “Abandon all hope you who enter”
Signs like this, bore little resemblance to what mankind, in its tenacious desire to cling to anything that was symbolic of “good times” , had still come to call a “bumper sticker”
In fact both the bumper stickers, which read, respectively – “Minmatar space, love it, leave it, or get too drunk to notice” and “The only way they will get my 250mm autocannon away from me is by prying it out of my cold dead hands” – and the owner of said bumper stickers reflected the love of what they thought of as “the good life”. Namely, drinking and blowing things up, and in the best of times, both at the same time.
The bumper sticker, as is obvious, reflected the sentiment in its message which it plastered across the side of the owner’s newly purchased mining ship. The owner reflected the sentimentality due to the ease with which she managed to weld on the sign she now held in one hand, with the welder she held in the other hand, and drink the beer which she held in a prehensile tail.
The owner of the prehensile tail was a member of a growing race of individuals which considered themselves “inter-specied” - and then only be design, in particular, genetic design. For many eons since mankind was first able to walk erect and think clearly, there had been endless debate over whether humans had descended from apes, crawled out of a primordial sea, or made by God on a Saturday afternoon. Then, ironically, one lazy Sunday afternoon, a geneticist named Hubert Bupnik or “Huey” to his friends, of which he had very few for reasons which will soon become apparent, had an idea. Despite eons of mankind’s development, Huey was rarely capable of clear thinking, and only occasionally walking erect. This last incapacity Huey had was due to his regular habit of imbibing so much alcohol it would have killed the average yak.
Then, on a Sunday afternoon, in a rather depressed state of mind, caused by a particularly heavy round of drinking the Saturday before (which in Heuy’s case was considerable), he was mulling over something some had said to him the evening before. Here is what they said:
“Huey,” he was told, “you look like you are one of the first generations in your family down out of the trees.”
In one of his rare lucid moments, Huey Bupnik made what has become known in most scientific circles, as one of the worst decisions ever made, by creating for himself, and those that would follow him, a genetically enhanced, surgically attached prehensile tail. Thus allowing him, or so he claimed, to “rejoin his relatives in the trees” and finally, once and for all, “get away from it all.” As it turns out, getting away from it all was something that was incredibly easy, due to the initial reaction from his friends.
It was soon discovered, however, that no matter where humans came from, the apes had the right idea, as it turned out, a prehensile tail was an incredibly useful thing to have. In some remote sectors of the galaxy, where the primary unit of currency has become the beer bottle cap, tails became so popular as to necessitate a whole new body of law and ethics regarding tails, thereby necessitating the release of aforementioned lawyers.
And so, sign in hand, and beer in tail, one half of “Crantz-Stern” mining puts the finishing touches on the sign that graces the hull of their new flag ship. It is a flag ship which brings their fleet up to a grand total of one and a half…well…one and three quarters really if you where to count both the escape pod fashioned from a military surplus pilots pod (and now rather ungracefully attached to the underside of the cruiser) as well as the shuttle that lays limply on its side, at the far end of the docking bay.
The sign finished, Rosa sets down her welding torch to take a look at her new ship, on the side of which has been painted two beer mugs. Below this is a sign which reads,
S.S. Hammered Steel
Pilot: R. Crantz
Navigator: G. Stern
There was no longer anything resembling the shape of bumpers for there had long ago stopped being a reasons for bumpers at all. This was due in a large part to the proliferation of lawyers, and the pursuant lawsuits, that filled the later have of the first century following man kind’s, or person kind’s as it is more properly known, first great leap into space – interstellar space travel. In fact it was not so much as a leap as a limp. For the entire affair was hampered by such an astoundingly large body of lawsuits that the legal “body” became too bloated to function at all. This of course resulted in near total anarchy in most of the newest colonies that mankind, or person kind, had since established.
As person kind reached into the vastness of space, it usually found it’s hand slapped like an unruly child, for most of the races didn’t want “their” kind (their kind being humans) if they brought their lawyers with them. To prevent the fall of humanity, into what it became an increasingly likely fall into the black hole that had become the lawyer spawned, black hole that was bureaucracy, lawyers were banned from public practice. Those that had not already been chained to the oars of tour ships, plying the seas of the many new colonies (that were now delighted to accept humanity sans attorneys) were allowed to live in large asylums on barren planets, far from anything even remotely resembling intelligent life, behind 300 foot high walls baring large signs in 50 high letters that read “Abandon all hope you who enter”
Signs like this, bore little resemblance to what mankind, in its tenacious desire to cling to anything that was symbolic of “good times” , had still come to call a “bumper sticker”
In fact both the bumper stickers, which read, respectively – “Minmatar space, love it, leave it, or get too drunk to notice” and “The only way they will get my 250mm autocannon away from me is by prying it out of my cold dead hands” – and the owner of said bumper stickers reflected the love of what they thought of as “the good life”. Namely, drinking and blowing things up, and in the best of times, both at the same time.
The bumper sticker, as is obvious, reflected the sentiment in its message which it plastered across the side of the owner’s newly purchased mining ship. The owner reflected the sentimentality due to the ease with which she managed to weld on the sign she now held in one hand, with the welder she held in the other hand, and drink the beer which she held in a prehensile tail.
The owner of the prehensile tail was a member of a growing race of individuals which considered themselves “inter-specied” - and then only be design, in particular, genetic design. For many eons since mankind was first able to walk erect and think clearly, there had been endless debate over whether humans had descended from apes, crawled out of a primordial sea, or made by God on a Saturday afternoon. Then, ironically, one lazy Sunday afternoon, a geneticist named Hubert Bupnik or “Huey” to his friends, of which he had very few for reasons which will soon become apparent, had an idea. Despite eons of mankind’s development, Huey was rarely capable of clear thinking, and only occasionally walking erect. This last incapacity Huey had was due to his regular habit of imbibing so much alcohol it would have killed the average yak.
Then, on a Sunday afternoon, in a rather depressed state of mind, caused by a particularly heavy round of drinking the Saturday before (which in Heuy’s case was considerable), he was mulling over something some had said to him the evening before. Here is what they said:
“Huey,” he was told, “you look like you are one of the first generations in your family down out of the trees.”
In one of his rare lucid moments, Huey Bupnik made what has become known in most scientific circles, as one of the worst decisions ever made, by creating for himself, and those that would follow him, a genetically enhanced, surgically attached prehensile tail. Thus allowing him, or so he claimed, to “rejoin his relatives in the trees” and finally, once and for all, “get away from it all.” As it turns out, getting away from it all was something that was incredibly easy, due to the initial reaction from his friends.
It was soon discovered, however, that no matter where humans came from, the apes had the right idea, as it turned out, a prehensile tail was an incredibly useful thing to have. In some remote sectors of the galaxy, where the primary unit of currency has become the beer bottle cap, tails became so popular as to necessitate a whole new body of law and ethics regarding tails, thereby necessitating the release of aforementioned lawyers.
And so, sign in hand, and beer in tail, one half of “Crantz-Stern” mining puts the finishing touches on the sign that graces the hull of their new flag ship. It is a flag ship which brings their fleet up to a grand total of one and a half…well…one and three quarters really if you where to count both the escape pod fashioned from a military surplus pilots pod (and now rather ungracefully attached to the underside of the cruiser) as well as the shuttle that lays limply on its side, at the far end of the docking bay.
The sign finished, Rosa sets down her welding torch to take a look at her new ship, on the side of which has been painted two beer mugs. Below this is a sign which reads,
S.S. Hammered Steel
Pilot: R. Crantz
Navigator: G. Stern
posted by Sr.Julie at 4:22 PM
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