on the topic of humans being the intergalactic “hold my beer” species: imagine an alien stepping onto a human starship and seeing a space roomba™ with a knife duct taped onto it, just wandering around the ship
it doesn’t have any special intelligence. it’s just a normal space roomba. there are other space roombas on the ship and they don’t have knives. it’s just this one. knife space roomba has full clearance to every room in the ship. occasionally crew members will be talking and then suddenly swear and clutch their ankle. knife space roomba putters off, leaving them to their mild stab wounds.
“what is the point?” asks the alien as another crew member casually steps over the knife-wielding robot. “is it to test your speed and agility?”
“no it doesn’t really go that fast,” replies the captain.
“does it teach you to stay ever-vigilant?”
“I mean I guess so but that’s more of a side effect.”
“does it weed out the weak? does it protect you from invaders? do repeated stabbings let your species heal more quickly in the future?”
“it doesn’t stab very hard, it gets us more than it gets our enemies, and no, but that sounds cool — someone write that down.”
“but then what is its purpose?”
“I don’t know,” the captain says, leaning down to give the space roomba an affectionate pat. “it just seemed cool”
this is the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard but I thought about it for five seconds and realized that if I were, say, a random communications officer onboard this ship and someone taped a knife to a roomba it would take maybe three weeks before even I was inordinately fond of Stabby. I would be proud of Stabby when I met up with my other spacefleet friends for space coffee, I would tell them about the time Stabby got the second mate in the ankle five seconds before the fleet admiral beamed on board and she swore in seven different languages in front of high command.
also by the fourth day Stabby would be in the ship’s log, he’d have little painted-on insignia, people would salute him as he went by, and someone would hook up a twitter account to tweet maniacal laughter and/or a truly terrible knock-knock joke every time he managed to nick someone.
Omg so the ting I typed up might actually happen this is gold
I am suddenly astonished that Stabby isn’t Farscape canon. 1812 was weird enough.
Stabby’s little charging dock would start accruing cuddly toys and commemorative holo-vids of Stabby’s greatest stabs. Its insignia would start off at a fairly low rank, but soon, without anyone every discussing it, everyone would know that Stabby got to take the rank of the highest ranking crew member it stabbed. The ceremony for Flag Admiral Stabby was beautiful. The captain gave a speech.
why am i proud of stabby this is irrational
INCIDENT LOG: 46-7-2 Action #45437: Desc: Covert enemy boarding attempt
Details: Six (6) members of a Mercenary/Pirate crew of little renown attempted to infiltrate ship in order to steal equipment and/or personnel.
Prior to being detained they had remained undetected for eight (8) hours and accumulated several high value materials (see attached log), and incapacitated and restrained several crewmen (see attached log) in dock #3, with the intention of using a life boat to exfiltrate.
Just prior to their would-be escape, the boarding party encountered the ship’s mascot. A cleaning unit which had been modified by crew members to mount a traditional Terran melee weapon, as well as an officer’s insignia (having been jokingly given a commission by the Captain the night before). Curious, one picked it up, before realising the mounted weapon had a nickel finish (highly toxic to their species) on the handle, and dropped it in a panic.
As the unit’s anti-impact sensors had been disabled, it immediately tried to right itself on landing. This caused it to flip over and slash the third knee of the boarder who dropped it, prompting the rest of the boarders to flee. In doing so, they tripped over a waste container, causing the unit to “chase” them, as it collected the trail of dust they left.
The security crew were alerted to the boarding party’s presence by an entry on “Sargent Stabby’s Hit List” – an account on an intership microblogging site which automatically logs any injuries caused by the cleaning unit in question – and quickly intercepted them.
Casualties: Four (4) crewmen treated for minor lacerations sustained after detaining boarding party, one (1) captured crewman treated for negative reaction to sedatives used by captors.
Belligerent status: Two (2) members of the enemy boarding party remain in stable condition in sickbay. Three (3) remaining surrendered peacefully and remain in the brig. One (1) refuses to leave the safety of a storage cupboard he went to ground in.
Recommendations/Actions:
- All captured guards to undergo debriefing and possible disciplinary action for breaches of security protocol.
- Remind all crew members to report missing colleagues immediately.
- Retain a guard outside cleaning storage room 87 until the final boarder can be coaxed out and properly detained.
- Cleaning unit D4.87 AKA
“Sargent Stabby” has been promoted to Quartermaster, and is now considered the superior officer of all autonomous drones on the ship. All Class #1 drones have been programmed to salute their superior with their effector, should it enter the room while they’re active.
INCIDENT LOG: 56-8-12 Action: #50432 Desc: Accidental Stowaway, Narcotics Smuggling
Details: During routine shore leave, at 04:54 AM Local Time at the Cascadian “Arcturus B. Comarata” Memorial Starport, on-board security teams detected the presence of one (1) unregistered presence within the cargo hold during routine resupply.
One (1) James T. Fry, an engineering student at the local “Cascadia City University” (See attached log) was discovered intoxicated and unconscious in a pool of his own vomit within a storage container brought into the ship filled with various snack foodstuffs (See attached Contamination Containment Report).
D4.87, AKA “Quartermaster Stabby” was assigned by the janitorial automated system to clean the storage container after biological contamination alarms sounded off when the ship’s olfactory sensors detected the usual signs of human vomit while the security team was on break.
At 05:05 AM Local Time D4.87 arrived at the container, and began to perform a deep cleaning operation to sanitize the area.
At this point, security footage detects an audible and visible spark (See attached footage log) erupting from the storage container, along with one James T. Fry, at this point bleeding from his right upper arm from a laceration wound obtained due to D4.87′s attached traditional terran melee weapon. D4.87 emerges twelve (12) seconds later spewing smoke and vaporous clouds from underneath its chassis. It proceeded as such out of the cargo bay and continued along its pre-set work routine, automatically attempting to clean the blood left behind by James T. Fry, setting off various smoke alarms as it passed through Decks A, C, and D while attempting to leave the blood trail.
The unit was, at this point, spewing what has been identified as a heavily concentrated plume of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, and cannabidiol, legal but regulated drugs in the port city of Cascadia.
Human crew members caught in the wake of Quartermaster Stabby’s ceaseless smoke trail while attempting to chase James T. Fry began to show signs of altered states of relaxed consciousness, while other alien members of the crew proceeded to evacuate the ship to avoid potential negative reactions to the drug. An unarmored security team outfitted with gas masks was dispatched to detain D4.87 and James T. Fry, successfully stopping the bleeding from James T. Fry only to suffer light injuries from its attached, traditional Terran Melee weapon as it attempted to avoid them with its inbuilt proximity sensors, slashing at their ankles unintentionally. At this point James T. Fry has fallen unconscious in terror, according to video logs from the security feeds after hallucinating D4.87 as a “raging smoke demon” chasing him down to “sacrifice his blood to the old gods” (See attached security video log).
At this point, maintenance robot “RT-4354″, equipped with manipulators and piloted remotely, intercepted D4.87 in Corridor 54AC on sublevel 3 of Deck D and contained D4.87 within one (1) Vacuum Containment Shell, bringing D4.87 back to the tertiary maintenance team for disassembly, cleaning, repair, and reassembly, while cleaning units D4.88 and D4.89 were assigned to clean up the remaining blood left behind during the incident.
One (1) crackled microcapsule was discovered within D4.87′s waste container.
According to an interview with James T. Fry once he was conscious approximately three (3) hours later, he purchased a microcapsule containing exactly one (1) month’s supply of daily doses of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, and cannabidiol during a drunken escapade following his recent induction to a fraternity, and has apologized profusely for the incident.
Casualties: Five (5) crew members treated for minor lacerations sustained during the attempts to capture D4.87, fifteen (15) crew members taken to the medbay for observation to avoid potential loss of life via drug overdose from the concentrated smoke.
Stowaway status: One (1) James T. Fry currently in custody for trespassing of a military vessel, public drunkenness, and biological endangerment of the crew, to be retrieved by his father, one Mayor Blake T. Fry at the demand of the local government for the handling of his punishment.
Recommendations/Actions:
- Cleaning Unit D4.87 and all other Cleaning Units be retrofitted with air contaminant containment abilities to prevent further incidents to avoid potential use of deliberate biological agent attacks via microcapsule distribution.
- All security team members revise procedures involving D4.87 in case of subsequent runaway incidents to include thicker footwear that protects their ankles at the least, full security armor pants and boots at the worst.
- All storage containment units be, from this moment onwards, inspected before entering the ship’s cargo hold rather than afterwards.
- Reprimand Crewmembers who proceeded to attach one (1) hand knitted Rastafarian style hat to Quartermaster Stabby for violating Cultural Sensitivity guidelines.
END OF INCIDENT LOG
Go Stabby go!!
Published
Mooncustafer 