vignettes

[marycatelli]

This week's prompt is:
comparison 📏

Anyone can join, with a 50-word creative fiction vignette in the comments. Your vignette does not have to include the prompt term. Any (G or PG) definition of the word can be used.

Comments

[starshipcat.livejournal.com]

When the Chongu first made contact, we were in awe of their ability to fly between stars as casually as we fly between LAX and Sidney, or Miami and Jerusalem. Even our greatest achievements seemed to pale in comparison.

But as Earth was Incorporated into their vast star nation, we realized that our technology was nothing to sneeze at. Xerography was such an innovation that it won us a seat in House Corporae, and as their companies started licensing the relevant patents so production could be ramped up even faster than our own production lines could, those royalties made stockholders very wealthy.

As we started working side by side with their various sepoy species, we realized just how much of a technological advantage we had. We just needed enough technical training to use their systems, once we learned enough Chonguri to communicate and read their manuals. Most other species had been at Bronze Age or even Stone Age levels, and only after a whole generation had been raised and educated were they able to participate fully in a technological society. Even the hedgehog-like Katachua had gotten stuck in a steam-age civilization, which crashed when they failed to develop internal-combustion engines and left their homeworld of Kitsi an economic basket case that is still struggling after a couple generations of access to the resources of a goodly part of the Orion Arm.

But it goes the other way too. I don't think the Chongu really grasped what it meant to have a sepoy species who'd already visited their nearest celestial neighbor and were preparing to establish a base on it, and had explored their entire system with robotic probes. Sure, their financial and legal people were giving us credit where credit was due, helping to adjust all our legal systems so our businesses would be able to integrate with their economy and our family law would mesh with their mating contract system. But they were completely caught by surprise at how quickly we picked up their technology and started adapting it to our own purposes, including those of the less savory parts of our society.

Maybe they would've been less surprised if they'd spent a little time reading cyberpunk, and realizing that the street really does find its own uses for technology.

[marycatelli]

Always changes

[marycatelli]

Diggory lay on the ground, but propped himself up on his elbows. He looked intently at Marcus.
Plotting a nefarious fate, perhaps, thought Marcus.
"Marcus is helping us all master our powers," said Diggory. "We should help him, too."
"He's ahead of us," said Hans, but he gave Marcus an uneasy glance.
"That's an ungrateful thing to say," said Cora. "Besides, if he has to protect us, we should help him in every way to be powerful enough."
"Maybe," said Annike, "he doesn't have any notions to test."
"Then," said Jasper, "we should help him figure some new ways out."

[marycatelli]

He forced his breath out. They went by land, to go through the Dark Forest. If they actually wanted haste, they would have gone by sea. Unless last night's storm was a harbringer of more troubled weather. He supposed the king would have wizards to at least foresee such things.