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female Planet of Desperation - Part II


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3 hours ago, DerivativeWings said:

I'm (mostly) well now. Life keeps getting in the way, but here is chapter 7!

 

Chapter 7 - The Truth

This chapter was proofread by @MasterXploder, who writes awesome videogame and anime-related Omo-stories. Read his latest story at this link.

It sounded silly to the point where Lea almost wanted to laugh. However, she realised that her thought process didn't end there. When the federation had made their treaty with humans sixteen years ago, they had given Earth the brief document detailing laws, trade and toilet times. The toilet directives limited how often an individual was allowed to use a bathroom and outlawed non-federation toilets.

Lea felt a strange mixture of excitement and fear as the true purpose of the directives dawned on her.

Urene was created using a desperate pee.

Okay now I'm even more confused. This explains the weird and extremely expensive to enforce restrictions but why does a persons level of urgency effect whether or not you get a successful reaction?  Maybe it has to do with the metabolic effects of stress? But again you should be able to isolate the specific compounds and go with a synthetic route. It would quite the Biochem problem but still probably easier than making a bunch of shaved apes do a pee dance.  At current population levels there are approximately 7 billion people so you would literally have to make tens of millions of those "1984" toilets. That's a huge resource investment just for that one piece of infrastructure. 

 

I'm just looking at Science, Econ, geopolitics and going WTF?

Edited by YourFNF (see edit history)
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11 hours ago, YourFNF said:

Okay now I'm even more confused. This explains the weird and extremely expensive to enforce restrictions but why does a persons level of urgency effect whether or not you get a successful reaction?  Maybe it has to do with the metabolic effects of stress? But again you should be able to isolate the specific compounds and go with a synthetic route. It would quite the Biochem problem but still probably easier than making a bunch of shaved apes do a pee dance.  At current population levels there are approximately 7 billion people so you would literally have to make tens of millions of those "1984" toilets. That's a huge resource investment just for that one piece of infrastructure. 

 

I'm just looking at Science, Econ, geopolitics and going WTF?

If I had to guess at some realistic explanation, I'd say it requires large volumes and it needs to be totally fresh.

That totally works if you don't think too hard about it.

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27 minutes ago, Sake said:

If I had to guess at some realistic explanation, I'd say it requires large volumes and it needs to be totally fresh.

That totally works if you don't think too hard about it.

So it would have to be something that decays quickly but again why not go synthetic? Honestly I'm not seeing any possible scientific explanation if it was just a matter of chemistry or biology. Ok I'm going balls out into wild mass guessing territory that would make Fox Mulder look at me like I've lost it, but what if it really is quantum bacteria? What if the bacteria are empathic and certain emotional states excite their growth, for example stress causes a cascade series of reaction in the body, these changes subtly alter everything from pheromones to galvanic skin response. When the bacteria pick up on these it triggers a rapid surge of multiplication and construction of the crystalline structure. But why have they never been detected? You could see them under an optical microscope  easily. Unless their able to manipulate perception as an innate defense mechanism. But now we're going into Russel's teapot territory. (Starts tacking more notes onto the wall)

Edited by YourFNF (see edit history)
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On 3/12/2018 at 8:18 PM, YourFNF said:

So it would have to be something that decays quickly but again why not go synthetic? Honestly I'm not seeing any possible scientific explanation if it was just a matter of chemistry or biology. Ok I'm going balls out into wild mass guessing territory that would make Fox Mulder look at me like I've lost it, but what if it really is quantum bacteria? What if the bacteria are empathic and certain emotional states excite their growth, for example stress causes a cascade series of reaction in the body, these changes subtly alter everything from pheromones to galvanic skin response. When the bacteria pick up on these it triggers a rapid surge of multiplication and construction of the crystalline structure. But why have they never been detected? You could see them under an optical microscope  easily. Unless their able to manipulate perception as an innate defense mechanism. But now we're going into Russel's teapot territory. (Starts tacking more notes onto the wall)

First, you're looking way too hard at the conceit.

Second, there are WAY, WAY easier possible answers than where you're going.  Just make the answers social rather than chemical.  Remember we only know the humans part, so ANYTHING not directly observable could easily be an elaborate lie.

Maybe they ADDED crazy things to change the metabolites -- bacteria, nanobots, whatever -- and they just kill anyone who looks too close and notices.

Maybe the spacefaring culture has a bunch of old tech but is actually shit at real/new science and are faking it.  So maybe they don't know WHAT weird metabolites make it work out. 

Or treat it as a megarich luxury good instead of an industrial product.  More like why we don't charge high prices for synthetic wine or perfect diamonds.  (maybe the Urene the humans get IS synthetic)  But maybe the richest aliens really want it to be authentic.  Probably they also get a three dimensional replay of the desperate human as a certificate of authenticity.

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11 minutes ago, herinfinitedesp said:

First, you're looking way too hard at the conceit.

Second, there are WAY, WAY easier possible answers than where you're going.  Just make the answers social rather than chemical.  Remember we only know the humans part, so ANYTHING not directly observable could easily be an elaborate lie.

Maybe they ADDED crazy things to change the metabolites -- bacteria, nanobots, whatever -- and they just kill anyone who looks too close and notices.

Maybe the spacefaring culture has a bunch of old tech but is actually shit at real/new science and are faking it.  So maybe they don't know WHAT weird metabolites make it work out. 

Or treat it as a megarich luxury good instead of an industrial product.  More like why we don't charge high prices for synthetic wine or perfect diamonds.  (maybe the Urene the humans get IS synthetic)  But maybe the richest aliens really want it to be authentic.  Probably they also get a three dimensional replay of the desperate human as a certificate of authenticity.

Wow these aliens must be extremely bored.

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1 hour ago, YourFNF said:

Wow these aliens must be extremely bored.

To be fair, any alien race advanced enough to reach Earth, but all they do is implement some weird government policies and don't even bother enslaving us properly would have to be pretty damn bored.

Like, that's clearly just them looking for entertainment. If they wanted to get down to business they'd just blow up the Earth and go away, but that's not all that fun once it cools down.

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7 hours ago, herinfinitedesp said:

First, you're looking way too hard at the conceit.

Second, there are WAY, WAY easier possible answers than where you're going.  Just make the answers social rather than chemical.  Remember we only know the humans part, so ANYTHING not directly observable could easily be an elaborate lie.

Maybe they ADDED crazy things to change the metabolites -- bacteria, nanobots, whatever -- and they just kill anyone who looks too close and notices.

Maybe the spacefaring culture has a bunch of old tech but is actually shit at real/new science and are faking it.  So maybe they don't know WHAT weird metabolites make it work out. 

Or treat it as a megarich luxury good instead of an industrial product.  More like why we don't charge high prices for synthetic wine or perfect diamonds.  (maybe the Urene the humans get IS synthetic)  But maybe the richest aliens really want it to be authentic.  Probably they also get a three dimensional replay of the desperate human as a certificate of authenticity.

This was extremely fun to read ~ I wonder if people will eventually be satisfied with the answers provided haha.

Ch 8 is on it's way-ish. I've been a little busy, but it should come on out soon maybe sorta.

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On 3/15/2018 at 10:01 PM, Sake said:

To be fair, any alien race advanced enough to reach Earth, but all they do is implement some weird government policies and don't even bother enslaving us properly would have to be pretty damn bored.

Like, that's clearly just them looking for entertainment. If they wanted to get down to business they'd just blow up the Earth and go away, but that's not all that fun once it cools down.

Circuses man, circuses.  What happens in all the great empires.

On 3/16/2018 at 4:23 AM, DerivativeWings said:

This was extremely fun to read ~ I wonder if people will eventually be satisfied with the answers provided haha.

Ch 8 is on it's way-ish. I've been a little busy, but it should come on out soon maybe sorta.

It makes me very happy to hear that : )

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On 3/12/2018 at 8:17 AM, YourFNF said:

Okay now I'm even more confused. This explains the weird and extremely expensive to enforce restrictions but why does a persons level of urgency effect whether or not you get a successful reaction?  Maybe it has to do with the metabolic effects of stress? But again you should be able to isolate the specific compounds and go with a synthetic route. It would quite the Biochem problem but still probably easier than making a bunch of shaved apes do a pee dance.  At current population levels there are approximately 7 billion people so you would literally have to make tens of millions of those "1984" toilets. That's a huge resource investment just for that one piece of infrastructure. 

 

I'm just looking at Science, Econ, geopolitics and going WTF?

Perhaps the urine needs to be pressure treated before it's useful? (I know there's no real world physics to that but some made-up physics would complete the story in my opinion)

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On 3/12/2018 at 2:56 AM, DerivativeWings said:

Urene was created using a desperate pee.

Okay, I think we all saw that coming. But I've got to say, it was a delicious journey getting there. Lots of fun. 

But if we're all now speculating for DerivativeWings' amusement, here's my rambling: if we saw that coming, why didn't the characters? The difficult toilet times would seem to be a dead giveaway. 

My guess is that actually quite a few people have found out but the aliens are bribing them to stay quiet (or eliminating them). After all, if a couple of young students have figured it out, others have, too. 

I have a sudden vision of scientifically-minded omo fans in the Planet of Desperation world, figuring it all out and being bribed into silence by choice surveillance videos the aliens have taken outside bathrooms... 

Edit: somehow my browser triple-posted...? 

Edited by Weasel (see edit history)
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  • 1 month later...

Did something happen with this story? It seems to tapered off into nothingness...

Oh, and in case I haven't already commented, this is a really great series. I still enjoy going way too in depth with the science like these other peeps in the comments, wondering how much you'll go into explaining and how much will be left as a mystery.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 10 months later...
38 minutes ago, Biku said:

I never got around to upvoting this, i always liked these a lot

I'm honored to hear that - looking back on them there are a few things I don't love with the way I wrote these, but I still like the setting a lot. Due to my old computer giving up all life the chance of a continuation is almost nil (I had a lot of details about the world and characters stored which are now forever lost).

I have toyed with the idea of finishing chapter 8 since I have it about half-written, but that seems almost cruel given it would be a huge cliffhanger and probably be the last chapter I ever write for the series. The fact that part II was never actually finished irks me.

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