Your friendly neighbourhood internet goblin

So there's an alien research station in space. Humanity's worst attempts to destroy it amount to a bear turning over the trash can. Aliens occasionally abduct people and return them with a clean bill of health and an ankle bracelet. It takes them forever to figure out those bracelets are screwing with their data because humans who carry them are curve-wreckingly popular.

Disaster strikes somewhere, I dunno, Japan, and there's an uptick in abductions, but of people stuck in collapsed buildings, and yeah the giant octopus tree that looks straight out of Call of Cthulhu is scary but it's also using tech you can't even comprehend to find survivors and teleport them out of the rubble. You see humans with absolutely 100% deadly injuries wisked away and a good number of them even return. There is now a new consent form specifying if rescuers can take you to the aliens, because they will probably try to save you but if they can't your family will never get your body back. You decide if your life or your body is more important.

Little by little, pragmatism wins out. The aliens aren't attacking, but they ARE abducting and doing weird tests. But the survivors mostly return unharmed with a Big Mac in hand and a weird piece of tech. There have been less valid excuses to miss school. The aliens are clearly researching humanity just as much as we are researching them, and until communications are established this status quo isn't the worst.

Ofc, then one of them actually attacks. Knocks the statue of liberty clean off. The military starts to deploy fast, and even wounds the attacker a lot, but before they can shoot the second missle it bounces. And it turns on the shooter. Every military person in the attack dies, suddenly and through means you cannot comprehend. The other aliens whisk the attacking one away. Construction materials appear as if in apology, but that's it.

The attacker was a hooligan who thought destroying wildlife was fun, and ran into something they can't handle. But even if the bear is perfectly within its rights to defend its territory, the ranger will atill have to shoot it to save the stupid brat, and hope the idiot learned their lesson.

But the bear is still dead. And the forest critters who had just started getting used to the ranger are now having second thoughts.

But the abductions continue. There are no hooligans for a while. And what else can you do? This is your home, but if the invaders really want to take it, what can you do?

So you try to stay out of their way, if you are in some serious trouble and your chances are already less than 50/50, maybe you seek them out. Sometimes they help. Sometimes they don't.

And sometimes the abductees catch glimpses of something that looks like it might have been human once, but eyes and skin all wrong, speaking incomprehensibly, and rubbing its head on the alien's 'knees'.

THE REVIEWS ARE IN!

I was just walking along the street when it happened. There was a strange sort of wet plop sound somewhere just over my shoulder. Sort of like what you'd imagine a jellyfish being dropped onto concrete would sound like. Then I turned around and had to try and stop the primitive part of my brain from making me immediately run away screaming, maybe with a trail of piss and or shit behind me....

I tried to stay calm and remind myself of what they'd taught us back in school about these alien critters. Just relax, stay calm and let them do whatever they wanted. That way, you'd just get prodded and poked for a while before they put you back where they found you with a maccies in your hand and some weird piece of tech attached to your wrist or ankle. Unless there was some news item I'd missed, so far as anyone could tell they were more interested in humans than threatened by them. Not that fighting did much good anyway. Usually, the folks who did try fighting say they got hit with some kind of tranquiliser and ended up at a servo with their sore arse stuck up in the air. At least those who came back said so.

I'll admit that I wasn't that bothered about a maccies (I'd only just had breakfast after all), but the tech could fetch big money on the Web, and well, they say you should never look a gift horse in the mouth. Besides, getting examined by an alien sure beat an afternoon getting swooped at.

The thing (it was hard to think of it as anything else since it looked like someone had crossed an octopus with a tree and had a load of bits left over that they attached however) immediately wrapped one of its' arms, or tentacles, or limbs (should that be 'appendages'. What am I a biologist?). Anyway, the important thing is that it grabbed me and started making some weird sounds. Halfway between a breeze through a eucalyptus and an angry kookaburra whilst running another appendage along my head and back. Then, there was another sort of wet popping sound, but a bit drier. More sort like of dropping a wet croc on concrete. And there was this weird sphere type of thing, covered in, well, fucked if I know. But it sort of hovered there whilst the first thing held me up close to it and began, well, booming I suppose it's the word for it. Sounded like thunder if you ask me. The thing started turning me around and grabbing bits to hold closer to the sphere, the sounds it was making getting more like marbles getting poured down a drainpipe when it held up one of my arms or my legs to the sphere.

After a couple of minutes of this, the sphere made some kind of beeping noise and the first thing put me down and gave me a little push before there was another pop and that was that. It and the sphere thing were gone. Next thing I know you lot pulled up and started asking questions....

Such as:

He's fat! he's got piles!/ he's in the Epstein files!/ Trump's a cunt (x3)

And

And as someone who is currently writing a book where the two main characters and the main relationship is gay I’m a lil scared.

I’m don’t identify as gay or a man, I identify as AroAce Agender. I was wondering if anyone has any opinions on this? I’ll probably write the story anyways (worst case I’ll keep it to myself), but I would like to know of other peoples opinions on this.

we're looking to create an AI policy, and when we were talking about this, my boss (older millennial) was genuinely shocked to hear that younger people do not (seem) to view AI positively (a la the recent commencement speakers being booed)

please rb for larger sample size!

Question 1/3

Thank you for helping with this data collection. Please rb for as big a sample as possible!

Congratulations, I'm your family now!

They tried to kill us, but they did not succeed. And we owe so much thanks to the other oppressed peoples, in particular the Choctaw Nation and the Masai, who sent money and grain to us.

Let me repeat that. The Choctaw Nation who had just gone through the Trail of Tears sent us money to try save Irish lives. It’s led to an understanding between Irish people and Native American tribes, most recently when we donated to the Navajo and Hopi fundraisers for COVID-19 relief, because while it may be a different tribe, Irish people will never forget those who helped us and we’ll help back.

The entire population of the island is less than seven million people. We’re still a million less on this island than pre famine. And it’s not that long ago. My grandmother’s grandparents lived through it. We’ve told the stories, it literally changed the DNA of the country. We have a national fear of renting, because so many people were evicted. People joke about Irish people always offering loads of food, but it’s because there’s that cultural memory of not being able to.

Ok, so I've seen a few HASO posts about humans being like cats (as in 'looks like you have a human now') and or exotic pets/ wildlife in captivity (like that post about an alien version of Steve Irwin) and surely there's scope for a business which operates like a mix between an employment agency and a matchmaking service pairing up unemployed/stranded/wanderlust filled humans who want to get out there with aliens who want/need a human(s) (say they want to run a student exchange or similar, or there's stuff a humans are more suited for than other species in a particular section of space, or having a human crewmember is seen as a status symbol).

There's bound to be a market for something like this (and probably enough weirdos here there to create a script for a 'sponsor a human' charity advert).

This could easily be played up like humans are these exotic, mystical things, like fantasyland familiars, who will come to you if you're particularly deserving. And like the fae, they can turn on you if you're cruel.

But also, a weird idea is the reverse. What if humans end up in a Gulliver in Lulliputia situation and we're much bigger than the aliens? Would they start looking to ship humans in to replace machinery/animal power for infrastructure projects?