We Don't Worry About Those | HFY | SciFi Short Stories

We Don't Worry About Those
Story by u/NoOneFromNewEngland
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Original Story: / we_dont_worry_about_those
We Don't Worry About Those
OC
The strange ship, built in a configuration completely unknown to the entire registry of ships, approached the edge of the traffic control zone without a transponder beacon to identify itself.
Ugly. Brutalesque. Clumsy. Primitive.
It carried none of the elegance and finesse of modern ships and harkened to an age long since dead when the last of the primitive species gained their ascension into the interstellar community, nearly 7,000 cycles ago.
It responded to no hails using the standard channels and formats.
"Sir, we may have a problem here… but I am not sure of what type."
The Traffic Controller on duty approached the control console "well, what is it?"
"This ship, sir" the traffic tracking officer indicated the holographic display with a flick of one of its tentacles. "It's not responding to any hails and it is not broadcasting a transponder signal… and it's not on any schedule."
"Well, that is a conundrum, isn't it. Any evidence of weapons? Defensive or otherwise?"
"No sir."
"And the database has no recognition profile for it? Not even a suggestion for any sort of correlation?"
"Correct."
"Well, that certainly is interesting. What is its approach time?"
"At current speed sir…. Wait, that can't be right… Hold on a moment."
"Well?"
"At current speed, sir, it will arrive in a half cycle."
"Wow."
"I know, sir. Seems completely unreasonable. I had to triple check it before I answered."
"I didn't think anything that slow was still operating."
"It's not, sir. It's not allowed. Too dangerous for normal traffic."
"I'll notify the defense fleet. We may have to intercept and tow it in. In the meantime, track it's origination point and report back."
"Sure thing, boss."
The intrepid tracker initiated the subroutines that wound their way through the various flight relays and observation buoys that traffic control had throughout the quadrant and, through process of elimination, determined that the ugly, barely-a-ship, had to originate from a very small segment of remote space, far from any known worlds inhabited by sentients and considerably outside the range of cost-effective mining. The Tracker engaged a survey scan to examine all records of those systems to see if there were any worlds that had been surveyed, but never significantly studied. The query ran.
The query ran some more.
The Tracker's shift ended and it left work, leaving a small slip of paper taped to the console that read "do not touch, important search query in progress."
The Tracker's evening was pleasant, it conveyed the fascinating anomalous ship it had found to its mate over their evening meal and they relaxed to an evening of an immersive holo of the largest nature preserve planet in the Federation.
The following morning the Tracker was shocked to find that the query, while still running, had not yet yielded any information on the region despite searching through 57 million cycles worth of survey logs.
Mid-shift was nearly upon the tracker when the console went "DING" and yielded a result.
The Tracker, eager to see what the truly ancient records had found, stared in horror as it reviewed the survey results of the little blue and green world.
Monsters.
HUGE monsters.
#hfy #sciencefiction #scifi

[@wakcedout]

Can imagine when the aliens ask how we eradicated the dinosaurs….”ummm our ancestors were rodent sized and survived the devastation of an asteroid that wiped out non avian dinosaurs and now we eat their dependents….here it’s called chicken”

[@richardarriaga6271]

No one tells them about what happened to the Mammoths!

[@MrPGT]

@@richardarriaga6271 Or most of the whales...

[@Trivial_Whim]

They’re uh, dependents? Like for tax purposes?

[@wilfriedklaebe]

@@Trivial_Whim I guess that's a typo of 'descendants'.

[@HobDobson]

The cassowaries haven't forgotten.

[@brianmeadows1137]

We Humans managed to fluke our way into the Galatic scene by not being evolved at the time. Sweet!

[@AlbertScoot]

"Man, these alien guys are super nice. We really lucked out, think we could trade some dinosaur bones for an engine?"

[@bluefmi]

"oh, we don't worry about those. we are raising their descendants as farm animals, for eggs and meat they are cute when they fight for the food they find on the farm"

[@gunnerclark]

"My grandma told me how to kill one when I was just 5 years old. I loved to cook them myself and view my dishes as above average"

[@leonardhirtle3645]

Finally a story where the aliens are not savage killers.

[@douglasbaker4562]

Also a nice change of pace that the aliens aren't stupid, used available data, and made the safest assumption. After all, from their point of view, what if we DID kill off the dinosaurs? And worse, the aliens refused to believe it, leading to a Diplomatic Problem...? It's legitimately the safest assumption.

[@zeehero7280]

Love how the aliens assume humans killed the dinos.

[@ehsnils]

Assumption is the mother of all... kzbin.info/www/bejne/rZiXpaWGj6uIrcU

[@ThW5]

Makes sense, that is the worst possible interpretation and thus the safest one to assume. And if you list what we killed into extinction instead it is just a little bit less impressive, to creatures who would have a problem with dealing with dinosaurs at an individual level, while at a technological level allowing superluminal space travel...

[@phong.w4829]

I mean, we did used to hunt mamoth and fight against sabertooths I'd say if the dinosaurs is still when human are already around they would surely be on our hunting list as well.

[@ThW5]

@@phong.w4829 They are: geese, wild turkeys, ducks, moa, elephant birds...

[@FutureMan420Blazer]

​@@phong.w4829i would love to know how a T-rex steak taste like heh

[@thomasinawilliams5091]

Would love a part 2

[@MTTT1234]

This defenitely deserves a sequel. A truly lovely little story to listen to.

[@taxessux]

This reminds me of a short story called "Victory Unintentional" where an alien species believes the robots that mankind sent to parlay with them are actually Humans and give up before war starts. I believe part of an Asimov robot short story collection, though I don't think this story was by Asimov himself.

[@taxessux]

yeah, its described here en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_Unintentional

[@carlchapman4053]

I loved that story, the way that oxygen was deadly to the aliens and the robots accidentally killing bacteria simply by looking at them..

[@MichaelWinter-ss6lx]

Was it on Jupiter or Saturn? We had a station on one of the moons there, and the ETs on planet were preparing to conquer. We had to develope AI robots that could withstand the gravity and air pressure of a gas giant. Well, ETs thought that was us and got a little impressed .... 🚀🏴‍☠️🎸

[@carlchapman4053]

@@MichaelWinter-ss6lx Jupiter. The Jovians had 'small towns' that were bigger than the largest city on Earth and could easily have won a war if they had not mistaken the Robot peace envoys for living Humans.

[@james_baker]

Wow, are those aliens are going to mad when they find out how they messed up. needs a part two.

[@zeehero7280]

"you look nothing like dinosaurs!" "well those went extinct millions of years ago!"

[@darnelljohnson5313]

I'm just glad no one had to die this time. 😅

[@UKnowIfUKnow]

Well, technically, the dinosaurs died. 😊

[@sdragut]

i couldn't stop laughing at the end. this was a very good story-line idea. lol

[@tonyroldan2437]

Ha! And if the aliens don't believe the tail, we could simply bring out some of Steve Irwin greatest hits vs Giant crocodiles.

[@adamroberts9243]

Well done writing 🎉 Thank you to the writer 😊

[@snake57]

Good story. Please continue.

[@Cholin3947]

Show the aliens a few Godzilla movies and watch them 💩 themselves.

[@renshai2727]

what does Reacher say? Assumptions can kill you....

[@thedarcbird]

Best reply yet!

[@Skievy]

lol i like mine better, assumption is the mother of all fuck up's

[@DanUrsul]

Miscommunication at it's finest :))) !!!

[@jimmywrangles]

I like this story.

[@MichaelWinter-ss6lx]

There's enough myths to back this history, where we fought dragons. Some flying dino's really look like dragons. I always wonder how they made it into our ancient history. 🚀🏴‍☠️🎸

[@InsaneHunter01]

This story is amazingly hilarious!!! Wait until the aliens hear that the dinos were wiped out by a natural cosmic even millions of years ago. I wanna see a part 2!!!!!

[@charleslahser2351]

That was hilarious. Someone's going to be embarrassed when the truth comes out.

[@wboyd33]

I would definitely like this story to have a continuation of at least 1 more chapter, probably more.

[@tonynelligan1930]

nice enough story but could of went on for other 15 minutes rather then dead ending it.

[@BadYossa]

That was actually a nice little twist in the story. Really enjoyed it. Nice one!

[@donkenmuir9504]

Need more of this it’s very good. Well done

[@janjager2906]

This was fun!

[@jeffreyyoung4104]

It always seems to end, right when it feels it is the beginning.

[@StevenLubick]

Please make a part 2

[@HoNkYforLiFe1]

Had me checking my text messages

[@blazeburner303]

"the dinosaurs? yeah, I ate 3 of them last night!"

[@Mojo_3.14]

Me eating my dino shaped avian dinosaurs descendants (chicken) AKA dino nuggies.. Hey me too ^_^

[@christenascott5280]

There are several ideas in this story that you could make several sub stories or offshoot that would be quite interesting. Especially if you added the element of time travel.

[@davidturner4824]

Great story.

[@jennanidanu1]

How funny! I loved this story!

[@Lurkily_Esh]

Okay, so, one major physics issue. If they travel towards you superluminally, and you see their travel, they've already reached the endpoint of their superluminal travel. When well they get here? Maybe ten seconds ago. Maybe a week ago. Now, if they skipped, as mentioned, exiting then re-entering superluminal travel, there is one way to visually observe their approach. If they wait so long between skips that their travel is sublight, then you might see their travel before they arrive.

[@johnradetzki1860]

Just wait until they hear about the cruel irony of "dino nuggets." XD

[@donaldscholand4617]

It reminds me of Azimovs' old story, Victory Unintentional.

[@richarddean4436]

great story bro, you guys should start playing stellaris

[@DRAONWEED]

Can't wait to hear what aliens think of Monty Python reruns.

[@rskeyesful]

Nice one. 🙂

[@GenStallion]

Now, there's a misunderstanding.

[@bluefmi]

please write the next chapters

[@dragonlord498]

Well like it's probably possible we could've driven some Dino's to extinction given we did in part do it to some other mega faunas or smaller species

[@wm.tomlinson1434]

Well Done!

[@TheGreatSeraphim]

Jesus, they would have left over 120 years ago. Even with instantaneous transmission the Earth they left would be vastly different. Why I think there's no reason to visit other stars till we figure out FTL. The time it would take to get anywhere sublight we'd advance enough to pass and get there sooner.

[@the_Kurgan]

That's funny. 😂

[@jjteacher7482]

Funny!

[@Kaliburz]

This would be an interesting story to see the follow ups... how humans get introduced into the Galactic society. Obviously the Galaxy doesn't think that 4 or so Billion years, that things could change on a little old planet... 😅

[@pendragonshall]

So sick of evolution crap Kent Hovind creation seminars. Free here on youtube. Educational and fun to watch learn some real science. Start with lies in the textbooks. You'll see

[@Bellator_of_the_Shadow]

"they are so powerful they exterminated all these massive creatures!" meanwhile a long long time ago 🪨