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crack_van2004-08-27 11:38 am
shutyourface.livejournal.com) wrote in crack_van2004-08-27 11:38 am
Lambs in Spaaaaace by Ath (NC-17)
Fandom: POPSLASH - *NSLASH
Pairing: Lance/Justin
Author on LJ: unknown
Author Website: unknown
Why this must be read:
I have to start off by saying that this story is probably not called Lambs in Spaaaaace but as I don't know what it is called, that will have to suffice. So, if this is your story, or you know more about it than I do, please step forward.
Obviously, it's science fiction. But it's sci-fi done well. Everything is neatly explained. There are none of big, gaping holes in logic that plague other popslash sci-fi stories. It's well thought out and well-executed. Also, I rather like the idea of Lance with a tail. :) Also, it's rather long and good for a rainy day.
It was Lovey, his first landlady, who had taken a shine to him and invited him into her house for a little of the strictly rationed coffee she occasionally brewed. It was Lovey who taught him about the reason behind the ‘rats’, the desperate need for humans with faster reflexes than any human could have in order to fly the new spaceships the Quontaar Council had agreed to give them.
For three hundred years, ever since the humans had first made it to other inhabited star systems and finally found life outside of their own planet, they were being given technology advanced to their own current level. The Quontaar Council, in effect the ruling council of the entire galaxy, determined which species were to get what technology, dependant on that species passing certain unspecified tests.
A hundred years after introduction to the QC, Earth had passed some sort of test finally, because the council was granting them the technology for brand new phase drive ships, a far advance from the fusion-shift engines their own designers had come up with 400 years ago.
But along with the new technology came some problems. Human beings were not known for having a lot of physical gifts compared to other species in the galaxy. Reaction times were slow, making the ships difficult, if not impossible, to fly. They required pilots to hook physically into the ship, their brains having direct contact with the computer of the ship, In order to fly. During the first trials, even though their interface mechs were flawless, the humans had almost gone insane from the control and mental dexterity required to fly a ship. It was a rare PureBred human indeed who could interface with a phase ship and pilot it successfully.
So rare was this feat, even with years of training, that the Earth Consul at the time decided to improve the ability of human to react and pilot the ships through genetic manipulations. One of the rules of the Quontaar Council was that gene splicing must be kept within the confines of the planet system. In other words, human genes could be spliced with animal genes from Earth animals, but not with animals or beings of another planet. The second rule the QC had was that genes could not be manufactured from thin air. This was an effort to prevent some species for trying to create the perfect, and unstoppable, being. This had happened in the past to disastrous results apparently, but it was an event, the QC deemed, that humans were not yet ready to know. They heard whispers of it though, and knew there was some kind of tragedy and war as a result of experiments in genetics gone wrong.
In any case, since Earth was such a new member of the QC, and was still considered unstable in it’s outlook, there were plenty of watchers from the QC on hand to prevent anything from going wrong, in the Council’s point of view, anyway.
The watchers didn’t stop the scientists from making some rather huge mistakes along the way, however. The initial gene splicing was attempted with rat genes, thus giving the products of the experiments their highly unflattering names. The project was only in existence for about 10 Earth years, but plenty of havoc was caused. Botched experiments and genes that didn’t perform the way they should have created some rather unpleasant creatures, and the early success stories did not stay that way for long. It took some time for the genetics to be applied so that they could be stabilized and perform properly.
It wasn’t until the end of the project that they got the perfect final results, but before their results could be shown public pressure caused the entire project to be shut down, and no outcries from inside could get it going again.
In the end, there were less than two dozen successful gene-splicings to different species of Earth animals. Of these two dozen ‘rats’, all had superior reflexes, as well as other advances depending on their animal donors. All two dozen also clearly showed the hint of the animal genes in them in their physical appearance, some more strongly than others.
Over the next 300 years, the genes of these ‘rats’ was kept as pure as possible. It was not possible for ‘rats’ to breed normally. The Earth Consul would not allow it. Instead the ‘rats’, and their partners, would donate their genetic material and a genetic specialist would splice and recombine and ensure the best possible combination of genes for the next generation. The parents of such offspring usually did not raise their own children unless they wanted to, and they were raised in government homes designed for that purpose.
The one benefit of all the gene-splicing work done in the mid-31st century was that it was discovered that human beings had a latent ability to communicate psychically. The successful genetic manipulations with animal genes had brought the trait out strongly in all of the ‘rats’. Through identification of this trait in the test group, the researchers were able to go out and find humans who were genetically predisposed to psychic communication, and a second project took off.
Eventually it was discovered that the best connection with a phase-ship would cause its ‘rat’ pilot to lose all of its other senses, including sight and sound. The ‘rats’, in order to control the ship better, were in fact flying blind. The two projects, pilot and communications, came together when it was discovered that a psychic connection between a ‘rat’ pilot and a Pure Bred human, later determined to be a captain, was the ideal solution. The captain could tell the blind pilot where to go, and the pilot would expertly guide the ship.
With relative ease the program came to fruition. Most genetic couplings that created offspring also occurred between the pilots and their captains, Lovey told Justin. It seemed to make sense, as both had gifts that could enhance the other, thereby making the genetic manipulator’s job much easier.
So up until his evening job at the Club Atlantis on an island in the Keys of Florida State on continent 5 of planet Earth, Justin had never seen a ‘rat’.
Lambs in Spaaaaace.
Pairing: Lance/Justin
Author on LJ: unknown
Author Website: unknown
Why this must be read:
I have to start off by saying that this story is probably not called Lambs in Spaaaaace but as I don't know what it is called, that will have to suffice. So, if this is your story, or you know more about it than I do, please step forward.
Obviously, it's science fiction. But it's sci-fi done well. Everything is neatly explained. There are none of big, gaping holes in logic that plague other popslash sci-fi stories. It's well thought out and well-executed. Also, I rather like the idea of Lance with a tail. :) Also, it's rather long and good for a rainy day.
It was Lovey, his first landlady, who had taken a shine to him and invited him into her house for a little of the strictly rationed coffee she occasionally brewed. It was Lovey who taught him about the reason behind the ‘rats’, the desperate need for humans with faster reflexes than any human could have in order to fly the new spaceships the Quontaar Council had agreed to give them.
For three hundred years, ever since the humans had first made it to other inhabited star systems and finally found life outside of their own planet, they were being given technology advanced to their own current level. The Quontaar Council, in effect the ruling council of the entire galaxy, determined which species were to get what technology, dependant on that species passing certain unspecified tests.
A hundred years after introduction to the QC, Earth had passed some sort of test finally, because the council was granting them the technology for brand new phase drive ships, a far advance from the fusion-shift engines their own designers had come up with 400 years ago.
But along with the new technology came some problems. Human beings were not known for having a lot of physical gifts compared to other species in the galaxy. Reaction times were slow, making the ships difficult, if not impossible, to fly. They required pilots to hook physically into the ship, their brains having direct contact with the computer of the ship, In order to fly. During the first trials, even though their interface mechs were flawless, the humans had almost gone insane from the control and mental dexterity required to fly a ship. It was a rare PureBred human indeed who could interface with a phase ship and pilot it successfully.
So rare was this feat, even with years of training, that the Earth Consul at the time decided to improve the ability of human to react and pilot the ships through genetic manipulations. One of the rules of the Quontaar Council was that gene splicing must be kept within the confines of the planet system. In other words, human genes could be spliced with animal genes from Earth animals, but not with animals or beings of another planet. The second rule the QC had was that genes could not be manufactured from thin air. This was an effort to prevent some species for trying to create the perfect, and unstoppable, being. This had happened in the past to disastrous results apparently, but it was an event, the QC deemed, that humans were not yet ready to know. They heard whispers of it though, and knew there was some kind of tragedy and war as a result of experiments in genetics gone wrong.
In any case, since Earth was such a new member of the QC, and was still considered unstable in it’s outlook, there were plenty of watchers from the QC on hand to prevent anything from going wrong, in the Council’s point of view, anyway.
The watchers didn’t stop the scientists from making some rather huge mistakes along the way, however. The initial gene splicing was attempted with rat genes, thus giving the products of the experiments their highly unflattering names. The project was only in existence for about 10 Earth years, but plenty of havoc was caused. Botched experiments and genes that didn’t perform the way they should have created some rather unpleasant creatures, and the early success stories did not stay that way for long. It took some time for the genetics to be applied so that they could be stabilized and perform properly.
It wasn’t until the end of the project that they got the perfect final results, but before their results could be shown public pressure caused the entire project to be shut down, and no outcries from inside could get it going again.
In the end, there were less than two dozen successful gene-splicings to different species of Earth animals. Of these two dozen ‘rats’, all had superior reflexes, as well as other advances depending on their animal donors. All two dozen also clearly showed the hint of the animal genes in them in their physical appearance, some more strongly than others.
Over the next 300 years, the genes of these ‘rats’ was kept as pure as possible. It was not possible for ‘rats’ to breed normally. The Earth Consul would not allow it. Instead the ‘rats’, and their partners, would donate their genetic material and a genetic specialist would splice and recombine and ensure the best possible combination of genes for the next generation. The parents of such offspring usually did not raise their own children unless they wanted to, and they were raised in government homes designed for that purpose.
The one benefit of all the gene-splicing work done in the mid-31st century was that it was discovered that human beings had a latent ability to communicate psychically. The successful genetic manipulations with animal genes had brought the trait out strongly in all of the ‘rats’. Through identification of this trait in the test group, the researchers were able to go out and find humans who were genetically predisposed to psychic communication, and a second project took off.
Eventually it was discovered that the best connection with a phase-ship would cause its ‘rat’ pilot to lose all of its other senses, including sight and sound. The ‘rats’, in order to control the ship better, were in fact flying blind. The two projects, pilot and communications, came together when it was discovered that a psychic connection between a ‘rat’ pilot and a Pure Bred human, later determined to be a captain, was the ideal solution. The captain could tell the blind pilot where to go, and the pilot would expertly guide the ship.
With relative ease the program came to fruition. Most genetic couplings that created offspring also occurred between the pilots and their captains, Lovey told Justin. It seemed to make sense, as both had gifts that could enhance the other, thereby making the genetic manipulator’s job much easier.
So up until his evening job at the Club Atlantis on an island in the Keys of Florida State on continent 5 of planet Earth, Justin had never seen a ‘rat’.
Lambs in Spaaaaace.
no subject
It is not the redo of Game of Rat and Dragon that bohters me, as much as it is that it just comes across as jarring. Smith's heros and heroines were not known for sharing their emotions and such. So it's a weird juxtaposition of genere.
Not bad. Just weird.
no subject