Human1: Damn if Australia pushed our level 4 deathworld to a 4.5 I’m worried about you guys exploring the unexplored 70% of our ocean.
Human2: it’s not 70% it’s 95%
Crewmate: wait what? -- Anon Guest
"Ah... that's a mis-assumption," said Thorq. "The Deathworlder classification is based on how many environmental factors are hostile to the development of intelligent life. In the case of most of the Earth, it's the fauna, the weather, the flora, and the ocean. Australia also happens to have the geography as hostile as well."
There was a moment of silence among the Humans having this discussion. Cold stares abounded.
"Nobody likes a person who draws from the well actually," said Human Zif.
"Way to spoil our fun, Thorq," said Human Kon. "We were bullshitting and you shat on it."
"That's worth another 'wait what', all the same," said Crewmate Rikku. "How is one excrement a worthy pursuit, but the other is bad?"
"Nah, I wanna debate the Deathworlder aspect of the flakkin' ocean," insisted Human Wik. "Like... there's cetaceans and octopuses... octopi? Them. Two general kinds of intelligent life, right there. So. For their brand of intelligent life, we have a general environment that's beneficial to them, but hostile to other forms of intelligent life. Where does that fit in?"
"I think the index is with the majority, so the cetaceans and octopods have an automatic one with the ocean, as it's hostile to all other intelligent life," said Thorq, local rules lawyer.
"Then there's flora and fauna," added Zif. "Loads of toxic flora and fauna in the oceans."
"Sharks..." added Kon.
"So we're up to three... Cool. Uh. Geography or weather?"
"Geography's pretty awesome," said Wik. "Deep trenches with crushing pressures, active volcanism, tidal forces and atmospheric influence on wave height and whatnot. Thousands of piscine life-forms are killed in cyclones, typhoons, monsoons, hurricanes, king tides, neap tides..."
The Humans delved into an argument about whether the atmosphere counted as 'outside influences' from the ocean, and if that counted as 'within the solar system' as per the the sixth level of Deathworlds.
Thorq decided to stop being the adjudicator. This was the Human equivalent of fighting to 'blow off steam'. They were arguing just for the sake of arguing. They didn't actually want a ruling.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / andreykuzmin]
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