How do Deregulations keep popping up? Even in times when most galactic Cogniscients know that they are a generally bad idea.
The founding reason for this actually comes from Alliance law, what Terran lawyers call "quae non inhabitabantur planeta indici" or, for those that don't speak legalese, an uninhabited planet belongs to the discoverer.
In this instance though, it suited Phy just fine, an unclaimed planet in a quiet corner of space. Somewhere that ze and hir Biogen pet Porgy could live in relative peace away from her bad luck bringing catastrophe upon everyone in hir vicinity (current disaster not withstanding).
Hir ship was barely holding together, as it entered the atmosphere of the isolated planet. And not that ze had given up hope, but the reality was that Phy had fully expected to break up on entry and not actually survive. Ze was a bad lucker after all.
Imagine hir surprise when the frantic fixes and last minute saves ze was making actually held. Ze still crashed, but it wasn't nearly fatal. Better still, the food replicator, communications array and waste management were only moderately damaged AND they had "landed" on only a level 1 Deathworld! It wasn't exactly good luck but it was a lot better than ze could expect.
Was there something about this planet that somehow negated the bad luck?
@internutter/challenge-03131-h222-artisinal-friend -- Adam in Darwin
Good news: the over-engineered personal transit had held together long enough for a "grated landing[1]" in a mildly forested area. Now featuring a wide furrow of instant runway. And a smattering of debris. Better news, Phy and Porgy had survived. Phy's planet-scanner briefly flickered back into life to belatedly tell her, Level 1 Deathworld: Frequent, intermittent micrometeor showers.
In all other ways, it was supposed to be a paradise.
Once the adrenaline wore off, Phy extracted herself from the airbags and took up the "Deathworld Proof" personal scanner to make certain. Air, breathable. Which was great news because the hull was already breached. Immediate surrounding biota read as both edible and useful to her needs. Some minor precautions were advised, but they always were[2].
Porgy was a happy bundle of beans, leaping out of the wreck to hop around in hyperactive glee. No thoughts, no purpose, just boundless energy and undaunted enthusiasm.
Which was all Phy needed to know that this was a safe space. She trusted Porgy more than she trusted machines. The wiggling, jiggling, mushroom/jellyfish/dog -better known as a Mycojelly Dog- was patently unkillable. Not that she had deliberately tried. She just... had that effect on life she liked.
She could kill kudzu.
At least for the immediate future, killing plants was something of a goal. Otherwise known as building a new house out of all those trees. But first, running water, plus in-ship water filter.
Water first. Shelter second. Food third. An amazing amount of food packs had survived, and so had the food printer. Even the solar collectors on board her ship had made it through the crash. Well. Enough of them to power the food printer. And it could churn out 'bricks' of whatever wasn't edible so she could plausibly build an oven or something.
She would definitely have a hearth. But that was weeks away.
It was the water that made her suspicious. There was a waterfall a short walk away that she could both bathe under and collect from for her water filter.
This was more luck than she'd ever had in her life.
Porgy, always nearby, leaped in and out of the water, shaking itself vigorously upon its return to the shore. Porgy could always make her laugh.
Some local vegetation was slowly becoming a Generalised Stew Number 238 as Phy began working on her new house. It didn't take a genius to make a log cabin. Though there was a moment of horror when Porgy bounced directly into the path of a falling tree. Too late for her to do anything.
Phy screamed, running for where her pet had been flattened. To her shock and awe her Mycojelly Dog squeezed out from underneath, shook itself off, and leaped into her arms for a good old cuddle and purr session.
This was way more luck than she was used to.
She took her evening meal in the very temporary shelter of her wreck and sent off a brief message to the team who had made her Mycojelly Dog.
It went, What the flying flakk did you technomages DO to my pet?
The confession arrived in the form of a paper. Splicing the Good Luck Gene Into Bad Luckers Pets: A Proposal For an Initiative. There were some thick details in there, but there was also a simplified translation for the people, like Phy, who didn't understand Techie.
"Oh, you flakking flakkers," she whispered in respectful appreciation. They had made her a pet with very specific Lucker genes. Some bad luck for itself. Lots of good luck for that which it loved.
Porgy definitely loved Phy.
She would never be alone, and because of three maniacs and a test tube, she would never be out of luck.
[1] There are 'soft' landings, where the object is gently placed on the surface of a planet. 'Hard' landings, where the difference between a good landing and a bad landing is the debris field. 'Grated' landings fall somewhere in-between, with a lot of sliding over/into/through the landscape.
[2] When consuming alien life forms, it's always advisable to cook it thoroughly because one planet's friendly microbe could be the next zombie plague.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / vauvau]
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