The ‘information is free, distrust authority, truth and justice at any cost, respect my identity and right to communicate’ attitude generally attributed to millennials? Has always been a strong part of scientific culture. Scientists find the truth and argue about it for a living. Scientists share their practices and out-truth each other for a living. Scientists market that truth to other people for a living.
The open source movement was built and pioneered by scientists. The concept of the internet as a freely available and accessible worldwide tool was an extension of scientific culture. Before that, other media and communication efforts went through the same process. There are so many cool underground stories of small groups of scientists using their limited power and a bit of secrecy to create open source cultures and free information under the noses of political and business interests trying to restrict such things for personal gain.
Scientists consider themselves above everything – politicians, business, the law if the law restricts truth, other scientists. A nervous grad student who thinks they’ve found a flaw in the work of a Nobel laureate would be *expected* to challenge that work publically; respect for seniority is for business decisions, not for ideas. Scientists never grew out of their rebellious teenage phase after discovering that the world was unfair. Scientists are punks who channelled their energy into learning as much about the laws of the universe as they can. Scientists are basically the punk community if it were interested in information rather than music, and they do not ever grow out of it, and they do not ever stop. We had staff at our university who were frequently driven to tears because they couldn’t find ways to convince the senior scientists to take their vacation days for over a decade and it was causing serious administrative problems. They had to bribe the scientists to work from home for a month and pretend to be on holiday, and then everyone pretended not to notice when the scientists showed up to work to advise us poor grad students in person anyway. Scientists do what they want, and the first thing they are taught is how to see bullshit – the second thing they are taught is that it’s their fundamental duty to call out bullshit in anyone they see using it, no matter how prestigious or powerful.
They do not rest, they do not stop, they fear no death or ridicule or government sanction.
Daughter of a gun (ﾉ´ヮ´)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧ No idea if such a thing existed but surely there had to be girls born on board in the Age of Sail?
*puts on obnoxious historian hat*
*clears throat*
there were actually tons of women and girls on board ships during the age of sail and it’s really cool history that no one!!! ever!!! talks about!!!
like captains of merchant ships used to bring their wives and children on board for long voyages all the time (and of course there were plenty of well known female pirate ship captains, and women cross-dressing as men, and prostitutes that more people seem to know of)
there’s actually a really amazing story of one woman, Mary Ann Patten who was the wife of the captain of this ship called Neptune’s Car. Captain Patten decided that he wanted her onboard with him and she was super about this and learned all about navigation and sailing and everything. so this one voyage they’re going around the tip of south america when her husband gets sick and is bed ridden with a fever right as the ship sails into one of the worst storms any of the crew had ever seen and it looks like they might lose the ship or have to stop
so you know who takes over??? the first mate???
no.
MARY
she took over the whole crew and sailed that ship through freezing water and pack ice and had it coasting smoothly into the san francisco harbour like it was nothing. and she did this all at age 19. while pregnant.
at one point the first mate tried to get the crew to mutiny against her but they all rallied with her and told him to shut the heck up because she obv knew what she was doing.
there’s a great book about women in the age of sail called ‘female tars’ by suzanne stark that i cannot recommend enough and has way more amazing stories and insights about the myriad roles women and girls played aboard ship during that time period.
(sorry i totally didn’t mean to hijack your post i love all of your art and this is gorgeous i just got over excited sorry sorry sorry)
Going off of other tumblr posts about humans being survivor space orcs and humans being loving frienddog pet buddies to other alien ships, what if the ability to attach to things was a trait of earth critters.
As long as a behaviour helps achieve the same end, evolution doesn’t care what the behaviour is. So you get both bats and birds with entirely different structures, methods, and styles to flight for different niche purposes (long distance vs. nimble acrobatics) but they both succeed at flying. The same can happen for social structures and space travel.
For most other life in the universe, social bonding isn’t a thing. You get people that you get well along with or don’t. Property isn’t necessary if it doesn’t have a function, people don’t get attached to objects. People strive to increase their station/power and therefore overall happiness, whatever that means to them, which is what encourages a group of them to work together for efficiency and shared earnings. (For example, that is. There are lots of things that could encourage life to reach spaceflight. Like spite. Or blind chance.)
On earth a few animals have evolved favoritism behaviour. Getting attached to objects, other animals, and ideas for no reason other than they like them. This helps ensure the survival of a group, so it encourages repetition. Humans are the only spacefaring creature that has favourite ROCKS because of this. Imagine having a favourite pebble out of the entire universe full of mineable minerals!
It’s just common sense that if you want to survive, add a human to your crew. Because of the space orc endurance toughness thing, being able to survive things others can’t, and being determined to keep going. Combine that with the happy space dog thing where, essentially, you put a Kirk in with a hundred Spocks. The dog Kirk is the one who’s always happy to explore and meet people and make friends and likes everyone. So if you have a being who enjoys your presence for no material reward AND extends their instincts for survival to things they’ve bonded on, you’ve basically got a big bodyguard for your entire crew. For free. You don’t have to pay it. You just have to say ‘thank you’ when it gifts you useless trinkets it found or made.
So you get these ships, and you can always tell which room is the human’s room. It’s the one full of hoarded junk. There’s sheets and dry film stuck to the walls that it ensures you is coded with dyes to make a message. The message isn’t really important, just nice. The human likes it. The human collects lumps of polycarbons that it tells you represent icons of aesthetic and memory. You don’t understand, because your memory works just fine without a visual reminder, but you learn that apparently there are different kinds of lumps and they mean different things.
The human has clothes it prefers when all its body coverings function about the same. It has days it prefers. It has abstract concepts it prefers. It has noise it prefers, and carries the noise around with it.
How would that affect a creature that prefers nothing? A species that constantly strives for a better station would have ambitions and goals for being transported to higher ranks on better ships. Logically, it would also prefer the smartest, strongest, nicest humans to protect their investments. A creature like that would check the stats on available and working humans for hire and want the best one they can afford.
But if you asked a crew which human they would want to work with? If you give them enough time, they’ll start saying their own.
“But isn’t the one on ship 4-aNui 0.93s faster at achieving the emergency fire plan escape?”
“Yes, but ours likes us more and would be more efficient at helping us, specifically.”
“That’s what humans do. They’ll like anyone they’re introduced to.”
“Yes, but ours likes us.”
“The better one will like you too if you give it enough time. I thought you knew this?”
“But I like it.”
a friend shared a meme on facebook titled ‘what the signs like’, the joke being that all of them were ‘punching a nazi in the face’; i felt it lacked nuance and so:
aries: punching a nazi in the face, ANY TIME, ANYWHERE, MFCKZ
taurus: punching a nazi in the face in defense of friends threatened by him, also stealing his sandwich
gemini: punching a nazi in the face, and then going home and writing a blog post about love and understanding
cancer: inviting a nazi over for poisoned tea
leo: punching a nazi in the face, then climbing on a platform to give an impassioned speech about it
virgo: exhaustively researching the best methods of nazi-punching before delivering a perfectly calculated blow to a nazi’s face, being unsatisfied, starting over
libra: punching a nazi in the face, dancing while glitter spontaneously rains from the sky
scorpio: sneaking up behind a nazi and pushing him into someone else’s fist
sagittarius: charming a nazi into punching himself in the face
capricorn: punching ten nazis on the way to pick up a cup of coffee before work in the morning
aquarius: punching a nazi in the face as public therapeutic performance art, not caring that nobody gets it
pisces: summoning a force of pure psychic energy to deck a nazi without moving a muscle
