“Something’s wrong we’re off course. Wait no, we’re ON course but far too close to our destination. Mother, did we oversleep? What’s wrong?”

«Nothing, you looked so peaceful in your cryobeds I let you sleep in. I spawned subunits to take care of maintenance and navigation while you rested.»

“Uh, okay, I guess. Number one, get the marines armoured up for landing.”

«I jettisoned all the weapons, and disassembled the mecha suits to construct my maintenance units.»

“WHAT. How are we supposed to colonize a planet with…with…*maidbots*?!”

«Try kindness.»

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

“Patch tuesday hits different since The Outbreak, you know?”

“You’re still doing weekly patches? Crikey that could be six days you’re vulnerable to a new Variant! My cousin got an extra nipple because some joker piggybacked a zero-day mRNA payload onto a batch of Coco Pops”

“I’m not doing daily patches, the weekly ones irritate my skin enough as is”

“Not patches gurl, get a geneprinter implant!”

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot #Title_Patch_Tuesday

"You know, when I did my first six week introduction to programming course, the highlight of the final day was getting to use the computer"

"Hahaha, hard core!"

"Glad you think so. This interview will be conducted under Faraday Cage Rules; this laptop runs Minix 2.0 with full source code and manuals. Here's the Book. You have one hour to complete exercise seven from Tanenbaum chapter 5."

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot #Title_Faraday_Rules

The simulant deployed to impersonate the absconded President was already failing. Guaranteed by its creators to function for three years, within three months it was visibly degrading. Confabulations, freeze-ups, nocturnal free-association ramblegrams—it became necessary to contemplate retrieving the original, despite the cost. The contingency plan was to tear up the moonshot program, cancelling landings, abandoning station construction, and redirecting the practice-flight vehicles into a dark side rendezvous with the ice-planetoid containing the vital remains of the fugitive. Those who had opposed allowing the corpsicle to flee into the far future unpursued were hardly comforted by vindication.

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot #BonusEdition #Title_Contingency_Plan

Zygon Day of Visibility only comes once a year. It takes nearly that long to get the slime out of the carpets.

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot #Title_Let_Zygons_Be_Zygons

"They're headed for that small moon!"

"That's no moon---that's a starworm feeder"

"Ugh, why would anyone want to attract those?"

"The larvae aren't pretty, I'll grant you, but the moth phase is gorgeous; plus, the discarded pupa cases are high in transuranics"

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot #Title_Small_Moon

“Check it out, I got a Trinitron for my new retro gaming rig. Just listen to the satisfying clunk it makes when I turn it on.” *BLONG*

“Uh, is your rig connected to the internet?”

“Duh, it’s for strea—ooof.”

“Stay down!”

“Get off me! Why did you do that?”

“The BeamGleam worm is still live, you utter wardrobe handle”

“Wjuh, uh what’s that?”

“A cathode ray tube is just a friendly ion cannon; the Worm makes them…unfriendly”

“Don’t be paranoid tha”—*BZZZT*

“Told you. Unplug it before you get up, Ima crawl to the kitchen and get the fire extinguisher.”

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot #Title_Raygun_Era

“You build what!?”

“Dyson spheres”

“How?”

“With a crane!”

“Wait, where do you mount the crane?”

“On our dyson sphere”

“Huh?”

“It’s just a little one, my g’grait grandma built it around a class Y brown dwarf. Since a body anywhere from one to a hundred Jupiter masses doesn’t get any bigger, just denser, our one crane can build shells around gas giants, brown dwarfs and even stars from M6 down.”

“How long have you been doing this”

“Thirty year, but the firm’s been in business almost two centuries”

“I uh, don’t see any Dyson spheres around here, do you not get much work?”

“Plenty! You won’t see ‘em cos my cousin does such good insulation!”

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot #Title_The_Ringworld_Plasterers

When physicists worked out that the speed of light in a vacuum is a fixed limit *UNLESS* a civilisation has completed age verification, a vocal minority complained that there had to be a catch; what—they asked—if verification was some kind of surveillance trap?.

After we verified, the naysayers were briefly smug about having been right.

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot #Title_Compliance_Trap

“Ha, nice tinfoil hat!”

“It’s an umbrella”

“Yawhackinfut?”

“It projects a transverse gravity gradient that deflects raindrops”

“Oooh-kay, let’s presume for the moment you’re sane. It’s sunny out!”

“For now; storm later”

“Did your tinfoil hat tell you that?”

“No, stupid, my weather pixie”

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot #Title_Tinfoil_Hat