If space travel doesn’t involve sea shanties then I think we’ll have missed an opportunity.
You see though, for sea travel you want big strong people who are capable of managing rigging. For space travel you want small low-mass people who are technically educated, as they are called, nerds. Your space shanties are going to be less booming and more squeaky.
in so far as there will be space shanties, they’ll be filk
I call shenanigans on the big strong people; sailors were young and malnourished by modern standards, and climbing around the rigging is easier if you’re small and light.
Like, I am 100% in favor of shanties in as many situations as possible, but I’m having trouble coming up with a mode of space travel that would require multiple humans to move in concert, thus necessitating songs with a strong beat to move to.
Sea chanties were for providing a strong beat to move to. Space chanties might very well arise just because we’re bored, out there between point A and point B for so long.
(Also yes, @gdanskcityofficial up there has the right of it.)
Space shanties are for warp piloting. Under warp drive, human time perception and time as measured by crystal or atomic oscillators don’t match. Starship pilots listen to a small unamplified chorus singing a careful rhythm while keeping their own eyes on a silent metronome that the chorus can’t see, linked to a highly-precise atomic clock. How the chorus and metronome fall in and out of sync tells the pilot how to keep the ship safely in the warp bubble and correctly on course.
Depending on route, a typical warp jump can last anywhere from one to ten minutes, and most courses consist of five to fifteen jumps before a necessary four to six hour break to check the engines, plot the next set of jumps, and give everyone a chance to recover. A good shanty team, with reliable rhythm, a broad, versatile, and extendible repertoire, and the stamina to do 3-4 sets a day over the course of a voyage, is just as vital to space travel as a pilot, navigator, or engineering team.
Other reasons Shanties will experience a revival in the space age:
We will sing for any freaking reason, or no reason at all, and Shanties are FUN to sing.
Deep Space is a lonely place and recruiting people suited to long periods of isolation might be a good idea. People from Newfoundland/Labrador, for instance.
SPACE WHALES
THEY’RE DEFINITELY REAL I FEEL IT IN MY SOUL
“What Do We Do With A Drunken Sailor” is basically a revenge fantasy against your most incompetent co-workers and if there’s something humans love doing, it’s being petty.
Hey all you Humans are Weird writers- why haven’t any of you written about how an entire generation is still defensive over Pluto’s loss of planetary status because we all collectively packbonded with a planet.
PLUTO IS A PLANET DO NOT FUCK WITH ME.
“Human Steven.” Shrax timidly approached, mandibles nervously caressing one another.
“Yeah Shrax?” Steven looked over from his station.
“I was wondering about your home star. Records seem… inconsistent in how many planets orbit Solaris.”
“Oh, yeah, it was debated a bit back in the day, but it’s eight.”
“Fuck you Steve! There’s nine!” Frank yells from across the room.
“Pluto’s only made two and a half revolutions Frank! It’s to small and barely caught in Solaris’ gravity! It’s not a planet!”
I read two hours worth of aliens interacting with humans and all the humans can explain the situation somehow. Why we do things, why we don’t do things. Why we react in a certain way,etc.
I have no idea if this already exists but here’s my idea: What if the human has no idea what is going on with the other human? Or how to explain, repair things because it’s not related to their workspace.
“HumanSusan, why does HumanThomas stab himself with this thin obect?” (Needle)
“He probably suffers from diabetes.”
“What is diabetes?”
“It’s the lack of a certain protein in the human body which we need to function properly. He needs to inject insulin otherwise he will die. But it’s a common porblam so you don’t have to worry about it.”
“Could you explain this further?”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I’m a mechanic not a doctor. If you want to know how the human body works go an talk to a human doctor. They’ve studied that shit for years.”
or
“HumanJack. Am I correct that you are a scientist?”
“Given the fact that I work in the labor I would say yes. Why?”
“Could you spare some time and explain how it’s possible that two human with blue eyes have a child with brown eyes?”
“Look….. I am a physics scientist. I can build you a laser in no time. I can use the formula for mass time acceleration if I have to but don’t waste your time with asking me about the human body. I hated biology my entire life and will hate it untill I die…………….. Also I’m pretty sure that this is not how genetics work.”
Alien: You’re telling me that in times of great distress humans have been known to suddenly gain the strength necessary to lift objects more than a dozen times their own weight?!
Human: Yeah, it’s called “hysterical strength” and it usually happens in life-or-death situations, like when someone gets stuck under a car or something and someone lifts the car to get them out. We can’t really test it though, ‘cause it only happens spontaneously.
Alien: Humans have the ability to tap into untold strength and power and you don’t even know how you do it?
Human: Pretty much, yeah. We think it has something to do with temporary analgesia, so we just don’t feel the pain we should when we pick up a 3000-pound car.
Alien: YOUR PAIN RESPONSE JUST SHUTS OFF?
Human: Yeah, it’s like an adrenaline thing? Do you not have that?
Alien: Fuck you and your entire species of tiny juggernauts.
Did this post just use a dialogue format to trick me into learning science
Had to check this out on wikipedia at least and boy was that a ride
SCIENCE!
Were puny and weak compared to most large mammals but we got several huge advantages not even counting our brains. 1) endurance. 2) incredible healing factor. 3) Hysterical Strength.
We also will think nothing of sacrificing ourselves to save others.
I’m reblogging myself because I read the source. The lead scientist involved theorized that it was going fast enough that A) it would not have burnt up in our atmosphere, and B) it would not have been caught in Earth’s orbit. Essentially meaning, the first man made object launched into space was a manhole cover that’s still traveling the cosmic abyss.
That’s not true though because the V2 rocket was the first object that entered what is considered space.
I did some research on the V2 just now. The V2 never left our atmosphere. So no, it didn’t make it to space. It made it into the upper levels of our atmosphere, almost into orbit. The manhole cover blew way past the V2s recorded height.
Can you even imagine being the poor alien sod responsible for auditing an earthling spaceship’s spending allowance? Like:
“I see, and why do you require many tubes of white plant flavoured paste?”
“Oh well, if we don’t rub that on our teeth twice daily the bacteria living in my mouth will begin to devour me teeth.”
“…Noted.”
“I have also noticed several large shipments of specific medications, and a variety of individually packaged absorbent material – however injury records do not show sufficient numbers to justify these recurrent deliveries.”
“Ah, yeah, it’s not really an injury per say. As part of our natural reproductive cycle approximately half the population will shed the lining of one of their internal organs and expel it.”
“…that is the most horrifying thing that I have ever heard.”
“Yeah.”
“Does such a process not hurt?”
“That’l be what the medication’s for. Pain killers for the cramps, birth control to stop the process.”
“…and your reasoning behind the fully functional, high-tech entertainment system?”
“Okay, that we could probably do without. But in our defence that was actually insisted on as a standard feature of all fleet-ships expected to encounter Terrans. Admiral Plo’Kaght insisted on it. Something about bored humans and a an illegal betting ring featuring a cleaning robot with a knife strapped to it going up against a human with a mop?”
“…I believe I should speak with my superiors.”
I love how Stabby the Roomba has become such a consistent in-joke among these sorts of blogs.
Galactic hero stabby the roomba: his legend continues
Okay, I frickin’ adore the Earth Is Space Australia business, so here’s my two cents. Someone did a great post about laughter as a fear response and how freaky that would be to aliens.
There’s another thing we do when we’re about to go into battle and we’re scared out of our minds.
So Alien Steve is minding his own business as the new guy on the Starship Incandescent. It’s a mixed ship, about half human, a quarter Silesian, and the rest a grab bag of species, but he hasn’t had any major problems so far. Then the pirates show up and shoot out their FTL drives so they can’t escape, and they’re outnumbered ten to one, and he calculates their odds of survival at very low. The comm link is still active, so they can hear the pirates laughing as they get ready to tear the Incandescent open and vent them all into vacuum. At least the end will be quick.
And Human Steve starts chanting. It makes no sense. Human incantations are for birth anniversaries, or aquatic grooming rituals, or for the ancient rite of passage known as “ka-ra-oke”. This is not a time of celebration. It is a time of preparing for imminent and ugly death by gravity cannon. But every human on the bridge starts chanting, too.
The pirates aren’t laughing anymore. Human Steve wraps his fingers around the main gunnery controls, and the crew descends as one into battle.
Teradecads later, his students will beg him for the story of how the Incandescent destroyed the Tyn’x Syndicate. To this day he credits their victory to the invocation of the great Human battle god Queen.
And the damndest thing, Alien Steve will say later, is the way they all knew the chant. Not just knew it, but agreed that this was the right one to use. Because the thing about humans, Alien Steve will tell his student, the thing to remember is that they spar recreationally, and they do it *all the time* and over the most meaningless things. Appropriate chants for a situation are an especially common thing to spar over, and it’s exceedingly hard to tell just how recreational it is sometimes.
(There are reports of sparring sessions that got so out of hand they almost jeapordized entire missions. Alien Steve has a friend whose fur still stands on end in fear at the thought of the human utterance, “Turn that off or so help me God I am turning this ship around.”)
The point is, Alien Steve will say, the humans on that mission had very different ideas about appropriate chants. They were well behaved about it, but Human Janet and Human Steve especially seemed to worship Gods who demanded very different chants. And yet, when Human Steve began invoking the war god, Human Janet was the first to join in.
Humans have been scientifically determined to have no hivemind or psychic abilities, but sometimes Alien Steve has to wonder.
Human-Steve knew what he was doing, because the coda to that war chant is the victory hymn.
(as a shy and nerdy high school kid, my one moment of transcendence was, during a prolonged technical difficulty kicking off a pep rally, getting the entire student body to breathe and pulse as a single being by stomping my feet twice and clapping once from an obscure corner of the bleachers.)
When an intergalactic mission reaches a critical point that threatens the life of the crew, when all is hopeless, and no other option is in sight, the captain of the crew must – if the crew includes a “human” – activate the WT protocol.
This measure should only be used in extreme circumstances, as its consequences are, despite impressive effectiveness, destructive and highly unpredictable.
If, however, the crew’s life and wellbeing are in danger, then the captain should turn to the “human” and clearly speak the following words:
“This is it. We will die here. There is no way out of this.”
The “human” will immediately direct their attention to their captain. Their answer should approximately be: “There’s always a way”, or “I’ll find something.”
It is crucial, then, that the captain performs the next sentence with as much condescension as can be mustered. They must look at the “human”, and say:
“What can a weak human like you even do?”
Immediately, distance must be brought between the remaining crew and the “human”. The protocol, if successfully initiated, will begin with a show of the “human’s” teeth in something called a “grin”, and the protocol words:
I’ve seen those humans and aliens posts and I wanted to add my thoughts.
Humans are dreamers filled with spite. That’s it. Humans always love coming up with little things like “wouldn’t be cool if’s” and “it’d be awesome if we could’s”
But they’re usually passing thoughts that nobody builds on.
It’s when someone says “you can’t do that” or “that’s stupid” or the best one “that’s impossible.”
Because that’s when humans do it.
I bet the Wright brothers were just chilling with their friends when one of them mentioned how cool it would be to fly like birds, and their friends laughed at them and said they were stupid.
And they were like “Fucking watch me.”
That’s where progress is made. Anytime a passing thought is mocked is where the genius erupts.
I can imagine Ben Franklin standing outside with a kite shouting “they said I wouldn’t do it.”
So if aliens ever discovered earth, telling humans about an astroid belt that can’t be navigated, the humans would already be plotting their course.
And any uninhabitable planet should expect visitors when humans are told they can’t go there.
The surest way of getting a human to do anything is to tell them they can’t.
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