Writing Prompt
Writings
Writings
WRITING OBSTACLE
Submitted by Robin Marlowe
Write a sci-fi scene about encountering an alien species that is not initially obviously intelligent.
What types of intelligence might not be recognisable to humans? How might we begin to recognise it?
Writings
An ice volcano surrounded by frosted waves. A silent ocean rested on a frozen beach. Beneath the sparkling thick icy surface, there rose a hiss. The gentle hiss grew into a rumble. The rhythmic rumble mushroomed into a rattle. The frentic rattle raced up and up and up through the network of mining tunnels. Next was the rattle screamed.
In a fog of mechanical screaming and ice crystals, a lone fig...
There it was. I could see it. I could not feel it. I didn’t know where it came from. But it was there. I was sure of that.
“Hello”
“Hello”
I wondered then if it was actually there or if it was a voice in my head. This same though had plagued me greatly throughout my life.
I ended up making it the resistance. I believe its goal was to throw me off my game. What was my game?
Easy, my game ...
There are three types of flying objects that I normally mistake for UAP: Venus — yes, I’m that dumb; balloons, which is apparently a common one; and of course, satellites. Far too many times have I raised my hopes up only for my good friend and alienologist Phil to consistently bring me back to my senses. Let me sum up the current situation with a simple statement: not today. As a matter of fact, ...
I watched the scene in horror on the VHS tape, coiled under my robe, tucked tight in my wheelchair. My limbs pulsed in pain.
The being we studied for years suddenly rose from the ground before us. I heard Mark crying behind me, looking on at something that we never thought possible. In the flesh, the creature looked different from our laboratory sketches. There was a human like aspect to its fac...
Two beings stood before the craft as a dozen men stepped out.
“Take us to your leader” one of the men joked as the beings look at each other unamused. Their large eyes appearing vacant to the ignorant travellers.
As one of the beings went to speak another of the men made a crude symbol towards them to an eruption of laughter from his peers.
“Look they have no idea what it means bless them.”
A ...
They came from different stars, unknown,
To Earth, a land they’d never grown
In the beginning, they stumbled slow and strange,
Their movements awkward and out of rage
No shinning minds or quick designs,
Just creatures learning in a bind
Their thoughts like clouds, they drifted wide,
As if the lacked a certain guide
Unnoticed intelligence, took its time,
Like clumsy step in foreign rhyme
I watche...
Deep in the uncharted sector of the galaxy known only as the Damp Bits - nobody really knew why - space explorer Lionel “Fingers” Dempsey found himself stranded on a planet which at some point had been marked on the charts as ‘Grut’.
Grut was not the sort of the planet you’d expect to find on the cover of an overly optimistic science fiction novel: verdant jungles, very large mushrooms, and shock...
The thick, sulfuric air clung to Dr. Elena Voss’s faceplate as she stepped off the shuttle ramp. Beneath her boots, the ashen soil of Gliese-712c crunched like brittle glass. The landscape was an eerie, monochromatic expanse, dotted with jagged outcrops of obsidian-like rock that reflected faintly under the dim red sun. Her team fanned out behind her, scanners buzzing as they began the monotonous ...
I spoke to the trees this morning
and they -blurry blue and icy- admitted:
they were born on a different planet.
It’s The Planet of Peace
so they know nothing about anger
and war
and wrath
and wrongs.
Why are they here? I asked.
To teach, they said, of love
and light
and life
and lullabies.
But what they saw, as they lived here,
they did not comprehend.
So I had to explain
Anger
War
Wrath
Wr...
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