Ork Speed Freeks - A Work in Progress 3

Each step is less and less surface area to paint. Yay! This time it was the silver for anything I want to be metal. It's painted over black to give it some depth. Rather than doing large group pictures going forward I'll be showing smaller batches since details will start to matter soon.

Yes, I can see the layer lines too.

The Megatrakk Scrapjet has the metal on it. I'm not really sure how I'm going to paint the treads yet so those are still black. I forgot to get a side picture to show the tread workings but since it's been further painted I don't want to muddle up the order. There's a lot of silver in there too.

I'm trying very hard not to let the layer lines bother me but I have a feeling that these will be retired in favor of resin printed ones at some point in the future unless I can minimize how those layer lines stand out. For now they stay. This taught me lessons in patience about printing thinner layers even though it takes longer, and I've done that with other vehicles going forward.

Shiny metal guns, struts, exhaust, claws, etc.

The leftmost magnetized arm looks like it doesn't sit flush but I think there's a loose piece of pin in the body cavity causing that. I didn't do a lot to make these pretty pictures since it's a WIP.

Yet another view, showing the differences. I know there's a lot of faces as the front fender but that's because I forgot to print one of the options and printed that one twice.

The Nob Bikers with their power claws (which haven't been seen before). The claw arms are magnetized so I can swap out weapons and because of that they're painted separately. That's why they weren't shown before.

I was bothered by the rectangular block on the back wheel/tread area (see previous posts for those) because it didn't seem right. Finally I realized I had forgotten to print the guns. Sigh. I hadn't even prepared the files for printing. Those got printed, I stripped the paint off the contact areas on the bikes, painted the guns up separate, then attached them. I have to touch up the joins but they're out of the way enough not to matter that much. Forgetting the guns. Sheesh.

Here's the boyz! Warbikers go vroom.

Another view showing the variety of poses.

Now we're getting into the basic fast attack troops. They don't have weapon options so everything is what it looks like. One again it's silver over the black.

Another set of warbikers. These have humanoid skulls on them in various places.

Another view of them.

Yet another view! The humanoid skulls are quite small compared to the size of the orks, which is as it should be.

A different set of warbikers which adds variety. I prefer a variety in my troops and luckily I can get it with 3D printing them. One of these guys isn't behaving at all when it comes to attaching the front wheel assembly. I have it pinned and even now it's a bit loose. Once it's on the base it will be fine but I need to be a bit careful when handling it. I don't like him.

My, that's a big gun you have there.

More warbikers, more guns.

Yet another different set of warbikers. I don't quite understand the metal plates wrapping around the tires but I guess it's an ork thing. I'll be doing some weathering on those when the painting is done. These have a space for a gun to be attached to their back and I had an extra so the center guy got two. His grots like him better.

Oh yeah baby.

I still really like the unusual aspect of a trike with two wheels in the front. It's way front heavy because I didn't hollow those out when I printed them and I won't make that mistake if I print another. I probably won't because these don't have a lot on the table at once and I have different versions if I want another one.

I didn't magnetize his claw arm because he only has one arm option. I could have done it but the other one I have right now has a claw on that arm too. Seems like this fella likes his power claw.

I touched up the black after painting the silver but I know I'll have to keep touching up things as I paint. It's part of life. Going forward I'll be using craft paint for silver rather than the expensive stuff. Silver is silver and these things eat paint and brushes. I bought more cheap craft paint brushes too.

The silver that's on it is Army Painter Plate Mail Metal. It covered great in one coat.

The Games Workshop Way is to pick out details on metal with a bronze/copper color. I did a little of that and painted over it. I'm not sure how I'm going to pick out the details on these yet. There's a nice amount of detail on the weapons so I'll have some fun with it.

Next up will be painting yellow because most vehicles are used in Evil Sunz clan games and their color is yellow. Yes, I know red makes things go faster but that's more a Goff color. Yes, I know Goffs tend to be painted black more than red until you get into the bigger guys. But yellow it is and it's the next largest color block.

Yellow sucks to paint and I'm very sure you're going to be reading a lot about how yellow sucks to paint in the next post.

Ork Speed Freeks - A Work in Progress 2

I'm through what I consider the most tedious part of painting - large base coats. I can't find a way to describe them as interesting. What's even less interesting is doing them twice.

In the last post I had base coated them black with a different shade of black on the tires. I wasn't certain about the tires. I was right to be uncertain about the tires. And the base coat needed some work.

This time I did what I should have done in the first place. I used acrylic craft paint (Hobby Lobby store brand) instead of the miniature paint. Not only is it much cheaper it's got more coverage. And it's cheaper.

Woo. Black. At least it's a more solid undercoat and I finished base coating all the areas I currently think will be metal. I'll be figuring that out as I go since that's detail stuff.

A bit more tidy in these shots, showing where the metals will be once they're finished. A lot of what the other pictures showed are the undersides, which to me are important to paint but won't be seen much if at all once they're done. It's a personal quirk.

I haven't done any work on the separate arms. I'll correct that in the next painting session since I'll need to get metal on them and eventually paint the skin at the same time I'm doing that for the base models. I might as well set it up with these.

Next up - lots of silver, which should be only slightly less tedious than the black because there's less of it to do.

I have something special planned for the megatrakk scrapject canopy windows but it will be at the end of the process so you'll have to wait for it. I also have to test it and confirm it will be what I want it to be.

Ork Speed Freeks - A Work In Progress 1

I've started on making an Ork Warhammer 40k army. 3D printer go brrrrr.

Almost every model I'm using is from Gear Guts' Mek Shop. Lemme tell you about them first so I can move on with the fancy pictures and stuff. First, I subscribe to his Patreon which I recommend to anyone doing 3D printing since it's one of the best value Patreons I've seen. The USA shop (linked above) sells the print files and also printed models. If you're in the UK or Australia there's shops that sell printed models (yay lower postage!) but not the files. Rumor has it there may be a vendor in Canada at some point but as of now there isn't one.

For those not familiar with Warhammer 40k I'll give you a summary of what's going on. You have models. You roll dice. Either you win or lose the fight. OK. I'll be nice and give more detail. When playing you choose a point value for the game (typically). Then within that point value you pick and choose models with various roles, based on the rules, to fill it out. I've chosen a faction that's quite frankly silly but fun - Orks. The roles are the same across the game but the model roles have different names.

I was doing random printing for a while then found a local group that seems nice and meets regularly. That meant putting together a playable force. I poked around on the Discord and Facebook groups to see posted army lists that didn't chase the meta and found a couple of forces I liked. I settled on a 500 point Speed Freek force to start learning the game.

That meant printing warbikers. A lot of warbikers. But that's fine because GG put out a lot of warbiker sets so I had variety, which I really like on the table.

After much printing I had this:

These aren't totally warbikers. The vehicle on the left is a Megatrakk Scrapjet that I already had printed. That one is off the filament printer so it has layer lines. I played with various ways to minimize them but forgot that the missiles are pretty rough. Oh well. That's what paint is for. The big guy in the middle is the boss - the Deffkilla Wartrike. I chose that model because I liked the oddity of having two wheels in front rather than in back. Finally I have the Boss Nobz on their bigger, fancier warbikes. I accidentally printed two of one of them so I have an extra that I'll paint up because I'll use it at some point later. They're not actually missing arms. Those have been magentized and printed separate since they have weapon choices.

These are the warbikers. They're kind of low level cavalry and the lowest level in this force. As you can see I went for a variety of models so that they'll be more interesting on the table. That jerk in the upper left caused me no end of issues until I finally drilled holes and pinned parts of it together. That showed him. Once again I have one more than I need for this force but hey, I'll use it at some point.

3D Printing

I figure the printing part should get it's own little section in this first post. Each warbiker (boyz and nobz) was a separate print and took about four hours. The Deffkilla Wartrike took two prints and about maybe six or seven hours. The Megatrakk Scrapjet (I had to look this one up since I printed it a while ago) twelve hours on the filament printer but would have taken two or three prints on the resin one for no time savings but also no layer lines.

I won't get into comparing costs with buying them from Games Workshop. That's not the point here even though I know I saved money on most models I print. The point is that I get a huge variety that you don't get from boxed sets. I can also edit the files to have magnet holes printed into them for when I want to be able to swap out parts. With kits, if you get the parts you need to be able to swap them out at all, you need to drill holes and no one likes that.

GG also is nice enough to have the gun barrels recessed so that's less work since drilling out gun barrels is part of detailed model preparation. Yes, I know you can paint the black dot and make it look like the barrels are drilled but that's not a concern when it's part of the model.

I've also printed the bases for when they're ready to be used. I didn't print fancy ones since my plan is to do the traditional sand bases with some grass tufts. I have sand. I have grass tufts. I don't want to print fancy base toppers. It was an easy decision and I can print the bases very nicely on the filament printer.

Painting

The rest of the posts will be about painting the models. That's the fun part. Orks aren't known for their precision or fashion sense. They're the only faction in the game rules that's allowed to loot models from any other faction and make them their own. Colors have meaning to Orks because part of their silliness is that whatever they believe happens. They believe that red makes vehicles go faster so the rules give you that option to give them extra movement. The various Ork clans also have colors to differentiate them.

The good thing is that you can mix up the colors without a problem. Just because yellow is used for a certain clan doesn't mean that same color can't be in a different clan army. This is excellent because if not for that you'd either have to pick a clan and stick with it or have multiple models painted in multiple colors. While GW would just love for you to have the multiple models (don't get me started on 'what you see is what you get' rules) the general flow is just to say what clan(s) things are when playing.

The pictures show the primed models. I went fancy and tried using an appropriate color of primer for what the part will eventually be painted. Black primer where there will be a black base coat is a no brainer. Grey is a neutral for the body of the vehicle. White is for the 'contrast paint' (Part 1 and Part 2 of that process) since I developed the color scheme to work over white and personally prefer white as a primer color anyway.

I will probably do the same thing with future models. It's kind of a pain and it makes me learn how to better control my airbrush but it should work out better in the long run. I'll know that as I paint these. I highly recommend Badger Stynylrez primer for either airbrushing or brush painting. That stuff sticks like you wouldn't believe. I linked to their main site but you can find it on Amazon as well. I don't know what's in it but I firmly believe that it's some kind of unicorn fluid and we'll leave it at that.

The treads on the Skrapjet (I got tired of typing out the full name) I also airbrushed in the black paint base coat because those things are brush killers. If you can see it at all you can see it isn't as shiny as the rest.

Here's the work I did last night - base coating. I bought a pack of cheap synthetic brushes for painting vehicles because there's no way my mini painting brushes were appropriate and even with my my massive brush collection I didn't have the right ones for this work. Everything but the tires are painted with Reaper Pure Black. The tires are Secret Weapon Tire Black, which is actually kind of green black. Secret Weapon is no longer available so this is me using my stocks.

Going forward I'm probably going to use craft acrylic paint for the black base coat. There's no reason that I can see for using the expensive miniature paint for this. It's black and it's going to mostly get covered over with other colors. I'm going to have a close look to see if the Tire Black is different enough from the Pure Black to justify using it here. It's a thin paint out of the bottle so it may need two coats to show a difference and with it being in short supply I don't know that I want to use it on army painting. I'll make that call when I see it.

The next step will be painting the undercarriages. Those will be streaky metallic since they will have been fairly abused by terrain and they're not visible for the most part. I know I could leave them black but metallic will stand out more against a neutral background. If these were flush with the bases I wouldn't bother and probably wouldn't have primed them at all to get a better glue bond.

Speaking of glue bonds I did try a little sanding to make flat spots on the tires so the bikes would 'sit' better and have larger contact points with the bases. I found out the resin is excellently hard and sanding was a tedious process for minor results. I always planned on pinning the bikes to the bases anyway and the sand will hide the fact that the tires aren't compressed. I can strip the paint off the contact points when it's time to combine them so I didn't bother with trying to avoid painting the areas I did sand.

I'm kind of sort of waiting for some paints I ordered from Warcolours before painting on colors but they're taking their own sweet time getting here from Greece so I may use some of my copious paint collection to start. I want the colors to be different shades. That fits the aesthetic of the faction. I always planned on painting them in groups so that they would have different shades. I just wanted the new stuff as opposed to the hundreds of bottles of paint I already have.

HASO - Reverse Bored Humans

This is gabriel-wolfe-wordsmith's story about what else can happen when a human gets bored and has access to tools and scrap. If you haven't read HASO - Bored Humans please do so and you'll get even more amusement out of it.

The reverse here also holds true. Give a bored human a pile of scrap and you will come back to find a fully functional ship…or somesuch strange device. Humans quickly become the junkyard beings all across the galaxy.

“What did you do before this?”

“I used to just salvage scrap from old ships and melt it down for the metals.”

“How did you get your tentacles on interstellar ships to sell from that?!?”

“Simple: i hired a human. I originally thought she would simply help deconstruct junk ships for easier melting. I even gave her two screwdrivers.”

“Two screwdrivers?!?! Are you a madbeast?! I’ve heard what a bored human can do with one leverage optimizer.”

“Like I said. I wanted her to take things apart, makes the scrap easier to melt in smaller pieces. Never thought the human would do things in reverse. Left for a cycle to go watch my sibling’s egg-hatching and came back to find six fully functional ships in my scrapyard.”

“Are they safe? Surely they couldn’t be..”

“I’ve had a dozen inspectors look at every one. Other than the lack of production number stamps they seem to be right off the factory line.”

“So now you sell ships.. What about the human?”

“Oh i let her keep tinkering in the scrap yard. She seems happy there surrounded by things to ‘play with’ as she puts it. I give her a bonus for every ship she builds.”

“What does she do with the bonuses?”

“Buys coffee and chocolate. I’m starting to think both are crucial to human brain functioning.”

“I have heard of humans going mad without them…”

“Maybe i should buy her some extra just in case…”

“HEY BOSS! I MADE ONE THAT GOES TWICE AS FAST!”

“Twice as fast as hyperspeed?!?!? How?”

“Not sure but it does. You gotta see it. Just took a trip to earth and back for more coffee from my favorite little shop. Got there and back in fifteen minutes! And ten of that was waiting in line.”

“That's half the galaxy away…”

“Great job Gabrielle! I’ll triple your bonus for this one!”

“Sweet! I'm gonna go grab a snack.”

“Surely she realizes she could patent that and be unimaginably wealthy??”

“She doesn't seem to care. I will patent it and give her half the profits. It is only fair.”

“You are a braver beast than I. Keeping a human around like this. I loose tufts of fur from stress just thinking about nesting near a human.”

“Once you get used to the strange noises late at night you sleep quite well.”

“Are you so certain her experiments won’t vaporize you in your sleep?!?!?”

“Of course. Since I started sleeping in the ‘coffee shop’ she built on the lot I feel completely certain I am safe from any collateral damage from her experiments.”

HASO - Humans Sleep Anywhere

Ah Tumblr, the source of so many bits of small fiction. I really should consider joining it for my own writing. Anyway. This week's contribution is from piwnymisiek.

“Human Steve?”

“Sssh, Drblx” - Alice raised a finger to her mouth. “He’s asleep.”

The grklonian eyed the human in question suspiciously. “ How is that even possible?”

“To fall asleep with your face in your breakfast? He’s been up working for over fifty hours, had to pass out at some point.”

“But why did human Steve not retreat to the safety of his sleeping pod, human Alice? Is he that exhausted? Does he need medical attention?”

“Nah, give him an hour and he’ll crawl to the pod on his own. Wait, ‘safety’?”

“Well, I assume you don’t treat each other as a threat, but to allow himself such vulnerability in front of a grklonian…”

Alice snorted. “Drblx. You’re a crewmate, a friend and a ball of fluffy pink fur. You’re lucky Steve didn’t use you as a pillow.”

Drblx, one of Grklonian Dominion’s most seasoned supersoldiers, had never felt so insulted in their life.

HASO - Bored Humans

 This gem is from injuries-in-dust on Tumblr.

Give a bored human a screwdriver and you’ll find a pile of scrap where your ship used to be, with a proud looking human sitting nearby. 

“Boredom is a dangerous thing to a human.” 

“I don’t understand,” Chuul’s mandibles clicked nervously, “why not simply take the tool from the human.” 

Minxx’s antennae stood straight up, a sign of shock, fear, or surprise, “You don’t simply take something from a human. If you do they will either turn the ship upside down trying to find it again, or they will replace it with something else that will lead to more destruction.

“I speak quite literally by the way. Human-Mark used to have a tool he called an “Hex Key” he used it to remove the doors to the clothing storage areas in his quarters because he was bored. When he lost it he literally turned the ship upside down by reversing the gravity.” 

Chuul’s tentacles curled up defensively, “Gravity controls are locked, how-”

“No one knows how.” Minxx shook her small wings as the memory of suddenly falling upwards returned to her. “but his reasoning was that the tool would fall out of whatever hiding place it had come to rest within. He had not considered that all tables, chairs, equipment, and personnel, would also fall. It took weeks to clean.” 

To be fair to the human, Mark had only intended to reverse the gravity in his own quarters but had, quote, “pushed the wrong button.” A sentence which would send fear through any intelligent creature in the known galaxy. To be completely unfair to the human, there were still stains on the ceiling in almost every room of the ship from dropped food, chemicals, various other liquids, and even a couple of empty bowels. Some races just didn’t find the idea of resting comfortably in their sleeping quarters, only to be suddenly awakened as they fell ten feet toward a ceiling which had now become a floor. Mark was no longer allowed near environmental controls. 

Minxx continued, “He did not find this “Hex Key.” However, he did find the screwdriver and it seemed to please him when an owner was not located. The captain let him keep it since it seemed that it would keep him from doing any more strange things to locate his original lost tool. We did not consider-” she trailed off as her wings quivered again. 

There was silence between them for a few moments, Minxx was almost unwilling to continue and Chuul was almost too afraid to press for more details. Slowly, but surely, Minxx calmed herself enough to speak again. “we did not consider what he may be able to do when armed with a leverage optimiser.” 

“We were given shore leave while the ship was being fixed after the gravity incident. Thank goodness the captain took out act’s-of-human insurance or it would have cost the profits from our next five cargo hauls.” The premiums were high, but it was worth it. “After 14 rotations, human-Mark began to complain over the lack of stimulation, he called it “bored.” On the 15th rotation he disappeared for some time and he had hoped he had found some new activity to occupy his time.” 

Chuul did, but at the same time didn’t, want to know, “Had he?” 

Minxx waved her antennae in confirmation, “he had. He was located in one of the cargo holds, using the screwdriver to dismantle one of the mining probes. To, quote “see how it worked.” It was almost 90% deconstructed.” 

Mark had claimed it was almost 10% REconstructed, as he was trying to put it back together again, but couldn’t quite remember where all the parts went. In Mark’s words, the captain was a “glass half-empty kinda guy” (whatever that meant) and wrote DEconstructed on the claim form for a replacement probe. 

Chuul’s natural camouflage kicked in and they took on the colour of the chair they were sitting on. “Those probes have no screws for the leverage optimiser to use, how did he-” 

Minxx’s wings shivered again, “no one knows how. He just did.” 

Chuul was silent for a moment. He’d never served on a ship with a human before. He’d heard they made things “interesting” and if you ever got into trouble, a human was the very best thing to ever have on your side. It was why they were so many job opportunities for humans in the alliance. All the same…the thought of a human causing such damage and destruction just because of a lack of mental, or physical, stimulation was a more than a little frightening. What if the human wanted to see how the engines worked, or the weapons?!!  “Maybe I should transfer to another ship.” 

Minxx’s antennae curled, a smile to her race. “You are safe. The captain has found a way to occupy our humans free time. During our last stopover, he commissioned a shiny orb be constructed.” 

Chuul coked their head, “what is a shiny orb?” 

Minxx’s curled antennae moved up an down; a sign of mild laughter. “It is nothing. A sphere made of shiny metals, humans do like shiny things, roughly two feet diameter made of a collection of gears, levers, screws and switches which appear complex and should have a function, but do entirely nothing. The captain handed it to Human-Mark and stated: “see if you can fix this.” and Mark has been “tinkering” with it during his off-duty hours for almost 24 rotations now. He can take it apart and rebuild it as many times as he likes, but it will never perform any task.”

Chuul was just thinking about how their captain must be a genius, when the door to the mess hall opened and Human-Mark entered. He was carrying the shiny orb under one arm, and his screwdriver in the other hand. He looked around, seemingly not noticing any of the crew members. He smiled when he spotted an empty liquid container and sat down at the table with the cup. 

Chuul and Minxx watched curiously as Mark set the orb on the table in front of the cup. He used the screwdriver to tighten one small screw and flipped a switch. At once there was a whirring and clicking of clockwork, a blinking of lights hidden in the depths of the machine and even a TING from a small bell. Then a small funnel-shaped piece of metal opened up in the side of the machine and poured a small amount of hot, black, liquid into the cup.

Mark jumped to his feet, pumping the air and yelling loudly enough to send Chuul’s camouflage reflex off again. He grabbed the orb, abandoning the cup of steaming hot liquid, and moved to the door. 

Minxx stared after them, “Human-Mark?” 

Mark only paused for a second in the doorway. He was prominently displaying his predatory teeth. Chuul had read about these “smiles” but it was still disturbing to see. “Can’t stop Minxy. I gotta let the captain know I fixed his coffee maker.” 

With that, he left. Leaving Chuul and Minxx frozen in place, dumbfounded. 

Wherever Chuul was going to transfer to, Minxx began to hope she could get a posting on the same ship.

HASO - Humans and Pets

I think I'm going to have to sign up for Tumblr just because it keeps providing me material. This is a multi-user contribution, which is kind of the fun of social media sites.

radioactivepeasant (setting up the story seed)

It occurs to me that as much as “humans are the scary ones” fits sometimes, if you look at it another way, humans might seem like the absurdly friendly or curious ones.

I mean, who looked at an elephant, gigantic creature thoroughly capable of killing someone if it has to, and thought “I’m gonna ride on that thing!”?

And put a human near any canine predator and there’s a strong chance of said human yelling “PUPPY!” and initiating playful interaction with it.

And what about the people who look at whales, bigger than basically everything else, and decide “I’m gonna swim with our splashy danger friends!”

Heck, for all we know, humans might run into the scariest, toughest aliens out there and say “Heck with it. I’m gonna hug ‘em.”

“Why?!”

“I dunno. I gotta hug ‘em.”

And it’s like the first friendly interaction the species has had in forever so suddenly humanity has a bunch of big scary friends.

adrenaline-revolver

“Commander, we must update the code of conduct to include the humans.”

“Why? Are they more aggressive than we anticipated?”

“It seems to be the opposite Commander. Just this morning a crewman nearly lost their hand when attempting to stroke an unidentified feline on an unknown world. Their reaction to the attack was to call the creature a “mean kitty” and vow to win it over. Upon inquiry it seems they bond so readily with creatures outside their species that they have the capacity to feel sympathy for an alien creature they have never seen before simply because it appears distressed. I hate to say this commander but we must install a rule to prevent them from endangering their own lives when interacting with the galaxy’s fauna.”

“I see what you mean. So be it, from now on no crewman is allowed to touch unknown animals without permission from a superior officer. And send a message to supplies about acquiring one of these “puppies” so that their desire to touch furred predators can be safely sated. 

beka-tiddalik

“So I hear that you’ve just recruited a human for your ship.”

“Yes, it’s the first time that I’ve worked with these species, but they come highly recommended. Say, you’ve worked with a few, what tips can you give me? I’d hate to have some kind of cultural misunderstanding if it’s avoidable.”

“The first rule of working with humans is never leave them unsupervised.”

“Wait, what?”

“I’m serious. Don’t do it. Things. Happen.”

“But wait, I thought that I heard you highly recommended that every crew should have at least one on board?”

“Absolutely, and I stand by that. Humans are excellent innovators, and are psychologically very resilient. If you have a crisis, then a human that has bonded with your crew properly can be invaluable. Treat your human well and you should get the best out of them as a crew member. Their ability to get on with almost any species is legendary.”

“But Toks, didn’t you just say…”

“The trouble is that they will potentially try to bond with anything. If you leave them unsupervised, you have no idea what kind of trouble they can get themselves into. It was sheer luck that the Fanzorians thought that it was funny that the human picked up the Crown Prince to coo at him.”

“Crown Prince Horram, Scourge of Pixia?”

“The very same. Surprisingly good sense of humour. But don’t even get me started on that one time with the Dunlip. Al-Human wanted to know if they could keep it. As a pet.”

“A Dunlip? You mean the 3 metre tall apex predators from Jowun?”

“Yup. Don’t leave your humans unsupervised.”

“I’ll uh, take that under advisement.”

uristmcdorf

“Seriously. Get a supply of safe animals for the humans to bond with or they will make their own. I mean, they will try to befriend anything they come across anyway, but without any permanent pets they can get… creative. Don’t even get me started on the time one of them taped a knife to one of our auto-cleaners and named it Stabby.

Three weeks in and when we finally caught the wretched thing, half the humans on crew tried to revolt about us “killing” Stabby by removing the knife.

“How… how did you resolve that sir?”

“Glaxcol made a toy knife out of insulation rubber and strapped that on instead. Quite a creative solution, I suppose.”

“And that sated the humans?

“Worse.”

“Worse?”

“They thought it was so funny they made a second one, strapped false eyes on springs to both and held mock battles. Then decided Stabby and Knifey were in love and now none of them will allow the others to stage fights between them any more.”

foxmartini

“So, if I supply my Humans with safe bonding pets they will behave better when on other planets? Where do I get safe bonding pets?”

“Realizing the havoc their species created with their bonding needs, Earth has been kind enough to create an inter galactic ‘pet’ shop as they call it, the order forms are on the bridge.”

“If they get a pet this should prevent any knife welding auto-cleaners?”

“Yes…”

“You don’t sound very reassuring.”

“Well… You have to understand that some of what humans find attractive about their ‘pets’ is actually what makes them dangerous. Not all of what they consider ‘safe’ is what we would consider ‘safe’.”

“OK… I am getting a little nervous about this.”

“No, no, it’s fine, I’m just saying you should maybe keep an eye on what they order. Ask them to describe the creature before they get it. For example, the first time I had a human on board I let them order a pet without checking what it was.”

“What happened?”

Well, when it arrived it was a 25 pound fanged and clawed feline creature called a Savannah Cat. My entire crew was terrified of it, it was agile and could easily have seriously injured someone, but the human had no fear of it. They insisted on carrying it around like a child, and they would squeeze it’s ‘beans’ as they said, forcing the creatures claws out, and then they would show people it’s deadly claws while saying, and I quote, ‘look at its adorable claws, this is what it uses to kills things, isn’t it cute?’“

“Seriously?”

“I have also heard stories from other crews that their humans ordered canines that weigh as much or more then they do, and they sleep next to the giant creature.”

“You are not making me feel better with these stories…”

lianabrooks

“Captain, the Mei-Human has ordered a new bonding pet. And it arrived.”

“Is there a problem?”

“It is the size of my hand, has eight legs, and there is a label on the box that reads VENOMOUS.”

“This must be a mistake. Let’s find Mei-human and see if she can explain how this happened.”

They found Mei-human working in the science lab…

“Mei-human, your bonding pet has arrived but there seems to have been a mistake made in shipping.”

“Oh, no! Captain, did Fluffy die?”

“Fluffy?” The captain moved six tentacles in confusion. “Who is Fluffy?”

“My Martian Fur Spider,” Mei-Human said. “You told me I could order anything as long as it was cute and loveable.”

“Mei-Human,” said the bosun, “our understanding is that arachnids are considered frightening to humans.”

“Well, some people don’t like spiders, but I think they’re adorable! I already picked out a name and made a small habitat for it in my quarters. Fluffy will love it.”

The captain and bosun exchanged worried pheromones. 

“What about the warning of venom?” the captain asked.

“Oh, Martian Fur spiders don’t produce enough venom to kill anyone, even when they’re grown. I checked to make sure Fluffy couldn’t hurt the crew. The bite will only itch, but they can be trained not to bite.”

The captain flapped its gills in a breathy sigh. Humans… “Very well. We will unleash the Fluffy.” 

The captain and the bosun walked Mei-Human to her quarters and delivered the small box containing Fluffy the Martian Fur spider. As the doors opened they saw that Mei-Human had cleared her longest wall and stacked balls of yarn over most the floor.

“Mei-Human,” the captain said as a feeling of dread filled its soul, “how large will Fluffy grow?”

“Oh, no one has ever grown a Martian Fur spider larger than three meters before. She’ll fit in the ship, no problems. I measured the corridors. And they can curl up very small when they want to. The yarn is just there to give her something to cuddle in when she sheds her outer skin.” 

Mei-Human smiled cheerful as she released a glistening red creature with luxurious fur and two-inch fangs onto her floor.

“Isn’t she the cutest?”