aggienaut | These are the Voyages... (Reply)

Okay so continuing with the Star Trek parodies. As mentioned I've been thinking of actually putting together a series. So I thought I'd make a "pilot episode" for it. Unfortunately, while the AI can get "pretty good" very easily, to polish it up to something actually worth doing anything with is a bit more time consuming. It took me a few hours actually to get this how I wanted it and essentially, the entire plot I wrote myself and fought with it to get how I wanted. But I don't think I'm very good at dialogue and it might be better at that than me. And "Hoodoos" I hadn't thought of the word "hoodoos." Anyway, this is the first scene of the pilot episode. Hopefully when I get back to parodying episodes and have better trained it to this more precise standard it won't take as long or else this entire project which was predicated on taking nearly no time at all certainly won't go anywhere.

   A single perfectly round avocado hangs in the void, suspended at the edge of a branch. It turns slowly, its textured green skin glinting like a miniature planet. The faint sound of wind stirs around it.
   A weathered hand reaches up and plucks it from the branch.
   The tree is struggling—its leaves thin, the bark dull and scarred. The fruit, despite appearances, feels too light. Hollow. Rafael Panza frowns as he turns it over in his palm.
   Beyond the solitary tree stretches a small grove, a handful of low avocado trees huddled near a trickling stream. Around it, the rockscape rises in warped columns and crooked towers, the hoodoos sculpted over millennia by wind and ash. Dust clings to everything. He slices the avocado open.
   The pit rattles inside like a pebble in a shell. No resistance. No heft. A soft sigh escapes him.
   “No fat.” he mutters “No flavor.”
   Still, he lifts a slice to his mouth and chews.
   “Hmm. Metallic.” he swallows “Irony.”
   From the shade beside the water, Sancho the capybara lifts his head and watches with mournful disinterest.
   Rafael tosses the avocado half aside. “It’s either poor pollination... or a goblin.”
   Sancho snorts.
   “I saw yellow eyes,” Rafael says. “Night before last. In the cave. Not a reflection. Watching me.”
   Before the capybara can express skepticism, Jason comes stumbling down the path, one boot in hand.
   “Hey,” he calls. “You seen a shoe? Brown? I lost it helping a woman cross a stream. There was a log. She slipped.”
   “You lost your shoe helping a stranger?”
   “She didn’t fall.”
   “No shoe here,” Rafael says. “Could be downstream. Could be eaten.”
   “Eaten?”
   “Llamas.”
   “Except now I’m down a boot.” Jason glances around.
   “Was it a good shoe?”
   He considers. “No,” he admits. “But I liked the symmetry. How are the trees?”
   “Failing.”
   Jason peers at the grove. “What’s that on the ground?”
   “False fruit.”
   Jason points toward the hoodoo-studded skyline. “Well, SpaceFleet is putting together a crew for a ship that just arrived. They need people. It’s our chance to get out of here!”
   “Need them for what?”
   “Whatever crews do. Fly, scan, poke things. That kind of stuff.”
   Rafael studies him. “What happened to the last crew?”
   Jason shrugs. “I don’t know. Probably not important. Space-mondays man”
   “Can’t you just say Mondays?”
   He offers a two-fingered wave and lumbers back up the path, singing something tuneless. Sancho watches him go, then rolls over with a grunt.
   Rafael looks toward the shadowed opening in the rock wall.
   The cave waits.
   He steps inside.
   The air is cool, tinged with dust and minerals. Light from the entrance stretches across the floor in pale ribbons, leading deeper into the carved interior. The walls curve inward. The silence is old.
   At the far end of the cave, the stone forms a shallow chamber. A flat pedestal rises from the floor, altar-like, bathed in light from the cave entrance. Upon it: a single, perfect avocado. Almost... humming.
   He begins making his way along the uneven surface of the cave. Are those humanoid bones scattered on the floor? Suddenly an enormous shadow looms up against the back wall.
   He quickly tries to scramble back towards the entrance, stumbling over stalagmites. He feels a dagger against his back.
   “I have you now,” a female voice hisses, He carefully turnes his head to see a goblin kneeling over him with a dagger against his back, her large yellow eyes seeming to glow.
   “Rafael Panza.”
   He blinks. “What—”
   “Dirxana. Human Resources. SpaceFleet.” She holds up a flat digital tablet, unreadably lit. “We need you for crew. Your profile shows aptitude.”
   “I never applied.” he explains, as he sits up, now that her dagger is not jabbed in his back. She’s wearing a very professional black knee length dress cinched with a narrow belt.
   “You don’t need to.” She scrolls. “Avocado monoculture, minimal market reach, unflourishing grove – we’ve observed your agricultural work, your survival aptitude, and your peculiar resilience to bureaucratic interference. It’s adequate. You maintain soil chemistry manually. You speak to your fruit. You fixed your irrigation valve with a carved stick. This is exactly the profile we need aboard the USS Nimrod.”
   “I grow avocados. They do not need to be spoken to. I just do it because I’m alone.”
   “That’s what makes you ideal.”
   “Were you sabotaging my avocados??”
   “I didn’t tamper with your avocados,” she says. “Though someone did. I observed during my lunch break, with snacks. If you wish to file a complaint you’ll need form 42-D, but you’ll have to name the person you’re complaining against and that requires form 73-A and I can’t reveal their name to you any way due to the privacy policy.”
   “Are you going to say this is a necessary evil?”
   “Evil is always necessary”
   “Is this how you normally recruit people?”
   “No but this is more fun.”
   “I’m not interested.”
   “Your ex-girlfriend D’vana submitted a post-breakup report. Said you were stuck in a rut. Lacked initiative. Possibly allergic to adventure.”
Rafael stares. “There’s a report?”
   “There’s a report on everything. It’s in your file. So is the thing with the llama, but I’m not judging.” she leans forward “Rafael. Something worse than irony is coming. You won’t stop it from this cave. Or that hill. Or with that capybara. (glances at Sancho) No offense.”
   “Hey it was an alpaca, an unruly alpaca. It ended my career in the alpaca-rodeo but no one could have tamed that beast!”

   Sancho trots in and settles near Rafael’s leg. He blinks, serenely. He’s never had a job, never paid taxes, never been conscripted by goblins. Perhaps he is the wise one.
   “But you didn’t take my avocados?”
   “I don’t even like them,” Dirxana explains again, “I’m more of a jackfruit girl.”
   “What about mangos?”
She shrugs, “The Ataulfo variety is too smug, Haden is overrated in early season, Keitt is dependable but clingy, and Alphonso, devine … but emotionally manipulative. Why?”
Rafael raises an eyebrow. “Testing you. If you really are a good judge of character or are just bullshitting me.”
   “Fair”
   Rafael hesitates. The air in the cave shifts slightly, as though some pressure has lifted. He looks back toward the sunlit entrance, then at the glowing pedestal.
   “Fine,” he says. “I’ll go. But can I have that avocado.”
   Dirxana shrugs. “Take it.”
   He walks forward, hand outstretched. The glow seems to intensify as he nears it. He picks it up.
   It’s cold. Hard. Plastic.
   Dirxana’s laughter echoes through the cave, evil, maniacal and gleeful.

I had actually googled "symptoms of under-pollinated avocados" it's called a "cuke," which word it then inserted but i removed it for sounding too rude 🤣

The "that thing with the llama" line AI came up with and i thought was gloriously hilarious but then i felt at pains to clarify it wasn't a _sexual_ thing lest the reader permanently spoil on this character. And then there was a problem with the "this llama thing" amd the earlier reference to Llamas eating shoes, it feels like too many Llamas but i can't think of a good replacement animal for either.