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Reading Rainbow: the March 2020 Superdraft


Sociotard

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Character: Dr. Weston (Out of the Silent Planet)

 

"I was only a graduate student, then, when we saw the flashes. I was leading a class, bunch of idiots mostly. Poets who thought to satisfy some requirement or other with an introductory astronomy class, at a university that wasted resources on students of "the classics" and such trash. But, at least that put me out there. I saw the green flashes on the surface. I thought maybe it was an artifact from a rubbish telescope, but that wouldn't account for seeing them from each telescope, would it? No. I canceled class on the spot, and went for a proper tool. Of course those things had to be scheduled in advance, because there was never enough money, because the bloody university had to spend oh so much on those bloody classics.

 

But people in the real sciences are sensible. I used the smaller telescope to show the others the flashes, and that got me time on the universities big scope. Everyone else was guessing that perhaps mars had some pockets of copper hydrides. But only just now erupting? and all at once? Rubbish. The spectrometer told the tale, just a single peak in the green range; any normal incandescence would have had other peaks. And why would the light be polarized? We didn't know what a laser was at the time, but I knew there could be no 'natural' explanation. These flashes were bursts of light on a scale of power with volcanic eruptions, but with the mark of intelligent construction.

 

Of course our leaders ignored me. "The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one," they said. "You boffins just stay in your labs", they said. You know what they all study, don't you. Literature. or History. Trash disciplines. Making men like that our leaders, we were practically begging to be colonized.

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Character: Paul Bäumer  (All Quiet on the Western Front)

 

Yes, so many young men like you come asking about the day the cylinders landed. Asking as if it would be a tale of adventure. It wasn't. The Martians were death, and death is no adventure.

 

When the cylinders first landed we thought they were just French artillery, gone mercifully into no mans land, and somehow all duds. It was a reasonable guess, I suppose. But, then days passed and we got orders for another charge. That's when we got the first taste of the heat ray. You young men read about them, but you have no idea. You see old amputees like me, you see our burn scars, and you think you understand. You cannot.

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Lo! 'Umbrella flight

   As has been through the years!

An Angel's face, hair coiffed tight

   Under hat stern eyes so clear

Where children behave pitifully

  She can teach them fear!

 

 

Manners, are set of priorities high

    Toys put into a row,

And hither and thither fly-

   clothing into dresser shelves go

At bidding of a nanny who knows no king

   Whose magic flows to and fro,

If you're lucky she might just sing,

Really quite a show.

 

 

 

That childish drama- oh, be sure

   It shall not be forgot!

Know that Poppins has it's cure

  Tantrums tolerated? Not.

Time's a circle that ever produces em'

  Brats that must be taught,

And much of manners brings less of sin,

    Better Children now, Spit spot!

 

 

But see, the dangers rise

   As girls of might so rude

Seek to spread carnage about

   with anti witching feuds

They rise, they rise- like serpents teeth

   ungrateful and un-subdued

A nanny is called for our relief

  to save all from girls imbued

 

 

Out- out with the frights- out all!

   and brought down from bloody din,

Alice, Susan, Pippi, Dorothy Gale,

  must be defeated by umbrella on wind

 Else the world suffer more from maidens of pain

   Bloody, mad, unforgiving, grim!

If falls the hope of this tragedy!

Mary Poppins, our heroine?

 

Character: Mary Poppins by PL Travers

 

98be97ee7ffc189d746766e9b71944c2--style-

   

 

 

 

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I would like to draft the Flying Dutchman, which originated as folklore, as an option.  It has appeared in movies, opera, and so on, but AFAICT the original was out of sailors' oral tradition.

 

If it turns out not to be acceptable, leave word and and I'll make a different pick.

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27 minutes ago, Old Man said:

Character: Esmerelda "Granny" Weatherwax (Discworld)

 
"They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it is not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance."
 
granny-weatherwax-7a76edc2-51f4-453a-875

 

Sniped

 

I need advice how to handle this.

 

"You will adapt"- 7 of 9

 

Thanks for your faith in me, TV Sci Fi creation I can't use in this draft.

 

 

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