"How did your people study storms such as twisters in your past?"
Human - "Oh, we drove big, heavy, vehicles right into the paths of these storms and studied them from the inside."
"Those must've been marvels of engineering, with caterpillars and all to anchor them."
Human - "Nope, just heavy cars with a bunch of armor welded on, kinda like a big tin can with an anchor, and us praying our luck held. Here's a video!"
"I'll say it again what I've said before, you people were, and are, completely nuts!"
Human - "But that's what makes us so much fun! And hey, it worked, right?"
-- Anon Guest
[AN: I've seen some tornado trucks with inbuilt diagonal pile-anchors driven into the earth below with hydraulic pistons. The ingenuity of our insanity knows no bounds.]
"Just because it worked," intoned Companion Ruy, keeping her voice level and calm, "does not mean it was either safe or sane."
"We knew," said Human Pris. "We did it anyway because the data was more important than their lives. Well. They were willing to put their lives on the line to obtain the data."
"Everyone else," sighed Ruy, "re-engineered machines to gather the data without risk to life or limb. Or steered clear of areas where super-storms were wont to emerge."
"Yeah, but that took too long," said Pris. "We needed those areas for the fertile soil and so forth. Resources and stuff. We couldn't go around, it, so we had to go through it. People were hungry and needed places to live, so getting the data was kind of important. Okay, very important."
Ruy considered the comparative greed of Deathworlders, their shorter lifespans, or their instinct to grab as much as they could in as little time as possible. Their entire history often contained battles in which each side destroyed as much of the oppositions' resources as possible... in order to again theoretical resources when the fighting was done. That same history showed that the effort was often moot.
Chasing dangerous storms just for the data on how they worked so that more were free... fit right in with other insanities of the species. Like jumping off of high places with either artificial wings or forms of sails to slow their descent. Or trying varying ways to prepare otherwise toxic foodstuffs so that they weren't so toxic any more. Mostly because they were hungry and starvation was clearly option B.
"At least tell me you ceased doing those things since the development of alternate technologies?" begged Ruy.
"Uuuuuuuhhh..." managed Pris.
[Photo by Raychel Sanner on Unsplash]
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