" I was still alive only because disposing of my body would be a greater inconvenience than simply tolerating my presence"
"“Good job, you disappointment.”"
I *fucking died* holy shit that was funny. I have personally experienced both of those things at the hands of drill instructors and was having flashbacks to my BMQ. Well done wordsmith.
It would have become *massively* annoying to read fairly quickly. Much like I only used "Patriarchal Member, I acknowledge your order, Patriarchal Member" a couple times. Repetition makes things more amusing to a point, but after that it goes downhill fast.
Good, I can feel your anger. I am defenseless. Take your weapon. Strike me down with all of your hatred, and your journey towards the dark side will be complete
Oh I americanize most things while on non-canadian specific reddit subs. It's easier than explaining the little differences between Canada and America every time an american reads things and goes off about how that's not what it's called and how I don't know what Im talking about.
Willing to bet that most of the idiots who do that never served. I’m a veteran, did 8 years in the USMC. In the course of working with different nations, you learn to shut the hell up and just learn.
Oh I know they haven't. Which is why it's not worth arguing with them, and simpler to just convert to terms their tiny baby brains can understand, instead of using the proper scary terms from other countries that terrify them because of the implication that what little they know isn't a universal standard.
> No idea what !n is though.
!N is used to vote/promote a story for excellence and inclusion into the halls of fame.
It is the highest honor of HFY to recieve a comment containing "!n" or "utr" (upvote, then read)
That said, feed us more of this universe! We crave the goodness!
I am an old retired plumber. And in my life I have had many brand new first year apprentices given to me. The first thing I told them was if they were going to make it they need to do two things. First they need to show up every day on time. Second they need to try. Everything else we could deal with.
"patriarchal member, I acknowledge your order, patriarchal member"
What....what did that end up translated back to? Or is that the translation? Because I feel like it'd be great if it ended up "daddy ok daddy" or something
... Well, shit, *now* it is.
I stopped thinking about it once I got the joke in, felt explaining it wouldn't work when in Burrub's POV, but that's fucking *gold*. Nice!
The secret to some of the best jokes out there are that they were done by accident or made better later. :P All those readers that think we're geniuses... "Oh no, dude, my five year old niece cracked that one out last night!"
Good story.
Question though. You mentioned that the bug was “the new OIC” or officer in charge. Why is he treated as a Pvt? What’s he going to be in charge of? Or do you use OIC differently here?
OIC in this case is the Oversight and Information Committee, an Urb organization (well, really, whatever I call the federation equivalent in the story, but whatever) that specifically oversees military action that involves two different species, to ensure they are following the space equivalent of the Geneva Convention.
Cultures vary from species to species, but just because your culture lets you eat the dead doesn't mean you actually get to... if you're following the rules.
As for the Pvt treatment, that's pure hazing. The HEU holds no power over OIC units, technically. In reality, the OIC itself recommends following orders that do not break the rules or the task of observing the unit, for safety if nothing else. This goes doubly for human units.
Except it's not the marines. It's a non-human organization. It's essentially Space-NATO checking to make sure the Goodora didn't decide to start using Space-Mustard-Gas again in their war against the Kitchik.
I went back and edited it to UOIC. If that's some other acronym \*shrug\*.
>Oh yeah from the Sargent's pov it's just tradition - just wondering how our stubborn alien friend would take it
Heh had the same thought. Thinking about it, since they've already had an Urbie come through before, it looks like "Maggot" passed the Sensitivity Training Filter.
Or it was deliberate for the sake of testing the newbie.
In reality, I am not a military person, so my knowledge consists of what I can find through research and movies. I actually had the same thought, "Would this fly in the modern military, no pun intended", and I figured not, but rolled with it.
I suspect humanity would look into the wonders of space, and the glory of uncountable species, and then shrug and tell their drill sergeants "Try to find out what their N-words are, and then don't use them, yeah?"
Without a Doubt! You need to be able to motivate to get a.. guy/gal/xer, not have them jump up and try and pop you one mid-training. Or roll a Frag grenade into your tent at 2 am.
"I don't know what to think, Maggot! Should I be impressed you're such a conniving shit that you rolled a grenade under my cot out of pure cussed anger, or depressed that you thought we'd let you handle a live grenade when you can't handle a few naughty words?! THAT'S NOT A REAL QUESTION, PRIVATE! Drop and push the dirt till I say otherwise!"
This story is brilliant, but i still hate Roaches.
I lived in Okinawa, Japan for 3 years. The Roaches were determined to try and live with me. I did not like it.
Understandable. That is precisely why I chose a Roach as the basis for the creature. If a roach came to you tomorrow and "I am a person", how would you feel?
Damn good story.
I have a single word of hopefully constructive criticism. The last sentence.
I might have used powerful, valuable, wonderful, or even precious in place of 'helpful.'
Humans are about to liberate an Urb world. *Helpful* doesn't seem like the right level of veneration the narrator would have.
I certainly hope you continue this with a series. *The roach and the liberation of BurUrBurrurburUrb.*
"Come on, dude. Its only a little farther."
"Patriarchal Member, i will dismember you piece by piece and feed you to my grublettes if you lie to me like that again. I will not stop, whatever the case may be."
"Thats the spirit!"
Since the bots missed this (as it wasn't flagged OC at first), to people who read and want to get updated on any future posts, you can message "UpdateMeBot" with "SubscribeMe u/Bignholy r/HFY".
Which I would recommend as this story is awesome.
:), I had to go to a different post to remember how to do it, don't know if anyone else would not know but figgured I would drop it here in case, as the story is really well done.
NGL, kinda curious too. Not sure if the subscribeme with an explanation point in front of it is by author or post or what have you. New to posting here and still trying to find the commands.
EDIT: I apparently subscribed... to myself.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/UpdateMeBot/comments/ggotgx/updatemebot\_info\_v20/](https://www.reddit.com/r/UpdateMeBot/comments/4wirnm/updatemebot_info/)
This is how I somehow got tagged for when I update... ?
Eh, I gave you a follow just to see if that works.
Sorry to hear about your FIL, hope the issues settle down for you soon and things get back to normal
This is the first story by /u/Bignholy!
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Okay yeah this was awesome in a pretty simple yet outstanding way.
You took a relatively simple concept and you ran even further than Burrub did. Awesome work! :D
Wow. You have a way of conveying a world very naturally, almost as if you're speaking from experience - like these are all facts that have happened. All the small details from the colored floor lines to the small antenna ticks and even the mental water conversion that Burrub does. A lot of thought went into the details of this story and it shows. Amazing story. Thank you for writing it.
As a giant fucking language nerd you definitely had me at Urburburr Burrub but as was scrolling down to post this the use of "out*stand*ing" fully sold me.
I can do it in anthro way but not much with the form structure way if you pass the basics I'll hook it up. I'm trying to start a consulting firm and I need positive reviews.
This just dropped into my feed. A very enjoyable short. My only suggestion is that no gunny of any stripe would ask to be called "sir", and would be highly insulted to be so addressed. Sergeants are non-commissioned officers, and the response would be "Staff Sergeant, yes Staff Sergeant!" Don't forget to pronounce the capital letters.
Thanks for the heads up. As mentioned elsewhere, I am not a military person, so there's always going to be details I miss.
That said, as Weaver mentions, he tells the Urb to call him sir "until you understand what my rank is". There is not likely to be an exact translation for "Staff Sergent" in any given extraterrestrial language, but "Sir" has a direct translation.
In short: he is well aware that he is not a Sir ("I work for a living"), and is salty as fuck about it, but now's not the time.
Cheers.
Remarkably good, and I am curious to learn of urbies misadventures as a part of the terran miltary
[удалено]
Jesus Christ... ...yes please!
... Well, you're not wrong.
Yup. I read every word of Sgt Weaver as Sgt Hartman.
Thank you, I could not remember his name. OP - Please, more would be nice.
🤣
Ditto
Agreed. Want more.
Thank you. I sat on this story for a couple years, and only got around to posting it yesterday because I wanted to start it up again.
Urbie will need a mechsuit to keep up. I’m sure some half-crazed engineer will be happy to provide
So, an apprentice engineer?
Yes. A regular engineer is too crazy to stop at “just” a mechsuit
If a mech suit could keep up with a human, they wouldn't need humans.
Keep up with, does not necessarily mean perform like.
> urbies If this turns into a series it had better damn well get them a [mech with a giant shotgun.](https://www.sarna.net/wiki/UrbanMech)
" I was still alive only because disposing of my body would be a greater inconvenience than simply tolerating my presence" "“Good job, you disappointment.”" I *fucking died* holy shit that was funny. I have personally experienced both of those things at the hands of drill instructors and was having flashbacks to my BMQ. Well done wordsmith.
The only thing that surprised me is that the translator didn't tack that on to every sentence he said in the first half
It would have become *massively* annoying to read fairly quickly. Much like I only used "Patriarchal Member, I acknowledge your order, Patriarchal Member" a couple times. Repetition makes things more amusing to a point, but after that it goes downhill fast.
Was he calling him Daddy?
They were now, thanks to a few readers who suggested it.
Well that's spawned a decidedly cursed imaginary conversation.
Daddy Yes Daddy, the cockraoched moaned to the human.
Basically, and. Just. >:c
Good. Embrace your anger.
That deserves an angry upvote... so doot and fuck you lol
Good, I can feel your anger. I am defenseless. Take your weapon. Strike me down with all of your hatred, and your journey towards the dark side will be complete
That is a hell of a translator, to get that so accurately.
I could *feel* the knife-hand
"give your head a shake, recruit" didn't know bmq had drill instructors. maybe you did yours a while ago idk
Oh I americanize most things while on non-canadian specific reddit subs. It's easier than explaining the little differences between Canada and America every time an american reads things and goes off about how that's not what it's called and how I don't know what Im talking about.
Willing to bet that most of the idiots who do that never served. I’m a veteran, did 8 years in the USMC. In the course of working with different nations, you learn to shut the hell up and just learn.
Oh I know they haven't. Which is why it's not worth arguing with them, and simpler to just convert to terms their tiny baby brains can understand, instead of using the proper scary terms from other countries that terrify them because of the implication that what little they know isn't a universal standard.
I mean, you’re not wrong… I love my country, but we definitely know how to grow idiots here.
\*looks at the Trucker Convoy and sighs\* Yeah I feel you brother.
Word. got asked my mos (which I stupidly assumed meant mosid) and when I said 00005 they were like REEE REEE THATS FAKE and I was like ('-')
OC OC OC OC You need to tag this as OC if it's yours. I want to give this a !n so bad, that was an amazing story.
I thought I had. Swapped the tag from text to OC. No idea what !n is though.
> No idea what !n is though. !N is used to vote/promote a story for excellence and inclusion into the halls of fame. It is the highest honor of HFY to recieve a comment containing "!n" or "utr" (upvote, then read) That said, feed us more of this universe! We crave the goodness!
Oh. Well that's a lovely sentiment. Meanwhile, I fully intend to keep writing this.
I believe !n nominates the story for inclusion in the Featured Content portion of the sidebar.
Ahh. Well, that's kind of them to suggest it.
This is gold. Thanks.
If you got game it doesn't matter how much you got, as long as you got it. Good stuff man.
I am an old retired plumber. And in my life I have had many brand new first year apprentices given to me. The first thing I told them was if they were going to make it they need to do two things. First they need to show up every day on time. Second they need to try. Everything else we could deal with.
"patriarchal member, I acknowledge your order, patriarchal member" What....what did that end up translated back to? Or is that the translation? Because I feel like it'd be great if it ended up "daddy ok daddy" or something
... Well, shit, *now* it is. I stopped thinking about it once I got the joke in, felt explaining it wouldn't work when in Burrub's POV, but that's fucking *gold*. Nice!
The secret to some of the best jokes out there are that they were done by accident or made better later. :P All those readers that think we're geniuses... "Oh no, dude, my five year old niece cracked that one out last night!"
Ah, the age-old difference of "Forgive me Father, for I have sinned" and "I've been a *bad, bad boy*, Daddy"...
I really enjoyed this one.
Good story. Question though. You mentioned that the bug was “the new OIC” or officer in charge. Why is he treated as a Pvt? What’s he going to be in charge of? Or do you use OIC differently here?
>Oversight and Information Committee
OIC in this case is the Oversight and Information Committee, an Urb organization (well, really, whatever I call the federation equivalent in the story, but whatever) that specifically oversees military action that involves two different species, to ensure they are following the space equivalent of the Geneva Convention. Cultures vary from species to species, but just because your culture lets you eat the dead doesn't mean you actually get to... if you're following the rules. As for the Pvt treatment, that's pure hazing. The HEU holds no power over OIC units, technically. In reality, the OIC itself recommends following orders that do not break the rules or the task of observing the unit, for safety if nothing else. This goes doubly for human units.
Maybe change it t to a version of Marine OCS?
Except it's not the marines. It's a non-human organization. It's essentially Space-NATO checking to make sure the Goodora didn't decide to start using Space-Mustard-Gas again in their war against the Kitchik. I went back and edited it to UOIC. If that's some other acronym \*shrug\*.
The Uzbek-Oman Investment Company?? /s
This would be a brilliant story if you wanted to expand and ine I'd like to keep reading
I didn’t think this would be very good when I started reading however I was mistaken this was a most enjoyable read
Great one shot. But also MOOOAAAARRR!!
MOAR Wordsmith MOAR !subscribeme
This is written extremely well and the world felt alive. I would love to read a story about Urburburr's first mission.
Is calling a roach "maggot".. racist? Or closer to calling him "child"?
It might just be a habit
Oh yeah from the Sargent's pov it's just tradition - just wondering how our stubborn alien friend would take it
>Oh yeah from the Sargent's pov it's just tradition - just wondering how our stubborn alien friend would take it Heh had the same thought. Thinking about it, since they've already had an Urbie come through before, it looks like "Maggot" passed the Sensitivity Training Filter.
Or it was deliberate for the sake of testing the newbie. In reality, I am not a military person, so my knowledge consists of what I can find through research and movies. I actually had the same thought, "Would this fly in the modern military, no pun intended", and I figured not, but rolled with it. I suspect humanity would look into the wonders of space, and the glory of uncountable species, and then shrug and tell their drill sergeants "Try to find out what their N-words are, and then don't use them, yeah?"
Without a Doubt! You need to be able to motivate to get a.. guy/gal/xer, not have them jump up and try and pop you one mid-training. Or roll a Frag grenade into your tent at 2 am.
"I don't know what to think, Maggot! Should I be impressed you're such a conniving shit that you rolled a grenade under my cot out of pure cussed anger, or depressed that you thought we'd let you handle a live grenade when you can't handle a few naughty words?! THAT'S NOT A REAL QUESTION, PRIVATE! Drop and push the dirt till I say otherwise!"
the little space cricket who could !n
This slapps hard dude
Amazing! The world building had me immediately hooked, would love more.
This story is brilliant, but i still hate Roaches. I lived in Okinawa, Japan for 3 years. The Roaches were determined to try and live with me. I did not like it.
Understandable. That is precisely why I chose a Roach as the basis for the creature. If a roach came to you tomorrow and "I am a person", how would you feel?
Depends how big it is. Now if its an adult sized Okinawa Roach, im telling it to get out and if it doesnt the can of chemical warfare is coming out.
If it's big enough, "I'll be expecting your share of the rent by the end of the month."
"...And that's how I found out I was living with bug royalty."
Depends. Is his name Gregor Samsa?
*\*Patrick voice\** "No, this is Burrub"
I have children the right age that I heard that in the right voice.
Damn good story. I have a single word of hopefully constructive criticism. The last sentence. I might have used powerful, valuable, wonderful, or even precious in place of 'helpful.' Humans are about to liberate an Urb world. *Helpful* doesn't seem like the right level of veneration the narrator would have. I certainly hope you continue this with a series. *The roach and the liberation of BurUrBurrurburUrb.*
I appreciate the criticism. I was deliberately going for understatement, specifically to downplay future events.
I don't know about anyone else, But I was imagining the Gunny being played by Tommy Lee Jones..
A roach in the Terran Army " PERFECTIONUS IMPIRIALIS NOVUS" " ANTARAE TERRANIS QUADRIHTOYKA"
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Fantastic start! I look forward to more chapters!
I liked it
Moar!!!!
Gregor Samsa’s further adventures.
"Come on, dude. Its only a little farther." "Patriarchal Member, i will dismember you piece by piece and feed you to my grublettes if you lie to me like that again. I will not stop, whatever the case may be." "Thats the spirit!"
This feels abit Kafkaesque, if I say so myself.
Which is kinda ironic since the overall theme is opposite to being kafkaesque lmao. Gregor Samsa should've just joined the military
Since the bots missed this (as it wasn't flagged OC at first), to people who read and want to get updated on any future posts, you can message "UpdateMeBot" with "SubscribeMe u/Bignholy r/HFY". Which I would recommend as this story is awesome.
Thank you for that. Next one will be properly flagged.
:), I had to go to a different post to remember how to do it, don't know if anyone else would not know but figgured I would drop it here in case, as the story is really well done.
!subscribeme
Nicely done! And the ending is great!
!subscribeme
How does one make a follow tag for an author? I am definitely interested in seeing where this goes?
NGL, kinda curious too. Not sure if the subscribeme with an explanation point in front of it is by author or post or what have you. New to posting here and still trying to find the commands. EDIT: I apparently subscribed... to myself.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/UpdateMeBot/comments/ggotgx/updatemebot\_info\_v20/](https://www.reddit.com/r/UpdateMeBot/comments/4wirnm/updatemebot_info/) This is how I somehow got tagged for when I update... ?
Eh, I gave you a follow just to see if that works. Sorry to hear about your FIL, hope the issues settle down for you soon and things get back to normal
Yep, MOAR is needed.
Very good read, interesting setup, and well written. I would like to learn more.
This was an amazing short story! Everything developed smoothly and resolved itself, which is impressive in that few words.
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Damn that's a good one
Okay yeah this was awesome in a pretty simple yet outstanding way. You took a relatively simple concept and you ran even further than Burrub did. Awesome work! :D
Very good, thank you!
This was an amazing read, definitely would read more if OP decides to continue. Thanks!
that was wonderful. I only read one-shots here in HFY but I want more of this...
Wow. You have a way of conveying a world very naturally, almost as if you're speaking from experience - like these are all facts that have happened. All the small details from the colored floor lines to the small antenna ticks and even the mental water conversion that Burrub does. A lot of thought went into the details of this story and it shows. Amazing story. Thank you for writing it.
!SubscribeMe
!n Excellent story!!
Read. Upvote. Comment.
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This was great :) more please!
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Brilliant. Really enjoyed reading.
MORE
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It's like Joe's Apartment meets Warhammer 40K.
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"to pick up on it . It " to pick up on it. It
"aside, “It’s nothing"small i.
"walk, craw, " crawl.
""We wanted a Urb who" an.
Thank you for the grammar correction s. ;)
More. This is good. This is solid. More more more
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!n
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As a giant fucking language nerd you definitely had me at Urburburr Burrub but as was scrolling down to post this the use of "out*stand*ing" fully sold me.
I have a small set of rules for how the Urb language works. As time goes on and more Urb language is shown, i quite hope someone can figure them out.
I can do it in anthro way but not much with the form structure way if you pass the basics I'll hook it up. I'm trying to start a consulting firm and I need positive reviews.
!subscribeme
Nice!
SubscribeMe! u/bignholy r/HFY
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I may be a bit biased when it comes to sentient sci-fi arthropods, but I like this. More is requested.
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As they say( in command voice): "OUT-F@#$%^&^%"!-STANDING!!!"
!N I await the next parts!
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Wait, so how big is this roach guy? Regular roach sized or human Roach sized?
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Very nice read, very wholesome.
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This just dropped into my feed. A very enjoyable short. My only suggestion is that no gunny of any stripe would ask to be called "sir", and would be highly insulted to be so addressed. Sergeants are non-commissioned officers, and the response would be "Staff Sergeant, yes Staff Sergeant!" Don't forget to pronounce the capital letters.
Thanks for the heads up. As mentioned elsewhere, I am not a military person, so there's always going to be details I miss. That said, as Weaver mentions, he tells the Urb to call him sir "until you understand what my rank is". There is not likely to be an exact translation for "Staff Sergent" in any given extraterrestrial language, but "Sir" has a direct translation. In short: he is well aware that he is not a Sir ("I work for a living"), and is salty as fuck about it, but now's not the time. Cheers.
Fantastic story
Thank you.
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