Short Story: "Muse"

[Alicorn]

Muse. Science fiction, < 6,000 words.

[DeAnno]

Terrifying.

[modrony]

I am speechless.
I want to write something insightful in response, but nothing sounds right.

Very well done.

[Bluelantern]

Oh My Bells, that was painful. Alicorn, I hope you are happy with our suffering!

[Aestrix]

I have a new favorite story.

:D

[Lambda]

Excruciating. Well done.

[DeAnno]

It's sort of interesting that they never found the vector. In a scifi setting like that, the usual expectation is some kind of virus, but with something as bizarre as this I would probably be taking precautions against it being a memetic effect or some kind of curse too, at least until a more mundane cause was found. Imagine how bad this could be if a video image of that paperweight or a audio transmission of some of the music was enough to spread the nastyness back to their homeworld.

Another thought; seeing an Alicorn short story starting on a happy note like that really should've been a warning sign.

[anthusiasm]

This one really got under my skin. Nice job.

What would happen if a Musician wandered into Milliways? Is there some kind of quarantine protocol?

[Alicorn]

They could be reasonably confident it wasn't memetic because it affected the settlers of Muse before they produced particularly inspired artworks.

I can't think of any established conventions wrt Milliways and contagious diseases, but I think I'd tend to say either the door doesn't open for someone with something transmissible and awful, or it will only put them with people who are immune for whatever reason, or it will put them with people who can cure it.

[Tamien]

I am very curious how a Bell would react to having caught... uh... Musicianship? and to a lesser degree, how a Bell would react to discovering Muse and its problem exist.