January by the Numbers 28: Everyone Eats Everything, a ficlet

[aldersprig]

January by the numbers continues deep into February...

From sauergeek's prompt Everyone eats everything: a ficlet, although more of a start of a story than a story.

As far as strange rules and regulations go, the colonies usually didn't rate too far up there. When they were colonies, at least, they had far too much to worry about to spend time making rules, other than the very direct: "everybody works" sort of regulations. It was only as time went on and they found themselves in situations where their original survival-based rules were insufficient that most places started coming up with more and more elaborate rules.

Egdarton Seven was a little unique in this matter. It was settled by a small, closed group - one of the few cases where that was allowed, but there was a trend for that around that time, social or avocation groups gathering together and filling a colony. It worked best if the group had wide enough skills to fill all the positions, because one or two outsiders in specialized, necessary positions led to some pretty bad social dynamics on some colonies.

Egdarton Seven, however, had none of the common problems, but it did have a long-standing hobby group with a wide range of skillsets, both within and outside the hobby group and, more, a wide range of already-extant rules and the sort of personalities who enjoyed enforcing said rules. The rules you need to know were posted at their rudimentary spaceport, and woe betide the visiting ship’s-crew or scientist who didn’t read and follow the rules. For a first offense they might be warned, if the person who caught them was feeling generous. For a second offense, they’d be escorted back to their ship and politely told not to come back.

(“What happens if someone part of the community breaks one of those rules?" asked a disgruntled scientist who hadn't understood the severity or sincerity of the Oxford-Comma rule. The persons escorting the scientist to the ship had clucked in disapproval and not answered. If the scientist had been, perhaps, an anthropologist instead of a xenobiologist, things may have gone very differently for the colony on Egdarton Seven. Certain things were not actually allowed, no matter how they were written into the colony's charter.)

The one rule that threw almost every visitor, the one rule that got more people evicted from their station, was one that every single member of the colony agreed on wholeheartedly: Everyone Eats Everything. In practice, this meant that if you hated a dish, you could eat a tablespoon-sized scoop of it and be done, but in theory it meant that every person on Egdarton Seven was eating the same things, and that the entire colony ate together.

Like every other rule on the colony, no official explanation for this edict was ever offered, although one teenaged member did like to whisper, melodramatically and none too seriously, "poison!" any time any visitor asked.

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Comments

[thnidu]

Oh, good. I'd misread the title as "Everyone eats everyone"!

[aldersprig]

Yeah, I misread the prompt that way too at first :-D

[sauergeek]

Depending on how that's interpreted, that's a rule for either mandatory cannibalism or mandatory orgies. Or possibly both.

[aldersprig]

Neither one seems likely to lead to long-term colony survival.

[kelkyag]

Welp. That could be awkward if anything anyone is allergic to has to be off the menu for everyone.

the entire colony ate together
That's ... not a very big colony, and they can't range very far from the mess hall.

[clare_dragonfly]

Yes, I'm hoping that in this future they have cures for allergies!

[aldersprig]

They may be eating gluten- and nut-free... :-D

[clare_dragonfly]

Depends on what they can grow there anyway!

[sauergeek]

Speaking as someone who's allergic to onions, and who knows people who are allergic to raspberries, mushrooms, and both dietary nickel and dietary aluminum (that last one, by the way, is a stone cold bastard of an allergy to have), there's a lot more to be allergic to out there...

[aldersprig]

I have a friend who's allergic to stonefruit and nightshades... so I was being a little tongue-in-cheek.

[clare_dragonfly]

Perhaps Egdarton Seven should be renamed Jonestown Seven? ;)

[kelkyag]

That ... that could happen. Oh dear ...

(Also, icon squeee!)

[sauergeek]

That's an intriguing rule. I've heard of a similar thing being set for children, where they were required to take two bites of something before they could declare they didn't like it: one to get over the idea of eating it, and one to actually taste it.

The snarky teen may be being snarky, but how close to truth (witting or unwitting) is that "poooOOoooOooOOOoison" (as I'm imagining it, with a nice drawn-out warble)?

Or is the food supply sufficiently constrained that what's on the menu is sufficient to handle full dietary needs, but only barely?

[aldersprig]

I'm thinking the teen's reason had a lot to do with it, and the rest had to do with not cooking separate meals for everyone in the time before they came to the colony.