The Curse of Traditional Knowledge

These days, if you ever say "larboard," people will presume you have a speech impediment. That can be handy sometimes, but be honest: You sometimes think those dullards need to be controlled by someone like you, don't you? Then, when you search for rebuttals, you realize there are none. Well, that's all true, but it's not as if you can do anything about it. Not till you level up a few times at least.

Necessity Is the Pretense for Invention

Professor D'Aramitz struggled to suppress his regret as he examined the diagnostics, an impossible task. Conceding for once to his feelings, he tilted back in his chair and looked at nothing in particular.
"I have finally constructed a robot capable of conquering our planet which is in such need of a masterful hand." Finally he looked at something: A titan of steel in its dock, a hundred cables affixed to it, bearing an attitude, it seemed to him, of the champion athlete eager to put the physical examination behind him and return to competition. "But it is not quite ethical, is it, to bring civilians into it, and that, my poor creation soon to be neglected, would be an inevitability. Without an excuse to deploy you, the world will never know your matchless power."
The professor wandered about his hidden facilities for a time, picking up this readout before throwing it down and settling down at that terminal, staring at the screen, and rising again. There was nothing to do, he convinced himself, but surrender the rest of the day to idleness, unless he was willing to begin the decommission process. He returned aboveground and abandoned his attention to the TV.
". . . Confirmation is coming in now that the destruction is in fact caused by alien invaders . . ."
The TV turned off again. Professor D'Aramitz stood. He stretched both arms, leaned back a little, and yelled, "Hurrah for unending strife!"
Finis

Practicality in Philosophy

Impractical, irresponsible, unmoored from reality. Such were the criticisms of philosophy in those days that inspired countless practitioners to advocate for the field as well as their own philosophies in particular. One among them, however, restrained himself from reacting to the jeers in any shallow way. He instead considered how best to prove how his mental exercises might be applied to everyday matters.
After he conquered the world, no one denied the validity of his theories. The public consigned all other philosophers to obscurity if not early graves, and his intellectual heirs strove against one another when, for all that he had reached the heights of human knowledge, he died.
After centuries of that, one ambitious philosopher pondered an idea that promised to bring about a revolution in thinking: "Maybe it wasn't his philosophy that allowed him to conquer the world. He was like level 250 or something, after all."
Finis

Staid Was Also in There

The representatives met in the capital, bringing with them the dreams and troubles of their constituents. Each, as custom demanded, wrote a single word on the provided paper and dropped it in the jar. The president was then to extract one of the slips. The word chosen would set the tone for governmental policy over the coming year.
Silence was demanded except for the scratches of sixty-two very important pens. The writing was finished, the papers deposited, and the president reached in after shaking the jar with authority.
"The agenda for the next year is . . . 'Dramatic.' Um." The representatives chuckled. "A fine word no doubt, but how do we design a policy around it?"
"Sounds like your problem, boss!" The representatives guffawed and pounded the table. The president grimaced and resolved he would shut them up by his immaculate execution of the task they had imposed by their irreverence. That was the day the world conquest began.
Finis

The Least Exciting Thing That Ever Happened to This Guy

A water-darkened day, a genuine heaven-faller, and over there? Warmth, hay, a horse perhaps? Horse rides ought to be planned beforehand, but the loving sun promised pleasure for all the day until it ran off. That sort of capricious behavior the man who shivered his way into the stable expected more from celestial beings than from neighborhood bright eyes, but he had many mistakes left to make.
The hay was there, and the warmth, but not a musty horse-warmth, but the stinging kind from man-sanctioned flames that played around and threatened to run wild but knew their place too well to extract concessions from concerned stable hands. The stable hands had no concerns at all given the horse-poorness of the scene, though human-richness made up for it.
"I suppose there is no chance of doing business, then?" The man's fishing expedition went as well as such things usually go. The stable hands all shook their heads, even popping out from stalls and around corners to make ripples all over the fishless pond, a glittering thing where it was not in shadow, a dark thing where the light was not. "When might you be expecting a horse to be returned?"
"Expecting?" One of the hands expectorated, but only he knew if that was wordplay. "We don't expect around here. No horse coming back, not for the length of your thread. Offer up a chicken or a pheasant for that. How'd you even get in here?"
"The door."
"Huh." The stable hands walked with the low steps of men with no place to be and examined the door. "Huh huh huh. You a sage? Enchanter?"
"Why, I can't say that I am, no."
"Might be now. Have a nice day."
The man left, and he never saw one of those horses, and he never learned sagecraft either, though he did conquer the world, and after he died the horses came.
Finis