The Trouble With Teslas

[ShadraAvro]

This is a space for stories about some of the "unique challenges" of having teslas in your squirms. Spread the shenanigans

[Kisaaoi]

So, I just became a handler and Clink is my first Tesla. I was warned about their knack for taking things apart and making them "better", but I didn't really think too much of it. I'm fond of a little bit of chaos here and there, so when she started taking some of my old pocket watches apart and making my girlfriend's outdated cell phone "better", I just laughed it off.
Then..... we put up our Christmas tree.
Now, mind you, our tree isn't anything special. It's a fake, three foot tree that sits on our coffee table. Never crossed my mind Clink would do anything to an object that wasn't an electronic device.
The next morning we woke up to find the tree dismantled and the string of lights carefully De-bulbed and stripped down to the wires. Among the wires and fake evergreen bristles was Clink....with the biggest grin on her smug little face.
Our ten other wyrms sat clear across the room to try and make it obvious they had nothing to do with it.

Needless to say, we had to purchase new lights and attempt to reassemble our tree (which Clink did not help with, might I add).

Clink now has what we call her toybox, full of gears and old controllers (without batteries) to try and keep her occupied and away from things we don't want dismantled.

Still, even after this mishap....I still want more Teslas.

[Moongara]

"Teslas aren't exactly a threat to your technology...well, unless your ship is in need of rewiring or the like but then it isn't the Teslas' fault if your ship blows up or catches fire or otherwise falls apart. They are great little balls of fluffs, as long as you keep them far from (already) finicky technology." I tapped out on my pad. "I know this from first hand experience how much havoc they can wreak on a ship, bring even the largest of starships to a screeching halt. I got two Teslas in rather short order and used that as an excuse to take my ship on a run to Earth...


"Moongara, what are those?" The Anubis's, my starship, chief engineer asked me, seeing me carrying the two wyrms into my quarters.
"They are wyrms, Tal'leck." I said holding up my newest fluffs. "They are specially the breed known as Teslas. The gold one is H.G. Wells and the silver one is Jadgtiger."
"They are cute...but for some reason I don't like them." Tal'leck said. I brushed off the comment, she was probably still irritated at my request to add 'wyrm' to the universal translator program. "Anyway, I have to get back to work." She said. "And we need to discuss getting some ship yard time for a full over haul sooner rather than later."
"I will see what I can do." I said. "But you know even I can't pull rank to get us into a shipyard lately." That is saying something...the head of the Catrian Imperial Military can't get ship yard time for her flag ship.

I left my two Teslas in my quarters and went to work...meaning sitting on the bridge and trying to make a dent in my endless pile of paperwork. Tige, my first officer, looked bemused, as I walked onto the bridge.
"I am guessing Tal'leck wasn't too happy with your newest pets. More meeps and squeaks to convince the universal translator to recognize." She said.
"Pretty much." I said, sitting down in my command chair. "Anything interesting going on up here?"
"No...just as expected." Tige said.
"I wish something interesting would happen." The tactical officer, Sar'lek, said with a sigh. "We don't get to stretch this beast's legs very often."
"I suppose." I said. "But this is a supply run and I am hoping it stays that way." I said. I then turned back to never ending paperwork on my tablet.

About a half an hour later...
"Ah, sir." Sar'lek said (yes, I am called 'sir' even though I am female, it's a sign of rank, not of gender in Catrian language). "There is something wrong with the readouts for several of the main weapons systems."
"What is wrong?" I asked.
"The readings are all over the charts." He said.
I turned to my sensor officer. "Kamar, how does it look out there?"
"Clear and safe, sir." She said.
"Good, Sar'lek try rebooting your console." I said. Yes, our computers are like Windows computers...when in doubt, reboot.
Right about that time, the lights flickered on and off twice before dying.
"I think we have a bit more of a problem than the weapons systems." Tige said.

Much running around and unproductive running of diagnostics later, we still have no idea what is wrong. My chief engineer had, however, managed to isolate the problems to a single service conduit...right next to my quarters. One of the other members of the engineering staff, a much more agile junior engineer, wiggled their way into the service conduit.
"Ah, sir...we appear to have an infestation."
"What?" I said.
"Yes, there are two, small furry things in here."
"They wouldn't happen to have gears on their heads?" I said, trying to see into the conduit.
"Yes, why?"
"Furballs." I said "...how did they get in there?"
The junior engineer looked back at me, utterly mystified. I waved her out. "Let me in there." I said. She backed out and I crawled into the conduit. I very quietly snuck up on the two Teslas and grabbed one in each hand, they stuffed them both into my belt pouch (and tied it shut) and then backed myself out of the conduit.
"So what was it?" Tal'leck asked. She had walked up while I was in the conduit.
"Apparently there was a reason you didn't like the Teslas." I said.
Tal'leck produced a small cage made of metal from the ship's spare parts stores. "I figured I was going to need this." She pointed at the cage with a growl.
"Okay." I said, dejected. I opened the cage and put the two Teslas inside.
"Now if you don't mind, I need to fix this mess before it causes another short and messed up the primary life support system." By primary, she means one of four life support systems. Catrian are great believers in redundancy. "As it stands, it will be several hours before the main weapons will be back on line."

I took my Teslas back to my quarters, this time confined to their cage. I then tore my quarters apart trying to figure out how the Teslas got out. Tige wandered in on her way back to the bridge.
"So what is with the tornado?"
"I am trying to figure out how my two new fluffs got out." I said. "I think I found the spot." I called from under my bed a minute later. "They managed to take a piece of the deck plating off...but I will take care of putting it back. I don't want to hear any more griping from the engineering staff
"Smart." Tige said.
As I maneuvered the piece of plating back into place, a thought kept running through my head...How two wyrms that aren't a pound between them can cause that much trouble on my 2 mile long, 1.5 mile wing spanned interstellar war machine I will never know.
....
I looked at what I had written. I love my fluffs, I really do and they have been wonderful little fluffs once I got them a pile of obsolete tech.
"When bring a Teslas or two into your life, make sure you have a techno-junk pile or three for them to play in or they will find ways to entertain themselves."

[SandySchreiber]

Moon, I loved your story! And soon you'll have even more Teslas to mess things up.

[Tora]

Let me tell you a few things about Teslas....

Tuppence was my very first Tesla and she's a delightful little wyrm. She gets along with everyone and while she likes to steal a lot of mechanical odds and ends, she's never been particularly troublesome. So when she told me she wanted to build another Tesla for the squirm, I didn't think twice- I told her it was a wonderful idea and, a few months later, Ruble joined the squirm. Well, Ruble is just a jolly, boisterous goofball and hard not to love. And sure, the two of them maybe got into a few more things, maybe disconnected a wire here and there that had to be repaired but it wasn't anything particularly inconvenient. It was only after Ruble convinced me that he should also be allowed to have a build and I got the more serious Euro that I noticed something was up.

Suddenly, tools started disappearing. Electronics started to break down more often. I started getting really strange errors on my desktop computer. My food processor started asking me if I really needed to put on those extra few pounds. (thanks a lot, Euro. >:( ) You see what I mean? Just some pretty bizarre stuff going on. When I found their first attempt at building what I'm told was supposed to be a heat ray for getting rid of mice, it began to dawn on me what kind of trouble I was in.

So I decided three was enough to handle and was determined to keep it that way. Imagine my surprise when the next breeding season came and went and, along with the expected new residents, two more Teslas popped out of the box. Turns out my Teslas had conspired behind my back with Gmork, who ended up building two more Teslas to send along my way. That’s how I ended up with Nickel and Loonie, and even more chaos as a result. Nickel isn’t so bad to live with, but Loonie, being the Scrapmetal he is, generated total chaos. Everything he built either chased his squirm mates or blew up. I have wyrms who are still traumatized from Loonie’s infamous Auto-Groomer incident. And the other Teslas did nothing to prevent these disasters, because they thought he was a genius. There are scorch marks on my work bench because of the new and catastrophic projects my Teslas get up to. I have nearly had my glasses soldered to a wrench. Which was then nearly welded to our car. Obviously I’m now living in a mechanical insanity I never expected to happen in my home.

And then Fourree arrived.

As many of you know, Fourree is an Alpha Tesla. But she’s not just an Alpha- she’s also a Scrapmetal.

Naturally the little buggers rallied around their new leader and now they’re organized. Yes, Fourree is a Scrapmetal, so she makes wildly absurd things. But unlinke Loonie’s works, they ALWAYS function, and lord help me, they function pretty well. Disastrously well, even.

I have completely lost control of my life. Since Fourree took charge, Doubloon, Pound-Sterling and a rattly Chain wyrm called Bitcoin have moved in here as well, having been summoned by the new boss. Doubloon is more than happy to build whaetever her Alpha tells her to, while P. Sterling draw up all manner of strange plans. I haven’t been able to find a single tool since Bitcoin got here.

Every machine and electronic device in my house does something odd. My TV reciever picks up transmissions from Mars. My stove fires roasts across the house for “more prompt meal preparations”. Our car now has several unnecessarily touchy additions to it to “make it more comfortable for humans”. The air compressor in the garage has been turned into an elaborate form of ballistic pipe organ. Lights either turn on normally or begin loud and impromptu disco parties. My cats are constantly being chased by defense robots made to ward off intruders and steal my socks. Our home is in shambles.

So you may be asking yourself at this point, why does Tora tolerate this level of crazy in her household? Why let these absurd devices run amok? Because around eight months ago, a High Mountain Growler called Ursa arrived and started terrorizing my wyrms. I don’t need to tell you all what little monsters these particular Growlers are and Ursa is no exception. Fourree, as it turns out, doesn’t care much for bullies and has learned that High Mountain Growlers are not very technologically adept, making them pretty wary of anythingmore complex than a basic pulley. Her solution to this has been to use that productive crowd of Teslas following her every order to make robots and harmless mechanical traps to scare the bejeezus out of Ursa whenever she goes all mountain barbarian on one of my other wyrms. Fourree and the crew take a lot of pride in their accomplishments and honestly, it’s not only giving them a great outlet for their… er, tendencies, but it’s helping to keep Ursa a little more in line and making life much easier for the rest of my wyrms, especially some of the particularly timid ones.

Yes, it’s a madhouse of out of control contraptions punctuated with occasional scuffles to protect my Arduino parts from clockwork fluffballs. But they certainly earn their keep while they’re not going out of their way to be unbelievably weird. Currently Fourree’s discussing plans with the crew to bring in more Teslas for bigger project work. And you know what? I’m pretty inclined to let her.