Every time there's news of a remake or a reboot or a re-imagining, people will inevitably bitch that "Hollywood is running out of ideas!" They bemoan that it shows the general lack of creativity in Hollywood, and whine about how there are no new ideas anymore. Often, these people won't add anything else to the thread, as though their observation is worthy of posting on its own--as though it were an original thought.

It's getting on my nerves, to be honest.

For one thing, it immediately indicates the speaker's general ignorance of the history of story telling and film in Hollywood. Many of the movies we consider to be all time classics now were remakes themselves. Other movies that we hold up to be great films are simply filmed plays, slightly changed to be appropriate for the silver screen. What producers and directors didn't take from the stage and previous movies, they took from books. When you start naming former Oscar winners and AFI's Top 100 films, you're going to have quite the list of remakes and adaptations.

This short story takes place in the universe of the Terranova game, forty-one years before the colonists left Earth.

January 12th, 2139 CE

"What are those doing in my lab?"

Dr. Theresa Barnes stood frozen to the spot in the doorway of the psy-lab. The door began to beep steadily, warning that it had been left open. Due to safety protocols it couldn't close with someone standing in the way, so it would just go on bleating like an electronic lamb crying for its mother.

There had been half a dozen kennels in the lab when she had left on Friday night. In each kennel had been a German Shepherd puppy of exactly four months, three weeks of age. Technicians would come to care for them on the weekend, but all of their exercise and social interaction was to be kept in the lab.

The kennels, puppies, their toys and all the other animal related equipment were gone. Liquid filled pods replaced them. In front of the pods stood a man. He was a trim and fit six feet even, yet his narrow features and a way he had of thrusting his head forward on his neck gave the impression of a weasel about to pounce. Dave Fischer, she remembered vaguely. Assistant Director of Research and Development, without any scientific training whatsoever. A suit of the worst kind.

Fellophantians, I thought it would be fun to try and post an interesting and strange history story every day. Loki said he would be willing to help out with this. If you have a story you want to add, please catch us in chat or PM us. Of course, comments on the stories are highly desired!

Today we will talk about Mary Toft!

Mary Toft was an English housewife who in 1726 began to give birth to rabbits. Or rather, parts of rabbits, and even during one expulsion "three legs of a Cat of a Tabby Colour, and one leg of a Rabbet: the guts were as a Cat's and in them were three pieces of the Back-Bone of an Eel ..." Her story was that dreaming of animals led to her birthing said animals.

The best part of the story is the credulous response of the medical community of the time. She was first examined by her local doctor, John Howard, and under his observation egested a number animal parts over the course of several days. She was then examined by National St. Andre, a physician to the royal house of George I, and George's personal secretary Samuel Molyneux. St. Andre concluded that the rabbits were formed in her fallopian tubes. Her story became a sensation, and according to Wiki:

Since last year Germany's foreign minister has been Guido Westerwelle, chairman of the libertarian-ish FDP. He is also gay. So far his partner has accompanied him on his official trips. Now has decided that he doesn't really want to be so in-your-face about it and has announced he will be traveling alone to countries where homosexuality is illegal.

Of course he is still as much in favor of 'promoting tolerance' as ever, just not, you know, 'imprudently'.

Linked article.

It's a commentary piece but it provides all the necessary background.

Oh Guido, the best thing I can say about you is that you are running your party into the ground.

I was looking through some financial stuff and intermixed with some car insurance information I found a sheet of paper with the word "poop" printed over and over on the left side, about 30 lines of it, just a single column of the word "poop" once per line. All lowercase, no punctuation. And then, in the middle of the paper, handwritten in big letters (and it looks like my own handwriting) it says "POOP".

I have no idea why. I have no memory of creating this nor of what I hoped to communicate. Did I mean this to be a reminder to myself? Or had I been intending to communicate this message with future generations? I would ask what sort of deranged mind would create such a thing but I'm almost entirely certain it was me.