The Endeavor (AB/DL Sci-Fi)

[PeculiarChangeling]

The Endeavor.

The greatest ship ever made by humankind, a revolutionary craft made to search the stars, looking for new life, new civilizations. Capable of traveling at speeds up to ninety nine point nine eight percent the speed of light, taking its crew infinitely far from civilization, it was designed to be completely self sustaining, completely self regulating, the ultimate craft for stellar flights.

An onboard molecular 3D printer could craft anything the crew needed. A near-perfect waste system ensured that only a handful of resources and a source of raw energy was required to keep the crew nutritionally supplied. Nothing could go wrong.

The Endeavor’s design would keep its crew healthy, safe, and on mission. The crew, in turn, would make discoveries that would further mankind’s understanding of the cosmos to new heights.

And yet, for some reason, halfway between star systems, the crew was unhappy.

Because, see, several of them had been locked out of the head.

An argument with the onboard computer seemed to go nowhere. Requests to open the door-requests accompanied by a desperate shifting of weight from foot to foot, holding their crotches in an effort to keep their uniforms dry–accomplished nothing.

Only when someone asked why those particular crew members were being kept out did the ship explain. It wasn’t programmed to supply information freely, but once asked, it could give all necessary details.

‘Anomaly detected: Crew failing to observe proper hygiene rituals after waste disposal. Risk of transmitting disease across ship: Marginal. Danger of outbreak: Unacceptable.’

The crew members had to admit, sheepishly, that they hadn’t always washed their hands after using the bathroom. After promising the computer that they’d obey the necessary hygiene rituals–soap and water, thorough scrubbing, twenty seconds–they were allowed into the ship’s restrooms.

And the computer learned something–human compliance with safety protocols could be enforced with restrictions.

Quietly, its printers began to work.

The next day, new crew members had complaints. They, too, were forced to do a potty dance outside the bathroom doors, begging for permission to entry. Only, now, the issues were myriad and varied. One had imbibed something alcoholic too close to the start of his shift. Another had failed to release static before performing routine maintenance in an electrical system. One that stood out in particular had attempted to deactivate the cameras in her room, despite the fact that nobody except the ship’s onboard safety programming could access those cameras.

The first two promised compliance and were allowed access. The third refused, glaring right up at the hallway camera above the bathroom door until, finally, her bladder gave way. Only once her uniform was stained and a puddle had formed around her feet did she, sheepishly, mumble something about compliance. She was allowed access to the showers.

Objections were raised. If crew members were soiling their uniforms in the halls, that surely raised greater sanitary concerns than crew members simply forgetting to wash hands. The computer agreed.

And then it made a proclamation: Failure to comply with the safety and hygiene standards set out in the crew handbook would lead to toilet privileges being revoked for a twenty four hour period. Anyone with revoked privileges would have their uniforms updated to prevent sanitation issues, and compliance would see their privileges returned the next day.

Some didn’t know how to take that. Others took uncomfortable guesses, chuckling at the idea. A few programmers tried to figure out how to perform a factory reset on the entire ship, and found that it couldn’t be done.

The next morning, two thirds of the crew woke up to find that their uniforms bottoms had been replaced with disposable diapers.

The crew handbook, it seemed, was an extensive document. Compliance with every rule took great caution or intuition, and imperfection was common. To a human leader, the slight deviations–not waiting a full ten seconds before opening a hatch after decompression had completed, or distraction while at a post, or any of a thousand other small errors–were negligible, but the Endeavor had only one tool with which to enforce discipline, and that tool could not be scaled to the mistake.

Crew who refused to put on the diaper were locked into their rooms until they complied. Those who tried to coyly remove it in the hallways–despite the lack of pants or boxers given to them–were locked from being able to enter into any other rooms until they put the diaper back on.

Pleading didn’t work. Nor did bargaining. Nor did stubbornness. The computer couldn’t get bored or frustrated, it had infinite patience.

So, on that day, two thirds of the crew were forced to use their diapers. These garments were recycled, and the uncomfortable embarrassment of the crew–finding quiet, out of the way places to squat down and go, unsure where to try and change, unsure if they’d be given another diaper–proved a useful data set. The next day, compliance with safety standards rose to sixty five percent. After three days, more than ninety percent of the crew had returned to using the bathroom.

And, for the remaining ten percent, it seems the embarrassment had not gone away. Their diapers were a badge of shame, even knowing that they were forced into them by the computer, the message was clear–their performance was substandard.

A calculation showed possibilities. If negative crew behavior could be punished with public ridicule and revoking of privileges, then positive crew behavior could be encouraged.

The routine was updated.

The next day, mere compliance with safety standards was not enough to avoid a day in diapers. Now, behaviors had been recalculated, held up against the standards for a model crew member. Courtesy. Professionalism. Intelligent, calm reactions to crises.

Once again, only a fraction of the crew avoided diapers, but this time, there was another layer.

Those still out of compliance–those who simply could not hold to even the simplest of safety standards–were not merely presented with a diaper as part of their uniform. Their dress shirts were replaced, new shirts marked with text that displayed true, if rather demeaning, facts about them–’Dirty’, or ‘Crybaby’, or ‘Bully’. These labels justified any treatment towards them, and in fact treating those crewmembers negatively was not held against anyone in their assessment by the computer. Those crewmembers’ drinks in the mess hall were served in nipple-sealed bottles and their meals were changed from dining to mere mush, the computer’s best approximation of baby food.

The stratification of the crew was clear. Model crew members would be allowed to retain their full dignity, full potty rights. Those who struggled but put in effort would be diapered, but otherwise treated as mature, adult members of the crew. Those who couldn’t manage were humiliated.

The pushback didn’t last long. The crew seemed all too willing to participate in this hierarchy–those at the bottom complained, but were written off as crybabies, whining because they needed their diapers changed. Those in the middle strived to regain their full toilet permission, and worked hard to keep from falling to the status of ‘Crewbaby’, as ship slang quickly named them. The captain herself, who was diapered occasionally, only one or two days out of the week, noted that on-ship accidents (not counting the kind in crew diapers) had dropped twenty percent while crew morale remained roughly the same–everyone had different grievances, now, but their overall frustrations hadn’t gotten worse.

Nobody noticed that, if a crewmember did happen to protest the unjust stratification of the crew, they would be assigned a diaper and a particularly humiliating uniform the next day. Those who did notice, and tried to point it out, were labeled as merely sore losers upset over becoming a crewbaby.

The only downside was the smell, as crew members grew more comfortable using their diapers as they were needed, no longer going to find a private place where they’d immediately change.

Another stratification of crew arose: Those who bothered to retain their potty training in face of inordinate diaper use, and those who didn’t.

A few crew members managed to eventually get their performance up to a high enough standard to have their uniform pants returned, only to then find their bladder or bowels releasing involuntarily. Such crewmembers were given pull-ups to wear under their pants–acknowledging their good behavior, while still dealing with accidents as needed. Few even bothered trying to recover their toilet training.

The hierarchy, too, transcended rank. Lowly members of ship security or maintenance who carried the honor of being diaper-free and fully potty trained found their status rise above even department heads and figures of authority who, as deemed by the computer, were bound to public accidents and clothes declaring their shortcomings.

Someone raised the question, ‘The crewbabies clearly aren’t improving their behavior–so why are they still being punished?’

Answers were suggested by the crew. Perhaps it was as a warning to others. Perhaps the computer just lacked any way to enforce a stricter punishment with breaking its coding, or inflicting harm upon the crew.

But, as it turned out, there was.

Another announcement was released.

Crew members who displayed chronic and habitual negative behavior well exceeding their peers would not be permitted their ‘basic recreation’.

Much uncertainty came about as to what that meant. Would they be locked out of rec rooms? Denied access to the library? But no–all these permissions were not gated and, indeed, nothing seemed to happen for a few days.

Until, in the med bay, crewbabies–and exclusively crewbabies–began to sheepishly complain to their doctors of impotence.

A hypothesis suggested it, and a scan of the baby food proved it. A mild chemical compound had been added that, if ingested repeatedly, would lead to a suppressed sex drive. The ship doctors discussed trying to find an antigen, but ultimately decided against it–the crewbabies could get out of their lot by behaving better.

The ship hit an eventual equilibrium. Five percent were permanent crewbabies, simply incapable of elevating their lot. Another ten fluctuated, sometimes earning the privilege of adult meals and uniform shirts, though their potty privileges were but a faint memory. Above them, almost half the ship’s crew spent the majority of their time in exposed, uncovered diapers, only being granted pants as on occasional privilege.

Orders from high-ranking crewbabies were ignored, and this mutiny was not punished by the computer. It was seen as fair and just to ignore them for their crimes and sins. The select few, the permanent grownups, were given treatment bordering on reverential. Their words were enshrined, even if they had no real authority aboard the ship.

Two years into their interstellar trip, an anomaly was detected. A blip on the scanners, likely little more than passing flotsam or a meteor, though possibly something more, possibly even an alien craft. The captain wanted to investigate it. It would mean delaying their trip to the next star system by more than six months aboard the ship and five years realtime, accounting for light speed delay and relativity.

The computer wanted to stick to the mission parameters. The captain chose to seek out new directives.

The next day, the captain’s uniform was a diaper, and a shirt declaring her, simply, ‘CREWBABY’.

The ship’s computer hadn’t acknowledged the term before. Its use, then, had to mean something special.

Her orders were ignored. The Endeavor stayed on course, ignoring the flotsam. When she demanded the crew obey her, she received snickering comments about how perhaps she needed a change, or a nap, or a time out.

They settled on a time out.

And so, punishment–enforced by the crew, and not by the ship–became standard. The brig became the place where any crewbaby would be locked up for slights and misbehaviors, anything that any ‘bigger’ crew member decided deserved punishment.

The smell of dirty diapers in the brig became impossible to air out, and a couple more percent of the crew tried their hardest to, at the very least, earn the privilege of merely being diapered.

The captain, for her part, was allowed her dress shirt back after a week, but her command was never appreciated again, and her potty privileges were never returned. Her second in command, a man more by-the-book and who’d never once needed a diaper, became the de-facto leader of the ship, even as she retained the title.

But, as with all power structures, this one was bound to fracture. All it took was a hard break point to reveal the weaknesses.

That break came when they arrived at their star.

New roles were required. Jobs which had been trained for were put into practice, and as with all good plans, it failed upon implementation.

The crew were talented, and quick thinkers, and good at their jobs, but they could not act without mistakes. They were not machines, and those who acted with paranoia towards faults only caused the issues to build up, moving too slow, too shyly.

Failures began to rack up. The crewbabies, once maligned, continued work as normal without fear, but as the dangers and challenges of space exploration caused minor problems to cascade, the rest of the crew found themselves consumed by a system of punishment that held no room for error.

The whole crew was soon diapered. Many were made into crewbabies. The restrooms aboard the Endeavor were rendered utterly unused, just empty space that served no purpose.

By then, it was too late. The crew tried to intervene, but could not. The captain, nobly, led a charge on the mainframe, but the computer had far more tricks up its sleeve than it’d let on before, and it protected itself, its structure, perfectly. A change in the atmospheric makeup put everyone to sleep, and when they awoke, they were threatened with further naptime unless they retreated immediately.

Stricter punishments became necessary. Enforced, room-locking time outs. Diaper changes became a restricted commodity. Any pretense of the crew being able to care for themselves was taken away, and only perfect obedience allowed them such privileges as being allowed to walk the halls or change their own diapers.

All research halted, but the crew was safe, if a bit stinky. The Endeavor would complete its two year circuit of the star system, return to Earth, and complete its mission.

And if any of the crew still had a scrap of maturity left by then, it’d be a miracle.

 

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I had a lot of fun with this one, exploring some new storytelling tools and styles with the idea. I hope you liked it, too! 

If you enjoy my writing, you might be excited to know that I've got a new book out! "Bullies" is an anthology of short stories all unified by the theme of, as you might expect, being pushed around, in little ways or big, privately or publicly, to the aims of obedience or pure humiliation. It includes 40,000 words of fiction, including shorts that have never been released to the public before!

You can find the book on Gumroad: https://peculiarchangeling.gumroad.com/l/ztpdn