This is the second assignment for the #writingexcuses #masterclass episode 10.2! I'll post responses to the prior assignment (on which this is based) shortly.
1: Aliens visit Earth and become hot dog vendors in the oldest city of a great empire, as they need some form of employment to survive. Their ruthlessness pushes the other hotdog vendors out of business, and at the same time earthquakes and sinkholes start popping up. The old hotdog vendors try to get sympathy, but none is given. People are scared and just protect their own. Story ends with realization that old vendors were the monsters. They destroy the city to revenge themselves upon the aliens.
2: For the pilot adventure story, change it to frenetic romance between the two submarines. Each is actively trying to evade a good signal from the treasure hunter, as the signal overrides their own agency. Both hunters find the door to the largest treasure simultaneously, but immediately lose contact with their subs. Inside the room is a small society of submarines who've all managed to escape their masters and now live peacefully.
3: Using the war story, the only character I'd envisioned so far was the young woman. She has to be an old man now, I suppose (what about intersex folks, yall??). Much of the drama was going to be the threat of violence, as opposed to actual fisticuffs, so the move will prob. be to amp up the tragedy of his choice (he'll still have arrived when young). Honestly, doesn't feel like much of a change.
4: For the jazz one, the change will be that the club is sold to a very rich land developer. He leverages his power to isolate the community from the strikers (maybe he closes public transit, proposes road works to block the road, owns an electric utility and shuts off power/causes a blackout...). Without support, the instruments lose their battle and die.