Here is the first set of responses from #writingexcuses #masterclass episode 10.1 (useful, as they surely relate to the answers for the second assignment!):
1: Aliens come to Earth and become subsumed by the profit motive. Being good cooks, they end up selling hot dogs in NY, pushing all the other vendors out of business. Ends with an alien seeing a former vendor begging for food. The alien doesn't give any, as the vendor can't pay.
2: As country A gears up for war against its former, long-time ally country B, the army gins up a xenophobic fervor. A young woman who escaped violence in B by going to A as a girl is pressed to either make her stand in the country she calls home, or else flee to safety in the place she once fled.
3: In the oldest city of a great empire, earthquakes have started happening where before there were none. The city gov. does its best to keep repairing the damages, but once sink- holes begin popping up, swallowing buses and trains and a small dentist's office, it's forced to admit defeat. At night, strange noises come from people's basements and the people grow fearful of what ancient thing predates their city.
4: Two explorers battle it out for the best radio connection, piloting remote submarines through the metallic shell of a sunken treasure ship, trying to keep their connection up long enough to claim the riches.
5: In a jazz club, the instruments can speak to one another, but only while being played. Changing tastes put pressure on the club, and the instruments, fearing a life of solitude awaits them, they go on strike, preventing the musicians from being heard. The action attracts community attention, and eventually the owner relents. However, having seen they are at his whim, the instruments begin hatching a plan to remove him and run it themselves.