See also Family Unfriendly Aesop, Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism

I suspect that the folktale I posted isn't representative of Russian folkore; I had a hard time tracking it to its source (Aleksandr Afanasev), and, yes, it doesn't seem to be reprinted very often. Other Russian folktales I read in the process of looking for this one usually have happier endings in which justice is indeed served.

I'm also not so sure that this folktale wouldn't be at home alongside Aesop's fables.

Incidentally, Russia, too, has a tradition of similarly horrible folktales. This is a variation on one of them:

Old Favors are Soon Forgotten

Running from the hunters, a wolf came across a peasant and asked the man to hide him in his bag. The man agreed, and when the hunters asked him if he'd seen the wolf, he said no. Once they were gone, the peasant let the wolf out of his bag. The wolf said, "Thank you for hiding me. And now I will devour you." The man cried, "Wait! I just saved your life." And the wolf said, "Old favors are soon forgotten."

The peasant despaired, knowing he couldn't escape the wolf, but in desperation begged the wolf to walk with him down the path and ask the next three people they met if old favors were soon forgotten. If they agreed, the peasant promised he would submit and let the wolf devour him.

They came across an old dog first, and asked him if old favors were soon forgotten. The dog thought a moment, then said, "I worked hard for my master for twenty years, jumping at his every command, and protecting his family. However, once I became too old to work, he drove me out of his house. Yes, old favors are soon forgotten."

The wolf smiled unpleasantly, but the peasant reminded him that there were two more people to ask. Next, they met an old swayback horse on the path, and asked her if old favors were soon forgotten. She thought a moment, and answered, "I carried my master for twenty long years, bearing his weight gladly and serving him well. But when I got too old to carry him further, he drove me out into the world to die. Yes, old favors are soon forgotten."

The wolf capered with joy and licked his chops, but the peasant led him on down the path until they came to a fox. When they asked her if old favors were soon forgotten, she frowned and thought hard. Finally, she asked how they came to ask the question, and they told her how the peasant had hid the wolf in his bag. She shook her head. "I don't believe that large wolf fit in your small bag." And, though they swore it was true, she would not accept their word until the wolf climbed into the bag to prove it. Then she ordered the peasant to quickly tie up the bag and beat it with his stick. He gave the trapped wolf a good drubbing, then swung his stick around, hitting the fox in the head and killing her, saying, "Old favors are soon forgotten."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Iron_Dream

The story specifically asks a question that none of the commenters have addressed yet.

"So," the Lord Pilot finally said. "What kind of asset retains its value in a market with nine minutes to live?"

My answer: Music.

If your world is going to end in nine minutes, you might as well play some music while you wait for the inevitable.

Short story collections, perhaps? If you've never read, say, "The Last Question", it would be your last chance. (And if you're reading this now, and you haven't read "The Last Question" yet, then something has gone seriously wrong in your life.)

MartinH:

See the follow-up here.

(If a dust speck is zero, you could substitute "stubbed toe".)

Incidentally, my own answer to the torture vs. dust specks question was to bite the other bullet and say that, given any two different intensities of suffering, there is a sufficiently long finite duration of the greater intensity such that I'd pick a Nearly Infinite duration of the lesser degree over it. In other words, yeah, I'd condemn a Nearly Infinite number of people to 50 years of slightly less bad torture to spare a large enough finite group from 50 years of slightly worse torture.

In real life, I consider myself lucky that questions like that one are only hypothetical.

"But I'm having trouble figuring out the superhappys. I can think of a story with rational and emotional protagonists, a plot device relating to a 'charged particle', and the story is centered around a solar explosion (or risk of one). That story happens to involve 3 alien genders (rational, emotional, parental) who merge together to produce offspring."

The story you're thinking of is The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov, the middle section of which stars the aliens you describe.

Another question:

Do the Super Happies already know where the human worlds are (from the Net dump), or are they planning on following the human ship back home?

The Super Happies hate pain, and seeing others in pain causes them to experience pain. Humans tolerate pain better than the Super Happies do. This gives the humans a weapon to use against them, or at least negotiating leverage. They can threaten to hurt themselves unless the Super Happies give them a better deal.

(So, in order to unlock the True Ending, do we have to come up with a way for the humans to "win" and get what they want, alien utility functions be damned, or should we take the aliens' preferences into account too?)

Beer on the job at software companies?

I'm shocked, too, and I'm almost old enough to have worked at one of those places...