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bored-storyteller · 9 months

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Warning: none, mention of bones but very metaphorical

Tokyo Ghoul, Uta X Human!Reader

Moon

You feel a lump in your throat tighten as you walk around the dark room.

Usually the light is always on, waiting for you, no matter what time you arrive.

“Uta…?” You call, while inching forward, already expecting to get no answer. Something must have happened to him, you think just before all the anxiety melts away.

"I’m here. Take it easy…"

You sigh with relief as his soft voice reaches you from the bedroom.

Even if there is not a single light bulb lit, the lights of the city color the room with warm and elusive colors, urban lights of the suburbs of Tokyo, the living Tokyo of those who hide from the sun.

He's sitting on the bed, his back to you, the red iris looking at you over his shoulder is surrounded by an artificial yellowish reflection that makes the black background shine lowly. In the clutter of an underground artist's room, all that would be missing would be the smell of instant ramen or two in the morning frying, but you know there can be no such thing in a ghoul's house.

“The scent of your fear is all too inviting.”

Yes, the only smell of food that can be there is yours.

“I wasn't afraid.” You mutter.

"I wouldn't mind if you admit it."

Even if he is joking, what you have in front of you is a serious Uta.

You lie on your stomach, your head is close to his thighs and your gaze flees beyond the window where his is lost too.

“How was your night with your human friends?” He asks you, and you think for a couple of seconds to answer; it could be a trap, or it could be a good way to figure out what's going on in that twisted head of the most complex and absurd person you know.

"Boring?" You try uncertain.

"That's a lie, but I appreciate the effort."

A submissive grunt escapes you, but you soon focus back on him: “What about you? What are you doing?"

“I contemplate the moon.”

The moon. The moon adapts to him: so fickle, surrounded by darkness, variable, never the same but always itself.

Now, beyond the lights of the suburbs, it’s a thin segment, a germ that has yet to grow, a vaguely orange hue that could resemble a smile.

“It looks like a backbone.” Uta says, and you look at him with exasperation in your eyes.

"Seriously? We can watch a horror movie if you really feel like it.”

Now even his eyes seek yours, they feed on them.

You look at each other in the silence, both of you waiting for something, but then it's you who speaks: "Do ghouls and humans see the moon the same way?"

Usually it's you who gives this kind of answers, you who justify your nature in front of him, but this time you came first. This time he is the one who has to let you know what floor each of you are on.

"I guess you see a slice of melon, or the smile of the Cheshire Cat... instead I..."

“Even the poet and the scientist see two different things, that's not what I mean.”

Now you are sitting too; your left knee brushes his right. Uta looks at them for a moment without saying anything.

"Yes…I guess the moon is the same for everyone." He finally admits.

“And it's different for every single person in the world.” You add, bringing your meditation back to the satellite beyond the bright blanket of the city.

“Was it the melon or the smile?” He asks you after a while.

"The smile."

"Banal."

“I'm tired of being imaginative!” You retort pouting, now looking at his profile who has also turned his nose up towards the sky "and it's always better than your macabre taste."

“It could also be a rib.”

You puff. You rest your head on his shoulder and a yawn escapes you, it's been a long evening.

"Stop that."

"All right…"

Your fingers begin to trace the black lines on his arm, you almost don't look at them, your touch follows them, you know his skin almost as much as yours.

"Sometimes I forget that you belong to the world of those who see the smile of the moon..." He says quietly, and you're not sure you really heard.

He won't say anything else, and you know it. It's already so much that I've discovered that little thread of his soul, the one that's always tense when you go out with someone who's like you.

"The moon doesn't care about us." You say.

"How cruel."

"Or reassuring. Ghouls or humans, we are nothing before the universe."

You raise your head but you don't look at him, your eyes remains beyond, beyond humanity and all the worries that for better or for worse are destined to end.

"This is even scarier. In theory." He tells you, but you feel his lip piercing cool a tiny piece of skin from your neck. He will kiss you, or bite you.

It doesn't really matter.

It doesn't matter if the ghoul's presence is so reassuring to the human, it doesn't matter if someone judges them. Their union is not that important, not under the sight of the moon.

#tokyo ghoul #uta tokyo ghoul #uta x reader #uta x you #uta tg #tokyo ghoul uta #tokyo ghoul fanfiction #human reader #reader insert

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cleolinda · 3 months

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Across Gaza, residential areas have been left ruined, previously busy shopping streets reduced to rubble, universities destroyed and farmlands churned up, with tent cities springing up on the southern border to house many thousands of people left homeless.

About 1.7 million people - more than 80% of Gaza's population - are displaced, with nearly half crammed in the far southern end of the strip, according to the United Nations.

Further analysis, by BBC Verify, reveals the scale of destruction of farmland, identifying multiple areas of extensive damage.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has said it is targeting both Hamas fighters and "terror infrastructure", when challenged over the scale of damage.

Now, satellite data analysis obtained by the BBC shows the true extent of the destruction. The analysis suggests between 144,000 and 175,000 buildings across the whole Gaza Strip have been damaged or destroyed. That's between 50% and 61% of Gaza's buildings.

[…]

"Israeli forces targeted residential complexes, especially in the downtown Khan Younis area," said Rawan Qaddah, a 20-year-old resident, who has been displaced and has lost contact with her family.

She named schools among the many buildings which had been damaged. Some were now being used to house displaced people temporarily.

[…]

The IDF has repeatedly justified its actions by noting that Hamas deliberately embeds itself in civilian areas and explained destruction of buildings in the light of targeting fighters. But questions have been asked about destruction of buildings seemingly firmly in the control of the IDF.

One example was the Israa University, in northern Gaza - initially badly damaged shortly before being blown up completely in what looked like a massive controlled explosion. The video was widely shared on social media and the IDF says the approval process for the blast is now being investigated.

Many of Gaza's historic sites have suffered extensive damage, including the al-Omari Mosque originally built in the 7th Century.

Mr Scher, one of the academics who worked on the Gaza damage assessment, said it stands out compared with other war zones he's analysed.

"We've done work over Ukraine, we've also looked at Aleppo and other cities, but the extent and the pace of damage is remarkable. I've never seen this much damage appear so quickly."

#even on the most factual dispassionate level #the stated goal does not match the scope of destruction #‘we’re targeting terrorists’ is bullshit is what I’m saying #gaza #palestine #long post

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the-garbanzo-annex-jr · 3 months

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by Hadar Sela

On January 30th the BBC News website published a report by BBC Verify headlined “At least half of Gaza’s buildings damaged or destroyed, new analysis shows”.

“More than half of Gaza’s buildings have been damaged or destroyed since Israel launched its retaliation for the Hamas attacks of 7 October, new analysis seen by the BBC reveals.

Detailed before-and-after imagery also shows how the bombardment of southern and central Gaza has intensified since the start of December, with the city of Khan Younis bearing much of the brunt of Israel’s military action. […]

Further analysis, by BBC Verify, reveals the scale of destruction of farmland, identifying multiple areas of extensive damage.”

The information concerning buildings comes from sources who have previously worked with other media outlets to produce similar reports.

“Now, satellite data analysis obtained by the BBC shows the true extent of the destruction. The analysis suggests between 144,000 and 175,000 buildings across the whole Gaza Strip have been damaged or destroyed. That’s between 50% and 61% of Gaza’s buildings.

The analysis, carried out by Corey Scher of City University of New York and Jamon Van Den Hoek of Oregon State University, compares images to reveal sudden changes in the height or structure of buildings which indicate damage.” [emphasis added]

An important clarification concerning that highlighted wording – which is not provided to readers of the BBC Verify report – was given to CAMERA by Jamon Van Den Hoek in late December:

“When we double-checked with the researchers, Van Den Hoek reiterated that they only count structures as “likely damaged or destroyed” because, he explained, “we don’t yet have means of distinguishing categories of damage severity.””

Notably, three days after BBC Verify’s report appeared, the United Nations Satellite Centre – UNOSAT – published its own “assessment of the damage and destruction inflicted on structures in the Gaza Strip” which concluded that 30% (rather than 50% to 61% as claimed by the BBC) of the structures in the territory have been damaged since the beginning of the war. The breakdown given in that report states that 22,131 buildings (9.6% of the total number of structures) have been destroyed, 14,066 (6.1% of the total number of structures) severely damaged and 32,950 (14.3% of the total number of structures) moderately damaged.

The BBC Verify report presents several ‘case studies’, beginning with Khan Younis:

“The southern city of Khan Younis has been particularly badly hit in recent weeks, with more than 38,000 (or more than 46%) of buildings now destroyed or damaged, according to the analysis. Over the past fortnight, more than 1,500 buildings have been destroyed or damaged there.

Al-Farra Tower – a 16-storey residential block in the centre of the city, the tallest building in the area – was flattened on 9 January as can be seen in before-and-after images of the city’s skyline. Much of the neighbourhood in which it sits has been levelled by Israeli attacks since late December.

“Israeli forces targeted residential complexes, especially in the downtown Khan Younis area,” said Rawan Qaddah, a 20-year-old resident, who has been displaced and has lost contact with her family.

She named schools among the many buildings which had been damaged. Some were now being used to house displaced people temporarily.”

Readers are not informed why Rawan Qaddah was selected as a contributor, what qualifies her to provide the information uncritically promoted by the BBC or whether BBC Verify has in fact verified her claim concerning the alleged ‘targeting’ of “residential complexes”.

Moreover, BBC Verify’s report makes no mention of the fact that Israeli forces have been operating in Khan Younis since early December – or why. No mention is made of Hamas command and control centres in that city – which is home to Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar – or of the extensive tunnel network in which some of the Israeli hostages were held, the weapons production sites and rocket launching sites discovered there.

The only attempt to provide box-ticking context after a description and photos of a “damaged restaurant in Khan Younis” reads as follows:

“The IDF has repeatedly justified its actions by noting that Hamas deliberately embeds itself in civilian areas and explained destruction of buildings in the light of targeting fighters.”

Linking to another BBC report on a similar topic, the article goes on to tell readers that:

“Many of Gaza’s historic sites have suffered extensive damage, including the al-Omari Mosque originally built in the 7th Century.”

The context of Hamas’ use of mosques and other supposedly civilian facilities for military purposes and the fact that terrorists were operating in the vicinity of the al-Omari mosque at the time is not provided to readers.

The report then moves on to a section headed “Destruction to Gaza’s farmlands”.

“Further analysis, carried out by BBC Verify, shows large areas of previously cultivated land across Gaza have been extensively damaged.”

A case study is presented:

“BBC Arabic spoke to one farmer, Saeed, who fled south from Beit Lahia, in the north of Gaza, in mid-November.

The 33-year-old grew guava, figs, lemons, oranges, mint, and basil and earned about $6,000 (£5,535) from these crops every year – the only source of income for him, his father and his sister. He had tended to the farm, inherited from his grandparents, for 15 years.

But days after fleeing, he says he was told by a relative that the farm had been destroyed by the IDF, along with five surrounding homes which belonged to his relatives.”

While the exact location of Saeed’s farm is not given, readers would of course have been better placed to put the second-hand claims promoted by BBC Arabic via BBC Verify into context had they been told that Beit Lahia is also the location of a hospital used for terror purposes as well as rocket launching sites and that it is very close to the route of a 4km long, 50 meter deep tunnel discovered by the IDF.

Once again BBC Verify does box-ticking with a minimal response from the IDF:

“The IDF told us it had found Hamas tunnel entrances and rocket launch sites in various agricultural areas, adding that “operational needs require that these places be destroyed or attacked”.

“Environmental damage may be caused as a result of fighting and exchanges of fire.””

There is no doubt that in four months of war, considerable damage has been caused to structures and farmland in the Gaza Strip. One major reason for that is Hamas’ cynical exploitation of civilian homes and civilian infrastructure such as hospitals, universities, schools and mosques for military purposes including missile fire, along with its massive underground tunnel network which compromises the integrity of structures and land above it. Another significant part of the story – completely absent from BBC Verify’s report – is the fact that around 12% of the thousands of missiles launched by Palestinian terrorists have landed in the Gaza Strip.

BBC Verify, however, chose not to provide BBC audiences with that essential background, instead making do with a couple of short, generalised quotes from the IDF in order to tick the impartiality box and preferring to present audiences with a supposedly factual article that is blatantly one-sided and severely lacking in essential context.

#bbc #bbc verify #gaza #hamas #bombardment of gaza

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adventure-showdown · 6 months

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What is your favourite Doctor Who story?

ROUND 1 MASTERPOST

synopses and propaganda under the cut

The Book of the War

Synopsis

The Great Houses: Immovable. Implacable. Unchanging. Old enough to pass themselves off as immortal, arrogant enough to claim ultimate authority over the Spiral Politic.

The Enemy: Not so much an army as a hostile new kind of history. So ambitious it can re-write worlds, so complex that even calling it by its name seems to underestimate it.

Faction Paradox: Renegades, ritualists, saboteurs and subterfugers, the criminal-cult to end all criminal-cults, happy to be caught in the crossfire and ready to take whatever's needed from the wreckage… assuming the other powers leave behind a universe that's habitable.

The War: A fifty-year-old dispute over the two most valuable territories in existence: "cause" and "effect."

Marking the first five decades of the conflict, THE BOOK OF THE WAR is an A to Z of a self-contained continuum and a complete guide to the Spiral Politic, from the beginning of recordable time to the fall of humanity. Part story, part history and part puzzle-box, this is a chronicle of protocol and paranoia in a War where the historians win as many battles as the soldiers and the greatest victory of all is to hold on to your own past…

Propaganda

Is it about Dr Who? I mean, sort of. Arguably. You could say the Doctor is present in it. Somewhat. Not by name tho because that would be illegal. But definitely there are uh. well. there's definitely stuff in it that's DWesque. It's Dr Who Adjacent. It's Dr Whoish. Strong Dr Who vibes. (@eighthdoctor )

Experimental sci-fantasy that defined the Time War and started a whole series of its own. (anonymous)

This Town Will Never Let Us Go

Synopsis

From up here you can see it all, hear it all, taste most of it and feel the rest when the electric lights and the satellite signals prickle against your skin. The town, from midnight to six, marked out in headlights and the flash-fire of a culture in War-time. Séance-messages written in the patterns of the road signs, and ghost-transmissions scrambled into the background noise of the traffic. Animal scent-signals from the fried food stands. All describing something, buried under the tarmac and the street-geometry.

Down there, a girl in a fake-bone mask is working on a ritual to bring it to the surface. A popular performing artiste with a navel stud and serious identity problems is finding herself stalked — literally — by her own image. An ambulance crewman is about to find his own way of getting involved in the War.

And bringing them all together, in one neat little urban mythology, there's Faction Paradox - part cult, part subculture, part pop phenomenon, and part criminal syndicate, either watching-without-being-seen or simply not existing at all (at least until someone invents it). Assuming they're not wholly imaginary, the archons of the Faction seem like the only ones who know what this town really is - what every town really is — and what's bound to happen when it wakes up.

Propaganda no propaganda submitted

Of the City of the Saved…

Synopsis

For Humanity, the War is over...

We all remember Resurrection Day. Even now, three centuries later, we cannot forget that awakening: our bewilderment, our terror and our joy. Each of us had experienced death, imagining ourselves bound for oblivion, Heaven or Nirvana, according to taste. Instead, we found, each member of the many human species — from tool-wielding australopithecines to posthuman philosopher-gods — had been harvested, gathered here by the Founders’ unfathomable technologies.

Reborn in our countless immortal bodies, we were given the freedom of the City of the Saved. A single conurbation as broad as a spiral galaxy, she has been our sanctuary from the ravages of the War. That monstrous conflict between inhuman cultures cannot touch us here: we live our afterlives beyond the end of time, in perfect safety.

We may be certain, therefore, that these rumours of a murder (the brutal stabbing of a City Councillor, no less!) are nothing more than lurid fabrications. The supposition that the murder weapon is missing, or that it could have been — as hysterical conjecture has claimed — a "potent weapon", capable of injuring a Citizen within the haven of the City, is equally absurd. The idea that a guerrilla war has already begun in one of our less harmonious enclaves need not be dignified with refutation.

Please go about your business, Citizens, as normal. We are perfectly safe, here in the City. Humanity has never been safer.

Propaganda no propaganda submitted

Doctor Who and Shada (fan novelisation)

Synopsis

The Doctor and Romana visit Professor Chronotis, a retired Time Lord living at Cambridge University. The Professor wants to return an ancient and very powerful book to Gallifrey - but the book has gone missing.

Skagra, an evil scientist, steals the book and the Professor's mind - and also takes Romana and the TARDIS.

In order to stop Skagra, the Doctor must discover the secrets of a notorious Time Lord criminal, and a long forgotten prison called Shada...

Propaganda

The first ever adaption of Shada and one of the only fan novelisations (anonymous)

Harvest of Time

Synopsis

After billions of years of imprisonment, the vicious Sild have broken out of confinement. From a ruined world at the end of time, they make preparations to conquer the past, with the ultimate goal of rewriting history. But to achieve their aims they will need to enslave an intellect greater than their own...

On Earth, UNIT is called in to investigate a mysterious incident on a North Sea drilling platform. The Doctor believes something is afoot, and no sooner has the investigation begun when something even stranger takes hold: The Brigadier is starting to forget about UNIT's highest-profile prisoner. And he is not alone in his amnesia.

As the Sild invasion begins, the Doctor faces a terrible dilemma. To save the universe, he must save his arch-nemesis... The Master.

Propaganda

An amazing 3rd Doctor story that feels very much like the typical Delgado!Master stories of the time! Featuring: UNIT, Original Characters, a poster with the Master’s face on it stating to remeber him, and more! (anonymous)

#round 1

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mariacallous · 7 days

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President Yoon Suk Yeol’s conservative People Power Party (PPP) suffered a major setback in South Korea’s parliamentary election held on April 10, 2024. Of the 300 seats in the National Assembly, the PPP secured only 108 seats through direct and proportional elections. Meanwhile, the major progressive opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) and its satellite parties expanded its majority to 175 seats, hampering Yoon’s ability to govern for his remaining three years in office. Although the Yoon government’s domestic agenda may become further imperiled, his active foreign policy agenda will largely stay intact, including his staunch support for the U.S.-South Korea alliance and promotion of South Korea as a global pivotal state.

A referendum on President Yoon

South Korea’s midterm election was largely seen as a referendum on Yoon. Since coming to office in May 2022, Yoon’s domestic approval ratings have remained low, rarely breaking past 40 percent. Although support for the DPK and its party leader, Lee Jae-myung, has tracked equally as low, South Koreans were more likely to associate their country’s current economic woes, including inflation and high prices, with the ruling government.

A series of small, but unfortunate events and gaffes by Yoon during the election campaign may have also helped tip the scales in favor of opposition candidates in contested districts. In the months leading up to South Korea’s election, minor scandals surrounding the president’s wife and his former defense minister, an ongoing strike by the country’s medical doctors, and the president’s seemingly trivial comment about the price of green onions made him look out of touch.

Moreover, the rapid growth in support for a new progressive party founded by former Minister of Justice Cho Kuk just a month before the election attests to Yoon’s domestic unpopularity. Cho established the Rebuilding Korea Party (RKP) explicitly to challenge the Yoon administration, which he described as “dictatorial” and “anti-democratic.” Despite the former justice minister’s own corruption scandals and indictment, the RKP performed better than any other third party, winning 12 seats in the party-list proportional voting system.

Domestic political challenges

A divided government and ongoing political polarization will make it especially difficult for government and opposition leaders to make compromises and find bold solutions to pressing social and economic problems, such as high inflation, falling birth rates, and the lack of affordable housing.

Yoon will continue to face challenges in implementing his domestic priorities. During recent town hall meetings, the president unveiled several policy initiatives in hopes of attracting voters, including plans for new housing through urban redevelopment and new infrastructure projects. Just prior to the election, Yoon promised major investment in a new industrial complex for the development of semiconductors and artificial intelligence and pledged to relocate the National Assembly out of Seoul to the administrative city of Sejong in the middle of the country. However, his government will face obstacles in the National Assembly in financing such projects with progressives holding a commanding majority.

Greater continuity in foreign policy

The basic contours of Yoon’s foreign and national security policy, including support for the U.S.-South Korean alliance, deterring North Korea, and the U.S.-Japan-Korea trilateral, will persist. Relations with the United States will also remain positive given wide public support, even among progressives, for the U.S.-South Korea alliance.

Likewise, the South Korean public’s unfavorable views of China and broad recognition of Chinese coercive actions in the region have muted major criticism that Yoon has antagonized China. Despite the Yoon government’s close alignment with Washington, Seoul has also maintained space to engage Beijing diplomatically. Last week, the Yoon government announced Seoul would host a China-Japan-South Korea trilateral summit in late May.

Nevertheless, the DPK’s electoral gains will take some of the wind out of Yoon’s foreign policy sails. The DPK may complicate further South Korean rapprochement with Japan and demand that Yoon seek greater concessions from Tokyo to address historical grievances. This in turn may slow the pace of U.S.-Japan-Korea trilateral cooperation and the implementation of the deliverables announced during the Camp David trilateral summit in 2023, particularly those that call for greater military cooperation with Japan.

Opposition party members may also feel more emboldened to speak out against Yoon’s hostile approach to North Korea in contrast to the DPK’s desire for greater inter-Korea engagement. Yoon’s revised unification plan for the two Koreas, which incorporates principles of freedom and democracy, will likely be criticized by DPK members.

A lame duck?

The term “lame duck” has been repeatedly used to describe Yoon’s remaining time in office. However, Yoon’s predicament may not significantly diverge from his first two years in office since the DPK did not win a supermajority—over 200 seats—needed to overcome filibusters and override presidential vetoes. The election results are also unlikely to change the overall tenor of South Korea’s polarized politics, as the ruling and opposition parties continue to highlight scandals and pursue corruption charges against their political opponents. Although political momentum may shift to the DPK, the PPP will likely regroup in preparation for the next presidential election in 2027 as it did following even greater losses by the conservative party in the 2020 parliamentary elections.

For South Korea’s allies and partners, some concern may emerge regarding whether the Yoon government can sustain its activist foreign policy agenda, including support for Ukraine or increased attention to Taiwan and cross-Strait relations. Yoon, however, is unlikely to backtrack on the idea of South Korea becoming a global pivotal state, as foreign policy and national security issues are typically the prerogatives of the president in South Korean politics, and Yoon remains at the helm of Korea’s strong executive branch.

Seoul recently hosted the third Summit for Democracy in March, and in May will co-host the AI Safety Summit and the China-Japan-Korea trilateral summit. NATO is looking toward South Korea and other Asian countries for greater support on Ukraine. Although unlikely, a more inward-looking South Korea resulting from the president’s so-called “lame-duck” status would be a loss for the international community.

Beyond partisan politics, the DPK too has a stake in elevating South Korea’s global role. Although North Korea and Japan issues elicit starkly different responses from South Korean progressives and conservatives, in recent years, attitudes towards the U.S.-South Korea alliance and China have somewhat converged. The United States and its allies should therefore continue to work with Seoul, irrespective of the party in power, to promote regional security and global order.

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collapsedsquid · 6 months

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A “rhetorical ceasefire”, observers say, would have to start in the education system. “It’s pretty extreme, what’s taught in schools,” said Thomas de Waal, a senior fellow with Carnegie Europe. “From as young as five, you are learning about Armenians as vandals and terrorists and occupiers.” In one school outside Baku, located in a housing complex for people displaced in the 1990s, the lobby was plastered with life-sized images of soldiers. Tanks, grenades and the slogan “Karabakh is Azerbaijan!” dominated a display of children’s art. Günay, a 46-year-old mother of two, said she ran with joy when she heard of the victory. “You can’t believe how much I was shouting, here in the corridors, that we have our lands back,” she said. She had fled with her family in the 1990s after pogroms in their village. For three decades she was unable to return home or visit her mother’s grave, she said. “I cannot forgive these people, I wanted to kill them,” she said. “Now they say we have to live together. I don’t want to buy my bread and water in the same place.” Instead of being spread out and integrated, displaced Azerbaijanis have been housed in dedicated apartment buildings. Some appeared modern, but conditions in Günay’s were grim: two dozen families inhabited each floor, living in single rooms along a narrow communal corridor fitted with one bathroom. A few people lived in shacks on the roof, children and chickens scampering between satellite dishes. Aliyev’s next big, patriotic project is “the Great Return”. Minibuses regularly depart at dawn from just outside Baku, transporting displaced families back to lands now reclaimed by Azerbaijan. Günay expects to be relocated soon. All her neighbours said the same.

#they still have the slums

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scratchtherecordhomestuck · 5 months

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Me too john. Me too.

are they in the game already? tt moved the magic chest but it still looks like the real world. Sort of. Id say its IRL sims.

Bruh how can TT control stuff in his house. TT can alter reality this is so funny

Cus TT has the server file. Basically it appears you gotta play co op. So you get two disks, server and client.

How the heck does TT see him 3rd person. Does she have a drone. Well, id imagine she can see him on her computer. Like theyre playing a game.. sort of like the sims. but irl. HOW THOUGH?? DRONES?? SATELLITE? i find it strange how theyre not questioning it. Maybe its just normal. I wouldnt like someone looking at me and suddenly add something to my house. They get to play as forces. Honestly this games stuff is so peculiar. Shame john left his other beta in the car!

yea everything looks so intricate :o i wonder what they'll be used for

Woohoo for tt bringing back the book!

These guys are so business coded. This is to be expected of a father figure. ..Almost as if he isnt business at all.

funny business, if you will

EB: hey, i'm out on the balcony now. EB: i am messaging from my dad's pda. TT: The one you threw into the yard? EB: no, i am telling you. EB: it jumped out of my sylladex like a frightened weasel. TT: What were you doing with it in the first place? TT: I am not sensing a lot of regard for the personal property of others. TT: Is this how your pent-up frustration with your father manifests itself? EB: what? no.

TT is one big snooper. Honestly tells a lot. It sure is giving with how quickly they are to consider a mental diagnosis for Johns actions even though they're perfectly harmless. they're giving me god complex sims player :o if John isn't a server hoster is he more akinned to an npc? :o I suppose in a sense he is. Considering the prompts he gets from the text.

#homestuck #hom3stuck #homestuck liveblog #homestuck liveread #homestuck reread

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usafphantom2 · 7 months

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The SR-71 Blackbird Astro-Nav System (aka R2-D2) worked by tracking the stars and was so powerful that it could see the stars even in daylight

Mounted behind the SR-71 Blackbird RSO’s cockpit, this unit, (that was affectionately dubbed “R2-D2” after the Star Wars movie came out in 1977) computed navigational fixes using stars sighted through the lens in the top of the unit.

SR-71 T-Shirts

CLICK HERE to see The Aviation Geek Club contributor Linda Sheffield’s T-shirt designs! Linda has a personal relationship with the SR-71 because her father Butch Sheffield flew the Blackbird from test flight in 1965 until 1973. Butch’s Granddaughter’s Lisa Burroughs and Susan Miller are graphic designers. They designed most of the merchandise that is for sale on Threadless. A percentage of the profits go to Flight Test Museum at Edwards Air Force Base. This nonprofit charity is personal to the Sheffield family because they are raising money to house SR-71, #955. This was the first Blackbird that Butch Sheffield flew on Oct. 4, 1965.

The SR-71, unofficially known as the “Blackbird,” was a long-range, Mach 3+, strategic reconnaissance aircraft developed from the Lockheed A-12 and YF-12A aircraft.

The first flight of an SR-71 took place on Dec. 22, 1964, and the first SR-71 to enter service was delivered to the 4200th (later 9th) Strategic Reconnaissance Wing at Beale Air Force Base, Calif., in January 1966.

The Blackbird was in a different category from anything that had come before. “Everything had to be invented. Everything,” Skunk Works legendary aircraft designer Kelly Johnson recalled in an interesting article appeared on Lockheed Martin website.

Experience gained from the A-12 program convinced the US Air Force that flying the SR-71 safely required two crew members, a pilot and a Reconnaissance Systems Officer (RSO). The RSO operated with the wide array of monitoring and defensive systems installed on the airplane. This equipment included a sophisticated Electronic Counter Measures (ECM) system that could jam most acquisition and targeting radar and the Nortronics NAS-14V2 Astroinertial Navigation System (ANS).

The SR-71 Blackbird Astro-Nav System (aka R2-D2) worked by tracking the stars and was so powerful that it could see the stars even in daylight

SR-71 Astroinertial Navigation System

According to the Smithsonian Institution website, the ANS provided rapid celestial navigation fixes for the SR-71.

Mounted behind the SR-71 RSO’s cockpit, this unit (that was affectionately dubbed “R2-D2” after the Star Wars movie came out in 1977), computed navigational fixes using stars sighted through the lens in the top of the unit. These fixes were used to update the inertial navigation system and provided course guidance with an accuracy of at least 90 meters (300 feet). Some current aircraft and missile systems use improved versions as a backup to GPS.

About the ANS RSOs were known to say, “no one can jam or shoot down the sun, the moon, the planets or the stars.”

Piloting the Blackbird was an unforgiving endeavor, demanding total concentration. But pilots were giddy with their complex, adrenaline-fueled responsibilities. “At 85,000 feet and Mach 3, it was almost a religious experience,” said Air Force Colonel Jim Watkins. “Nothing had prepared me to fly that fast… My God, even now, I get goose bumps remembering.”

The SR-71 Astroinertial Navigation System, aka R2-D2, was crucial in Blackbird mission. Here’s why.

But once the SR-71 reached cruising speed and altitude, it was time to focus on the mission, which was to collect information about hostile and potentially hostile nations using cameras and sensors. The pilot’s job was to handle the aircraft and watch over the automatic systems to make sure they were doing their jobs properly. Meanwhile, the RSO handled the cameras, sensors, and the all-important ANS. The ANS was the 1960’s version of GPS, but instead of using satellites to locate itself, the ANS used the stars. This is because before the invention of the modern satnav networks there wasn’t a way to navigate the SR-71 in the areas where it operated. The SR-71 needed to be able to fix its position within 1,885 feet (575 m) and within 300 ft (91 m) of the center of its flight path while traveling at high speeds for up to ten hours in the air.

The ANS provided specific pinpoint targets located in hostile territory. It was a Gyro compass that was able to sense the rotation of the earth, while still on the runway before the SR-71 would take off. The RSO could use his coordinates of the spot ….of one place …on the runway …then read of the ANS. They were almost always exactly the same. Not always were the same stars were used on every mission, as they used the stars depending on what part of the world they were going to fly to. If flying in the southern hemisphere* they used only the stars that were seen there.

SR-71 print

This print is available in multiple sizes from AircraftProfilePrints.com – CLICK HERE TO GET YOURS. SR-71A Blackbird 61-7972 “Skunkworks”

On Jul. 2, 1967 Blackbird crew Jim Watkins and Dave Dempster flew the first international sortie in SR-71A #17972 when the ANS failed on a training mission and they accidentally flew in to Mexican airspace.

The ANS works by tracking at least two stars at a time listed in an onboard catalog, and with the aid of a chronometer, calculates a fix of the SR-71 over the ground. It was programmed before each flight and the aircraft’s primary alignment and the flight plan was recorded on a punched tape that told the aircraft where to go, when to turn, and when to turn the sensors on and off. The stars were sighted through a special quartz window (located behind the RSO cockpit) and there was a special star tracker that could see the stars even in daylight.

*It is not confirmed if the SR-71 ever flew in the southern hemisphere.

@Habubrats71 via X

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coffeeandcalligraphy · 1 year

Text

Immaculate Mary | BODY BACK Update #2

Harrison's back, and he's only getting worse! <3

Let's talk chapter 2 of my novella BODY BACK. We're all about villain eras, unexpected developments, Mother Mary, Jesus thirst traps (yes...) & more. Check out update #1 if you missed it!

Post starts under the cut!

Unexpected developments

I'd already planned that Suzanna, Harrison's mother, wasn't going to be a major character in BB as she is in Feeding Habits. I didn't think we'd see her "on-screen" in BB, but when you get caught breaking into a stranger's pool & need your mother to bail you out...

Suzanna & Harrison

CW: child neglect, addiction

Suz and Harrison have SUCH a complicated relationship. They were once extremely close, but are now near-strangers. Having abandoned Harrison when he was a child amidst her own substance-abuse problems, Suz also never reconnected with her son after she got sober. She is only part of his life now out of fluke (the fluke is Lonan, who runs into her by chance in Moth Work--you can read that chapter update HERE though it's old!).

Harrison isn't sure what to make of their relationship. On one hand, it's a relief to have his mother back in his life because he's missed her (amongst other feelings) and also has a safety net when he makes bad decisions (chapter 1 lmao). But on the other hand, he's *extremely* resentful of Suzanna (and rightly so). At this point, they've only been reconnected for 2 weeks, and while Suz is trying to transition their lives together as seamlessly as possible, the last time they meaningfully knew each other was ~15 years prior (1990-ish), which makes this task, especially on Harrison's end, impossible.

This relationship is probably one of the most complex things I've ever written. It's hard to verbalize/describe it because at times it's irrational, frustrating, lovely, horrifying, hilarious, and comforting (and sometimes all at once). This culminates to a volatile emotional climax for Harrison that serves as the inciting incident for BB.

Immaculate Mary

We open "Immaculate Mary" with Harrison and Suz in the Bakers' bathroom (the couple whose house Harrison broke into). This chapter is about motherhood, yes, but also sonhood, and how Harrison believes his sonhood intersects with Suz's motherhood (and conversely, how Jesus' sonhood intersects with Mary's motherhood).

The title was just an inclination I had that addressed the chapter's holy and maternal themes. I was also aware this was a hymn, HOWEVER, upon writing this update (as in RIGHT NOW), I've realized this is a Catholic hymn I used to sing all the time in choir. So I guess I blocked that out?? LMAO

Scene A:

Suz attempts to blow-dry Harrison's hair which is soaked with pool water. This goes badly.

Scene B:

Desperate and unsure how to help her reckless son (lol), Suz drives Harrison to Eliza's apartment--where his ex, Lonan, now lives--in hopes he will talk to him. This also goes badly.

Scene B is *critical* here. Harrison isn't ready to face Lonan, even if that means merely facing the potential of seeing him. Suz rushing him into a conversation he isn't ready to have flips a switch inside of him. This is how we get to Chaotic Party Harrison, whose primary concern is A) forgetting and B) having a good time so he can forget some more.

The writing process

Writing this chapter was faster than chapter 1 because it's more action/dialogue heavy with longer scenes (it's also not as clean, lol).

I wrote a large portion of this chapter as a writing prompt for a class. The bathroom scene with Harrison & Suz was almost exclusively hand-written as a screenplay, so I had to adapt it. It was a lot of fun to have the dialogue/scene skeleton laid out, since it's not often I have a plan before going into writing sessions.

I similarly followed the circular plot structure I talked about in update 1. The "satellite" in this case was "mother/sonhood/mother Mary/Jesus." Mary x Jesus are critical to this chapter--not only does Harrison project himself onto Jesus, he also does the same to Suz, but with Mary. What does it mean to Mary to be the mother of the Messiah, and what does it mean to Suz to be the mother of Harrison? These are two questions we keep circling back to.

Excerpts

Guess who didn't share every single excerpt from this chapter so I actually have *some* new content??? :)

A plastic fantastic description of the Bakers' bathroom:

They stand in the Bakers’ bathroom. It vomits ‘under-the-sea’—a theme a child might request, but according to the living room’s unstained couch cushions and front mat’s lack of tiny shoes, no children live here. Perhaps Nash requested the décor. That might check out—a Ken doll on the outside dying to be coffined in his plasticky packaging, or in this case, plasticky bathroom. High-gloss cerulean walls. A clownfish soap dispenser. The toilet seat cover ridged into a lilac clam. A translucent blue shower curtain that flickers iridescent waves when you walk past it.

Here, we explore Harrison's psychology more overtly. Is he expecting to be yelled at--and why is that something he craves now?

In Suz’s body, Harrison expects rage. How far did she drive to get here? Honestly, he hadn’t tracked the length of the car ride when he’d hitchhiked. He analyzes her shoulders as she shuffles through the Bakers’ cabinet and emerges with a hairdryer, but she’s blanker than a blank slate—the empty air in front of God before he creates. If she’d only impale the wall socket with the dryer’s prongs. If she’d only grab his hair by the roots and hang him up to dry.

Harrison tracks the similarities of his and his mother's reflections:

Harrison stares at himself in the bathroom mirror. On his wrist: a gold herringbone bracelet Sadie hung on the key holder. In his ear: Lonan’s earring. His wet hair curls weakly around his ears, drips down his twiggy eyebrows. Last week, he caught his own reflection in the dishware cabinet and was so startled to find Suzanna’s face staring back that he dropped his cup. The crash pealed like a death knell long after the sound disappeared. Picking glass from the tile, it angered him that he looked like her. His father’s eyes, sure, but his mother’s bulbous nose, spare mouth, minky hair, stubby nail beds. The last time he’d compared their reflections, they stood in front of a funhouse mirror. They wore chromized party hats, technicolour butterflies painted on their left cheeks. He was five.

Here we have a description of Harrison wearing a (stolen) ring. This excerpt will be relevant in chapter three (also JEREMIAH BAIT):

He wears Jeremiah’s silver signet ring on his pinkie, and it clicks against the marble. Perhaps he’s been looking for it since Harrison’s been away. Hands and knees. Stuffing his head under his bedframe, a flimsy flashlight in hand, his mouth wide open.

(also... I may or may not have bought this ring... for myself)

The LINE of the century:

Harrison crosses his arms. The soaked leather of his jacket squelches, baptized by pool water just like him. His mouth is twitching again—he’d like to get high tonight, see neon, taste Jesus.

This is the unholy excerpt I vowed I wouldn't share (in other words, Jesus Thirst Trap -- take with that what you will):

How did Mary feel to mother Jesus? Listen, Harrison knows he’s no Christ. But Jesus was twenty-one once, wasn’t he? What did he do in his free time besides praise the Word of the Lord, perform miracles, etcetera, etcetera? He was a carpenter sure, nailed pleats of wood bare-backed in the tart Nazareth sun, flicked pearls of sweat off his tanned forehead. But did he ever break into a stranger’s pool? Did he ever wake up one morning, stumble out of bed, stick a frayed toothbrush into his mouth, stare at himself in the mirror and feel, with certainty, an unending urge to run?

Suz is exhausted:

Suz squeezes her nose bridge. She’s aged since August, if that’s even possible. The bags beneath her eyes are violet like the fleshy interior of a blueberry, the veins scarlet lightning bolts.

“Why are you upset?” Harrison asks, drumming his ringed finger against the counter’s lip.

This is a direct continuation of the above! This is actually sad I'm sorry:

What does Suzanna see when she looks at him? A miniature version of her wearing a jacket that once belonged to her at his age, and an earring that once belonged to another mother? Or is he a stranger? They know each other best by genetics. If she asked Harrison what he thought her favourite colour was, he’d have no idea. “This isn’t a big deal.”

“Oh, please,” Suz says, teary like the actresses on her favourite Portuguese soaps. Sure, Harrison doesn’t know his mother’s favourite colour, if in childhood she was the type of girl to make rings out of peach pits, if she was the type of girl to rip worms bare-handed, if she’d eat cottage cheese with cantaloupe, if she thought about enrolling in a life drawing class before she got pregnant, if her idols are pop icons of the 80s like his are, her favourite way to fold a paper airplane, when her birthday is. But he does know she does not cry.

When young Jesus stayed in Jerusalem unbeknownst to his mother, what did Mary do? Perhaps she stared at her hands, thought of the last time she touched him. Perhaps she wept. Or perhaps she found the closest mirror, wiped her sleeve against the glass until it glossed, and tried to find her son in her own reflection.

Emo boi dialogue (this is an ouchie lol):

Suz soothes her index finger over her thumb over and over. “Things have been so…”

“So what?” Harrison knows she could mean so many things. So raw. So indelicate. So tense. So like we’re a VHS set in reverse. “This isn’t a big deal. No one was hurt.”

“You cannot come and go as you please in other people’s houses, Harrison.” She can’t even look at him. He could call her out by name again—Suzanna, Suzanna, Suzanna. She winces every time he does, plays it off as a sudden headache or a flighty twitch.

“Isn’t that what I do at your place?” he says instead, his throat heady with the need to scream, or perhaps cry. “Parade around as your son and then crash on the couch?”

“Harrison,” Suz says. Her eyes are pellets of amber, her pupils preserved in their warmth. As a child, Harrison climbed onto the bathroom counter, pried his own eyes open between his chewed fingernails. The colour was wrong, too light, too cold, too much like his father’s—and what was a father? God is as much a father as he is a traitor to his own sacrificial son. Harrison stood there for so long his eyes stung, and when his lid eventually snapped back in place, the world stippled.

“What?” he asks now. Where the hell is God in this dim bathroom? Sucked up in the fan? Hiding in shower drain hairballs? And where is his father? Both perpetually missing like a television remote, a set of house keys. That’s right. God’s not here—not in the olive wall paint, not in the patterned hand towels, not in the piranha portrait above the toilet tank, not against Harrison’s chest like he used to be. He’s the only one here in front of his mother, all seven of Mary’s sorrows etched into a man. He almost laughs. “And my name is kind of idiotic, isn’t it? Harry’s son—but I’m nobody’s son.”

“You’re my son.”

(^^ Funnily, the Harry's son bit was in the handwritten draft and I thought it was kind of stupid, but I have been unable to delete it... there's something very real about that line, lol, yikes)

This finishes off scene A:

He kicks off the counter, pushes past his mother, walks down the hall and back into the living room. His ears ring. He’s not even sure what’s so bad about what she’s said. Change is good, isn’t it?

“Change is good,” he mutters to himself. “Change is good.”

The Bakers gape at him from the couch. This defectless couple like the blue and pink pegs screwed into a Game of Life car. Their faces scream GET MARRIED, JOB SEARCH, BUY A HOUSE.

Harrison looks at Sadie, her sad, dead eyes. “Do something with your life,” he says, then salutes and walks right out the front door.

Scene B starts very normally, right? Here's Harrison wondering what'd be like if he was... a shirt:

The city isn’t as interesting when it’s just cars, in fact, it’s not much different to Boston, to New York. Everything is brilliant and irrelevant and bleary and transparent, like a raw brain spinning around a washing machine. Harrison might like to walk to the laundromat ten minutes from Suz’s apartment, hop into someone else’s load and just let himself swivel until he’s unsure if he’s a man or a chemise blouse. The dreaminess of it all, the way silk knows it’s as defenseless as it is coveted. Harrison could be both, couldn’t he?

Harrison starts getting an inclination of where Suz is driving him:

“Suzanna,” Harrison says, wincing when the wild cherry air freshener noosed around her rear-view flails in his direction.

She takes the next exit, the car even faster now—seventy-five, eighty.

“Suz.”

“I want better for you.” Suz slows, now weaving through a residential neighbourhood. Men sit on unruly lawns, grimy hands fisted around beer bottles. At the next turn, a teenage girl hurries a sheltie down a crosswalk. A mother squints at a bus schedule while she nudges a stroller back and forth with her heel. Boardgame people just waiting for their next play.

Would you rather have a single conversation with your ex or jump out of a moving vehicle? We know Harrison's answer:

When she doesn’t answer, he wants to ask the question again, but something changes. Perhaps it’s the texture of the wheels beneath him, the way he remembers the grit of asphalt under the rubber like someone remembers the sound of their loved one’s footsteps. Perhaps it’s the way the sidewalk shimmers with rain that’s so familiar, the way the streetlamps seem to flash as they appear like a signal lamp, or perhaps Harrison’s not a fucking idiot. “Mom,” he says, already unclicking his seatbelt. She’s not going as fast now—maybe forty miles an hour, perhaps less. He watched a documentary the other day about jumping from moving cars, the best techniques.

'My heart is fine' and other lies this man tells himself (AKA em-dash wars):

“What’s heartbreak to you? A little boohoo? My heart is fine. Let me out of the car.”

“I know you think so—”

“Let me out of the—”

“But you can’t fight a battle and run from it at the same—”

“Suzanna—”

“You loved him—”

“And what the fuck would you know?” Harrison slams his fist so hard against the dashboard the plastic fractures, the break like the entire Pacific sloshing against an eardrum. Harrison doesn’t care. He does it again, again, until shards clatter, until his hand’s bloody, until Suz is horrified because he can be horrifying—and not just horrifying, but the entire fucking horror.

(also this horror line is... fantastic lol)

Aaaand final paragraph. He is not in denial. No way!

Perhaps Jesus would enter that apartment like it were his father’s temple. But Harrison is tired of gods, of ghosts, of men. He repeats this to himself as he hustles through the rain. No gods, no ghosts, no men. His teeth chatter. His hands shake. He’s not wise. He never wants to be again. No gods, no ghosts, no men. It’s easier this way, no need to contemplate the open window overlooking the parking lot, no need to contemplate who lives there now, who makes a bed there every morning, who drinks his coffee with half a cream no sugar at the breakfast table, who grinds an inkstick to practice his new interest in calligraphy, who reads poetry on the balcony every Wednesday, who finishes a one-thousand piece puzzle in an afternoon, who wears Suzanna’s angel pendant and says he bought it vintage, who takes up pottery, herb gardening, darts whenever he feels like it, who sleeps with both eyes closed at last. No need to contemplate what might happen if he spared one glance. Who he might see if he just looked back.

Harrison from now on:

Yes you will bb!

That's it! :) Chapter 3 is writing itself. I'll be back soon lol.

Rachel

#writeblr #writing #amwriting #writerblr #the way this sets us up for 24-karat harrison lol #like he said 'i will absolutely ruin my own life thank you mother'#anyway the catholic allusions hit different here #the mary x jesus relationship genuinely does intrigue me #happy to explore it (sort of LOL) here!#writingupdates #bodyback

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spacetimewithstuartgary · 1 month

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NASA's tiny BurstCube mission launches to study cosmic blasts

NASA's BurstCube, a shoebox-sized satellite designed to study the universe's most powerful explosions, is on its way to the International Space Station.

The spacecraft travels aboard SpaceX's 30th Commercial Resupply Services mission, which lifted off at 4:55 p.m. EDT on Thursday, March 21, from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. After arriving at the station, BurstCube will be unpacked and later released into orbit, where it will detect, locate, and study short gamma-ray bursts—brief flashes of high-energy light.

"BurstCube may be small, but in addition to investigating these extreme events, it's testing new technology and providing important experience for early career astronomers and aerospace engineers," said Jeremy Perkins, BurstCube's principal investigator at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Short gamma-ray bursts usually occur after the collisions of neutron stars, the superdense remnants of massive stars that exploded in supernovae. The neutron stars can also emit gravitational waves, ripples in the fabric of space-time, as they spiral together.

Astronomers are interested in studying gamma-ray bursts using both light and gravitational waves because each can teach them about different aspects of the event. This approach is part of a new way of understanding the cosmos called multimessenger astronomy.

The collisions that create short gamma-ray bursts also produce heavy elements like gold and iodine, an essential ingredient for life as we know it.

Currently, the only joint observation of gravitational waves and light from the same event—called GW170817—was in 2017. It was a watershed moment in multimessenger astronomy, and the scientific community has been hoping and preparing for additional concurrent discoveries since.

"BurstCube's detectors are angled to allow us to detect and localize events over a wide area of the sky," said Israel Martinez, research scientist and BurstCube team member at the University of Maryland, College Park and Goddard.

"Our current gamma-ray missions can only see about 70% of the sky at any moment because Earth blocks their view. Increasing our coverage with satellites like BurstCube improves the odds we'll catch more bursts coincident with gravitational wave detections."

BurstCube's main instrument detects gamma rays with energies ranging from 50,000 to 1 million electron volts. (For comparison, visible light ranges between 2 and 3 electron volts.)

When a gamma ray enters one of BurstCube's four detectors, it encounters a cesium iodide layer called a scintillator, which converts it into visible light. The light then enters another layer, an array of 116 silicon photomultipliers, that converts it into a pulse of electrons, which is what BurstCube measures. For each gamma ray, the team sees one pulse in the instrument readout that provides the precise arrival time and energy. The angled detectors inform the team of the general direction of the event.

BurstCube belongs to a class of spacecraft called CubeSats. These small satellites come in a range of standard sizes based on a cube measuring 10 centimeters (3.9 inches) across. CubeSats provide cost-effective access to space to facilitate groundbreaking science, test new technologies, and help educate the next generation of scientists and engineers in mission development, construction, and testing.

"We were able to order many of BurstCube's parts, like solar panels and other off-the-shelf components, which are becoming standardized for CubeSats," said Julie Cox, a BurstCube mechanical engineer at Goddard. "That allowed us to focus on the mission's novel aspects, like the made-in-house components and the instrument, which will demonstrate how a new generation of miniaturized gamma-ray detectors work in space."

BurstCube is led by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The BurstCube collaboration includes the University of Alabama in Huntsville; the University of Maryland, College Park; the University of the Virgin Islands; the Universities Space Research Association in Washington; the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington; and NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville.

IMAGE....BurstCube, shown in this artist's concept, will orbit Earth as it hunts for short gamma-ray bursts. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab

#science #space #astronomy #physics #news #nasa #astrophysics

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zedecksiew · 1 year

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THE UNIVERSAL COMMUNE

Ylang, a yellow sun on a distant shoal of the immersea. When the Star Imperium collapsed Ylang was spared the worst depredations, due to distance. It did not escape unscathed.

Oort-wards in order, the Ylang system is:

+ Verre, an agni-class world, molten seas. + Tesh, a bhumi-class world, on the warmer end. ++ Belt of Tesh, ice, rock, satellite debris. +++ Tesh Exchange, a moon-sized astropolis. + Ylang's End, a belt of wrecked starships. ++ Ylang's Gate, an immersea teleportal, dead. + Rake, a bhumi-class world, on the colder end. + Irrusine, a vata-class gas giant, blue-faced. ++ Irrusine Siphon, a moon-sized astrofactory. + Pravine, a vata-class gas giant, red-faced. ++ Pravine's Eye, an immersea tearpoint, buoys. + Gak-Gak, an asthi-class world, atmosphere-less.

VERRE an agni-class world, molten seas.

Genemod-adaptation to Verre's fury give its children a silver pallor. They are the a martial people, the Ve; for generations they were gripped by blood-feuds, by warlordism.

Then the god-heroine Ayesha crushed the great houses, crashed their orbiting cruisers. It was Ayesha who forged a new Ve upon the Stone of Ecumen, and raised their choired voice; it was Ayesha who called on Rake and Tesh for union.

Following Ayesha's example, every Ve child puts a hand over their heart and swears to defend universal communism.

The Stones are fortress-cities with walls of mile-high obsidian; these shelter creches and gardens and markets from the planet's heat---most of the planet's heat. Who are the Ve, if not a people born in fire?

TESH a bhumi-class world, on the warmer end.

Wears its overgrown craters like a veteran wears scars. Its air is fresh again, after centuries of care. Its forests green again. Its nightward face darker than you'd expect.

You fly over the gleaming jag of Imperium-era urban centres---now quiet monuments to history's follies. The landing port is a fuel line bordering a dusty field.

You did not expect the Commune's founding world to feel this provincial. The local town is coastal; its ranches fade into foliage.

The Teshi are obliged to spend so much time in cold orbit; when planetside they prefer the company of warm, breathing things. In deep forest glades there are shrines to small deities and animal spirits.

TESH EXCHANGE a moon-sized astropolis.

Rises from the Belt of Tesh like a mountain breaching cloud. The bustle of traffic: exo-system trade flotillas; patrol squadrons; passenger fleets.

The warden assigned to your arrival is on comms. She greets you with the customary Teshi formula: "Be welcome home, returner."

Built pre-collapse, the Exchange serves as Ylang's primary bazaar once more. The outer sections are occupied. The inner sections were seeded with forests, and left to grow wild and weird; now they harbour heterodox sects, contraband caches, ghost AIs.

A glaring security risk. A commissar (usually Rakish) will bring this issue up every cycle. A station warden (usually Teshi) will shrug, and say: "the Green Mothers keep their own."

RAKE a bhumi-class world, on the colder end.

Rakish ingenuity melted its glaciers and formed it into a flowing paradise. All without Imperium techno-sorcery!

They are perhaps too smug about this. It is said of Rakish communards that they see themselves as first among equals---that they have a saviour complex. When the Assembly discusses expansion (spatial or ideological), it is often the voice of Rake that rings loudest.

Farm and factory co-ops the size of cities. Space elevators pulse like metronomes. On the way down you are assigned a drone liaison.

"I am LED," the android intones. "God-AI of planet-wide logistics. Let me know your purpose, and I shall assist."

IRRUSINE SIPHON a moon-sized astrofactory.

Irrusine Antimatter was a minor corpostate of the Star Imperium; its human citizens wiped themselves out in interdepartmental warfare sometime post-collapse.

Its artificial administrators remained.

Free from the logics of profit, Irrusine's AI choir mainly desires continued function. They are gardeners of the gas giant that fuel them. They make staunch but dispassionate communards. Mutual aid just makes mathematical sense? No more, no less.

Immigrants now equal AI drones in number. Friction flares now and again, but never too badly---you need only look at the mummy-pods that girdle the station to remember that flesh is more perishable than AI quantum-circuitry.

PRAVINE'S EYE an immersea tearpoint, buoys.

With Ylang's Gate shut the Eye is the system's main passageway.

Reality is threadbare, here. Beacons broadcast warnings, a strict transit schedule. If you jump queue you risk collision and para-real phenomena.

There are merchant trains bringing ur-mercury and exoplutonics, whales and refugees. There are tankers leaving with antimatter fuel and Verre-milk and revolutionary psi-dramas.

There are mass drivers, watchstations. The polities of the core systems---the Ansible League; Viridia-Twelvecent-Rogex; the Hundred Houses---many of these are predators. The Commune builds more kill-cruisers, these days.

GAK-GAK an asthi-class world, atmosphere-less.

A dead planet, never colonised before the Universal Commune. Its settlement was a test---a way to prove that the ideals of communards will spark life in the most sterile of worlds.

The older habs are matrices of interconnected diamonds, in echo of the UC sigil. Eight-star and open-palm motifs everywhere. Your market guide points this out before you can. He apologises for the gauche fervour of his forbears.

"We are way more chill nowadays," he says.

Now hab-complexes twinkle across Gak-Gak's surface; and Gakki shipwrights launch the sleekest, most luxuriant colony vessels.

++++++

I have been playing Starsector, recently. I am really bad at it? But it has given me a space-opera itch to scratch. So here it is.

Not sure why I went with space communism. Personal inclination, I suppose? And you don't really see it much, in sci-fi fiction or games, relative to all the gear porn and mega-industry and corpo-democracies. (The United Federation of Planets is not communist, folks ...)

The bits about Irrusine Siphon are a tentative prod at an idea I've had for a while: the notion that an artificial intelligence without limits / gone rampant / outgrowing its human makers might go in the opposite direction sci-fi bros fear? What if an AI crunches the numbers, with as complete a dataset as is possible, and concludes that conciliation and cooperation is truly the mathematically best way to function?

What if reality is ultimately and objectively more Kropotkin than bloody social-Darwinist?

Tesh is a discount Valley of the Na, and this whole thing owes all to Le Guin's Ekumen.

Anyway:

I don't write a lot of sci-fi stuff. But it's fun!

( Image sources: https://www.starwars.com/databank/vader-s-castle http://www.simonstalenhag.se/tftl.html https://nerdist.com/article/cowboy-bebop-episode-guide-14-bohemian-rhapsody/ https://www.artstation.com/artwork/kZWa6 https://www.goodfon.com/wallpaper/distant-outpost-kosmos-poyas.html https://www.graphicdesignforum.com/t/how-the-soviet-space-age-was-imagined-by-artists-of-the-era/6803 )

#fantasies #science fiction #space opera #planets #stars #communes #utopias

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