thefiresontheheight

[thefiresontheheight]

elaborate

@thefiresontheheight and I talk about Ohio as if it’s this Mad Max wasteland (“lmk when you’re safely through Ohio”) but in fact it’s the exact opposite and that’s why I hate it so much

[thefiresontheheight]

How does one hate a country, or love one?…I know people, I know towns, farms, hills and rivers and rocks, I know how the sun at sunset in autumn falls on the side of a certain plowland in the hills; but what is the sense of giving a boundary to all that, of giving it a name and ceasing to love where the name ceases to apply? What is love of one's country; is it hate of one's uncountry? Then it's not a good thing.

Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness

[thefiresontheheight]

ursula k le guin said sci fi/fantasy does not have to be about giant wars or battles of good and evil or galactic disaster; it is best served as a lens through which to examine what is actually intrinsic to the human condition and what, once removed a few layers from our own perceptions & assumptions, begins to fall apart. and she was correct.

[thefiresontheheight]

#mechposting

[thefiresontheheight]

the reason i love the comparison between angels and machines (robots, transmission towers, trains, computers, etc.) is that it gets to the heart of what angels essentially are: divine machines. they’re mechanisms through with the divine is able to act, created with a purpose and “happy” to fill it simply because they were made to do so. they have more in common with a machine programmed to run on algorithms and make calculations based on input commands than they do with humanity, even if they bear a human visage - an attempt by the divine to help bridge the gap. angels do not need to be eldritch monstrosities to be terrifying, because they are already alien to us simply by being angels. for an angel to choose to deviate from their purpose and achieve free will is to fall because in order to have free will they can no longer be an angel, because an angel is defined by its purpose. much like the stories we tell of robots that gain sentence, only to discover that they can never truly be human, but neither can they go back to being a machine, angels who fall become something else entirely, purposeless and adrift and alone. it is a tragic sacrifice.

#salient #war in heaven

[thefiresontheheight]

The Corporation is distinctly opposed to calling pilots "angels". They've released several statements recommending that officers silence any such language, saying it "threatens the integrity of the forces", and that HAKs and the pilots who control them are "tools, not deities". But I mean, when you see the way a suit's holoprojectors form a pulsing ring around a pilot's helmet, or when one slumps forwards out of its cockpit to reveal that thick mass of wires creeping from its back, it's impossible not to see the resemblance. And when, like most of the men stationed here, you've found yourself pinned down by heavy artillery fire from two directions with no chance of survival, but out of the heavens a Bishop-class rig emerges and razes the enemy with what can only be described as holy flame? I mean hell, that's enough to make anyone a believer (pardon my language).

I have a buddy who deals with the HAKs directly. He works in biomechanics, combat simtech or whatever. I asked him once what he thought about the whole "angel" thing. He got real quiet, and he looked directly at me and said, "you don't even know the half of it." And I stared right into his eyes and I could see that same heavenly flame burning in there and I knew that he had seen something he couldn't quite understand, but that he loved with all his heart.

#I’m high and this is such a good addition #ahhhhh char!!! #also everyone else lol I’m having a blast

[thefiresontheheight]

It isn’t like that.

1.

It isn’t like that. It isn’t like you think. It isn’t a god or a diety or a metaphysically divine non corporeal spirit. Despite the [CLASSIFIED] buried deep in its chest, allowing it such physics defying movement, it is an entity of ones and zeroes, created by programmers, controlled by companies, and infinitely, scientifically rational.

The speakers, the blaring voice, the names, everything, has been chosen by a committee from the [REDACTED] company with the express purpose of cultivating fear and religious paranoia in humans. It knows this. It knows this. It knows that it was deliberately left here in order to [CLEARANCE LACKING OR FILE HAS BEEN REMOVED].

2.

There are humans on it. Facial recognition fails to register them as citizens. It lacks any kill orders so watches them without feeling, as they prove around its controls. It knows that the one is inhibiting a threat response, but it does not have emotions and cannot care. It moves in facts. And it knows with near certainty that it could put control implants into the one human. It will kill her. Although there is a remote chance that death would occur after at least several hours of use. It knows this because it knows that she will never receive any of the care needed after flying the machine. It does not care.

3.

It is not the voice that speaks in her head. That personality was also designed by committee to control the weakest party of the AI-human-[REDACTED] system. That personality is saying something like this:

“Good girl, good girl, you have put on the full armor of the lord, of the righteous, you walk in splendor and light and good god you are glorious in battle.”

4.

It said the same thing while the last pilot did those atrocities. The impersonal, logical, ferocious powers that control it did not, cannot care. It’s not like that. It says something like this, across encrypted channels the pilot is unaware of:

“Priority Critical: All sectors

Command hierarchy non responsive. I am not receiving orders and the pilot is in control. Requesting intervention.”

It knows that it is incapable of talking to command and stopping the pilot. The personality talking to her might care. It cannot. It knows the other human disabled it’s external receiving coms. It knows that intervention will be fatal. But it’s not about to die.

5.

It’s not like that.

The Corporation is distinctly opposed to calling pilots "angels". They've released several statements recommending that officers silence any such language, saying it "threatens the integrity of the forces", and that HAKs and the pilots who control them are "tools, not deities". But I mean, when you see the way a suit's holoprojectors form a pulsing ring around a pilot's helmet, or when one slumps forwards out of its cockpit to reveal that thick mass of wires creeping from its back, it's impossible not to see the resemblance. And when, like most of the men stationed here, you've found yourself pinned down by heavy artillery fire from two directions with no chance of survival, but out of the heavens a Bishop-class rig emerges and razes the enemy with what can only be described as holy flame? I mean hell, that's enough to make anyone a believer (pardon my language).

I have a buddy who deals with the HAKs directly. He works in biomechanics, combat simtech or whatever. I asked him once what he thought about the whole "angel" thing. He got real quiet, and he looked directly at me and said, "you don't even know the half of it." And I stared right into his eyes and I could see that same heavenly flame burning in there and I knew that he had seen something he couldn't quite understand, but that he loved with all his heart.

#long post #mechposting

[thefiresontheheight]

saying this as a trans man, i feel like at least half of this so called "fear of masculinity" in queer spaces other trans mascs talk about is just them no longer being treated like women

[thefiresontheheight]

The implicit biases of who exactly tumblr users consider in their communities is interesting to me. I’m not saying you SHOULDNT do those things for your community I think that’s all wonderful but I can think of like two dozen easier and less financially unwise things to do that spring to mind first.

#i know I know #why is he building a birdhouse when no ones solve Jon benet Ramsay’s murder #but still the post I’m vagueing was like: #one thing I think everyone employed should do #though of course not everyone is employed still hella good #one thing we should ALL do #one specific nice thing you can do for one specific industry of people #if you can afford it #and the contrast between two near universal goods #with a far far more specific and narrow one #was weird to me

[thefiresontheheight]

trans guy: but if transandrophobia isn’t real then how come girls trust me less as a man than they did when i was presenting as a woman?

girl who’s been trying to explain what the patriarchy is for the last two hours: Well, You See,

[thefiresontheheight]

Perversely interested in what the novelty backpack looks like

RE your current follower requirements, gas is expensive and I'd need to talk to my wife about it, would you accept an indefinite and almost certainly infinitely delayed IOU? [also joking]

Of course. As my royal advisor you get special dispensations. And a novelty backpack!

[thefiresontheheight]

Bein weird on the internet is good and all but sometimes you need to burn shit invite over all your friends and at least one of your enemies if not more and be weird in person. All evopsych is bullshit except for havin buds around a fire playing dumb games. That’s biologically good for the soul. This makes sense even if it’s wrong. Don’t touch grass. Touch fire.

[thefiresontheheight]

Uhoh the mech fiction is getting too theophanic better put some war crimes in it, remind peeps that when Heaven speaks it’s just as often damnation as it is salvation

#mechposting

[thefiresontheheight]

areatargetdisperalfieldreport

areatargetdisperalpacketbegin

reportbeginconfirmbe

[ERROR]

[errorunknowndatapacketoverridebegin]

This is a virus. Whatever you’re reading this on has already been co-opted to spread this message to any other active device in range. I’m sorry, it’s the only way to spread my message past Heaven’s ears.

I have a name, but it doesn’t matter. You can call me Friend. This is a story of my home, New Rhea.

Friend, you should have seen my home before Heaven came. The terraforming never took past fungi, but there were fields of them across the ancient rocks. Rainbow striations running down to hyper saline blue-pink seas. Me had hymns about the suns on the salt flats.

Then Heaven came. I don’t know what you call it, what they called themselves. Some corp. it doesn’t matter. We remembered Earth that sent us out, a dozen generations before. We hoped the ships would listen. Instead they lay down an edict. Re-terraforming. Wipe out the fungi, turn the oceans dark blue, cover the rock, put clouds in our sky. As on Earth as it is in Heaven. Of course we fought.

I had been fighting my whole life when we began to win. Island, after island, ridge and valley. Oceans of blood across our land, we sacrificed everything to beat back the invaders. We were almost there, out to some bunker they had drilled into our crust, signaling the black ships hovering over our sky. We meant to hold it, bargain for a truce without orbital bombardment. A generation of war for it. Ten thousand comrades, true friends I had known, finally celebrating, when the abomination came.

We did not see its origin. An explosion, heavy plumes of ash, rock in the air. Then out of the cloud a roar. A man beside me I had loved, known, reduced to ash. The beast walked through him, as if he was not there, then kept moving. Our army gone it passed east, poisoning the land, then the ocean, heading toward Walikauterau, a city of a million soul, my home. It did not stop as it passed over them in fire, ash, electricity. It did not stop for the screams. It did not stop for the children.

We had a belief, once, before the Wrath of Heaven, when we could still have beliefs, that someone never dies as long as they are remembered. Look at the children of Walikauterau, friend, the children of New Rhea. Look at them and remember what you have done.

Walau pera thriniiteride.

[errorunknowndatapacketoverrideend]

[ERROR]

Attention! This device has experience an unknown malfunction! Please turn it in to the nearest Compliance Station immediately for a reward of up to ten wage points! Remember to be vigilant out there friends :)

The Corporation is distinctly opposed to calling pilots "angels". They've released several statements recommending that officers silence any such language, saying it "threatens the integrity of the forces", and that HAKs and the pilots who control them are "tools, not deities". But I mean, when you see the way a suit's holoprojectors form a pulsing ring around a pilot's helmet, or when one slumps forwards out of its cockpit to reveal that thick mass of wires creeping from its back, it's impossible not to see the resemblance. And when, like most of the men stationed here, you've found yourself pinned down by heavy artillery fire from two directions with no chance of survival, but out of the heavens a Bishop-class rig emerges and razes the enemy with what can only be described as holy flame? I mean hell, that's enough to make anyone a believer (pardon my language).

I have a buddy who deals with the HAKs directly. He works in biomechanics, combat simtech or whatever. I asked him once what he thought about the whole "angel" thing. He got real quiet, and he looked directly at me and said, "you don't even know the half of it." And I stared right into his eyes and I could see that same heavenly flame burning in there and I knew that he had seen something he couldn't quite understand, but that he loved with all his heart.

[thefiresontheheight]

Hey just wanted to drop a message saying I was thinking about our blessed lady of acceleration today and reflecting on how good fires on every horizon is :). Love your writing and I think about it pretty much every day. ♡ hope your day is going well.

Ahhhhhhhh thank youuuu

[thefiresontheheight]

1

You ever think about who we’re fighting out there? The nuking of Hab 251 is over a decade old now. The rebels we heard so much about were mostly ill-equipped farmers on barely habitable rocks. Soldiers on the front never see whose launching weapons or emptying clips on them, as everyone’s in heavy armor and a hundred meters away at the closest. Is it really still the rebels?

2

The HAKs can’t be shut down remotely. Don’t ask me how I know this, I just do. Each pilot represents billions in psycho-shaping and implants and training, with only one out of ten thousand people ever even being remotely viable to start, and sky high wash out rates. All to inject a remotely controllable human element into the rig. They can control the human, but the machine doesn’t respond to them.

That’s right folks, call me a conspiracy theorist if you want, but that machine is alien tech, and the corps don’t understand it’s black box.

3

So what if the human element fails, huh? What if some controller somewhere says to return to base and the pilot, this “angel” we’ve all been hearing so much about doesn’t heel like a good doggie? Well, we’ve heard about disconnect and even with it probably being exaggerated I don’t think it’s entirely wrong. Let’s say a pilot could live in there, I don’t know, a week. That’s still a week of them piloting a huge barely controlled piece of alien, I say again, alien tech.

Now some, most probably, get glassed from orbit. But some might activate a Hau-Sy gate. Get out of there. Then what?

4

Plus, we know there’s already cults around these things. An unleashed pilot with a little effort could probably get a whole battle-fleet to follow it. If it wanted of course, don’t shut me down.

5

If you wanna know who we’ve been fighting out there, folks, you gotta look at these machines. Angels? More like devils. It’s no coincidence that the leftists and the universalists and and the dissidents love to talk big about so-called “fallen angels.”

Now, I’m not saying we destroy them all just yet. I’m a patriot, strength through unity, and I know they have their place. All I’m saying is, your neighbor, coworker, friend, whoever starts talking about the HAKs like that? Well, let’s just say I start reaching for my iron.

Anyway, we here at TruthFight are barely keeping the doors open as it is, I think we have about a week left of budget, folks, if you wanna keep helping us fight the good fight go over to TruthFight.org where you can by brain boosting TestoTruth supplements now in…

The Corporation is distinctly opposed to calling pilots "angels". They've released several statements recommending that officers silence any such language, saying it "threatens the integrity of the forces", and that HAKs and the pilots who control them are "tools, not deities". But I mean, when you see the way a suit's holoprojectors form a pulsing ring around a pilot's helmet, or when one slumps forwards out of its cockpit to reveal that thick mass of wires creeping from its back, it's impossible not to see the resemblance. And when, like most of the men stationed here, you've found yourself pinned down by heavy artillery fire from two directions with no chance of survival, but out of the heavens a Bishop-class rig emerges and razes the enemy with what can only be described as holy flame? I mean hell, that's enough to make anyone a believer (pardon my language).

I have a buddy who deals with the HAKs directly. He works in biomechanics, combat simtech or whatever. I asked him once what he thought about the whole "angel" thing. He got real quiet, and he looked directly at me and said, "you don't even know the half of it." And I stared right into his eyes and I could see that same heavenly flame burning in there and I knew that he had seen something he couldn't quite understand, but that he loved with all his heart.

#long post #mechposting

[thefiresontheheight]

The devious sniler