Epoc the Last ticket

Overseer sat in his leather and gold console, the smell of oil and metal heavy in his nostrils. His tall and lanky frame was old now, even for one of the immortal. His gold colored lenses defocused as he gazed inside his own head to read the days correspondence from the all thing.

Worker unit Curmudgeon alpha reported that his last commit was balls and dreamy hopper unit oopsed up the arse with a wandangle do dad. Overseer began the sacred procedure and reassigned the sanctified work log, the venerated documents and the holy source to Gunghoe alpha with the message of please complete this holy ticket by lunch time.

Gunghoe alpha was just rising after a night fighting the data whores below for scraps of source. Looking in his mirror he cleaned his black metal carapace, checked all eight of his legs and four manipulator arms and raised his elongated head to clean under his neck. Gunghoe squirted the holy oils, the cool greasy high quality liquid easing his aching joints. "Arr thats better" he shouted in a cavernous volume he used as a repository. The inner monolog of his conversation with his second and third brain had taken him about five minutes. By the time he finished the floor was awash with sacred oils that trickled down to the depths below. The data whores below would be lapping it up with their long and sinuous tongues. "Bitches, drink up good"

A chime sounded clear and beautiful like the start of a symphony it filled Gunghoe with joy. Gunghoe gazed at the wall, the thousand boxes were marked and each box contained a grid of 365 smaller boxes. Gunghoe hopped on his impossibly massive black legs and scrawled the last box of his wall solid. Speaking to himself "I shall now begin the sacred ritual of the update to sanctified branch source and its an especially a beautiful day because today, I will be transfer the sanctified source from our latest branch back to master thus renewing our master branch and deploying our next version so all may enjoy the fruits of our labours."

Gunghoe flew into a rage at the message he receive he screamed and ranted and raved. Collapsing on the ground like a dying spider softly whispering. "Commit was balls and dreamy hopper unit oopsed up the arse with a wandangle do dad ... dam you dreamy hopper you broke the branch again, now I can't merge!"

After relieving the source of some cruft from the commit, Gunghoe had gotten to the root of the problem. A nasty one indeed as the wandagle do dad was indeed up the arse, causing him to pull the wandagle from master and put it back into the branch. But the problem with that was the do dad would have to be re-writent to fit with the proper wandangle. "Dam you Dreamy hopper why didn't you follow the sacred procedure of the daily ritual." Dreamy hopper could hear the rantings and ravings of Gunghoe, his green eyes and coppery skin reflective in the dark of his source chamber. He croaked his soft voice and shouted up the chamber "If you get the wandagle from my branch you don't have to re-write the do dad"

Curmudgeon alpha was a dusty old plastic model, built before the source was last branched, he had seen the turning of the heavens and the ritual of the merge before but had refused to be recycled instead staying in his ancient dented white and silver chassis. He only had two arms, two eyes and two legs modelled off the mythical makers who strode the earth millennia ago. "All sleeping, all sleeping those masters of old, leaving us behind to make the great machine" Curmudgeon climbed out across the impossible gulf between Dreamy Hopper and himself to converse with the youngest of their kind. His ancient carapace creaked and groaned, sacred oils would do no good to ease the bourdon on his servos. "Arrrrrrrr" said Curmudgeon to Dreamy hopper who looked inquisitively Curmudgeon. "Noooooooo Drrrrreeeemmmy" said Curmudgeon "What" said Dreamy, "Are you trying to tell me not to merge" it seemed to Dreamy that it took an eternity for Curmudgeon to nod his dented plastic head.

Both of them were shocked to hear the loud boisterous bellow from Gunghoe "Hey guys, we have four hours to re-write the do dad so I can do a merge"

"No don't re-write the do dad re-write the wandangle" exclaimed dreamy with a massive waving of many arms and many legs.

"Aaaaaaaaar no fuck it just write an interface layer and sort it out in the next branch" rasped Curmudgeon.

"Oh umm fuck it lets do that it sounds fast then I can get back to my data whores and get oiled up good. Dreamy update the ticket on what we are doing" He does a little fake dance which puts both of them off going anywhere with him later on.

"I don't do tickets, tickets are like totally lame" Dreamy is waving his arms about and starting to hop on his one leg.

"Fuccccck, just update the ticket so overseer sees we are doing something, if you ruin my ritual and I can't get down with those data whores tonight your fucking dead Dreamy ill unplug you myself" The black beetle moves towards the flapping arms, leering with his insect like head.

"Whooo, dude thats harsh, ok ill update the ticket" Dreamy stops hopping and moves to the console.

Back on his leather and gold throne oversea reads the input from the all thing. "Adding some interface shit to fix the do dad wandangle arsed issue"

"We are done!" Dreamy quickly skitters away and begins drinking the sacred oil.

"Immmmm offf" Curmudgeon climbs back to his source hole in the wall and plugs in, reviewing Dreamys latest work.

Gunghoe begins his sacred ritual, and has to restart it three times as various forgotten commits arrive and are arranged. His hands move in an arcane set of ritual stop start motions. Eventually he has merged the master back to the branch, he runs the holy integration tests, the sacred unit tests and skips the user interface tests as was prescribed millennia ago by the makers of old. Gunghoe stages the code, replacing some thousand workers with their new source and instructing them to run all tests. After agonising hours, the data comes back good most of the tests passed across the board and the source is ready for update. The ritual of merge commences, it happens very quickly as many units take themselves offline and reboot for the new version of source. They read the release notes and criticise their lack of documentation and elegance. "Whats this commit message about, I mean you think they could write some documentation for once right" One unit doesn't reboot, he sits alone in the dark his dented plastic casing dull and cold to the touch his crystal eyes go dim.

Overseer reviews the statistics and announces a great celebration, branch one thousand is closed we are now version one thousand of source. Overseer raises his frame from his leather seat and cracks a bottle of sacred oil. His console flashes, he closes the ticket but opens another as it is his sacred duty, he makes a new ticked for a new branch. "Fix arsed code that caused old models to crash" Overseer looks down to the world below him, the thousands of units hard at work with their next project. Its taken a long time to get here he whispers and it will take a long time to finish.

Colonisation

Power is a drug, and like any addict I was jonezin' bad by planet side. The world was pretty enough, but I didn't really care about the magenta sky and pale blue mountains covered with soft grass, edible plants and herbs.

The colonists must have given the natives divs of Samurai movies; like all first colonies past the wall this one had probably failed. The natives some form of Bastazi cat derivative approached me with Katana in their black lacquered scabbards. These ones looked almost human, either we could indeed breed with their species or they had become more human like with the colonists.

File note priority 50: Take one of the Gaisha girls back to Mars.

They spoke perfect Japaneses with a large amount of English words, probably the standard of 2104 or when-ever the place was founded.

I responded, the auto-tran forming the words in my brain. Hearing everything in English but the sounds were in language I was speaking. I explained that I was a merchant from a distant family, and I had things they would need. They were never going to get a better deal than mine.

Surveying the traditionally dress party using my ir-las monocle to measure the standard dimensions of their group. About 172cm in height, small build waist, legs and arms barrel chested, thin neck. Standard template pattern 60 colloquially known as the iron waif (Chinese factory magnates gave things weird names back then).

Note to computer: remove the colloquial anecdotes and facts plug-in from the template manager, takes too long to remember the fact, could be working. Wasted too much time filing this note in the first place.

Job added 8974: owner dislikes cultural reference in factory equipment, scrub and rebuild scheduled for 22:00 removing offensive waste ware.

Message to computer: Shut up! I'm working.

I disconnected from the ship, microwaves must be eating my brain I'm sure but I can't really tell. The constant chatter from the ship seemed like a bus of school girls going to a movie after being let out of school early. I was really pissed at the ship, machines shouldn't make snide remarks in coms with their owners.

Jess my ship started fabricating the Levis pattern of Jap fashion from 2450, one of the most successful revivals of nylon. Kimonos festooned with logos from the companies I represented, arranged in patters subtle and beautiful were presented by the dented white and gold chassis of my Marvin.

File note priority 700: Marvin looks pretty bad, should get a new one.

The fabric was addictive, they loved it; the touch the quality, the subtle way the thread felt against their fingers, the perfect precise micro stitching. The fabricator had done a better job than any human hand. The natives were in total awe at the quality.

My mind was cast back to the time before all my implants, my childhood I remembered my father telling me that all those worlds out there that stopped responding must surly be worth something. I felt small and insignificant, that was the turning point from consumer to explorer. I asked were they human. He said no one knows. I was determined to get out there and find out, to cross the void between stars, to trust in alien technology and human ingenuity.

In the time of colonization, we had cast our ships adrift like chaff to the void. Now, the worlds were very different the United Nations was everywhere, thousands of agents, millions of troops all mobilized to keep humanity in. Stopping humanity from diverging, worried about a second Titan or Callisto uprising. Remember Titan had been the words of rhetoric in the day politicians telling people what to think and what to believe. If I knew then what I knew now, corporations lobbying government to stop rampant colonization so that their consumer based companies could remain relevant. Things never change.

Like branches in a tree we had spread out; the trunk was so far that we had changed radically from what we once were. On Titan they were reluctant to adhere to a capital system which would ultimately fail. They thought they were better, more free and more creative. Remember Titan was what the Anarchists said when they died in the millions as the plagues ravaged the colonies and mines.

Sibel brought me in his lithe form and pinstriped suite made him look like some predatory fish or eel. Glasses because he was myopic even though he could get new eyes. He told me that the only way I would get past the wall or UN interdiction was to join with the corporations. His marketing company Sibel and Dawn had a plan, they had begun lobbing the UN for licenses to travel beyond the wall to the further stars of the galaxy. They would send ships, capable of fabricating goods from their clients, the genius was that they would make the goods in orbit and sell all the old and unfashionable items to the natives of those worlds made from their very own resources. All you have to do is get them to sign this United Nations Sanctioned contract. Your time is your own!

It seemed then like the opportunity of a lifetime. I like many others of my generation was raised to work, to buy and live for the corporations or take them down in my case. The ideals of humanity, liberty and egalitarianism were shammed and rammed into a pseudo rebellious fashion known as Junker. They sold an image, a belief and way of life I like many bought it. Bands, Movies, Books, Games people sold it and added fries on the side. Cyborgs tore up streets only to have some council order a new one a few days later. After some senator was killed Levis changed the label to Peace; they bought it, Bands and Movies followed. This made me sick, I thought I was a Junker! When Sibel showed me the plan, some 20 years in the making I couldn't believe the scale of sham. "We make the rules Dean, join us". And with that I signed on as a partner, got the money off my dad for my license.

My augmentations were standard issue to most corporate sales men. It took me ten years to get my license, five years to get my education, twenty years to get my ship. Everything had been bet on the single roll of the dice, humanity was out there and they were cut off from humanity and humanity would bring them home to buy and prosper.

I would have them signing over their ore by lunch time. This was what I did, the black streaks through my soul would never come clean in 20 years this place would be another client world beholden for hundreds of years to companies on Mars and Earth. Like all good addicts, I knew full well the rewards and described in graphic detail the effect this brand new laser rifle was going to have on the Shogun on the other side of the mountain, his internal organs exploding as flesh turned to charcoal and steam in an instant. I recalled tales of worlds I had saved, from barbarism, from civil war uniting them under their one government. The progress which would make all their lives better, from fast cars to fast food. The Holos of ads showed the true allure of all that was decadent and stale on earth which would be reborn and re-licensed to a new crowd of people who would cherish and love the movies, music and culture of our past.

I basked in the glory of the natives needing to acquire everything from me. In so doing choosing my version of civilization over theirs. All their pseudo Japan culture would be washed away in a sea of skin products, medicines, pop music, pop vids, computer games, fast food and fine dining. All ready to swarm over the world like a plague of locus fabricated in the ship in high orbit.

It was a good day.

House of Cards

This story is inspired from a dream I had. Please feel free comment in the comments section. I intend to write some more chapters for this story and get it to about 5000 words.

House of Cards
By Morgan Lean

Admiral Dirk Grombru gazed out on the lilac ocean, his mind in turmoil as he watched the mirror-calm waters on the southern side of his castle. Thoughts of his ancient lineage bore ponderously on his mind, and its coming collapse left a bitter taste of loss in his mouth. He felt elated at the idea of freedom from rules of court and kind, yet terrified at the prospect of becoming an un-augmented species. After two centuries of life and service to the anachronistic rules and regimes, his line would end where it had began, merely human.

A short walk along the gantry between the shore and the island which was the ancient spire of the pre-flood castle would take him to the chamber of voices, he knew he would commune with the great and noble line of his family for the last time before he sent his poor and wretched, though antique and proper gift to the new patron of house Grey-Star, who resided orbiting distant start Tau Ceti. His vision took hold of what must be a small holographic recorder, placed at an odd angle by its owners agents. Grombru pondered his fate and let the words form in his head for his formal greeting.

Chimes in castle Grey-Star rang out as servant and master bustled along the metal and glass corridors, which appeared to be strung along the sea bed like abandoned jewels on a chain. Outside, great luminescent fish swam in the warm equatorial waters of the surelian ocean. The castle was once an old colony, founded millennia ago by the ancestral people of terra. They had been a mixed colony of all the genotypes of Terra and give rise to a people who spread out among the stars in ships that broke a hole through space and time and appeared orbiting distant gravity wells. That time was long passed mused the young lord Grey-Star. I have trained all my life for this day; my first meeting with a founding house, he thought as his servant busily pinned roses to his tunic. Today I meet The Admiral Grombru of the house S-kali, today will be a great day in the long history of our house.

Grombru stood statue like, his fine cloth waving in the wind ever so slightly the replication from the holographic projector was superb they don’t make them like they used to he snorted, not since the nano wars. Grombru looked up as the young lord of house Grey-Star entered, he was wearing the traditional garb of his house a tunic with trousers and a rose pinned in the tunic. The boy looked no older than fourteen his facial hair had been trimmed recently and his checks looked flush from probably his first shave.

“My lord Grey-Star”, the speaker boomed in ancient commanding voice that smacked of all the authority of a commander ships and armies. The boy, was startled perhaps not expecting such volume and force from the walls of the chamber. “My name is Lord Admiral Grombru Harker S-kali, patriarch of house S-kali and ruler of the cloud of Magellan. I humbly must decline the invitation to the funeral of my great friend your father, and so must send a gift in my absence”. Grombru held up two simple rings of gold, and placed them in a box of ebony. "Antique rings from distant Terra, hopefully they may bring you some comfort in the long years of your reign as they did myself in mine."

“I accept this most excellent gift, Lord Grombru, I’m sure in the long years ahead I will call on you for your wise council as my father did” The boy spoke softly, jarred into saying something of the proper etiquette his lips and mind moved and said the words as a gracious host should.

“Thank you my Lord, I bid you farewell”. Grumbore spoke into the microphone and removed the deck of cards from the console. In castle Grey-Star the boy saw the splendid holographic projection of Lord Admiral Grumbore, wearing the military uniform of his houses Navy shimmer and flicker as the Admiral moved out of view.

Richard Harkrek Vompire stood in his viewing chamber, and addressed the ancient cameras and microphones. They looked like a spiders web with droplets of crystal spun in odd places. The red and green and blue dots from the crystals scanned his form before the transmissions. Buffering the tri video image and sending it in advance, so only a 32 bit audio transmission and the negligible vector transformation information was sent real-time.

Richard has chosen to appear in a diaphanous gown with many tiny lights and micro crystal reflectors. He was the consummate showman, always trying to display his wealth on his person regardless of who he was speaking too.

Today, he was to address the newly appointed Baron of Tau Ceti, an ancient family of a superb bloodline. He was so excited that his aids were having a difficult time adjusting the equipment of the tri recorder, as he jittered and flashed the loud “Ding” of the machine started to get on his nerves. “What’s the meaning of that infernal machine!” he shouted in a raucous voice like waves smashing into a rocky headland. “Please sire, stop moving the machine is having difficulty acquiring your image” sniveled the assistant. “Well of course it does, it can’t possibly capture the spender of the Duke of the Crab nebular! Make it work! Do it now I don’t have time to do this, I must transfer my credits and pack my gifts for the Baron just past.” The Duke continued to jigger and vibrated as if he was shivering in a cold wind or trying to keep his balance on a tight rope.

Sir please sit still the image is recording now. “Oh it will be fine, I will be captured for all to see in my sledded robes of gold and white."

At the other end, the tri video projector fired into life and image was downloaded, to castle Grey-Star of Lord Richard, Duke of the crab nebular.

Young Jasper Grey-Star waited as the image arrived, this took a lot longer than Grumbore he thought.

Raucous laughter and shouts cracked out of the speakers and a strange polygonal star emerged in the projector with sections of clothing, coloured lights and pale almost luminous skin coming into view. The image was garbled, strange textured triangles jutted out showing black or grey spaces in-between as the three dimensional shape of Duke came into view.

Jasper stood perfectly still knowing that on the far side his image would appear in front of the Duke.

“Nice flower my boy,” yelled the red and green triangle in front of Jasper. “Sad about the old man" shifting two dimensional three eye head roared.

“Welcome to house Grey-Star, my Duke I hope to see you soon at my fathers funeral."

“Yes, about that! I decided that as the old man was a dear friend of mine, that I will pay for the funeral and the broadcast across the network a paltry sum of 4 trillion credits.”

“Your highness is too kind indeed.”
“Not at all, I have these gifts for you too.”
Still pictures appeared as if frantically spliced in by the technicians on the other side, two dimensional pictures of a book bound in leather bearing the words Applied Politics 2031. A small case with two silver rings, and two full decks of transactor cards.

“Thank you sir, these are indeed fine gifts, and thank you for the gift of money.”
“No problem my boy” Said the 3 dimensional star with shooting jagged lightning flashes across its stretched and distorted face. “Welcome to the Nova Court, call me Dicky and call any time I’m always here.”

The room went quite as the technical difficulties on the other end must have finally caused the recorder to crash.

Jasper day dreamed about the great man on the other side shouting at his subordinates. To be a noble meant you must communicate, and make strategic decisions concerning whole worlds.

Since the collapse of the wormhole technology which allowed man kind to travel to a myriad of distant stars nobles had held the empires of Terra together in peace through a system of etiquette, communication and the network.

The warp ships that remained in service were so slow that to contact all aspects of the empire was so expensive and daunting that most elected to simply stay home and send gifts on the fast postal ships rather than travel. Of these gifts chief among them were the Decks, cards that recorded thoughts and feelings from their owners’ weather they handled them or not. Nobles initially could purchase many hundreds of decks at a time, however now the cards had become scarce, as their method of manufacture was lost in antiquity.

A system of etiquette had formed around the Nova court, just after the destruction of Terra. They would send the cards as gifts to truly convey their feelings and emotions to distant nobles orbiting distant stars. A gift of money, was considered crass as anyone can send goods of value or money but only the nobles of the Nova court had the cards, sending a gift of cards meant that you were sending yourself your inner most thoughts and desires and this had brought ever lasting peace for no one would dare send a gift to an enemy and everyone would quickly find out about such strife and put a quick stop to it.

This made the nobles supreme rulers of the stars, no one could challenge their power and many tried over the thousands of years they had held the empire together. If a noble had no more cards, he had no purpose within the court, as sometimes cards were lost the court shrank ever so slightly over time.

Jasper was started by the arrival of his first gift, two simple gold rings, and a simple deck of cards. He saw the distant lilac oceans and the pelicans of blue and gold and the warm and determined feeling of a man who would no longer hold the responsibility of court and the fate of worlds. Jaspers' own feelings flooded in, the sorrow and loneliness of long century or two of service without the truly great man, the Admiral of the Imperial Navy Grombru. How he wished, the Admiral would remain at court, and so his first gift meant more to him that the bawdy and brash state funeral supplied by the Duke of Crab nebular. His first gift was the last the Admiral had to give. He knew why his father had lived for so long and respected the man from the distant star.

Visualise your way out of global warming fuckers or how to bullshit yourself up your own arse

Last one I promise next post will be happy!

Relevance to space game, I got a comment from my flatmate that the previous post didn’t link too well to space game. That may be true but he still didn’t use the comment thingy which infuriates me more than the lack of salt and vinegar chips in America. Space game has two powers, which are important, the collective represent a command economy free market (which can turn to a non free market in the blink of an eye) the UN represent a company driven free market.

Both options sort of work, however I did get side tracked on the boomers selling me down the river for some lattes and supposed rising temperatures so they can get me to buy their totally shit solar panels, yogurt, free trade coffee and some shit house free trade itchy clothing. Hmm free market to rip me off you 60 something bitches. Give me my friggen space age pants that curse the environment never break down and will last longer than David Letterman (I hate that guy). This same group of people are telling us to imagine, that we can be successful, imagine this rip off your kids and you too can be successful! I got emailed this blog about the problem with positive thinking, and I thought there may be some more juice in my spleen to vent.

The chaser did a great “The Secret” segment, really funny. Maybe they can imagine that the global warming will provide them with a magical land of mangoes honey, bananas and lattes.

Now imagine your head going up your own arse so far that you think that buying someones free trade coffee is good and that you have truly made a difference.

Humans screw people over all the time, if the Boomers can screw their kids, then they have no problem about screwing the third world. Now imagine that the power of positive thinking can make it all go away. That’s how I see the UN they have edicts rules, laws, proposals, sanctions etc but what they should really do, is do what I would do fuck all those guys and buy a coffee because it’s not my fault it’s my parents who changed the world and gave me a steamer.

They knew in the 50’s about global warming, the same people are now calling it climate change. Just because they can’t get the math right doesn’t mean it won’t happen does it? Think positively global warming will make our kids scared and buy our shitty itchy shirts and shithouse coffee. Global temperatures have been falling since 1998; sun spot activity is at its lowest in recorded history. Sun spots matter more than carbon dioxide suspected of causing the medieval warm period where green land was colonized; so what’s the truth? the model, the science, certainly not, we haven't moved to a law from a theroy yet, all the expirments are not done so why impose a new market? Truth is irrelevant, it’s all about selling. If there’s a problem then we will solve it with technology, in the immortal words of Dave Chappelle "Mars Bitches, the united states of Space" lets just build a friggen colony there or some super sun blocker technology or fusion.

In the sci-fi setting, its important to know why things work even if all the players don't it adds the realism.

In my sci-fi settings, selling is just as important as it is now, unless you are going to have a Utopian society which has surpassed the need for individual wealth;

I see that oneday humans work together for the good of all, these are lofty ideals and good goals but in the short term unachievable. This however is the dream of the Tau Ceti Collective; at the moment in the setting they are in their honeymoon period, they have created their world, their cities and their economy is booming primarily because they are selling to the less fortunate Earth economies.

They can out-compete them because resources are cheap, labor is cheap, and who are they ripping off? They create robots, infants that reach sentience after 5 years. During this 5 year period the robot is property; sold for a low cost to people who want to use it. So the collective the beacon of hope and light for mankind, is really the master of slaves what game masters and designers do with this is up to them but it provides a huge number of story hooks. Robots that start waking up earlier what to do, what are the legal ramifications, illegally keeping the robots indentured by wiping their minds, robots burn their programs (like the burning bras) and decide to strike out on their own and discover that it’s an unforgiving unfriendly world, come up against glass ceilings etc. Its nice to have everything balance up and everything has a cost, their prosperity is at the expense of their children the robot brains that they create.

Darken World, abound the storm

His long, dog like alien jaws opened, and he began to address the assembled members of the united nations, and the members of the committee, his body was a shiny obsidian and his eyes sparkled like gems. His long white and yellow robes seemed to be made from some cotton like substance. He wore simple jewelery which we had been informed earlier by MI5 was in-fact a graviton field generator capable of either projecting or deflecting forces, including bending light. He was for all intents and purpose invulnerable to us, and due to recent events where one of his species was tortured to death for information. I could understand his concern. Never the less the ambassador to Sirius had alerted the UN that their ambassador would be attending the conference and presenting information regarding a threat to all human kind.

The alien then spoke softly into the microphone, in English his presentation, began accompanied by very simple graphics as if he expected us to unintelligent thugs.

My name is Raheil, but that is unimportant to your species and your survival. Even though you have attacked us, and been soundly defeated my leader has decided that I should inform you of dangers close to your systems.

In ancient times, during the second war we discovered something new in the galaxy, a rare thing indeed for our knowledgeable and traveled race. I was a young warrior at time piloting a scouting ship looking for the light bringers near the arm of Sagittarius. Our leader, Osiris had given us strict instruction to find the colony world, confine the wormhole and slay all inhabitants of the breeding world, a simple task for warriors such as ourselves.

We found them there, already among the dark matter world a place where we could only detect their presence for at the time we had not learned how to transcend this universe of light matter to the universe of dark matter which exists in this same space and time. Somewhere within the cluster the world existed bending light from a nova behind them making their presence know.

The captain commanded us to investigate the presence of strange radiation, emanating from the worlds, he was detecting your species know this radiation as Bekenstein-Hawking radiation, the evaporation radiation from a black hole. Impossible we thought, why would this be emanating from the area?

Our navigator observed that there were three gravity signatures equality distant masking the source of the radiation, curiously they were orbiting quite quickly around the black hole. However, the worlds weren’t feeding the hole merely orbiting it.

The ship sailed into the subspace in the general region of the cluster to try to see if we could detect anything there. Our computers registered the presence of a great mass below our ship, about the equivalent of one of your suns. We observed nothing however other than a gravity signature. We then detected fluctuations in space time, in pockets in subspace and in our slip engines.

It was conceivable that there were dark matter ships nearby investigating our signature unable to interact but able to detect the graviton disturbance of our engines.

We recorded data for a few minutes, then re-entered real space and proceeded with our mission.

The breeders were primitive the way the watches liked it superstitious, terrified and wholly dominated by their priests, they had only a few watchers who posed a minor threat to our five warriors. We dispatched the watchers and the moved onto the breeders, none of them had developed any ability however we did discover some strange mutations, and they presented information, which had never before been seen in the genome. We deduced that, the mutations may indeed alter their species away from their original form and on the world we found the same mutations in all the plants and animals. Deep in the oceans, we found semi sentient colony creatures, which seemed to storing the Bekenstein-Hawking radiation within crystals that they grew in their cells. We had no theories at the time, so we proceeded with the cleansing slaying all the breeders quickly first using our neural stunners then severing the spinal chord, in the article prescribed manner.

We returned to our world, and handed the data to our scientists, who came after a few short months to an interesting hypothesis. This world, was indeed intended to be a breeder world, however the mutations had forced the watchers to abandon this world because the genetic differences interfered with the retro virus used to change the breeders into warriors. The light bringers had abandoned the world, because of this problem, but they had remained to study it. Had they been more through in their investigations, they may have studied the native life and seen the pattern repeated in every species on the world. The simple plants and animals that had evolved there had changed, some growing crystals to collect Hawking radiation, why? What purpose did this radiation serve? Our scientists deduced then from our subspace recordings that the radiation emanating from the black hole, pulsed and formed a wave a constant stream of information slowly and methodically adjusting the genetic sequence over centuries of live, slowly adjusting every living thing on the cluster light worlds to a new form, a new life.

This proved that there was a highly likely hood that the black hole and its three dark matter worlds orbiting were placed with deliberate intent. The inhabitants could not travel to our universe the universe of light matter but could arrive by slowly adjusting the DNA of creatures living in the light universe. The invasion had begun millennia ago this represented a potential threat, which we had not foreseen, nor had our allies.

I have told you this information human, because my time has come and the time of my people. We must go, to continue our fight against the light bringers, and follow those who have gone before to ensure a future for this all. All I can offer is my advice and this information formatted to your primitive computer systems so you may be vigilant and watch the clusters, we have marked all the dark matter clusters and you should have enough resources to deal with only a few hundred worlds.

And now, onto your very foolish invasion of Sirius two you attacked us and we have defeated you, in compensation I ask that you arm yourselves. We will make our caterpillar engine technology available to you, but in return you must create several dreadnought class ships and attack this world you can call it Ishtar, and you will find it on the other side of the galaxy…

Martian Sunrise

This is a section of text which I'm writing as background for Space Game. If you have suggestions or comments please leave them. I want to improve my writing skills.

Sunlight shone on the steel platform. Henry made his move. In a cascade of crimson dust he leaped to the impact zone. This time the experiment would be a success, the doors would open, and knowledge of untold histories and times would be unleashed into his mind.

Henry had prepared for this day; he had feed and purified his body and mind.
I wonder how different I will be? Will anyone recognize me after I return?

The virus was in him, nourishing his DNA with new information, rearranging his cellular structure and calling forth programming from long ago. Henry thought back to the time spent in the laboratory, the endless tests the endless injections taken from just one pure sample of the virus found in a speck of ice 400 million years old. How could human DNA have existed, back in the forgotten times? Was this the memories of a once proud and great race cast down by their oppressive enemies?

It took time for the virus to take hold; its work was much slower than standard RNA recombination and vectored based assertion. It worked more slowly deliberately every cell had to be perfect, prepared and ready to accept new instructions in the form of forgotten proteins and amino acids.

The Barkley scientists had assured Henry that he would retain himself he would remain in control during the experiment. He would become so much more than he is. No human hands had ever undone the knot of human DNA, stored and forgotten, labelled as junk in the early days of genetic research those memories now began to flood back into his mind.

A forlorn swampy land, foxfire in the sky, a lunar eclipse and a sunrise on a green and pleasant land. Yes long ago, we did indeed tread these ancient shores and built spires of glass to the heavens.

We found our new home in this moist and pleasant country. The stark beauty of the red sand, reminded us of our communion. We brought our slaves here, and we lay them to rest in stone beneath the earth.

What had happened, if only Henry could remember more about the past? His mind searched for reasons. Why did this place mean so much?

Falling, into darkness his mind swam with equations and formula he accessed places of the past, a swamp, a black wolf that padded through the turpentine. It howled at the moons and ate the crass and disgusting creatures of the swamp. The acrid stench and the stifling heat disturbed the beast not as it stalked its prey.

He saw the spires again, glass and shining in the sunlight, the faces pallid their lips damp with the feast they had had a day of celebration a victory against mighty Osiris. They would rule the universe; their light would be the light to behold. As the sunlight broke over Lucifer, a chill wind began to blow and a raw and bitter taste was there for all to behold. Others had come, unknown to them, immune to the powers of persuasion and trickery of space-time. They rearranged the universe around them, bringing an order locking of the doors and gates and keeping keys secret. Made of metal, they appeared striking first at the slaves with the one weapon that would hurt the masters the most, change.

The end came in a feeding frenzy, brother devoured brother, and father devoured son only the strongest would remain, and then they all were gone. The ancient empire of glass and light, had fallen to darkness and their god Lucifer had proved imperfect after all. They all became dust, and now they travel, in storms across a dry and desolate landscape.

The Quantum Surgen

I have decided that I have to create some more fiction, not just for my games but to get better at writing in general. Sam Jensen is one of my friends and he has helped inspire me, he is a fifteen billion times better writer than I but I still want to give it a go.

This is an idea I have for a Sci-fi story, I'm not really sure what form it will take but the basic premise is that if we followed quantum theory or string theory or any of the modern unification theory we would get to a point of engineering, we could then alter lives, ignore space time, and completely shape reality.

This story is set at the cusp of the technology, a old professor has just perfected a technique of enhancing peoples lives by quantum manipulation and he is out seeking funding from a venture capitalist. The story is probably not hard Sci-fi but more comedic as this doctor gets involved the capitalist try's the machines out and gets richer and richer to the point that he is a dominating power in the world. He owes it all to the Quantum Surgeon but rather than reward the doctor he takes the machine and enhances his life and removes the Surgeon from reality, and the resulting paradox is is interesting to say the least.

Space Game edits and potential concept art

Space Game is getting an edit I have been working on the book in my spare time. I first edited the front pages that describe the universe that the game takes place in. Then I was thinking about balance, currently the humans are behind the eight ball along with the Brack, Drooge and Bastazi (Alien species in the setting).

I was even thinking of adding a 3rd powerful potential ally and enemy to the human race. Creatures who were born with beginning of the universe their, genetic material carried on the shock wave of the big bang. The radiation mutates certain creatures that live on dark matter worlds. These creatures are for all intents and purpose un-intractable with the light matter creatures of the Blood of Sol setting, however they can travel to this universe by transferring their information to other things. Its all a little vague at the moment but a third ancient power means that rather than two sides in the conflict we have three.

I want to start getting some other gamers into the game, and especially someone else to run it besides me.

I also spoke to a concept artist about creating all the races for the book, collecting all the existing concept art and getting it paid for. I don't know how much cash I am willing to throw into the project but I think that making the book look slick will be important for its success.

After seeing the D & D insider service, I see how awesome CharacterSheet online could be and I'm re-enthused to start work on it.

Some Flavr

Ok,

This is a really short post, mostly because I'm extremely busy right now. So I have some flavour links to some pod casts I thought were pretty nice. I especially like Chrysalis and how lonesome a life without nerve gas.

http://escapepod.org/2007/01/16/ep-flash-nightshift-in-the-automart/
http://escapepod.org/2009/01/09/ep186-chrysalis/
http://escapepod.org/2007/01/25/ep090-how-lonesome-a-life/