31795 ADT (Approx 57,000 BCE)
Planet Belsequs, Outside the Hall of Wisdom.
Rhea Hasthen sat seething in the main corridor outside of the Hall of Wisdom while the Wise Ones decided the fate of the universe. "The matters at hand are too important for the extended deliberations inherent with involving the young ones", their catch all term for every being who wasn't one of them. As a Rackthern that included her, even though she could best most of them in Whan-shu, the battle of wills, and had done more to restitch the bonds than any three of them combined and without burning her mind out either. No, they were the first and so far only to discover how to bend their will across the star sea and bring others with them and for that they ruled this corner of the galaxy, even if it was unraveling at the seams. Rhea took a deep breath to calm herself, as long as they don't release that abomination all will be well.
Inside the Hall of Wisdom.
There were a hundred ornate pedestals encircling the hall, which, made of precious metals, rare gems, and expert stonework was only as opulent as their status deserved. More than twice that number of the enlightened filled it however. They all wanted news of what had transpired on the planet Hosswell and why so few of the response team had returned. One Who Considers Both Sides was the one with that news, terrible as it may be. And it was terrible. "Superior Beings of the Assembly, I have the knowledge that you desire if you would listen". His voice reverberated throughout the hall, seemingly emerging from the center of the ring, as he willed it. A hundred conversations ceased at once and, eyeless though they were, One Who Considers Both Sides could feel the attention of his fellows focus on him. "Brothers, it is far worse than we could have foreseen. Hosswell's Plain of Dreams has been rent asunder and seven of us gave their minds to stem the flow. Clearly the unrestrained shaping of reality by the countless unevolved has weakened the fabric far faster than was considered possible."
Sure of the ten Wise sent all but two of us fled from the horde of terrors made real, but seeing how it ended for the two that stayed I stand by my actions. Even of those of us who fled most still fell. Only that accursed Rackthern managed to not only hold her ground and survive but fix the tear. Whatever twisted art she had used to seal the rift he knew it was only luck on here part she survived. There's simply no way she could have just out performed ten members of the Great Ones. Members of the race who even standing perfectly still sent more ripples dancing through the weaves of reality than whole communities of her simple people. Simple people who's unrestrained distortion of reality threatened its very fabric. He failed to notice the contradictions in his own thoughts as he observed the crowd. There would have only been slightly more panic in the great hall if a tear had opened right then and there.
"Brothers please! We all knew this could happen once the unenlightened gained widespread access to the whan." The fact that the eight lesser races combined didn't use as much every day as the Wise Ones did entertaining themselves let alone for industry and infrastructure didn't cross a single mind of the beings assembled.
"Thankfully we have contingencies, and thanks to the sacrifices of our brothers we can put them in motion. As you all know, a whan created mind cannot bend reality. Being an aspect of someone else's will, it it has no true will of its own. What all but a few of you don't know is that a reanimated mind, while missing both its spark and its personality, has a will.
DUN DUN DUN
Reanimated brains? Tears in reality? What The Hell? Tune in Sunday to find out. Same Bat-Time Same Bat-Channel.
-Captain Maximus
Friday, June 28, 2013
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Universe Building
Technically it's still yesterdays tomorrow. Which is always true, except for that magical millisecond in between each day when its yesterday, today, and tomorrow all at the same time. But specifically for the next twenty minutes or so its still the tomorrow of June 24th 2013, which means if I actually manage to post this in the next twenty minutes I will have kept my promise.
Ok, so Universe building is kinda time consuming, contrary to popular belief six days is probably not enough. Even if you have been percolating the story in the back of your mind for ages, getting it all out and on "paper" coherently and even semi-interestingly takes a lot of time. So in preparation for Thursdays update (in which I will finally have some story. I promise) I am posting some of the first pieces of the universe I'm assembling like cheap IKEA furniture.
Galactic Standard Time; Dates in the Galactic Standard Calendar are recorded as either Before the Dawn of Time (BDT) or After the Dawn of Time (ADT). The Dawn of Time officially being the moment the first Wise One contemplated the concept of time and decided to start recording it (they’re wise not modest). The Galactic Standard Day is broken into ten one hundred minute long sections with each galactic minute being slightly longer than one “earth minute” (.16 longer more or less) making a galactic day 19.33 earth hours long. Each galactic second is actually shorter than an earth second since there are one hundred of them in a galactic minute. There are one hundred days in a galactic year. None of this corresponds to any particular planets night-day cycle or orbit, the Wise Ones just happened to like base ten and proceeded to apply it to pretty much everything. No one is sure why they picked ten either, they have no fingers and two tentacles and when asked, the most coherent response ever received was “It is a good number”. Most species keep two calendars, one set to Galactic Standard and one set to a calendar that actually makes sense for their planet (one Pirate Point to the first person to notice each time I incorrectly translate between Galactic Standard Time and Earth Time, More on Pirate Points later)
The Wise Ones; The (self titled) Wise Ones are basically oversized floating brains. They are encased in a fairly durable leathery shell and look something like a hovering leather beanbag chair with a fairly small mouth and two tentacles (one on either side of the mouth) at the front. They have only one orifice for waste disposal at their other end and it is often joked by the cruder species that if not for the tentacles no one would be able to tell which end is which. They are extremely capable whan manipulators, which is how they prefer to interact with the world at large, either telepathically or through voice projection for communication and telekinetically for locomotion and manipulating objects. They honestly see themselves as the font from which reason, order, and goodness flow into the universe. It is generally agreed upon by the other races that they are meddlesome self-important pricks, but they are far too powerful to cross and basically do as they please.
Whan; Whan (rhymes with swan {possibly just a placeholder name, I don’t totally love it but I’m not going to waste any more time at the moment trying to come up with something better. Maybe it’ll grow on me}) is the name of the energy field that all sentient beings are capable of generating/manipulating through force of will and through which the manipulation of reality is possible. To the uninitiated it would look like magic and in for all useful distinctions it IS magic, but it is based in reality and does follow generally logical and consistent rules. In galactic society the actual definition of sentience is the ability to whan to some degree or another, regardless of how clever or intelligent a race or being may be. No intelligent, self aware species discovered so far has failed to produce at least a few members capable of whaning, with many species displaying universal ability. No purely synthetic intelligence to date has demonstrated the ability to influence whan whatsoever. The excessive use of whan can have negative effects on the fabric of reality.
Whan lock; Whan Locking is the act of using whan to reinforce reality the point of which being to make the use of whan to change or manipulate reality more difficult if not impossible. This can be done subconsciously or deliberately and can be reinforced by others nearby. It only affects a limited area based on the number of wills involved and their willpower.
There we are, the first few tantalizing pieces and with two minutes to spare. Ha!
Ok, so Universe building is kinda time consuming, contrary to popular belief six days is probably not enough. Even if you have been percolating the story in the back of your mind for ages, getting it all out and on "paper" coherently and even semi-interestingly takes a lot of time. So in preparation for Thursdays update (in which I will finally have some story. I promise) I am posting some of the first pieces of the universe I'm assembling like cheap IKEA furniture.
Galactic Standard Time; Dates in the Galactic Standard Calendar are recorded as either Before the Dawn of Time (BDT) or After the Dawn of Time (ADT). The Dawn of Time officially being the moment the first Wise One contemplated the concept of time and decided to start recording it (they’re wise not modest). The Galactic Standard Day is broken into ten one hundred minute long sections with each galactic minute being slightly longer than one “earth minute” (.16 longer more or less) making a galactic day 19.33 earth hours long. Each galactic second is actually shorter than an earth second since there are one hundred of them in a galactic minute. There are one hundred days in a galactic year. None of this corresponds to any particular planets night-day cycle or orbit, the Wise Ones just happened to like base ten and proceeded to apply it to pretty much everything. No one is sure why they picked ten either, they have no fingers and two tentacles and when asked, the most coherent response ever received was “It is a good number”. Most species keep two calendars, one set to Galactic Standard and one set to a calendar that actually makes sense for their planet (one Pirate Point to the first person to notice each time I incorrectly translate between Galactic Standard Time and Earth Time, More on Pirate Points later)
The Wise Ones; The (self titled) Wise Ones are basically oversized floating brains. They are encased in a fairly durable leathery shell and look something like a hovering leather beanbag chair with a fairly small mouth and two tentacles (one on either side of the mouth) at the front. They have only one orifice for waste disposal at their other end and it is often joked by the cruder species that if not for the tentacles no one would be able to tell which end is which. They are extremely capable whan manipulators, which is how they prefer to interact with the world at large, either telepathically or through voice projection for communication and telekinetically for locomotion and manipulating objects. They honestly see themselves as the font from which reason, order, and goodness flow into the universe. It is generally agreed upon by the other races that they are meddlesome self-important pricks, but they are far too powerful to cross and basically do as they please.
Whan; Whan (rhymes with swan {possibly just a placeholder name, I don’t totally love it but I’m not going to waste any more time at the moment trying to come up with something better. Maybe it’ll grow on me}) is the name of the energy field that all sentient beings are capable of generating/manipulating through force of will and through which the manipulation of reality is possible. To the uninitiated it would look like magic and in for all useful distinctions it IS magic, but it is based in reality and does follow generally logical and consistent rules. In galactic society the actual definition of sentience is the ability to whan to some degree or another, regardless of how clever or intelligent a race or being may be. No intelligent, self aware species discovered so far has failed to produce at least a few members capable of whaning, with many species displaying universal ability. No purely synthetic intelligence to date has demonstrated the ability to influence whan whatsoever. The excessive use of whan can have negative effects on the fabric of reality.
Whan lock; Whan Locking is the act of using whan to reinforce reality the point of which being to make the use of whan to change or manipulate reality more difficult if not impossible. This can be done subconsciously or deliberately and can be reinforced by others nearby. It only affects a limited area based on the number of wills involved and their willpower.
There we are, the first few tantalizing pieces and with two minutes to spare. Ha!
Monday, June 24, 2013
Turning crap into fertilizer
Some time ago (Nov 2010) I dragged my friends to what looked to be a fairly decent (based on a somewhat vague trailer) alien invasion movie. That movie was Skyline. To call it shitty and walk away would make the most sense but this is the internet dammit, sense can piss off and die along with decorum, basic logic, and common decency (to name just a few). It was a spectacular cluster fuck of nonsensical plot, so-so acting (I don’t really blame the actors for this one, more the terrible plot and horrific directing {based on the end result}), explosions, and special effects. Doing some cursory research on Wikipedia it’s revealed that the vast majority (possibly up to 90-95%) of the movies budget went to special effects, it shows, it certainly didn't go to script writing. The biggest downfall however, is that they explain exactly nothing about what’s going on. Characters scream and struggle and die off one by one (sometimes faster) and nobody figures out anything. By about a third of the way into the movie (definitely no more than halfway) you know everything you’re ever going to know about what’s going on, which is:
1. Aliens are here.
2. They want our brains.
3. They might be magic. At the very least they've got a pretty hardcore case of Clarke’s third going on.
4. You don’t actually care about any of the characters; in fact you’re looking forward to seeing them die.
Upon exiting the theater, because I had picked this turd of a movie, I proceeded to take a fair amount of crap from my friends and on that night I swore to write a bitchin’ "extended universe" (to steal a term from Star Wars) story for Skyline, set in a logically sound (at least movie logically sound) sci-fi reality, such that not only would all the dumb shit in Skyline make sense but it would retroactively make it a decent, if not actually good, movie.
I actually did work most of it out not long after that night but I never really got around to properly typing it all up. So; Roamin', K, Bird, and whoever else was there with us that night (it was three years ago, I know there were a couple more but I would be mostly just guessing) who still achingly needs to understand what was really going in that movie and to all you, uh, millions? Hundreds of thousands? Tens of thousands? Regular thousands? To all you others online who saw that movie and promptly went “huh?” I present to you
Making Skyline Make Sense
Part 1 - Preface
So why are aliens here harvesting brains? To operate their magical spaceships, bio-mechs, and mechano-squids apparently. But why? Surely there must be an easier way to find a decent CPU than travelling across the vast dark gulf of space and mind raping a planet. And even if there isn't, why do they even need the CPUs for the mechs and the squids and shit in the first place? They successfully rounded up millions if not billions of people using beacons from the safety of their ships. The only thing we saw the squids doing was rounding up a handful of people in a much more ineffective manner than the collector ships. All we saw the mechs doing was be created, so what do they need a few billion high end, home grown, organic supercomputers for?
The answer is pretty obvious when you think about it. War. Not with Earth, Earth is barely a blip on their galactic road map. I know we like to think of ourselves as pretty hot shit but to the aliens fighting a galaxy spanning war we’re just a free lunch, a randomly occurring (or are we?) supply depot that had the aforementioned organic supercomputers just lying around going to waste. So the aliens swooped down, slurped up our brains and reprogrammed the OS to be compatible with War-Bot Mark XXIV-7. The far more interesting story is why the war started in the first place, who/what it’s with, and why going through all the trouble and moral anguish of the aforementioned mind rape and brain theft is worth it compared to just building a half decent AI. Yes I said moral anguish, cause believe it or not, the “evil, mind fucking, brain stealing, aliens” are the good guys, or at least the better than the alternative guys. And that’s where our story starts.
Tomorrow.
Also sorry about the late update (you don't know this but I was shooting for noon-ish) fun fact; a backup on a flashdrive isn't actually a backup if you don't save a primary somewhere, you just have a primary that's on something that's much easier to loose than a laptop. Thankfully I found it and now also have half a short story already done for the next time I screw up.
-Captain Maximus
1. Aliens are here.
2. They want our brains.
3. They might be magic. At the very least they've got a pretty hardcore case of Clarke’s third going on.
4. You don’t actually care about any of the characters; in fact you’re looking forward to seeing them die.
Upon exiting the theater, because I had picked this turd of a movie, I proceeded to take a fair amount of crap from my friends and on that night I swore to write a bitchin’ "extended universe" (to steal a term from Star Wars) story for Skyline, set in a logically sound (at least movie logically sound) sci-fi reality, such that not only would all the dumb shit in Skyline make sense but it would retroactively make it a decent, if not actually good, movie.
I actually did work most of it out not long after that night but I never really got around to properly typing it all up. So; Roamin', K, Bird, and whoever else was there with us that night (it was three years ago, I know there were a couple more but I would be mostly just guessing) who still achingly needs to understand what was really going in that movie and to all you, uh, millions? Hundreds of thousands? Tens of thousands? Regular thousands? To all you others online who saw that movie and promptly went “huh?” I present to you
Making Skyline Make Sense
Part 1 - Preface
So why are aliens here harvesting brains? To operate their magical spaceships, bio-mechs, and mechano-squids apparently. But why? Surely there must be an easier way to find a decent CPU than travelling across the vast dark gulf of space and mind raping a planet. And even if there isn't, why do they even need the CPUs for the mechs and the squids and shit in the first place? They successfully rounded up millions if not billions of people using beacons from the safety of their ships. The only thing we saw the squids doing was rounding up a handful of people in a much more ineffective manner than the collector ships. All we saw the mechs doing was be created, so what do they need a few billion high end, home grown, organic supercomputers for?
The answer is pretty obvious when you think about it. War. Not with Earth, Earth is barely a blip on their galactic road map. I know we like to think of ourselves as pretty hot shit but to the aliens fighting a galaxy spanning war we’re just a free lunch, a randomly occurring (or are we?) supply depot that had the aforementioned organic supercomputers just lying around going to waste. So the aliens swooped down, slurped up our brains and reprogrammed the OS to be compatible with War-Bot Mark XXIV-7. The far more interesting story is why the war started in the first place, who/what it’s with, and why going through all the trouble and moral anguish of the aforementioned mind rape and brain theft is worth it compared to just building a half decent AI. Yes I said moral anguish, cause believe it or not, the “evil, mind fucking, brain stealing, aliens” are the good guys, or at least the better than the alternative guys. And that’s where our story starts.
Tomorrow.
Also sorry about the late update (you don't know this but I was shooting for noon-ish) fun fact; a backup on a flashdrive isn't actually a backup if you don't save a primary somewhere, you just have a primary that's on something that's much easier to loose than a laptop. Thankfully I found it and now also have half a short story already done for the next time I screw up.
-Captain Maximus
Friday, June 21, 2013
Gotta start somewhere
Enjoy the inane ramblings from the log of Captain Demkius Maximus, commander of the PS Inevitable.
Last weekend a friend of mine mentioned wanting to start a drawing blog, in which he would post a new drawing/sketch/whatever everyday. My response was "Dude, Awesome". Now, my drawing skills have always been somewhat minimal at best, mostly because I haven't practiced them enough (99% of the reason for everyone in the worlds ability/lack of ability at whatever they have/lack ability at is practice {the last 1% being natural talent and the occasional crossroads demon deal}) (yes I use parentheses, a lot, and I have no fear of the double or even triple bracket side note {I blame Math, people throw brackets around like they ain't no thing while Mathing and considering the number of math classes I've taken over the years it seems to have left an impression [Not that I'm a mathematician or anything, or even particularly good at it, the bracket thing seems to be pretty much all that stuck around]}).
Whew, where was I? Ah yes, my drawing chops are not that stellar and while that may occasionally bother me in a couple of vague, poorly defined ways, it's not enough to really inspire me to do much about it. But I write, maybe not well, maybe not "properly" (whatever the hell that means) but I write, and the idea of writing a short story or a portion of a bigger story everyday appealed to me. Particularly considering how many successful authors and writers say to write everyday. So I started writing, then I realized that the things I was writing were projects that I wanted to do well, and edit, and re-edit and maybe not release in bits and pieces. So I've written everyday this week but most of it I'm not ready to toss to the aether just yet, and I don't want to not write these projects just so I can post some random short story everyday. So I'm not going to promise to post a new story everyday, but I will promise four updates a week. Sometimes it'll be a short story, sometimes it'll be an essay or article (or a ramble or a rant, they all tend to follow a similar format), sometimes it'll just be me "talking" (like today), I also have a fondness for Haiku (Is there a proper plural for Haiku?... Just checked, the answer is no not really), excerpts from projects are not out of the question either. So that's it, beginning Monday June 24th we'll be starting with a favorite pastime of mine - writing back-story to compensate for plot holes in movies, sometimes in good movies, usually in terrible movies. The end goal being making what was once a garbled, hole filled, mess of a plot that only existed as a basic frame to hang explosions, action, tits, and various other special effects on (those are the big four) into something that actually resembles a real story. This is not always possible or worth while but can be quite fun, and a good way to workout your creative muscles.
But as for today, I'll exit with highest art - a hidden haiku.
Last weekend a friend of mine mentioned wanting to start a drawing blog, in which he would post a new drawing/sketch/whatever everyday. My response was "Dude, Awesome". Now, my drawing skills have always been somewhat minimal at best, mostly because I haven't practiced them enough (99% of the reason for everyone in the worlds ability/lack of ability at whatever they have/lack ability at is practice {the last 1% being natural talent and the occasional crossroads demon deal}) (yes I use parentheses, a lot, and I have no fear of the double or even triple bracket side note {I blame Math, people throw brackets around like they ain't no thing while Mathing and considering the number of math classes I've taken over the years it seems to have left an impression [Not that I'm a mathematician or anything, or even particularly good at it, the bracket thing seems to be pretty much all that stuck around]}).
Whew, where was I? Ah yes, my drawing chops are not that stellar and while that may occasionally bother me in a couple of vague, poorly defined ways, it's not enough to really inspire me to do much about it. But I write, maybe not well, maybe not "properly" (whatever the hell that means) but I write, and the idea of writing a short story or a portion of a bigger story everyday appealed to me. Particularly considering how many successful authors and writers say to write everyday. So I started writing, then I realized that the things I was writing were projects that I wanted to do well, and edit, and re-edit and maybe not release in bits and pieces. So I've written everyday this week but most of it I'm not ready to toss to the aether just yet, and I don't want to not write these projects just so I can post some random short story everyday. So I'm not going to promise to post a new story everyday, but I will promise four updates a week. Sometimes it'll be a short story, sometimes it'll be an essay or article (or a ramble or a rant, they all tend to follow a similar format), sometimes it'll just be me "talking" (like today), I also have a fondness for Haiku (Is there a proper plural for Haiku?... Just checked, the answer is no not really), excerpts from projects are not out of the question either. So that's it, beginning Monday June 24th we'll be starting with a favorite pastime of mine - writing back-story to compensate for plot holes in movies, sometimes in good movies, usually in terrible movies. The end goal being making what was once a garbled, hole filled, mess of a plot that only existed as a basic frame to hang explosions, action, tits, and various other special effects on (those are the big four) into something that actually resembles a real story. This is not always possible or worth while but can be quite fun, and a good way to workout your creative muscles.
But as for today, I'll exit with highest art - a hidden haiku.
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